On to Stillwater

Sorry I haven't been around much - but the Rice week just did nothing for me - other than a few owl pics I was an empty vessel.

But my hatred for the Cowboys of Oklahomo have me brushing the sleepies out of my eyes. About the time the end of the third quarter rolled around yesterday I was just getting a good nap going.

And does anyone else but me think that the Longhorns look beatable? I'm sure that by the time Texas and Tech meet in Austin, Mack will have his team looking a little better, but I sure wish we could have caught them a little earlier on the schedule.

Another random thought about the Texas game: I didn't realize that Quan Crosby also made a go at baseball - he was drafted in 2001 by the Angels and hails from Mart, TX. So that means our man Rylan Reed joins Quan as former minor leaguers now making their presence felt in the Big 12. I can't help but think that the extra years of maturity and experience helps these guys be better teammates.

If any of you know of other Big 12 football players who were in the minors - please let me know...I think it's a heck of a story.

Back to Copycat U...

The game will be on FSN and FSN HD at 2:30 CDT on Saturday the 22nd of September.

Don't forget to keep your eyes out for traditional Tech imagery in bizarro land


The "Spirit Rider" from okstate.com:

The idea for the Spirit Rider came from then-OSU Band Director Richard Kastendieck. In 1984, he and the President of the OSU Rodeo Association, a student named John Beall, started the tradition of the Spirit Rider. Beall used his own quarterhorse, Della, to celebrate the touchdowns scored by the OSU football team. This soon became a staple of OSU football, and in 1988, Oklahoma State University bought its own black horse. A student contest in the O'Collegian provided the name, Bullet, and ever since the tradition has remained. Bullet makes his appearance with the marching band at the beginning of each home game and after each OSU touchdown.

The Masked Rider from ttu.edu:

It wasn't until 1936 that Texas Tech fans and students came to be called "Red Raiders." Collier Parrish, sports editor of the Lubbock Morning Avalanche, gave the team its new nickname because of their all-red uniforms and rigorous coast-to-coast schedule. 1936 was also the year of the first unofficial "Red Raider," now called the Masked Rider.

George Tate '37 shocked football fans when he and a trusty palomino named Tony or Silver, depending on where you look, led the football team onto the football field then just as quickly fled the scene. Tate, whose identity was kept a secret, borrowed a pair of cowboy boots from his roommate and sported a scarlet satin cape made by the Home Economics Department. He had been coaxed by pals to sneak a horse from the Tech barn and to make the first appearance as the mysterious Red Raider. Tate was quoted in the Nov. 4, 1984, issue of The Dallas Morning News as saying that Arch Lamb, who was then the head yell leader of the Saddle Tramps, "dreamed up this Red Raider thing." The prank was pulled a few more times that season but didn't surface again until the 1950s, when another Tech student was approached about creating a mascot.

In the fall of 1953 football coach DeWitt Weaver called Joe Kirk Fulton (seen at left) to his office to discuss school mascots. DeWitt, whose 10-1-0 football team was headed to Jacksonville, Fla., for the Gator Bowl, was hoping for a spot in the new Southwest Conference. Because Tech was the only school lacking a mascot, it is believed that DeWitt thought creating a mascot might aid Tech's admission into the conference. He wanted Fulton to ride the horse.

And so it was on New Year's Day 1954, riding a horse named Blackie that belonged to Levelland Sheriff's Posse member Bert Eads, Fulton became the university's official mascot. According to reports from those present at the 1954 Gator Bowl, the crowd sat in stunned silence as they watched Fulton and Blackie rush onto the football field, followed by the team. After a few moments of stunned disbelief, the silent crowd burst into cheers. Ed Danforth, a writer for the Atlanta Journal and a press box spectator later wrote, "No team in any bowl game ever made a more sensational entrance."

We'll cover more embarrassingly bad copycat traditions later on this week. Let me leave you with this thought though. I think of OSU like "Four" in Multiplicity: