This Blogging is a lot of work/Get ready for football??

I had the best of intentions when I started this blog at the urging of friends. I thought I would be able to update it every day or two, not at a Twitter-like pace but near real time. Of course as those of you who are reading this can see, I have been struggling to provide weekly updates, in spite of my aforementioned plans.

That being said I decided to take a bit of a break from catching up on household and hospital work to write a few paragraphs about some things I have been thinking.

Texas Aggie football is just around the corner and me and the Aggie faithful find ourselves in the unfamiliar position of being picked to finish dead last, yes last in the Big 12 south. Quite honestly its where we deserve to be given what I saw last year. I have been an Aggie for most of my life, and have religiously attended Aggie football games since I returned to Houston in 1980 from graduate school. That includes attending games during the dismal early eighties including Jackie Sherrill's first couple of years, and some of the years that I was at A&M. It also includes attending games and holding season tickets during all of the years that I lived in Louisiana and Florida, and catching at least one away game each of those years as well. I went to all of the home games and the New Mexico game last year [8 in all], and I must admit that never have I found it more difficult to be an Aggie or to watch what was unfolding before me on the field. Of course right now everyone is in first place and most everyone, including me, is trying to be optomistic. But my optimism, and that of many if not most other Aggies, is tempered by the harsh reality that our athletic program other than golf and track I guess, is in a total shambles. And I cannot lay all of this at the feet of Dennis Franchione. I really place the blame squarely on Bill Byrne and the out of touch old money Ags that believe their own press and are more comfortable with a coach that looks and acts like them than finding the next superstar who can relate to the young men that play football in particular. This is why they picked Franchione, and why they resorted to Sherman, and continue to buy into BB's BS and huckster approach to running an athletic department.

Now don't get me wrong, I still bought eight season tickets to all home games and also have purchased tickets at outrageous prices for the Arkansas game at Cowboy stadium in October. I will go to the games, and enjoy the time I get to spend with my Aggie buddies, friends and family. Whether I will enjoy what I see on the football field other than the performance of the Fighting Aggie Band remains to be seen. I have my doubts for the reasons I mentioned above, but I wish the coaches and players all of the best and my sincere wishes that I am dead wrong about where the football program stands. I will eat crow gladly if things up better than they now appear.

I have a lot of other thoughts about the state of affairs of the Aggie football program, and really the overall state of the athletic department. I have actually been thinking of writing a kind of Modest Proposal about Aggie athletics borrowing from the approach used by Jonathan Swift so long ago. We shall see. Until then I enter this time of year, normally one of excitement and anticipation, with a mix of dread and anger, pride and apathy, love of Aggieland and hatred of that which has happened......in other words in uncharted waters for this die hard Ag.

Still I will be there for every home game and at least one away game. Thank goodness I park right next to the stadium and have perfected the art and science of tailgating for me and my buds....before, after, and yes during the game!!!

Gig 'em Aggies!