Clay Horning
DALLAS — For a long time, maybe the greatest rivalry in college sports commenced each season on a so-called neutral field (because the Cotton Bowl is never neutral, though its partisanship is determined by geography) was played in the most antiquated of stadiums.
Let’s face it. The place was a dump.
One year, the bathrooms didn’t work.
For several seasons, there wasn’t a more uncomfortable chair (stuck to the floor, Jetsons style) in any press box in the nation.
It’s hard to define dingy, but you know it when you see it and that was the Cotton Bowl. Only nobody wanted to leave the Cotton Bowl.
Almost nobody.
E.Z. Million, who might have nothing to do if the rivalry ever becomes a home-and home-affair, came into the office not long ago to make his case to me.
The conspiracy theories he put forward as to why the game has stayed put all these years don’t seem to stand up to the simple fact that all of his hand-wringing has caused no groundswell to move the game, nor have any separate movements of their own accord seeking to give Owen Field and Texas Memorial Stadium one additional home game every two seasons gained any traction. Even in a dump, perhaps the Taft Stadium of college football, fans still wished the game remain in Dallas.
Just try it one time, was Million’s last and best argument.
Only nobody really wants to.
They like the traditon.
They like the trip.
They like the novelty.
They even like the Texas State Fair.
There may be some reasonably sound economic arguments, even talking about one day every two years, to move the game, yet economics stands no chance in the face of history and emotion.
The stock market’s proof of that.
We should all rejoice.
(Not about the stock market)
Becacuse it’s still one of the best rivalries. Maybe the best. And now it’s being played in a stadium worthy of its history. The Cotton Bowl remains the same piece of real estate, but a completely new venue. In pictures, you can hardly recognize the place.
There used to be 14 bathrooms. Now there are 39. There are, get this, 1,100 new “toilet fixtures” and even though I don’t know the difference between a toilet and a “toilet fixture” I think it mains you don’t have to choose between the bathroom and concessions (there are more of those, too) at halftime, but do both and return for the third-quarter kick.
And tha’s just the stadium.
There is still No. 1 Oklahoma.
There is still No. 5 Texas.
There’s the two teams’ combined record of 10-0, not to mention a couple Heisman Trophy canddiates playing qarterback, not to mention destiny being in the hands of the winner when it comes to championships, conference and national.
There is everything you could ever want in a football game, including all kinds of craziness as the Sooner and Longhorn busses separately snake their way through the fair’s festivities on the way to the stadium
That’s the part that’s always gotten Bob Stoops.
“They were pretty nice when we came in 1999,” Stoops said of the reception Texas fans offered on OU’s way into the stadium. “Since then, things haven’t been real cordial.”
But Sooner cornerback Dominque Franks may have had the best line this week about the famous ride.
“I heard about it and I was just like, ‘It can’t be what everybody’s making it out to be.’” he said. “Getting in there, I said, it’s even more.”
Now they’ll be rolling up to a modern stadium, too.
Clay Horning
366-3526
cfhorning@normantranscript.com
