The old Band Annex ain’t what it used to be …

This past year, when I typically was on the right side of the UH campus, I’d look back at the annex with sadness. All I could see was the main structure (the I-beam) left from the building.

But today, I had the opportunity to swing by UH again. I drove past the old Band Annex structure, and saw that a few changes have been made.

Many a late night after-game party and “road trip” to away games started at the Band Annex, so it was one of the most memorable places at UH while I was a student there. It was an old 1940’s-vintage structure, which (I thought at the time) was where World War II Tanks were built. At least, that was what it looked like, given the size of it. It was where we practiced the Marching Band arrangements.

It was in sad shape in the early 80’s. It had a leaky roof that leaked onto the ceiling, causing the ceiling tiles to fall. It was not (initially) carpeted – so having a 200+ piece Marching Band in it made for “interesting” acoustics. Still, it housed the KKY and TBS fraternity “rooms” – and it was the home for the band. (Maybe we were operating under a “Hawthorne effect“?) The current Marching Band practices in the much better-equipped Moores School of Music facility.

In any event, I was much happier after I drove past the old band annex site today. Apparently, UH decided to at least reuse the foundation – the new structure will be used by the College of Architecture. You can read more about it in this UH press release.

Here’s what it looks like today:

Of course, I remember it when that loading dock door was painted red, with “The Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band” on the front of it. I even remember who did the painting (thanks Doug Allison!) and who did the touchup on it (thanks Arman Prescott!)

Here’s a side view of the annex. You can’t see it from this photo, but the upper side of the building also has windows. The doorway you see (to the right of the big tree in the center) used to be an extension to the building, where the KKY room was.

It’s good to see that parcel of land being put to good use.

My recommendation for Robertson Stadium

As a loyal UH fan (and alum), one of the websites I frequent is Coogfans.com. Coogfans.com covers every major athletic sport that the University of Houston participates in.

One of the major sports is American football. This time of year is always a goofy time for football discussions at coogfans.com, because very little is really happening in college football this time of the year. As a result, the topic threads turn to the perennial oddball topics, such as the football uniform design, logo design, and football attendance.

Actually, of those three topics, football attendance is the most pressing. UH currently competes in Robertson Stadium, which is an older facility (originally built during the depression years) which seats approximately 31000. Note: It is also the home to Houston’s professional soccer team, the Houston Dynamo, who only moved to Houston last year. The Dynamo won the Major League Soccer championship this past year, but are on record as desiring their own stadium – to be built with taxpayer help.)

The coogfans.com current football attendance debate revolves around how much to expand Robertson Stadium. All would like seating increases and better amenities at the stadium. Some have called for a doubling of capacity to near 65,000.

I also think Robertson Stadium amenities should be built and seating should increase, but only to 45,000 – and probably increased to that amount only in phases.

Here’s why I think what I think:

1. UH has reached that level of interest in the past.

UH’s detractors like to point out that UH can’t attain a 45k average attendance. However, these detractors don’t know UH history. UH had at or near as many people attending during the mid ’60’s and late ’70’s.

There two major differences between then and now are:

a) Venue

UH moved their games to the Astrodome in the mid 60’s. A domed stadium was a novel idea during that time – nobody else in America played in one! The venue itself (and the ability to play games regardless of weather) helped to draw crowds. Although UH was an independent then, the team’s record was also a good one, which also helped its draw.

b) Conference

Although the novelty of playing in the Astrodome fell off, UH drew very well in the mid-late 70’s because they had a good record and were in the Southwest Conference. As a result, thelarger regional teams (mainly Texas, Texas A&M, and Arkansas) assured that UH would have good crowds. Of course, the kicker was that the football team’s record was good – UH represented the SWC the first 3 out of 4 possible years it was in the SWC. The SWC split up in the early 90’s.

Unfortunately, UH did not keep its attendance up, and as a result, it got snubbed by the larger schools, who chose Baylor (which had kept its attendance up) and formed the Big 12 conference. UH was left to scramble to join a conference (independent status was not feasible since most bowl games and television packages are negotiated by conference now, not by the NCAA as a whole). UH ultimately joined Conference USA, which initially aligned itself with some similar schools (Memphis, Louisville, Tulane, UAB, Cincinnatti), but the teams were too far away and thus, there was no rivalry as there had been with the more regional large schools.

