TCU reaches bowl game for first time since 1957 1984-The Frogs finish 8-3 on their way to the Bluebonnett Bowl. Along the way, the Frogs defeat Arkansas 32-31 for their first win in Fayetteville since 1955. They lose the Bluebonnnet Bowl, 31-14, to West Virginia.
Quarter century of domination ends 1992-TCU defeats No. 20 Texas, 23-19. Texas had won the previous 24 meeting. The Longhorns entered the game averaging 42 points per game.
TCU sweeps WAC Pacific Division; lands NCAA birth. 1997-98-Led by seniors Malcom Johnson and Mike Jones and junior All-American Lee Nailon, Billy Tubbs' Horned Frogs finish 27-6, climbing as high as No. 15 in the AP poll. Seeded No. 5 in the Midwest Region, the Frogs lose in the first round, 96-87, to Florida State.
Frogs win first bowl game since 1958 1998-First-year coach Dennis Franchione takes a team that finished 1-10 the year before to a 28-19 victory over Southern California in the Norwest Sun Bowl. Lead by receiver-turned quarterback Patrick Batteaux and tailback Basil Mitchell, the Frogs jump out to a 21-0 lead. The TCU defense holds the Trojans to -29 yards rushing, the lowest total in USC's storied history. Edge Box
The Horned Frog football program is filled with joy, but not because the holiday season is approaching. The football team is heading to their second straight bowl game, an accomplishment that has been unmatched since 1959. But the question the program has failed to answer is, who cares? Granted 1999 is the inaugural year for the Mobile Bowl, but in comparison with the rest of the college bowl games, the Mobile Bowl is less than respected. The Mobile Bowl's key sponsors are the city of Mobile and other local vendors. Most major bowl games have a nationally renowned sponsor such as the Nokia Sugar Bowl and the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Instead of a major sponsorship, the Mobile Bowl is proud to be supported by the Hampton Inn at Pensacola Beach, Godfather's Pizza and Dr. Albert Haas. Without major sponsorship, the Mobile Bowl's payoff and national exposure is greatly reduced. For their efforts, the TCU football program will receive approximately $750,000. In comparison, teams playing in the Sugar Bowl and Fiesta Bowl will receive between $11-$13 million. However, in addition to the financial boost to the program, each player will receive approximately $300 worth of gifts including a commemorative football and a "nice" warm-up suit. But TCU will get tons of national exposure to counteract the low payoff right? Nope. The Mobile Bowl is being televised at 6:30 p.m. the Wednesday before Christmas and is being broadcast on ESPN2. Call me crazy, but not many people have a meaningless bowl game featuring an unranked team on their mind the week before Christmas. Yes, the network which regularly covers bass fishing tournaments, major league soccer games and bowling championships will put aside its normal schedule to put our own Horned Frogs in the spotlight for a couple of hours. So with our Horned Frogs taking center stage, what will happen if the Frogs lose? What will happen if the Nation's leading rusher, junior LaDainian Tomlinson, has a bad game and the TCU offense collapses? The last time the TCU football team played a ranked opponent was the first week of the season when they blew a lead and lost to Arizona. Now, TCU is pitted against No. 20 East Carolina, and will be tested for the first time since Sept. 5. Recapping, TCU will get a small payoff and little exposure due to timing and choice of networks. These reasons should be more than enough to support the idea that the Mobile Bowl is a low-key bowl. However, to add fuel to the fire, the game will be played at Ladd-Peebles stadium which has not seen a college football game in 50 years. But, as the Mobile Bowl public relations committee will proudly tell anyone interested, Ladd-Peebles stadium regularly hosts high school football playoffs and numerous concerts. In addition to the stadium's lack of experience with college football, at full capacity, the stadium holds only 40,000 people. That means that TCU's own Amon Carter Stadium holds more people than the beloved bowl site. Nonetheless, the Frogs are in a bowl game, which is more than can be said of the 1-10 season just three years ago. The team will still play with the same enthusiasm and vigor as they have all season long, and the athletic administration will still be happy with its decision to stick TCU in a second-tier bowl game as it continues to struggle to get an underrated football team the exposure it deserves.
