Kevin Sherrington

Archive | Blog | Bio | E-mail

When University of Houston football players clocked in Monday morning at 6 o'clock for workouts, they found a line of students, 200 strong, snaking out the front door of the ticket offices.

The players didn't get it. Who's up at this hour?

And then the people in line started chanting.

UH students. Cheering. At 6 a.m.

"I've been here four years," linebacker Matt Nicholson told reporters, "and I've never seen that."

Hey, Matt: I graduated from UH 30 years ago, and it's news to me.

Of course, I don't remember breakfast, either, but the point remains.

Judging by all the Bayou City buzz coming off tonight's game against Texas Tech – ESPN2 and the largest crowd ever at Robertson Stadium, larger even than the draw for the 2006 Conference USA championship game – you'd think the 17th-ranked Cougars had never played in a game this big. In fact, they won a bigger one just two weeks ago.

Beating Oklahoma State in Stillwater gave the Cougars credibility, at least in the eyes of voters. Beating an unranked Texas Tech at home would only prove OSU wasn't a fluke.

But the Cougars are used to having to prove themselves by now, because that's where they're always coming from.

A UH culture primer: In the 20-year period between the mid-'60s and mid-'80s, few colleges had better football, basketball and golf programs. Bill Yeoman invented the triple-option Veer and took the Cougars to the Cotton Bowl three of their first four years in the SWC. Guy Lewis made five Final Fours, and if he didn't win any national trophies, well, neither did Marv Levy. And Dave Williams ran out of wall space before he ran out of All-American golfers.

But respect for those programs was grudging, nonetheless, both from within and without.

When Houston came to Dallas for Yeoman's last hurrah, the 1985 Cotton Bowl game against Boston College's Doug Flutie, the reception was somewhat less than warm. A local columnist quoted an unnamed Cotton Bowl official complaining about Houston fans.

"Half of 'em are eating in 7-Elevens," the official reportedly said, "and the other half are holding 'em up."

Pretty funny line, at that. But as the beat guy covering UH for the old Houston Post, it was my job to get to the bottom of it. And I had a pretty good idea where to start.

When I asked Jim Brock, the lippy, oversized leprechaun and Cotton Bowl recruiter, if he was the author, he grimaced.

"Well, Hoss, I might have said it."

To be fair, Houston's fans haven't been much kinder to their sports teams, not that you can blame them much.

Most over the years were like me: commuters who drove to UH in the mornings and on to work in the afternoons. After working full-time the last two years at a small daily outside Houston, I wasn't sure if I'd graduated or quit a job.

When you don't live on campus and don't have any free time, it's hard to work up much school spirit. I couldn't sing the fight song if you spotted me two "Eat 'em ups."

And that beaten down attitude – along with a little help from the legislature – is why Baylor's in the Big 12 and Houston is the only public school of the SWC expatriates that isn't.

Ever since the split, Houston has struggled to gain a fraction of its former standing, such as it was. Art Briles gets well-deserved credit for reviving the football program.

But when UH beat Air Force last year, it was the Cougars' first bowl win in 29 years.

Kevin Sumlin has something going on at UH, something no one's seen around Cullen Boulevard in years, decades, even, and he's trying to capitalize on it while he can.

At his weekly news conference Monday, Sumlin cited the difficulties Tech had with crowd noise at Royal-Memorial Stadium.

"This is my public plea for a little help from our fans," he said. "Maybe we can create a little more noise."

If Sumlin can actually get 32,000 to sound like three times as many, forget Tech, that will be his biggest victory yet.