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7 DEC 03: YEAR OF THE CATS
I don't believe what I saw on TV Saturday night. Louisiana State dominated Georgia, to win the Southeastern Conference title. Kansas State stomped Oklahoma to win the Big 12 title. But then came the biggest stunner of all - Bill Purvis of Cascade Hills Baptist Church doing a series of sermons based on "The Matrix."
Louisiana State beat Georgia 34-13, despite the alleged home-field advantage Tiger coach Nick Saban thought the Bulldogs would have at Atlanta's Georgia Dome. Was Saban really serious with that comment? That home field hasn't helped the Falcons much this season.
(Instant Message to Georgia quarterback David Greene: Do you realize when you put your red mouthpiece in your face mask, you look like a circus clown?)
If you turned off the halftime show at the S.E.C. Final in Atlanta, you missed an amazing moment. An insurance salesman from Mississippi made a 30-yard throw into a target, to win $400,000! Maybe now he'll tell his customers how little they REALLY need to pay for coverage.
After seeing that halftime winner, my hopes went up. I'd held onto two Dr. Pepper bottle caps for weeks, with "Match Cash" codes inside. But neither code was the winning one shown on CBS - so I failed to win $25. Only now as I write this do I realize I should have sold those caps on eBay.
(I guess I'll have to settle for writing a book about the last two years of Georgia football: "The Rise and Fall of the First Richt.")
As a Kansas graduate, I was torn by the Big 12 title tilt between Kansas State and Oklahoma. K.S.U. is an archrival. O.U. beats up the Jayhawks in football all the time -- but then again, K.S.U. has done the same thing for about ten years....
Top-ranked and undefeated Oklahoma took a 7-0 lead in Kansas City, but then Kansas State scored 35 points in a row to slaughter the Sooners and win the Big 12 crown. Maybe now Wildcat coach Bill Snyder will give my Jayhawks a fighting chance - and go become head coach at Army or something.
I was so stunned by the Big 12 Final that when the score reached 35-7, I called my brother and sister-in-law in Kansas City to share my shock. It turns out my Kansas State-attending niece and her husband were at home, and did NOT go to the game. It was cold enough in Kansas City that they would have wound up with noses as purple as K.S.U.'s uniforms.
Without realizing it, I called Kansas City as my brother and his family marked my youngest niece's birthday. She turned 21 on Thursday - and I guess this shows how straight-laced my family is. None of us have done anything bizarre enough to get us on a TV talk show.
By the way, my sister-in-law reports very few Kansas students are buying tickets for the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando [1 Dec]. She says the university is trying to sell travel packages for $1,000! How many days of admission does that get you at Disney World now -- two or three?
COMING MONDAY: Some strange sites along the roadside....