Victor Drabicky is a junior broadcast journalism major from Farmersville, Texas. He can be reached at (vmdrabicky@hotmail.com).
Let us imagine for a minute that student Arthur J. Nerd is ranked No. 1 in his graduating class at Anytown High School. He has a sparkling 4.0 GPA and the necessary requirements to ascend to his rightful rank as class valedictorian. But in the days before the graduation ceremonies...."Uh, excuse me Mr. Nerd," says the school principal, "according to our latest computer rankings, your strength of schedule wasn't good enough to be valedictorian. Although he finished with a 3.8, George R. Geek took a much harder load of courses. Sorry, but how does salutatorian sound?" Yes, in this last season of the 1900s, college football has caught the wave of the future. Computers, run by computer geeks, are as important in the national championship race as tailbacks with 4.4 speed. Nebraska no longer has much of a chance to make an appearance in the Sugar Bowl, but the fact that they could have usurped undefeated Virginia Tech's shot at Florida State is still the disturbing by-product of the NCAA's infatuation with technology. What's next? Purdue quarterback Drew Brees or Microsoft lord and mega-geek Bill Gates in the 2000 Heisman race? Did anybody outside of Fort Worth really care that TCU is joining Conference USA in 2001? I mean who can really get excited about the prospect of games between Alabama-Birmingham and Southern Mississippi? In fact, name one person on any team in the C-USA? Could you tell the difference between its all-conference team and a lineup at Tarrant County Jail? I saw where the Rose Bowl will pit Wisconsin, who boasts probable Heisman Trophy winner tailback Ron Dayne, against Stanford, who not only lost to lowly San Jose State and to Texas by 52 points, but has the nation's 110th-ranked (out of 114 teams) defense. The "Granddaddy" of all bowls is suffering from arthritis. Just what national TV needs, a showdown in one of its premier bowls, featuring the country's 22nd ranked team. The Mobile Bowl? What, exactly, is that? And who is the sponsor for a bowl game in Alabama? Ol' South Pancake House or the Ku Klux Klan? If TCU wins, do they get to take home replicas of the Confederate flag that flies atop Alabama's state capitol? To me, bowl games that start before Dec. 31 are the parsley of a three-course meal. Talk all you want about the exploits of Florida State's magnificent wideout Peter Warrick. The Heistman? Ha-ha. Dillard's spokesmodel? Hee-hee. Come April, Warrick, the best player in college football according to my novice eyes, will be a multimillionaire after being a first-round NFL draft pick. Do you think he really cares if he can't shop at the department store version of Wal-Mart? Besides, it's not like he shot the president or anything. TCU fans, LaDainian Tomlinson is a wonderful tailback. He deserves his fair share of acclaim, but the Heisman? Not so fast. Ron Dayne rushed for the bulk of his 1,834 yards, just 16 less than Tomlinson, in probably the nation's second-toughest conference. Like it or not, Tomlinson did rush for 1,153 of his yards against Texas-El Paso, San Jose State, Arkansas State and Tulsa, teams that will never be confused with Michigan or Penn State. Do you remember the days when Southern Cal, Notre Dame, Louisiana State, Miami (Fla.) and Oklahoma used to compete for national championships? I don't. Three players from TCU on the WAC all-conference team. Hmmm. Four from Southern Methodist and UTEP. Hmmm. Do you think the WAC is just a little bit upset at TCU's bolt from the conference? Oh, and adding Louisiana Tech and Boise State was just perfect. It's kind of like adding Adam Sandler to the cast of Dumb and Dumber. Laughs all around. Embarrassment, too. Hey, if the WAC gets three bowl teams, then shouldn't other football-playing leagues get some too? I mean, the Texas Class 5A state champ or the local YMCA flag football champion deserves as much of a chance as Hawaii. Who doesn't belong in this list of bowl teams? Wake Forest, Oregon State, Kentucky, Boise State, Louisville and Hawaii. Answer: None of them. Remember when bowl games didn't have sponsors attached to their name? It was the Cotton, not Southwestern Bell Cotton Bowl. The Sugar, not Nokia Sugar Bowl. All I'm waiting for is the Tidy Bowl 2000. Oops. That's the unofficial name of something called the "Motor City Bowl." Hey, remember when people thought Ricky Williams would be better than Edgerrin James? In fact, remember that debate between Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf? Don't take my word for anything. I'm still waiting for that Kevin Dyson over Randy Moss decision to finally make sense. The college football season is almost over. It officially ends when Texas Tech's athletic department frees itself from the grasp of NCAA investigation or when Minnesota's basketball players write their own papers. Oops. I guess it's on into the new millennium.
