The Way I See It: Life, death and football

The Way I See It

Life, death and football 

By Jake Neu ’08

Jake Neu

I love Rice University the way any proud alumnus would. I love seeing new Rice research make the national news. I grouse when a new residential college is built, or some well-loved campus policy changes, about how it wasn’t like that “back in the good ol’ days.” I played in the Marching Owl Band (MOB) — was even the drum major — and helped create one of the best-loved halftime shows in recent memory, tracking former Rice Owls football coach Todd Graham through Dante’s Inferno. On autumn Saturday afternoons, when everyone else is fixated on the latest controversy or mind-blowing turn of events between two enormous state schools, I am glued to the ESPN Gamecast tracking my Owls, pulling for them through thick and thin. I bleed blue and gray.

If there is one thing I could have changed about Rice, though, it’s that it isn’t a big sports school. I grew up in central West Texas, where the entire town turned out for the Friday night football game, where the small gym was packed on cold January nights to watch five skinny white guys play basketball, where the old-timers stood along the fence and spit tobacco while solemnly watching our ace blow a fastball past some hapless hitter. In contrast, when I started at Rice in 2003, Rice football hadn’t been to a bowl game since 1961, hadn’t won an outright conference championship since 1957 and hadn’t participated in March Madness since 1970. (In fairness, the baseball team is a powerhouse and was coming off its first and only national championship.) Sometimes only 50 students outside the band and cheerleaders would come to football games, and we were lucky to get that in 2005, when we went 1-11 my junior year. And the year men’s basketball won only three games while playing off campus, you could count the students on one hand. But I was there with the band, for five years, cheering on our boys and girls, missing only one football game and about five basketball games (men’s and women’s) over that whole time.

It was during that 2005 slog of a one-win season that my father, Joe, and I, after eating Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, jumped in the car and drove to College Station on Friday to watch the (formerly) annual University of Texas-Texas A&M game with my dad’s three brothers, Billy (who attended A&M), Mike (whose daughter was a Longhorn) and Randy (who runs a football video business). I had never been to Kyle Field before and wanted the visit to be a memorable one. Vince Young was still two games away from his famous scamper into Longhorn legend against the University of Southern California. Even the Aggies were just hoping for a respectably close game, well aware they couldn’t stop that irresistible force. And there my dad and I sat two rows from the tippy top of the end zone seats with a view only better than the MetLife blimp, two football fans clad in navy blue amidst a sea of orange and maroon, and swaying with the Aggie faithful to “Sawwwwww varsity’s hoooOOOOoorns off” when they managed to make it a game in the fourth quarter.

That would be the last football game I ever attended together with my dad. The next January, he died of a massive heart attack. My first three years at Rice, I would call home after every game and talk to him about the game, the players, the halftime show. We would rehash the good and the bad for over 30 minutes. And now, my football buddy was gone.

In fall 2006, my mom, Amy, knowing I would have a hard time going through the season without Dad to shoot the **** with, told me I could call after any game I wanted to. It was my “Dad call,” my chance to spout off about the game while she patiently listened on the other end of the line and pretended like she knew what I was talking about.

Rice had a new football coach, but my senior season appeared to start like any other, going 1-5 to begin the season. But then, a funny thing happened on the way to irrelevance. On a cool October night in Houston, Rice hosted University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) and was down 33-27 with time running down and the Owls marching the ball down the field. As the drum major in the MOB, I was watching the game from field level while drum minor Kyle Ringgenberg ’07 called up the fight song time and again.

With 13 seconds left, Chase Clement rolled right, threw into the end zone — and was intercepted. Deflation. The UAB player started running the ball back, only to then attempt to fall down and ice the game, when he somehow lost control of the ball and offensive line Lute Barber flopped on top of it. A reprieve! On the next play, with seven seconds left, Clement hit Jarrett Dillard for the game-winning touchdown. Rice wins, 34-33. I jumped into the arms of male cheerleader Russell Schafer ’07, screaming in disbelief.