1. The University of Houston is not like other campuses.

UH is located in the heart of the 4th largest city in the nation. It is unlike many other Universiites in the United States – which is why it is misunderstood by its benefactors and detractors.

Unlike Univ of Texas, Texas Tech, Florida State, LSU, Louisville, and other such schools, it is not in a smaller city or suburb, so it can’t count on Houston city media attention, since it is not “the only game in town”.

Unlike Texas A&M, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Southern Mississippi, it is not in the country, and is not a Morrill Land Grant school. So it doesn’t have a “captive” fan base in the town that it’s in.

It is unlike private schools that are associated with a particular religion, such as Baylor, TCU, SMU, Notre Dame, Boston College, Pittsburgh, and BYU are. It is an urban, public school whose mission was originally designed for the “working man”. This makes it unlike Rice (Houston), Miami, Harvard (Boston), Tulane (New Orleans), Southern Cal(LA), Northwestern(Chicago), George Washington (DC), St. Louis, and other similar schools. As a result, it should draw larger crowds from an Alumni bas that’s larger than a typical private school or other urban schools that happen to be private.

2. UH’s real peers

As a result of realizing what UH is not, it’s important make sure to carefully figure out which Universities are most in common with it, so as to get the most realistic comparisons. I did this several months ago, looking at several Universities which were similar to UH, then mapping their attendance against the number of wins per season (since everybody loves a winner, attendance goes up everywhere a winner is and goes down when they’re a loser).

a) Metropolitan areas

Based on census statistics (Metropolitan Statistical Areas – “MSAs”)- here’s the schools that in the top 19 MSAs that are the best to measure UH against:

Metropolitan statistical areas Population Schools in that MSA
1 New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA 18,747,320 Rutgers
2 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA 12,923,547 USC, UCLA
USC is private
3 Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI 9,443,356 Northwestern
Northwestern is private
4 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD 5,823,233 Temple
5 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX 5,819,475 SMU, N.Texas, TCU
SMU and TCU are private
6 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach, FL 5,422,200 Miami (Fla.)
Miami is private
7 Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX 5,280,077 Houston, Rice
Rice is private
8 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV 5,214,666 Maryland, Navy
Navy is a military institution
9 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA 4,917,717 Georgia Tech
10 Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI 4,488,335
11 Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH 4,411,835 Boston College
Boston College is private
12 San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA 4,152,688 California
13 Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA 3,909,954
14 Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ 3,865,077 Arizona St.
15 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA 3,203,314 Washington
16 Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI 3,142,779 Minnesota
17 San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA 2,933,462 San Diego St.
18 St. Louis, MO-IL 2,778,518
19 Baltimore-Towson, MD 2,655,675

Based on this list, UH’s real peers are Rutgers, UCLA, San Diego State, Minnesota, Washington, Arizona St., California, Georgia Tech, and Maryland. Except for San Diego State, all of these peers have two things in common, which UH does not have:

1) They are flagship schools of their particular states

2) They compete in BCS (Bowl Championship Series) football conferences, which entitles them for a greater possibility of playing in the football national championship, and having a greater payout in end-of-season bowl games.

b) Attendance records

Of these schools, I have been able to obtain attendance records from UCLA, Washington, Georgia Tech, and Maryland. What I found was:

1) All school records fluctuate with wins. Many people at coogfans.com simply recommend that the attendance problems go away if the team “just wins”. While winning certainly helps, it doesn’t keep the fan base there. If it did, UH would have maintained a 45k fan base during the mid-late ’80s, when it was routinely competing in the top 20 rankings.
2) UCLA and Washington’s average attendance have been in the 50-60k range (UCLA) or in 50-60k and trending to 70k (Washington). However, those schools are state “flagship” schools.
3) Georgia Tech’s attendance has fluctuated mostly in the 40’s. It peaked over 50k only twice in the last 40 years: once in 1967 and again in 2003. Georgia Tech’s record was mostly in the mid 30’s from approximately 1978 through 1990, which coincided with poor on-field performance (except for 1985, and the attendance did not get much over 40k in 84-85).
4) Maryland’s attendance has fluctuated between low 30k and mid 40k from 1975 through 2000!

