Mem'ries Sweet: A Great Game’s Beauty
In the immediate wake of Gary Patterson’s departure from TCU’s football program, the news did not so much spread as explode. Within the hour, it seemed that the entirety of Frogdom knew about it, all with more than a little sadness, not least the author of this piece.
I should probably introduce myself as someone who is indifferent to sports. More accurately, I avidly dislike them. Or, more accurately still, I have spent most of my life avidly disliking them. Allow me to explain. I was born in Odessa, Texas and raised in the quaint nearby town of Andrews. For those who are unaware, the sparsely populated Permian Basin has, despite being unknown to most of the country, nevertheless inspired two mainstream sports films, Varsity Blues and Friday Night Lights, both about football, of course, such is the almost mythic currency of that sport among the citizenry. And I, in the words of a rather different kind of character, did not have the makings of a varsity athlete. I did not have the makings of a junior varsity athlete. I had the makings of a poet and musician, which are noble enough pursuits, I think all Andrewsians would agree, but not exactly where the action is. (I can sum up my athletic career in high school thus: the one sport I did not so much excel in as prove competent at was power lifting—it required no dexterity, coordination, or contact with another person whatsoever.)
So while I attended TCU, football had little presence on my mind. I was much more content to spend a Saturday afternoon studying, socializing with other non-sporty types, or perhaps playing a rock n roll gig than following the Frogs on the field. But then came 2011, when I returned to Fort Worth after a year and a half in Colorado and a year before that in Scotland. It was the year the Horned Frogs went undefeated and triumphed over the Wisconsin Badgers at the Rose Bowl. It was the year I finally learned to like (if not love) football. And it was Gary Patterson’s fault.
Watching the Frogs in that championship season was to see something so perfect, so enchanting as to be scripted—and were I more ignorant about how football worked, I would have sworn those games had been. For there was something undoubtedly theatrical about the way Patterson’s boys would retire from the field at half time, only to return to ecstatic applause in the third quarter, and over the next hour or so put away all competition, seemingly without any effort at all. Watching the Frogs play that year reminded one of The Natural--everyone knew that regardless of the score at the half, the Frogs would prevail. The only question was how. The journey of the Horned Frogs to victory at the Rose Bowl surely serves as one of the great underdog stories of this century. Witnessing the passion and the effort and the love of the game both Patterson and his team exuded was beyond infectious. It was inspiring. And to this poet, whose lifeblood consists in cherishing daily those details so easily missed, the beauty of a great game became clear, and there was no doubt, to any of the 94,000 spectators who witnessed it, TCU’s victory over the University of Wisconsin was something special, the kind of thing that becomes memorialized in a work of art precisely because it happens so rarely despite the universal need for people to believe it.
Then, four years later, Patterson’s Frogs performed yet another miracle, often considered the greatest comeback in college football history, at the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. Glancing at the stats of the game causes one to shake his head in disbelief. Down 31 to nothing at the half, suffering complete humiliation. Then the third quarter. TCU, led by Bram Kohlhausen, scores 17 points. The fourth quarter: another 14 points. So the game is tied. The stalemate lasts through two rounds of overtime before Kohlhausen’s eight-yard touchdown run in the third. And just like that, the incandescent magic of the championship season of 2011 was renewed. 2015, from that angle, seemed a sequel.
All this is to say that what the Frogs achieved under Gary Patterson’s leadership was more important than the game itself. Patterson and his team tapped into one of the most primal urges of myth and mythmaking: the need we all have to believe the loser is never too far from being a winner and vice versa. I extend to Gary Patterson my respect, my admiration, and my gratitude for revealing to me, and everyone who witnessed them, the beauty of a great game.
Well done, Mr. Patterson. We Frogs will not forget you nor the miracle you and your team accomplished and the magic you showed us. Adieu.
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