Of course, the first person I call on the way back to the band hall is Mom. I tell her how I can’t believe the turn of luck, how that never happens in a game. And she said, “Maybe ol’ Joe called one in!” I’m not one to import my religion into my sports, but … maybe he did.

Maybe the ol’ fella just did.

But Rice was still 2-5 and needed to win out (including the next three straight games on the road) to make a bowl game. Yet somehow, the next week Rice scored two touchdowns in the final four minutes to win at University of Central Florida (“Mom! We won!”), held off a late University of Texas-El Paso rally in El Paso (“MOM!”), and then stunned Tulsa in double overtime (“HOLY COW, MOM!”). At 5-5, the impossible was suddenly — well, not likely, but iffy. Uncertain? There were still two home games left against fellow conference teams East Carolina University (ECU) and Southern Methodist University (SMU), who were also trying to qualify for a bowl game.

And there we were again against ECU, down 17-9 with three minutes to go and Rice driving behind backup quarterback Joel Armstrong. Touchdown Owls with 2:30 to go, but we blow the two-point conversion. 17-15 ECU. Rice tries the onside kick, doesn’t get it, but holds ECU to a three-and-out to get the ball back with less than a minute and no timeouts left. And on fourth and 10 at Rice’s 24 with about 30 seconds left, Armstrong was chased out of the pocket, scrambled, threw up a 40-yard prayer to a 5-foot-11 Dillard blanketed by three ECU players.

I will swear to my dying day that an ECU player had the best shot at catching that ball amidst that forest of hands. But it went through the defender’s hands and into Dillard’s. I’m not sure how I ended up there, but all of a sudden I was getting another bear hug from Russell. A couple of plays later, Clark Fangmeier kicked a 43-yard field goal with time expiring to win the game 18-17. I screamed like a little girl. I hugged the band director, Chuck Throckmorton, and said, “I wish Dad could have seen that one.” And I called Mom on the way to my room, hoarse but still screaming with elation about a 6-5 Rice team, which seemed impossible only four weeks before.

Maybe the ol’ fella called in another one.

The next week, 6-5 Rice played 6-5 SMU. The winner would go to a bowl game; loser would stay home. With four minutes left, Rice scored to take a 31-27 lead. And with time running out, Bencil Smith intercepted SMU at the 4-yard line to secure the win, and Rice’s first bowl game in 45 years. And if you watch the ESPN highlights in the clip below when the interception occurs, you’ll see in the background a little bearded fellow in a navy suit with a vest and wizard’s hat on his head, arms raised in triumph, as he turns to run to his left for his now-customary bear hug from Russell.

I called Mom, nearly on the verge of tears with elation, and talked for an hour about the season, the games, the ridiculous turns of events and about Dad.

Yeah, the ol’ fella had called in a third. Rice was in a bowl the first time in 45 years.

. . .

This past January, my mom died of complications from diabetes at the too-young age of 58. It was three weeks before the seventh anniversary of Dad’s passing. In her last years, she would call me at random hours, even while I was at work in my law office, to talk about family, or my brother or things around town. And now, my phone-call buddy was gone.

Since that miracle season in 2006, Rice had gone to two more bowl games and won both. But that conference championship remained elusive. Rice looked good going into the season, but a nightmare on Halloween in Denton led to a loss to North Texas, meaning we needed help to win the division and make the championship game.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the middle of the division. University of North Texas lost to University of Texas-San Antonio in the second to last week, meaning all Rice had to do was beat Tulane two days after Thanksgiving. In a dominating performance, Rice won that 17-13, holding Tulane without a first down until well into the third quarter.

And then, more help came. Conference favorite ECU in the Eastern Division lost to Marshall. Marshall and Rice were both 7-1, and the conference tie-breaker broke Rice’s way. Rice would host the championship game.

And on Dec. 7, on a cold and windy day in Houston, Rice blasted Marshall 41-24. The game was never in doubt. Rice was the outright conference champion for the first time in 57 years.

I’m pretty sure the ol’ lady called that one in.

Jake Neu ’08 (Martel College) originally posted this on “The Parliament” and gave Rice News permission to reprint it.