In summary, I think UH’s attendance is most like the University of Maryland’s.

Although Maryland is a Land Grant school and is in a BCS conference (the ACC), the ACC’s football records are usually considered weaker (it is more known for basketball). In addition, both schools face stiff local competition for Division 1 athletics attention (Houston: Rice, Texas A&M, Texas; Maryland: Navy, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Georgetown). Both schools face professional football competition as well. Both schools are also in metropolitan areas with large percentages of the population which are essentially transient (Houston, Washington DC).

Most importantly, with all these similarities, Maryland’s stadium is approximately 45k. This is why I think UH cannot justify a staduim larger than that – no school of a similar size or environment could.

This is actually good news for UH! It shows that there is a sizable university in a similar environment that can be justified to be in a BCS conference. However, it also shows that even being in a BCS conference would not justify a stadium larger than 45k. For this reason, I recommend UH expand Robertson stadium amenities, with shower/locker rooms, press boxes, luxury boxes, and refreshment areas coming first. Then, I would expand seating in a staged approach, gradually getting to 45k. Given that Maryland already gets this, this should be of sufficient size (assuming attendance comes along) to justify UH belonging in a BCS conference. It may be possible to develop an architecture which could be added on to the 45k size, but given UH’s attendance history (even in the best years UH did not average 45k) and the environment UH is in, I would not count on expanding beyond 45k.

Musical Experiences: College

More from the music (band) experience. I already discussed High School , Junior High, and pre-Junior High. this time, it’s college!

As I entered my final year at Alief Hastings High School, I faced some final decisions. Musically, as a saxophonist, I was OK – better than some – particularly from smaller states to the direct north east:*), not as good as others. But I also knew that being a musician or a music teacher was not what I wanted as a career (there was no money in it unless you were at the very top in your profession, and the competition was too intense). I decided to cave in and take some private lessons, with the idea that I might make the “All State” band – and if I didn’t, I would pursue another profession.

I wound up pursuing another profession.

I already had a backup plan. I had been applying to several different colleges/universities, and was able to score high enough on my SATs such that the University of Houston would take me unconditionally. I had attended an engineering seminar for High School students at UH the previous summer and was already sufficiently impressed with Engineering that I knew that I would major in it, if the saxophone stuff didn’t pan out.

Just prior to graduating High School, I had heard about a series of grants that UH’s School of Music was releasing. All I had to do was play an introductory piece (something sufficiently technically hard, like the all-state tryout music), not flub it up, and then agree to take marching band in the fall and concert band in the spring. The grant would pay for $100 worth of my tuition – tuition only ran ~$200-250 for a 12 hour course load back then (those were the days!) so the grant actually went a pretty long way. So I tried out, and I was able to score a Band grant!

I joined up with the UH Marching Band that summer (for summer practice – only 2 weeks long). Band was fun, and not difficult to do if you were a decent player in High School. I enjoyed Marching band, and formed many friendships that I keep with me to this day. I even wound up joining the local UH chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi (Band fraternity) my freshman year.

But Marching Band did take a lot of time. It was 6 clock hours in practice over a week (2 hours M/W/F) for a class that was only a 1 hour course credit. This also does not count the football game performances – some of which (TCU, SMU, UT, A&M) were out of town trips – and also did not count summer band and special performances (such as parades). It was a substitute for PE, but most degree programs only needed 2 hours worth of PE, so the other two hours really didn’t apply towards getting a degree (and none of the concert band hours applied at all).

It also took quite a bit of “psychological investment”. Any time 150-200 18-22 year olds are kept together like that, there are the inevitable gossips of who is dating who, etc. In addition, we lost our Marching Band director between my freshman and sophomore years, and the tension of that loss was not overcome until the incoming band director resigned three years later (some might say it still has not been lost to this day!).

While it was negative in the sense that it ultimately was a distraction from my more serious Engineering studies, it also ultimately allowed me to go to places I probably wouldn’t have had the experience to otherwise – it alllowed me to all home games and many of the away games, and bowl games in New York, Tokyo, and El Paso. (Although we did not go to Dallas for the Cotton Bowl while I was in band, the band went the following year while I was still in college – although the football team did not pull off the win.) And as I said before, I met people through tthe marching band experience who remain some of my best friends decades later.

