Travis: So I’ve been MIA and in a bit of a fog since Sunday the 15th at about 3:45. Claire had come home for the weekend but had gone back to campus because the team was scrimmaging at 3pm. She texted at about 3:45 and said that she was attempting to do a step-back three when her knee buckled and she felt a pop.
As soon as I read the text I broke out into a cold sweat and felt nauseous. Her mom and I went to her dorm to see her and later that evening we met with the coaches and head trainer. The trainer did some tests and concluded that she’d torn her ACL. She thanked him for seeing her through her tears.
It was just so awful and so we’ve cycled through every emotion imaginable since that late summer afternoon. Last Monday she had an MRI and on Tuesday we met with the doctor to go over timetables and schedules and what to expect over the next year. It’s gonna be a long road back but if anyone can make it, it will be her.
But that’s basically been what’s been consuming me for the last several days. I know we have so much to discuss with the death of the air raid and the pending Norman maul next Saturday, but it’s been hard to focus. So I’m relying on you to fill me in. What kind of good times have I been missing out on over here?
Seth: Well, between the deaths of E.J. Holub and Andre Emmett, I’m not sure. Being partly in the business or organizing people when they die or helping loved ones get organized after the death of someone, normally, death doesn’t bother me all that much, but in two consecutive days we’ve lost two members of the Texas Tech Ring of Honor. With Holub, it’s somewhat understandable, he was 81 years old and maybe age and time waits for no one.
With Emmett, that’s so much more difficult to consider because here’s a guy who is just 37 years old and he’s gunned down after an argument where he lived. I’m just not ready to face that sort of reality, but here we are. You know how we talk about “ball is life” and with Emmett that had to be the truth. All he’s known since he left Texas Tech as a professional is to play basketball. From overseas to playing for the upstart Big 3 basketball league. All he wanted to do was play basketball and I’m all about people chasing their dreams and doing what they love. I saw the Instagram story of Emmett with his two kids, so young, maybe 3 and 5, and their with their father hours before his life is taken away from him. Just doesn’t compute.
And I have no doubt that Claire is going to come back better than ever. I don’t know her, but there’s no question that this will not slow her down (although I think I saw a tweet from you that she was in Kyle Field with a few thousand Aggies, I worry more about her well-being there than with her ACL).
So I’m a big ray of unicorn rainbows and cotton candy.
Have I told you about Summerween? Fitsum decided that there needed to be a holiday for kids in the summer. Kids are kinda getting ripped off because the 4th of July isn’t really for the kids so his thought was that we needed a Halloween type of event in the summer. So on the third Saturday of June from hence forward will be Summerween. Obviously, dressing up in costumes in the summer is not advisable, but kids show up and ask for candy just like Halloween, but the kids will have a swimming party perhaps and should be wearing swimming attire. I know that this is probably right up Cash’s alley, or at least hopefully, maybe Cade is down as well.
Any other ideas to enhance Summerween would be absolutely welcome.
Travis: It’s just been an awful week all around and I feel terrible for the Holub and Emmett families.
But let me tell you something about Summerween. It might be the single best idea I’ve ever heard. My kids always start complaining that time of year because it’s just after we’ve wrapped up Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and they start asking “when are we gonna have a kid’s day?” and we laugh and yell at them and tell them every damn day is kid’s day, but they just don’t get it. So something like Summerween is the perfect distraction to make them forget their jealousy over the fact that mom got breakfast in bed in mid-May and dad got to watch the NBA Finals in relative peace in mid-June.
We really need to get the influencers in on this and start building it up. If we’re lucky we could have the next Fyre Festival but instead it’ll be a mess of kids all over the country pounding on doors in late June demanding candy. The baby boomers will be so mad at us for this, but you make sure to let Fitsum know we’ll take all the heat. Those kids just need to go out and own their candy conquests. Summerween is for all of us.
So when you make a sandwich do you lay the deli meat flat or do you kinda bunch it up and place three or four pieces along the corners of the bread? I’ve always thought that people that lay deli meat flat on a piece of bread are probably predisposed to being a serial killer.
Seth: Well, it sounds like I’m not predisposed to being a serial killer. So yeah, when I make a good sandwich and I get the smoked meats thinly sliced on a 1 maybe a 2, then hell yeah, I bunch it up and make it look like a commercial.
But we had something interesting happen. So my wife was busy this past weekend and she ordered the groceries from Brookshires where she goes and picks them up. One of the things that she ordered was some turkey. I don’t know how all of that works, but when she picked it up, it was not thinly sliced. In fact, it’s basically a steak of sandwich meat, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that other than get a fork and knife and eat it, well, like a steak. They also gave us some not-so-great fruit, so this whole someone else picking out groceries for you sounds great in theory, but I’m so particular (surprise, surprise) that I probably just go do it myself.
So the official start of basketball practice started on Tuesday and I kind of ask this of you each year. You’ve always been an NBA-guy, but with how good of a coach that Chris Beard has been, have you tuned in more to Texas Tech basketball and have your kids done the same? I think I mentioned some time ago that the style can be ugly because the games become defensive in nature, which is hard to watch if it’s not your team. The offense isn’t as free-flowing as an NBA set, so the styles are really completely different. So I’m curious as to how far you’ve gone to embrace Texas Tech basketball because as of right now, it’s part of the national conversation and that’s a pretty fun thing.
Travis: Oh I’m all in on Tech basketball. Beard has done such an incredible job and that gritty, tough-nosed brand of basketball might not be the most exhilarating style but it’s a joy for me to watch. I’ve been telling anyone who will listen to watch out for the program for years to come because when he gets 4 and 5 star athletes out on the court running that defense it will be brutal. It will be like watching a python suffocate a cat or something. Just deadly.
And I know we haven’t spent much time this week on the football program but I want to close with a prediction that Tech will play OU much closer than many are anticipating this Saturday. I’m not ready to predict an outright win, but for some reason I think they’ll make it a game. You just sit back and eat your turkey steak and watch what happens.
Seth: