A ticket to remember... Eat 'Em Up Coogs!

This past weekend, the University of Houston (my alma mater) Cougars routed their cross-town rivals, the Rice Owls, 73 to 34. Quarterback Case Keenum broke another NCAA passing record (he threw nine touchdown passes in this game... NINE!) and is in the running for the Heisman Trophy. Makes Cougar fans want to shout the team's traditional rallying cry, Eat 'em up Coogs!

There is a precedent for the Cougars winning a lopsided victory such as this. In 1968, they annihilated the University of Tulsa 100 to 6 and I was there. Even at age 12, I sensed the history of the ticket stub I held (the sentimental value kicked in later) and I wrote the score on it. I already collected baseball and football cards--why not game tickets?

My dad, also a UH-alum, took my brother and I to our first college football game that night and it was a doozy indoors at the still pretty-new Astrodome. The 1968 Cougars may not have had any Heisman hopefuls, but they had a solid team with several players going in the NFL draft the following year. Also on that 1968 roster was a future country singer--Larry Gatlin. Their longtime coach, Bill Yeoman, would make it to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.

Just the week before the 100-6 embarrassment, the Cougars pounded Idaho 77 to 3. Their season opener set the tone it would appear with 54 to 7 victory over Tulane. They went on to win six games, losing two, and just to make it a really strange year, they tied two games. Their 1968 record: 6-2-2.

Eat 'em up Coogs!

Bullfight at the Juarez Bull Ring

The holder of this General Admission ticket to the Juarez Bull Ring was promised a "Great Bull Fight." Says so right on the ticket. For 50 cents American in 1935, one could take in a great bull fight across the border from El Paso. The Juarez Bull Ring is an historic arena, built sometime during the mid-19th century and later renamed the Alberto Balderas Bullring. I don't believe bullfighting goes on over there these days--there's another kind of fighting, and it's too dangerous for tourists. My wife grew up across the border and knew Juarez well enough. She showed me around when we were dating and after we were married. Used to be a fun place to go. Those days are gone like the bullfighting at the Juarez Bull Ring and even the other bull ring in town, Plaza de Toros Monumental, which was demolished to build a new Walmart, of all things. And that's no bull.