Now, I find myself the father of two sons, neither of which seem to want to pick up horns and play in a band. That’s OK – they have to experience their life, not mine. But if they asked me if I would recommend band, I’d say “yes” – but you have to keep your priorities straight. Unless you’re the second coming of Stan Getz or John Phillip Sousa, don’t take high school or college band too seriously.

How ’bout those Coogs!

Well,

As some of you know, I’m a graduate of the University of Houston Cougars, and I follow their major sports programs.

This year, we watched the football team take on several teams (at Rice, at home against Oklahoma State, Tulane, Grambling, Louisiana-Lafayette, and Central Florida). The team had its ups and downs, but overall, was a very talented team, finishing 9-3 in regular season play.

As a result of their conference record, UH hosted the Conference-USA Championship Game versus Southern Mississippi, for the right to represent the conference at the premier C-USA bowl game, the Liberty Bowl, in Memphis, Tennessee. On a memorable night, UH came out on top, 34-20.

We just finished watching the Liberty Bowl, where UH took on the University of South Carolina, who is a part of the larger Southeastern Conference. Unfortunately, the Coogs (yes, that’s how we spell it – not “Cougs”!) came up just shy, losing 44-36.

Even though we lost, both teams played a clean game, there were no significant disputed referee calls, and no significant injuries. Both teams and sets of fans represented their schools well, as evidenced by a lot of the postings I’ve seen at coogfans.com (link requires registration but no $) over the past several weeks.

It was a tough loss, but the senior players (and the entire team and staff) played well and have nothing to be ashamed of.

UH has always been a place of good potential – for its football program, for the students that attend it, for the city itself, and for the University as a whole. One football game’s outcome does not change that.

I’ve been promising a few blog entries about UH football attendance (and some other somewhat-related topics) … stand by for those entries!

C-USA Football roundup: Week 8

Tulane 13, #8 Auburn 38
Ouch. Tulane was overmatched in this contest.

East Carolina 38, Southern Methodist 21
ECU is sneaking up on people – ask SMU.

Rice 40, UCF 29
Rice is sneaking up on people also, although defending East Divsion champ UCF is nowhere near last year’s form.

Marshall 31, UAB 24
A battle between two evenly matched (albeit poor) teams.

Houston 34, UTEP 17
The McCormick family had a previous engagement at our church’s Oktoberfest, which didn’t allow us to go to this one. It is the first UH home game I missed, and I regretted it as I suspected I would. UTEP is not up to last year’s form, and they were not playing this in El Paso this time. The combination favored the Coogs, although they apparently struggled in the first half with play reminiscent of their previous 3 loss streak.

Virginia Tech 36, Southern Miss 6
Ouch #2. I expected a closer game than this from Southern Miss, but I guess playing this on the road was the difference.

Tulsa 35, Memphis 14
Two teams headed in opposite directions. Tulsa looks to be in good form for at least a bowl game while Memphis still misses DeAngelo Williams. Results are as expected.

C-USA Football roundup: Week 7

Pittsburgh 52, UCF 7
Ouch. UCF did not represent C-USA well against Big East competition. Of course, Pitt had won 4 going into the game.

Arkansas State 26, Memphis 23
Ouch #2. As I said before, Memphis has fallen a long way since the days of DeAngelo Williams (OK, those days were just last year, but you get the point). They fell to a Sun Belt team! Of course, I won’t rub it in too far – I saw the Coogs blow it to ULL …

Marshall 21, Southern Methodist 31
You can never tell about SMU. Ask Marshall.

UAB 33, Rice 34
Being a Houston “homer”, I always root for Rice (‘cept when they play UH). Glad to see them pull this one out.

Tulsa 31, East Carolina 10
The Golden Hurricane juggernaut rolls on. ECU was not up to the task.

Southern Miss 31, Houston 27
I had always suspected UH would lose this one – Southern Miss is tough at home. The score was not quite as close as it looks (Houston’s last score was just beforethe final gun – the refs did not let them play for the last point as it would not have affected the outcome). Still, it’s tough, as there are now 3 losses in a row. However, losing to Miami and Southern Miss – in their stadiums – is nothing to be ashamed of. Losing to ULL at home is another matter.

