Your Undocumented Pipeline to Collegiate Athletics
Think back now to 1969 … Arkansas vs. Texas … sold-out Razorback Stadium … Hogs ranked #2, Horns #1 … national championship at stake … President Richard Nixon in the stands, eating fried chicken … record-high national TV audience. Ticket price: $6.
Miners Hall, in the 1960s and ‘70s, was a screenplay, just waiting to happen. Think “Semi-Tough” or “Animal House” with a brawny cast that would rather rumble than memorize their lines.
You Miners Forever have no mixed feelings about this one … In the past seven years we have sat around these campfires together, only the sudden departure of Coach Sean Kugler generated such an uproar.
Someday, when he grows up, Kai will sit on a lonely bar stool staring into his mug of life, searching for a cure to self-inflicted wounds.
Pre-season football magazines will be out soon. While following the UTEP Miners like a reputation, I try to get my college football fix every weekend. Any fewer than six games makes my hands shake in withdrawal. Any more than 12 gets to be sensory overload.
Nothing pleases a college football coaching staff more than a forgettable summer. Yes, this is when they reintroduce themselves to their wives and kids and take a few days off for family vacation.
Once in a great while, a UTEP post strikes home, triggering unpredictable reader reaction. It recently happened, not once, but twice — with a flurry of comments on former Miners track coach Wayne Vandenburg and the late trainer, Ross Moore.
Sixty years of living and football, plus two years of research and writing, just washed up on my doorstep today. A 5,213-pound package containing 1,500 copies of my baby. You may recognize it as my new release: Beyond The Big Shootout – 50 Years of Football’s Life Lessons, a historical account of the Arkansas – Texas game for football's national title, and what happened afterwards. Answer: Plenty.
Wayne Vandenburg was on fire the other night, poking at a plate of enchiladas at a Permian Basin café, serving up 55 years of UTEP athletics for dessert.
In case you missed it, cable sports gorilla ESPN just drove a $40 million wedge between NCAA haves and have-nots. Specifically, the network signed an agreement, beginning this year, for ESPN+ to deliver Big 12 football and basketball games on its online subscription streaming service.
Miners Are Forever 