sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
- Messages
- 25,311
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Flew into Houston on Thursday afternoon. First time in Texas.
First indication I was somewhere unusual was when I arrived at the rental car lot and saw that about 25% of the vehicles available were pickup trucks.
The second indication was when I started my drive into Houston (Bush is north of the city) and in the middle of nowhere, on a normal state highway, ascended a ramp some 50 yards in the air (they triple stack ramps here a lot).
After a good nights sleep, drove to Memorial Park Golf Course to get a round in. It was around 45 degrees out, so grounds people on the course were wearing winter clothes. It was a really nice municipal course that was bult in the 1930s. Hosted a PGA event in the 1950s, lots of great players have played there. Lots of oak trees on the course but they don't grow close to as tall as they do in upstate NY. Course was in good shape, fairways pretty generous. Greens were fast and had some serious slope. I recommend a visit for the budget conscious golfer ($38 walking/49$ riding).
If you go, beware of the many attractive young ladies jogging through the park. A fender bender or toe has been known to happen due to this extreme hazard. Arrived at the hotel in time for the caravan to Reliant Stadium. Helped TexanMark, Orangello and many others with the setup for what became one of the most epic tailgates ever staged for an SU sporting event.
We set up not far from Reliant, between an extremely aging and sad looking Astrodome and the Reliant Center basketball arena. The entire time we tailgated, workers across the street went about destroying parts of the Astrodome. It looked tiny compared to Reliant Stadium, which appeared to be at least twice as high. Hard to believe it is only 16 years older than our Carrier Dome. Great food at the tailgate. CuseJuicy and Cabby- did a great job cooking Hoffman coneys and dogs.
Many thanks to Cabby1 for bringing Hoffman products a the way from Florida; that was huge. The coneys were a big hit, even the stray Gopher fan who tailgates with us loves them. Newhouse10 and his wife did a great job cooking chicken wings. Thanks for sharing these treats with the rest of the tailgate; if you ever make it back forms tailgate in Syracuse, the beer is on us. And Goode Company supplied the traditional Texas BBQ fixings; fresh baked bread, beans, coleslaw, potato salad, beef brisket and turkey. Everything and I mean everything was top notch but I especially loved the turkey.
Credit Mark with organizing everything and SU for having the good sense to team with him on the operation. SU supplied lots of SU themed bling for the fans too; orange beads, orange face stickers, magnetic Cuse decals, pom poms and cool orange sun glasses. Best of all, they also arranged for the cheerleaders. The SUMB, Orange Girl and Otto to attend. They all were great entertaining us and I think everyone who attended had a great time.
One if the great things about securing a bowl bid is that it gives all those students supporting the program a reward for their hard work through the year. They don't get paid, they don't get scholarships, they get almost nothing so a bowl game is the only real payoff they get for participating. So it is really good for them when we get a bid and I think it helps get more kids, good kids to participate on these activities in future years. There was some extra food so after everyone finished performing, my favorite part of the tailgate happened, as it was decided to invite the performers to help themselves to the feast as well (the band alone was approximately 230 people). SU typically doesn't even provide a water for the band, even on those super hot days in the Dome early in the season, when band members have to wear their heavy uniforms and march in brutally hot conditions. Hope this becomes standard practice in the future, even if SU fans foot the bill by paying slightly higher tailgate fees. Met a lot of old friends at the tailgate, some posters I had never run into before and a number of lurkers.
As always, it was great talking SU sports and sharing our passion together. We have a lot of great fans. After feeding some construction workers with the leftovers, I think the final numbers for the tailgate were in the neighborhood of 450.
Mark and i think this was a new Syracusefan.com tailgate record. Pretty impressive for an event that no one knew was going to happen a month ago so far from concentrations of SU alums. I will make another post shortly on the game itself and the aftermath.
First indication I was somewhere unusual was when I arrived at the rental car lot and saw that about 25% of the vehicles available were pickup trucks.
The second indication was when I started my drive into Houston (Bush is north of the city) and in the middle of nowhere, on a normal state highway, ascended a ramp some 50 yards in the air (they triple stack ramps here a lot).
After a good nights sleep, drove to Memorial Park Golf Course to get a round in. It was around 45 degrees out, so grounds people on the course were wearing winter clothes. It was a really nice municipal course that was bult in the 1930s. Hosted a PGA event in the 1950s, lots of great players have played there. Lots of oak trees on the course but they don't grow close to as tall as they do in upstate NY. Course was in good shape, fairways pretty generous. Greens were fast and had some serious slope. I recommend a visit for the budget conscious golfer ($38 walking/49$ riding).
If you go, beware of the many attractive young ladies jogging through the park. A fender bender or toe has been known to happen due to this extreme hazard. Arrived at the hotel in time for the caravan to Reliant Stadium. Helped TexanMark, Orangello and many others with the setup for what became one of the most epic tailgates ever staged for an SU sporting event.
We set up not far from Reliant, between an extremely aging and sad looking Astrodome and the Reliant Center basketball arena. The entire time we tailgated, workers across the street went about destroying parts of the Astrodome. It looked tiny compared to Reliant Stadium, which appeared to be at least twice as high. Hard to believe it is only 16 years older than our Carrier Dome. Great food at the tailgate. CuseJuicy and Cabby- did a great job cooking Hoffman coneys and dogs.
Many thanks to Cabby1 for bringing Hoffman products a the way from Florida; that was huge. The coneys were a big hit, even the stray Gopher fan who tailgates with us loves them. Newhouse10 and his wife did a great job cooking chicken wings. Thanks for sharing these treats with the rest of the tailgate; if you ever make it back forms tailgate in Syracuse, the beer is on us. And Goode Company supplied the traditional Texas BBQ fixings; fresh baked bread, beans, coleslaw, potato salad, beef brisket and turkey. Everything and I mean everything was top notch but I especially loved the turkey.
Credit Mark with organizing everything and SU for having the good sense to team with him on the operation. SU supplied lots of SU themed bling for the fans too; orange beads, orange face stickers, magnetic Cuse decals, pom poms and cool orange sun glasses. Best of all, they also arranged for the cheerleaders. The SUMB, Orange Girl and Otto to attend. They all were great entertaining us and I think everyone who attended had a great time.
One if the great things about securing a bowl bid is that it gives all those students supporting the program a reward for their hard work through the year. They don't get paid, they don't get scholarships, they get almost nothing so a bowl game is the only real payoff they get for participating. So it is really good for them when we get a bid and I think it helps get more kids, good kids to participate on these activities in future years. There was some extra food so after everyone finished performing, my favorite part of the tailgate happened, as it was decided to invite the performers to help themselves to the feast as well (the band alone was approximately 230 people). SU typically doesn't even provide a water for the band, even on those super hot days in the Dome early in the season, when band members have to wear their heavy uniforms and march in brutally hot conditions. Hope this becomes standard practice in the future, even if SU fans foot the bill by paying slightly higher tailgate fees. Met a lot of old friends at the tailgate, some posters I had never run into before and a number of lurkers.
As always, it was great talking SU sports and sharing our passion together. We have a lot of great fans. After feeding some construction workers with the leftovers, I think the final numbers for the tailgate were in the neighborhood of 450.
Mark and i think this was a new Syracusefan.com tailgate record. Pretty impressive for an event that no one knew was going to happen a month ago so far from concentrations of SU alums. I will make another post shortly on the game itself and the aftermath.
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