Bobcats, Bears, and Boko

Paul’s friend figures George Strait is our man. The only way the school forever to be known as Southwest Texas State will make it into Division I football is for some alumni with deep pockets to build a gaudy stadium. I remember seeing Strait wandering around downtown San Marcos when I was in school back in the Eighties, back when the Bobcats won back-to-back Division II national championships. Back when I could drink more than a few beers in an outing without paying for it the next morning. Back when co-eds hadn’t discovered breast augmentation surgery. Back when everything was real.

We’re outside Baylor’s stadium in Waco. Paul and his buddy drove down from the Metroplex and met me outside Health Camp, which has updated its decor but still has the best shakes and burgers in the region. I’d burgered up at lunch so we opted instead for Rudy’s Barbecue, which is painfully average for someone like me who lives down the block from Mueller’s in Taylor. Paul’s pal (who shall remain nameless) has a top-secret pass that allows any high school coach into any Texas college game for free. He’s also got a cold beer hidden inside a koozie designed to resemble a Hawaiian shirt. He takes a swig from it and flirts with the female crossing guard. She smiles, and we wonder aloud where the ticket booth is. A friendly Baylor fan pulls out two tickets and hands them to us gratis. So we stalk the perimeter and find the stadium corner where the Bobcat fans are huddled together. Lots of siliconed, tanned blondes welcome us as the “sirs” that we surely are. The band strikes up an ‘80s heavy metal song and we’re in business.

This is the Bobcats’ second try with a Big 12 team. Two years ago they should have beaten Texas A&M at College Station. Behind stud QB Barrick Nealy they also should have won another national championship and came within a couple of games of pulling it off. But they didn’t believe in themselves. Nealy is long gone — whereabouts unknown — but we’re hoping our boys will finally believe against a Bears team that is surely no A&M, not even a Rice, and the Bobcats once beat Rice to a pulp. Sure, the Bobcats are schizophrenics, beating a ranked team to open the season, then losing to lowly Abilene Christian in week two.

It was hot, sweaty and not too pretty in the opening stanza as the Bears, who couldn’t run, didn’t need to in racking up a quick 14-0 lead. But the former SWT got angry with an interception the first play of the second quarter, followed quickly by a TD pass from Bobcat signal-caller Bradley
George. That’s when Boko the Bobcat made his —its? —first trip up the bleachers in the arms of the faithful. It wasn’t the last touchdown. At the half, Baylor was up 21-14 and looking thoroughly vincible. We ducked across the street to George’s for a halftime beer under the tent and chatted up a former SWT player who smiled at the hazy memory of his six years on campus. On the way back to the stadium, a Baylor fan readily admitted; “We suck.”

Late in the third quarter Baylor was trapped on its own one-yard line and forced to punt, and you could feel the crowd, even the freaks in the maroon-and-gold wigs, begin to truly believe. It was possible. Get out the cell phones and call George Strait en masse. We’ll be ready to kick
UT’s ass in 10 years tops. Baylor fans began to look like abused stepchildren, and the stands had begun to slowly empty of them. But we should have known it would be all for naught when Boko, making another trip up in our hands after yet another score, started to slip and fall to the concrete bleachers. Fans caught him before he hit bottom, but the
team wasn’t as lucky. Sure, the Bobcats racked up more than 400 yards and held Baylor to less than 30 on the ground through the third quarter. And George finally dared the long toss. But time was running out as the score cut to 28-20. An onside kick offered one last gasp of hope. It arched into the sky and plopped into a Baylor player’s hands. Game over. Dust Boko’s butt off and try again next time.

Dreams happen; so do missed opportunities. That’s life. Lesson learned. But can somebody please get Strait on the line? If nothing else we’ve got the makings of a hell of a country song.