Someone asked me this morning about my recollections of the last game I played in Kyle Field, Thanksgiving Day in my junior season of 1973. A couple of things instantaneously came to mind. One statistic that popped up was that we had almost 400 yards on the ground with no one gaining over 100 yards individually, led by Roosevelt Leaks with 87 on 16 carries.
We had zero yards through the air…officially 0-0-0 passing. Imagine trying to recruit 5-star WRs with those numbers…🤔
The thing I remember most prominently about the whole day was that after we had our pregame meal at Salado’s Stagecoach Inn, where we had spent the previous night, we boarded the buses for what should have been about an hour and 45 minutes to 2 hour trip to Kyle Field, aiming at an arrival time of 11:15ish to get ready for our 1:30 kick.
As we traveled the back roads (Craig Way would have enjoyed the trip) that wound through the countryside enroute to College Station behind a DPS lead car, our bus caravan suddenly came to a screeching halt out in the Central Texas boondocks, just before we were to cross a creek. The DPS Troopers ahead of us were out of their car and wildly signaling for our drivers to pull over. Seems that a county road bridge had been washed out by heavy rains earlier in the week and was totally impassable. Without the modern luxury of cell phone connectivity, Google Maps or Waze, this was completely unexpected. Lucky for all, a county road crew had posted a small sign and lit a couple of those old smudge pots on either side of the gulley, so we at least didn’t have a mass casualty scenario.
Since I always liked sitting close to the front of the bus, I could see Coach Royal, Coach Campbell (who was on the second bus), the Troopers, and the drivers all poring over a couple of road maps unfolded on the hood of the black and white DPS vehicle. After observing a lot of pointing in various directions and Coach Royal walking back in the direction of the buses shaking his head and looking at his watch. He and Coach Campbell had another quick word, then Coach Royal climbed the bus steps, looked out at us, smiled wryly and said, “Men…the Aggies have knocked out the bridge, but it won’t stop us. We’re gonna have to turn these buses around and take a different route, but we’ll get there.”
We were laughing our asses off at the way Coach presented the situation to us and it probably changed our demeanor for the rest of the now high-speed, lights and sirens bus ride. We were relaxed, joking and laughing, something we never even thought about doing on any of our other bus rides.
Coach had told us to just get dressed as quickly as possible when we arrived and “…get your asses on the field and warm up on your own. We won’t have time to do our usual routine.”
Luckily, the guys who needed tape jobs were able to have that done before and after our team meal back in Salado.
When we finally did make it to our tiny little cinder block locker room under the east stands of Kyle Field about 12:45, our equipment staff had learned of our impending late arrival and they worked like Spartans to help get everyone dressed out and onto the field.
I was able to get a few practice kicks in and thankfully, it was a warm, cloudy 80° day with very little wind to worry about.
We scored early, they matched it at 7-7, and then we scored often. After building a 35-7 lead in the third quarter, we cruised to a 42-13 win.
In the joyously humid, hot little locker room, Coach Royal said, “Men, I guess the Ags did us a favor by knockin’ out that bridge (still sticking to that story🤣) Maybe we don’t need all that extra practice next time. Go enjoy Thanksgiving with your families and we’ll see you Sunday night. Anyone that wants to ride back on the buses, we’ll be taking a different route than this morning…”
Since our Family Truckster was overloaded with people and unneeded cold weather gear, I opted for one of the nearly empty buses with a few other teammates…and an unlimited supply of unclaimed fried chicken box lunches. Since we had no coaches as chaperones, we even persuaded our bus driver to pull over in Caldwell to let those of us of legal age purchase a few cold quarts of Pearl Beer to help wash down that victory chicken.🍺
Beating aggy always tastes great, especially in their yard…
🤘🏼Hook ‘Em…and neuter UGA 👌🏼😎🏈
We had zero yards through the air…officially 0-0-0 passing. Imagine trying to recruit 5-star WRs with those numbers…🤔
The thing I remember most prominently about the whole day was that after we had our pregame meal at Salado’s Stagecoach Inn, where we had spent the previous night, we boarded the buses for what should have been about an hour and 45 minutes to 2 hour trip to Kyle Field, aiming at an arrival time of 11:15ish to get ready for our 1:30 kick.
As we traveled the back roads (Craig Way would have enjoyed the trip) that wound through the countryside enroute to College Station behind a DPS lead car, our bus caravan suddenly came to a screeching halt out in the Central Texas boondocks, just before we were to cross a creek. The DPS Troopers ahead of us were out of their car and wildly signaling for our drivers to pull over. Seems that a county road bridge had been washed out by heavy rains earlier in the week and was totally impassable. Without the modern luxury of cell phone connectivity, Google Maps or Waze, this was completely unexpected. Lucky for all, a county road crew had posted a small sign and lit a couple of those old smudge pots on either side of the gulley, so we at least didn’t have a mass casualty scenario.
Since I always liked sitting close to the front of the bus, I could see Coach Royal, Coach Campbell (who was on the second bus), the Troopers, and the drivers all poring over a couple of road maps unfolded on the hood of the black and white DPS vehicle. After observing a lot of pointing in various directions and Coach Royal walking back in the direction of the buses shaking his head and looking at his watch. He and Coach Campbell had another quick word, then Coach Royal climbed the bus steps, looked out at us, smiled wryly and said, “Men…the Aggies have knocked out the bridge, but it won’t stop us. We’re gonna have to turn these buses around and take a different route, but we’ll get there.”
We were laughing our asses off at the way Coach presented the situation to us and it probably changed our demeanor for the rest of the now high-speed, lights and sirens bus ride. We were relaxed, joking and laughing, something we never even thought about doing on any of our other bus rides.
Coach had told us to just get dressed as quickly as possible when we arrived and “…get your asses on the field and warm up on your own. We won’t have time to do our usual routine.”
Luckily, the guys who needed tape jobs were able to have that done before and after our team meal back in Salado.
When we finally did make it to our tiny little cinder block locker room under the east stands of Kyle Field about 12:45, our equipment staff had learned of our impending late arrival and they worked like Spartans to help get everyone dressed out and onto the field.
I was able to get a few practice kicks in and thankfully, it was a warm, cloudy 80° day with very little wind to worry about.
We scored early, they matched it at 7-7, and then we scored often. After building a 35-7 lead in the third quarter, we cruised to a 42-13 win.
In the joyously humid, hot little locker room, Coach Royal said, “Men, I guess the Ags did us a favor by knockin’ out that bridge (still sticking to that story🤣) Maybe we don’t need all that extra practice next time. Go enjoy Thanksgiving with your families and we’ll see you Sunday night. Anyone that wants to ride back on the buses, we’ll be taking a different route than this morning…”
Since our Family Truckster was overloaded with people and unneeded cold weather gear, I opted for one of the nearly empty buses with a few other teammates…and an unlimited supply of unclaimed fried chicken box lunches. Since we had no coaches as chaperones, we even persuaded our bus driver to pull over in Caldwell to let those of us of legal age purchase a few cold quarts of Pearl Beer to help wash down that victory chicken.🍺
Beating aggy always tastes great, especially in their yard…
🤘🏼Hook ‘Em…and neuter UGA 👌🏼😎🏈
