Your Undocumented Pipeline to Collegiate Athletics
If UTEP football schedules had you wincing and peering between your fingers, take heart. The 2019 slate just released late last week is the most equitable, even-handed slate in years. The schedule features six home games, six road trips, with no meat grinder at Oklahoma for a quick payday. Look within the line items and … Continue reading Looking for Love – UTEP’s 2019 Football Sked (January 2019)
Beyond The Big Shootout – 50 Years of Football’s Life Lessons by Mark S. McDonald, with illustrations by Bill DeOre, will be available by mid-April, 2019. More than 100 photos and color illustrations, in a classy 320-page hardcover “coffee table” presentation. Great gift idea as college football enters its 150th season. Order now, and you receive a … Continue reading Sports fan? History buff? Here’s a delicious double dip (January 2019)
The Denver Broncos, after their first back-to-back losing seasons in nearly 50 years, recently canned Head Coach Vance Joseph. While most assistant coaches in college and the NFL have their tin cans tied to the H.C., the Denver Postreports the Broncos are expected to retain most of Joseph’s staff. This would include a fellow named … Continue reading What Has Become of Sean Kugler? (January 2019)
Not all game programs are created equal. Some were born to serve as time capsules. Here’s one example – the program sold for the Texas Western game at Texas Tech in Lubbock in 1950. Cover price was two bits. (One of a series, provided to the Miners Are Forever by the Southwest Collections Library at … Continue reading Not all game programs are created equal (January 2019)
Anybody else noticed the on-field player behavior that seems to fester in the Southeastern Conference? You would think it was pro wrestling. Take, for instance, the 2018 Egg Bowl between Ole Miss and Mississippi State. It was so blotted with shoving matches between plays, woofing, I haven’t seen so much bad acting since the … Continue reading UTEP’s Blueprint: Central Florida Knights (January 2019)
The future of UTEP big three sports … indeed, all sports, is directly linked to the next University president, and how much importance he or she places on intercollegiate athletics. With continued (or expanded) support, especially in fund-raising, I believe UTEP sports will not only survive, but prosper.
University of Houston boxes Major Applewhite and, after only two season, sends him out to the Ship Channel, bon voyage. In El Paso, UTEP Coach Dana Dimel must have greeted that off-season football news with a rueful smile and knowing nod. He not only has been there, done that, but has the souvenir tattoo to … Continue reading Applewhite Gets Fired – What it says about the parallel world of UTEP and U of H (January 2019)
Now that the UTEP losing streak is over, we can talk about it. Talk about it, in hushed tones, as it were a car wreck that happened years ago. Or, a marriage gone bad. A business gone bust. Painful as it was, the Miners’ 20-game dry spell throughout 2017 and eight games deep into this … Continue reading Hall of Pain – Miners Stop the Bleeding (November 2018)
If UTEP coaches could sprinkle poofy dust over the current roster, they would instantly add two ingredients, both related – explosive, big-play pass rushers, and difference-maker ball-carriers and receivers who can change a game with one long gain. In recruiting, the staff will be looking for these rare animals. They will have company, as every … Continue reading Talent Search — UTEP Staff Seeks Big-Play Recruits (August 2018)
With a new head football coach Dana Dimel (L) and a new athletic director Jim Senter, UTEP fans can expect some changes. Start with the shade of orange for the helmets and game uniforms. Shiny mine shaft nuggets from Camp Ruidoso: * The 2018 are discouraged from fighting on the practice field. UTEP … Continue reading Campfire Tales — New Colors and Language in Minerland (August 2018)
Miners Are Forever 