Purple invasion!

Saturday afternoon (6 Nov.) yours truly witnessed sort of an invasion of Nashville by an unexpected horde of Purple People Eaters. Yeah, there were plenty of blue & orange Gators fans in town, watching Florida chomp down on Vandy's Commodores, over there off West End Ave.

But no, I didn't attend VU v. UF. I was off 21st Ave. So. on the opposite side of the campus. The locale was a small old building behind San Antonio Taco Co. (the original café), housing a new business, bbq beach bar & grill (their lowercase spelling). I went there because I'd discovered (thanks to a sister at church) that there was to be a special TCU area alumni gathering there Saturday afternoon to watch the TCU Horned Frogs football team - #3 in BCS poll - play #5 Utah Utes in Salt Lake City. Gathering was to begin about 2 PM, with kick-off at 2:30.

Well, I walked in right about kick-off time. Two fellows wearing purple sat at the counter in the small front room of bbq beach. But I quickly noticed that down a short stairway in the back (or lower) room was quite a crowd, and lots of purple. Indeed, when I entered I might have been the only TCU alum or supporter who DIDN'T sport any purple garb!

But I doubt anybody out-roared me as we happily watched our Purple & White horde eat the Utes for lunch!

For being ranked #5 the home team certainly didn't show much offense or defense. Meanwhile the Horned Frogs scored a TD on their first possession, and led 20-0 at close of the first period, and 23-0 at the half. This was the Utes' first suffering of a first-half shut-out!

Several visual details kept leaping out at me as I watched. First, the Utah team's uniforms were U-U-UGLY-Y-Y! ! ! Apparently school colors are black and red; the uniforms had very little red, lots of black and LOTS of a species of cammo. To go along with the cammo, the back shoulder area didn't have the player's name but a characteristic, such as "DUTY" "HONOR" "COUNTRY or "COURAGE". Kin of militaristic, eh!

The black motif or school color filled the stadium bleachers, too, as msot Utah students and many others in the crowd soprted black shirts and other midnight apparel. Apparently the Utes had called for a "Blackout Day" to boost their spirits against the visiting Texans.

And yes, there WAS a contingent of Texans in the stands. Seated in a section tucked away in a corner of the stadium. Ah! but the TV cameras swept that section a lot in the final quarter, as it was obvious that the visitors would be victors. Even after the Utes managed to score a TD. For six straight games no team has scored more than a TD against TCU!

And so final tally was TCU 47 and Utah 7.

While the Horned Frogs were handily putting a stop to Utah's home winning streak at 21, I was happily mingling with the purple-clad "horde" here in bbq beach. Even tho' nobody among Nashvillians whom I knew to be TCU alumni attended the party, not everybody present was a stranger to yours truly. Why, Ryan, a friend of Michael Lehman's whom I had met a while back (Michael's ordination, probably) greeted me by name. And one of our interns at Eastwood CC(DC), Andrew entered the festivites along with his girlfriend Allison. Andrew wasn't wearing purple either, which made me feel better about my lack of the school color. Of course he isn't an alumnus of TCU. . .