UTEP 34, Tulane 20
Ho hum. I don’t think UTEP is as good as they were last year. We’ll see next week when they take on UH.

October 7, 2006 – Can I have a "do over"?

For me, October 7 was a perfect example of when a plan goes bad.

My day started off with a series of home viewings for my parents – they are moving from the west side of Houston to the Clear Lake side where I live. They have an offer on their house and are anxious to find a new house over here. However, they were scheduled to attend a wedding of one of my cousins in Chicago, so they enlisted our aid (my wife and I) in taking a look at some houses over the weekend. So, armed with internet listings of various features of about a half dozen townhomes and houses, off we went with the real estate agents.

Disappointment #1: the houses

Without going into detail, I need to ask: when people are trying to sell their house, what are they thinking? I realize the real estate market is becoming more of a buyers market … which is why it makes sense for someone who is trying to sell their house to be ready at any time. This would mean cleaning up the house – it’s not about you, it’s about your house and the fact that you want to sell it. Examples: One homeowner answered our request to view the house in their bathing suit. Most of the houses we saw had various features that just wouldn’t work for my 70’s-ish parents – unnatural step ups and step downs, too much foliage in the back yards, one which obviously had a smoker in it and would need a through fumigating. I realize that not every house is built for someone in their 70’s, but sheesh!

(Anyways, we spent about 4 hours spinning our wheels on the houses we saw. Oddly enough, as we were looking at one townhouse, a lady came out of the adjacent townhouse and told us that she might be selling hers. As we went on to look at the other houses, she apparently got in touch with our real estate agent’s office and put hers on the market. So, we went back and briefly looked at her townhouse – it was in good condition! So I told my parents, who looked at it last week, gave her an offer, and are now in the process of closing. This, all for a townhouse that wasn’t even in the market last week. Just goes to show you what can happen if you are ready and have the right product at the right time!)

Disappointment #2 – older son

So we start to get ready to go to the UH football game. I had bought a “mini-series” of tickets for the 4 of us – 3 games. We had already seen the first two (vs. Grambling and vs. Oklahoma State), and both times, the good guys won. In both instances, my older son had given us a bit of grief before the game, telling us he did not want to go – only to have a good time at the game. But today, he ABSOLUTELY did not want to go … he “had” to do homework.

While I’m certainly sympathetic to making sure the kids do their homework, I really thought this was just an excuse. But as a result of the last minute begging and pleading and cajoling session I had with him, we started to get late to make it to the game on time. My wife (bless her), made the sacrifice of staying home, as we did not trust him to do his work on his own. She realized that my younger son and I were more tuned into the game, so she told us we should go. So after we quickly grabbed our stadium folding seats and gobbled our festive, healthy McMeals on the road :*/, off we went to UH.

Disappointment #3 – the game

So we get to the outer parking, pay $5 to the 5 Star security rental people, and pull into our slot. But since we had only made it there 10 minutes before kickoff, I made sure to hurry up to get to the Stadium (about a 10 minute walk) – and in the process, forgot the stadium folding chairs. We get to our seats, and watch the game – which UH developed a 21-0 lead to Louisiana-Lafayette, only to fold in the 4th quarter and lose, 31-28.

Can I have a “do over”?

C-USA Football roundup: Week 6

Southern Miss 6, Tulsa 20

Tulsa gets almost double Southern Miss’s yardage, and roughs up USM in Tulsa.

Central Florida 23, Marshall 22

UCF gets a late field goal and barely escapes with a win against a beaten-up Marshall team.

Rice 24, Tulane 38

Rice finally has its starting QB, but Tulane plays inspired ball as they start playing in the Superdome again

Virginia 21, East Carolina 31

East Carolina jumps out early and takes out a weak ACC team.

Memphis 29, UAB 35

It’s official – the loss of DeAngelo Williams has taken the heart out of Memphis. Tigers fans are wondering when basketball season starts.

Louisiana-Lafayette 31, Houston 28

Ouch. My personal story behind this game gets its own blog listing.

