Nobody knows more about sports than my dad. Nobody. I know that everybody has someone in their life who they think that about, but my dad is actually that guy. He has a freaky brain, a photographic memory, and he spent more than three decades covering or working in high level sports, mostly NCAA football and basketball. There are many people here and within the UT interweb universe who know him and can attest to this fact. Every single day that I spend time with him I hear three new stories that I've never heard before. The last time I saw him before today he was regaling to me in great detail several stories about a Texas vs Georgia game from 1958 or something and he said, "I remember it like it was yesterday", telling me all about Fran Tarkenton's contentious relationship with his HC, not to mention stories about the Texas team as well. The man is a walking encyclopedia.
Today he and I met for dinner at El Patio and then headed over to the NIT game, and between those two places he just did what he always does- paint pictures of the past with his words. It's amazing. My dad worked with and knew Lam Jones, and today at El Patio he was telling me stories about Lam, including his opinion that Lam, Earl, and Vince are the three guys at Texas who made every defense they played completely change their normal game plan to focus on him alone. As he put it they were the three most "feared" offensive weapons we've had at Texas in his time covering or working with the team. Then later at the basketball game we just happened to be sitting amongst a whole slew of people who he knew and used to work with, including John Bianco, who as I understand it more or less replaced my dad when he left UT. The reminiscing on Lam continued, and as always I just sat back and listened and soaked it in.
Now i'm no professional, but i am passionate about photography and film, and every single day of my life i am constantly photographing or recording anything i deem worthy of it. I like to put together film and photography projects, I went to school for that type of thing, and my dad obviously did it for a living for a while as well. So anybody who knows me at all is used to me taking candid photos and videos of our daily lives, even mid conversation. Most people think it's weird at first, but they always end up appreciating it. And I know I do too.
Today was no different, and as you're about to see I took some candid video of my dad talking about Lam (I say candid, you say "creeper", tomato/tomato), and I've now uploaded those two clips to youtube. The first clip is at dinner, and he's telling me about a game Texas had in 1978 against someone important, some rival/important team, maybe U of H or TCU, and we ended up losing the game by three, essentially because of a blown play where the entire opposing defense focused on Lam who was merely a decoy. He said that when they watched the film that Fred Akers ran the play back 5 or 6 times just so that everyone could see how intently the D was focused on Lam. The second clip is of my dad talking with Bianco about how when Lam returned from the 1976 Olympics, the athletic department (or maybe his news station? couldn't hear it all) had my dad fly out to Lampasas with a crew to pick him up and film him (or bring him back to UT? again I couldn't quite hear it all), and how there were people from Lampasas on the runway chasing his jet as it took off from the air strip.
Getting to be a fly on the wall for these types of conversations is always something I've treasured about my dad, and the truth is that I don't want to wait for him to get sick or die before I make a thread about him. He wasn't always in my life; our relationship wasn't always good; but he has been in my life for quite a while now, and I really appreciate that, as well as the wealth of knowledge he's given me on so many subjects that i'm passionate about. Not many people got to grow up around/knowing their heroes like I did, and not many people have a dad who happens to be the world's expert on their favorite subjects. So this one's for my dad, and all the other dads out there who are loved and appreciated by their sons. Thanks dad.