Homecoming - Cowboy Style

Thanks to my wife who bought us tickets to the OSU-Mizzou game for my birthday we made a trip to Stillwater on Saturday for homecoming. I tend to think of homecoming in reference to the football team (or name your sport of choice) returning from a road trip. But at the collegiate level it's really about inviting the alumni back to town (okay, really, it's probably about that in high school too, I'm just an idiot and didn't realize it).



So me - the alumnus - and the preggo wife decided to make a day of it. Lucky for us they scheduled the parade for 2pm since the game didn't start until 8:15pm, which made getting there for the parade much easier. Honestly, I was on campus 6 fall semesters, but had never gone to the homecoming parade. This one, however had the added attraction of 3 famous alumni (are you technically an alumni if you never graduated?) - Garth Brooks, Barry Sanders, and Robin Ventura. If you don't know who these three are, do your own research. Fine, here you go:

- Garth Brooks - number 1 selling US solo artist of all time.



- Barry Sanders - set 34 NCAA records in 11 games, won a Heisman Trophy, and then dominated the NFL for 10 seasons before retiring.



- Robin Ventura - holds longest hitting streak in college baseball history (58 games), named starting 3rd baseman on all-time NCAA baseball team, played 16 seasons in the MLB.

Bio on these guys.



Post-parade we toured frat row to see what was left of the house decs - most were still in good shape, but most of the mechanical stuff wasn't running. After a stop by the campus house we hiked it up to Mexico Joes just in time to beat the crowd. The Three Amigos (Stan Clark's trio of restaurants - Eskimo Joe's, Mexico Joe's, and Joeseppi's) aren't necessarily known for their food. It's more about atmosphere. But I'll have to say, the food was better than I remembered from the last time I'd been there.

With a couple of hours to kill before kickoff we stopped in at the campus house and hung out with the Moss'. They were a lot of fun.

The game was fun. OSU managed to do enough to cruise to an easy win in spite of not having Kendal Hunter or Dez Bryant. The MVP probably should have been Dan Bailey - the kicker - who hit 4 field goals including a career long 51 yard effort (ironically, his first attempt on that drive - from 46 - missed, but he had to do it again because of a penalty on OSU and he nailed the second). OSU's defense played fairly well in the second half.

After the game we hiked it home pulling into the garage at 2:20am (for the record it was a 2:40 trip with a stop for gas and coffee at QT in Tulsa). It was a long day, but a lot of fun.