SMU 21, UTEP 24

SMU hangs tough with UTEP before falling to a late UTEP rally (not sure if this says more about SMU or UTEP).

C-USA Football roundup: Week 5

Southern Miss 19, Central Florida 14

Southern Miss takes this one on the momentum of an interception returned for a touchdown early in the 4th quarter. Central Fla. helped by taking a long drive to the end zone – only to fumble. UCF also managed to miss a FG attempt.

Oh, and note to Central Florida fans – no trash talking from you about UH’s football attendance. 23k at the Citrus Bowl, when you’re the only game in town?!? Are you kidding?!? Yes, I know it rained … so buy a poncho.

Memphis 7, Tennessee 41

Ouch. Tennessee is #15, but I was hoping for a closer game by Memphis (in Memphis). It’s beginning to look like losing DeAngelo Williams to graduation leaves Memphis a lot lower than I’d thought. And where was the Memphis defense?

Rice 48, Army 14

Now that Rice is past the hardest part of their season (UCLA, Texas, and Fla. State back to back), and has their starting QB back, the rest of the country gets to see what we at UH and Rice already knew – Rice has some potential. Army (who fared well against Big 12 competition in barely losing to A&M and beating Baylor in OT – in Waco) was no match for Rice.

UAB 21, Troy 3

The injured UAB Blazers (sponsored by Ace Bandage Co.) managed to put away Troy with 9 of their starters sidelined by injury.

SMU 33, Tulane 28

This game gets wild at the end as both teams combine for 37 of their total 61 points in the fourth quarter. SMU manages to escape a last-ditch Tulane push in the Superdome (21k attendance, 70k capacity … ugh).

UTEP 44, Mew Mexico State 38

UTEP survives this aerial attack at the Sun Bowl as New Mexico State makes a close game for these close (about 60 miles apart) rivals.

Miami 14, Houston 13

Well, the family and I did not go to this game, which is understandable, since it was 1000 miles away in Miami. Instead, we headed to a local bar/restaurant, and watched ESPN2 as the Coogs dropped this close one.

Miami did look like the more talented team that night, but they were managing to defeat themselves with sloppy play (a lot of illegal procedure penalties). That said, I think the Coogs were a bit robbed by the refs in this game, particularly that play ruled an incomplete pass that should have been ruled a fumble – the Coogs would have probably hung at least 3 more on Miami, which would have changed the outcome. Still, if you had told me preseason that we would be 4-1 at this point (with the 1 loss being by 1 point to Miami), I would have you to put down the crack pipe. Way to go, Coogs!

C-USA Football roundup: Week 4

Tulsa 24, Navy 23

Tulsa pulls out this squeaker in OT by blocking Navy’s extra point (up in Annapolis).

Rice 7, Florida State 55

This game looks like a leftover from the Bobby May/Ken Hatfield days. Rice should not be scheduling these kinds of games, and the results show. Fortunately, this is the hardest part of their schedule, as they now will start into C-USA.

Misssissippi State 16, UAB 10

UAB could have been the 2nd C-USA team to beat Mississippi State, but it was not to be, as MSU wins this one in Birmingham in OT.

Marshall 7, Tennessee 33

Marshall takes on the #15 ranked team in the nation, in their stadium, and the results show (particularly in the 4th quarter).

West Virginia 27, East Carolina 10

East Carolina hangs fairly well with the #4 team in the nation at home but falls apart in the 2nd half.

Texas-El Paso 13, New Mexico 26

UTEP travels north to New Mexico, but spots the Lobos a 19 point lead before getting their act together. Without spotting them the lead, this might have been a better game. Oh well …

Tulane 7, LSU 49

Tulane’s win against Mississippi State last week does not carry over to Louisiana State, as the #10 Tigers scored early and often against the Green Wave.

Arkansas State 9, SMU 55

The Mustangs have a flashback to days of yore as they paste the ASU Indians.

Oklahoma State 25, Houston 34

I took the wife & kids to this one at Robertson Stadium. It was a fun one, as a near-sellout crowd (about 25% local and travelling OSU fans) showed to see the Coogs beat the Cowboys. The game ended in the rain – certainly something we wouldn’t have seen in the old Astrodome days.