In 2003, my usual OU-Texas game companion, my son Alex, was playing in the OU band, so my trek to Dallas was solo and without a ticket.
That wasn’t all that unusual. By that time , I’d been to at least a half dozen or more Red River Rivalry games by myself, including my first one in 1977 when I was a sideline photographer.
And in later years I’d pay cash to a ticket scalper near the Midway (yes, they really do throw a fair with pig shows and ferris wheels during a college football game).
This time I bought a single ticket from a scalper hawking tickets there sandwiched between the Midway’s basketball toss scam and the steps leading to the main gate to the Cotton Bowl stadium, which at that time was easy to find because toilet bowl water was already escaping from its malfunctioning restroom commodes installed during the Coolidge administration.
(I can report they fixed the toilets a few years later).
Great ticket, he said, right there low at the end of the end zone. I really didn’t care, I said, so long as it is in the Oklahoma half of the stadium. God forbid I might end up in enemy territory. I might not ever get home. (There was that time after the ’84 tie in the rainstorm where I’d have gladly sacrificed my life for the Sooner cause, but not this day.)
Pre-game libation as preparation
The seat was indeed in the Oklahoma section, but was on the *opposite* sideline from where I was, so I had to pretend to be an army ant and burrow my way threw the throngs around the Cotton Bowl.
On the other side, I was greeted with a slap on the back — hey, buddy! And I turned and found my friend Buck, an Oklahoma City court reporter, who was downing what had to be his sixth cup of beer. It was 10 am, after all.
Buck had already had a mouthy encounter with someone wearing burnt orange (and no doubt equally lubricated) — an exchange to which he gave me all the details. I won’t repeat them here. There may be children reading this.
After a nice visit about our run game and a prediction of savage destruction of the Longhorns, which got me pumped up for the game, I said adios to Buck and pushed my way into the stadium and found my way to my seat.
It was seat number 3 on row 10. It would have been a great seat. But there was a problem. The fellows in seats 2 and 4 were already there and the guy in 2 was actually in 1,2 AND 3, for reasons that only genetics and a healthy appetite can explain.
“I’ll just hang out down here for a while,” I said, spying an empty stretch of seats on the first row. No one was there. Not even on the row behind me. It made the sight line a bit rough when play would be on the Texas end of the field, but any touchdown on this end would have been in perfect living color right in front of me.
A front row seat
As the clock ticked off closer to kickoff, there wasn’t anyone coming to sit on that row at al. I thought, man, this is great, I’ll have this to myself. What a wonderful place.
But right before the Star Spangled Banner made the game an official ceremony, the girls arrived. Like a lot of them. Like maybe 30 of them. I best move, I thought, so I turned to look at my seat a few rows back and I couldn’t even see it. So, I just stayed where I was.
And by the time kickoff rolled around, the Thetas or Kappas or whatever sorority these kids were in had me fully surrounded and were passing me popcorn.
I became an honorary member of an OU sorority that day.
Now, understand at this point I was a 45 year old lawyer with kids grown or nearly grown, so any lustful thoughts of being the only guy in a haram of coeds were immediately challenged by the thoughts of being arrested and wearing an ankle bracelet for life. Or, worse, escorted from the OU-Texas game.
Of course when one of the college girls called me “sir” when I was offered chewing gum that was being circulated on the row, I knew I should just sit and chew and enjoy the moment. I can say we all enjoyed the game.
Above is a picture of my sorority friends that day.
Oh, yeah. We (meaning Oklahoma) won the game 65-13.
— Mike
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