It’s so hard to explain.
Every year on the second Saturday of October, it’s not just football. It isn’t.
It can’t be.
I’m talking about a person’s life, emotions and attitude relying on the outcome of a game. Well, until they exit the Cotton Bowl and get a Fletcher’s Corny Dog and a beer in a wax-paper cup to drown out the sorrows of loss or celebrate the oh so good feeling of pride.
OU-Texas, Texas-OU—whatever. This is the best weekend of every year. There is not another event out there that feels like this one does. And this is not just a college football Saturday kind of thing—this is a Friday through Sunday weekend full of friends, family, football and bad (well, that’s a relative term) decision making.
My family had a tradition that I always felt was so odd. You heard about all these kids and their families making the pilgrimage down I-35 to Dallas when I was young, but we had to wait until our senior year of high school. For us that played college sports, it was longer than that.
Then after the wait is over, it makes all the sense.
You walk up the stairs from the Texas State Fairgrounds to get into the Cotton Bowl. The smell of the fried wonderland consumes you. It reeks of alcohol. Oklahoma fans and Texas fans are already yelling expletives at each other.
After you get up to the top of the concourse area—you feel it through your body. You start walking down inside the stadium to your seat and it’s the craziest feeling I’ve ever felt in sports. Can someone explain what 45,000 people on one side and 45,000 people on another side absolutely hating each others guts and anticipating kicking each other’s ass feels like? I can’t. It’s a feeling I could get addicted to. It’s the best.
Two of my three aunt’s get it started from a young age. From the moment you start to talk, you get to know about ‘Yucky Orange’. Heck, babies not in my family get the same treatment from them hoping it sticks. Yes, it includes Oklahoma State as well as Texas, but when it comes to burnt orange? They can’t stand it. They hate it.
Those two and their brother, my dad, love nothing more than sticking it to Texas fans. Don’t let them fool you—it’s one of their favorite pastimes. Postgame of OU-Texas is always a treat. And you have to understand, they hate Texas because my grandparents hated Texas because someone hated them before them. This isn’t something that just happens, it’s deeper than that.
Last year was the first year covering the game from the press box. It was about 8:30 a.m. CT when I arrived at the Texas State Fair, but don’t worry, fans from both sides were already a little charged up. I had no clue how we were going to get from the fairgrounds into the media check-in and then up to the press box. Then, the security guards pulled the railing back and let us walk through the same road the team buses pull in at with fans already lining up shoulder-to-shoulder and four or five deep to see the team’s roll in.
That’s when I knew the heightened importance of this game to two schools, two fan bases and two football programs. I really felt like part of history. People looked so ready for a football team to give the business to someone else. Honestly, as a former college athlete, it got that pregame adrenaline going that I craved.
Then, on the field late in the fourth-quarter and postgame festivities … man. The anticipation, anxiety, stress, pride, anger, elation is all wrapped up into the final few seconds before the game is over. There is quite nothing like it.
If you don’t know anything about this game and you’re reading this, put it on your bucket list. It needs to be for every sports fan. Then you’ll come once and never stop coming back. A family friend of ours is an Oklahoma State alumni, but guess what? He never misses this game.
It’s a shame OU-Texas won’t be the same this year. If there was ever a time we all needed this weekend, it was this one. Well, actually, maybe not whenever the loser of this game is sent into peril of not wanting to watch football again in 2020. For the 25,000 fans and the media, I know we won’t be taking it for granted.
It may not matter where I’m at, I’ll make sure to be always be in Dallas the second weekend of October. Whether I’m still covering Oklahoma football, covering the NFL, selling insurance, coaching baseball—whatever, I’ll always be at OU-Texas.
The best weekend of every year.
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