‘War Owl’ ready for battle

Former Rice player shows his true colors while on duty in Iraq

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

Once an Owl, always an Owl.

	CLEMENTE TORRES

Ask Sgt. Clemente Torres, who’s thrilled enough with the Rice Owls’ Texas Bowl appearance that he not only wrote to the team this week but also displayed his passion for all to see in Balad, Iraq, where he’s stationed with the U.S. Army’s Delta Company 3-159th Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.

”I thought it would be cool that you saw some pictures of what a War Owl looks like,” wrote Torres. ”I sent you pictures of me in my War Owl helmet. If that doesn’t pump you up, I wrote ‘Go Rice Beat The Broncos’ on an old biplane sitting next to our shop.”

Torres has his own place in Rice legend, having started as a tight end on the Owl squad that beat the University of Texas in a 19-17 shocker in 1994, which broke a 28-game Longhorn winning streak against Rice.

”I was a senior on the ’94 SWC conference champion team,” he wrote. ”That year Coach (Ken) Hatfield let the seniors design the championship ring. Before I left for Iraq this time, I was looking through my personal things and came across my championship ring. I was reminded of ‘War Owls’ being on one side.”

Of his newly decorated helmet, he wrote, ”I thought it would be appropriate … being I am an Owl at war.

”You guys are War Owls, too. Go fight and keep the Texas Bowl Championship in Conference USA.”

Torres, a Houston native who maintains Apache Longbow helicopters, left Rice during his senior year in 1994, but returned to complete his B.A. degree in human performance in 1998. A few years later, the career soldier ran into an old Rice teammate, New England Patriots’ linebacker Larry Izzo ’96, who was part of a USO visit to troops in Kuwait in 2005, in a meeting detailed in an Army magazine, ”The Mounted Rifleman.”