Joel Anderson is a senior news-editorial journalism major from Missouri City, Texas. He can be reached at (jdanderson@delta.is.tcu.edu).
By Gibbs Colgin staff reporter When Adrian Velasquez was 9 years old, he came home from school one day, bruised and beaten. His mother grabbed him, threw him in the car and drove him to the country club. Velasquez had been getting into trouble constantly, so his mother decided to do something about it. When they arrived at the country club the only sport in season was swimming, so she signed him up. That's where senior Adrian Velasquez started his swimming career. Velasquez grew up in Juarez, Mexico, the border town across from El Paso. After his freshman year in high school the swimming coach at Cathedral High School in El Paso offered him a scholarship, so Velasquez started swimming for Cathedral his sophomore year. At age 10, he joined the U.S. swim team in El Paso. "That's where I started developing my swimming," Velasquez said. "If you want to improve, you go and compete in the U.S."
"Adrian is one of our team's toughest competitors," Sybesma said. "He is one you can count on, and we are fortunate to have him in our program here at TCU." Sybesma said Velasquez also selected TCU based on academic programs and the scholarship he was offered. In 1996, Velasquez went to the Olympic trials in Mexico. He finished first in the 50-meter freestyle with a time of 23:9 but wasn't chosen to go to the Olympics in Atlanta. Velasquez said usually the first- and second-place swimmers in the trials go to the Olympics. "In Mexico, there are a lot of politics involved in sports," he said. It was after the trials that the officials changed the qualifying times. They told Velasquez he needed a 23:5 to be on the Mexican Olympic team. Velasquez said the reason he thinks he did not get to go is because he finished ahead of the son of an established sports business man. Also, he said he thinks the officials changed the qualifying times because most of the events were won by swimmers who had gone to the United States to train. Officials from the Mexican National Olympic Committee could not be reached for comment. Only two swimmers ended up competing for Mexico in the 1996 Olympics. One was from the University of Texas and one was from the University of Georgia. The swimmers who did not make it to the Olympics were sent to a national meet in Florida. "It had absolutely nothing to do with the Olympics," Velasquez said. The two swimmers who did go to Atlanta to swim for Mexico were sent without coaches or any kind of support. Velasquez said he probably will not try to go to the Olympics in 2000 in Sydney, even though Sybesma is willing to prepare him for the trials. "With everything that happened last time, it's just too discouraging," Velasquez said. Sybesma said Velasquez should be able to go to the Games. "Adrian has worked hard for the opportunity to compete in the Olympics, but the selection system in Mexico is not like other countries," he said. The men compete in the University of Texas Invitational in Austin Dec. 3-5.
Gibbs Colgin |
TCU swim team's head coach, Richard Sybesma,
said he recruited Velasquez because he had many successful swimmers from
El Paso in the past. He also said Velasquez's high school coach and other
El Paso swimmers already on the team helped Velasquez choose TCU.| The TCU Daily Skiff © 1998, 1999 Credits |