It appears to me that football has always been good to Pete. It is a good sport, probably the best there is because it teaches discipline, skills, and sportsmanlike conduct. If it didn’t do the latter, those guys out on the field would kill each other. I remember you trying to teach me a little about football in our front yard at Coal Fire. You didn’t teach me much, but that was only because I was a dummy student. I was impressed with your teaching, however.

As far as the Lobos, the Aggies, and the cowboys go, they appear about the same. I remember, in the late Sixties, it was a treat to see the Lobos win a game because they didn’t win very often. I couldn’t afford to see their games anyway, and they were not on television very much. Even when they were, I had to watch it on the dayroom, barracks television where there was always someone else wanting to tune into a better ballgame. I was one of them since I was always looking for the Bama game. So, I ended up just walking down to UNM to watch the Lobos practice. I often wondered how they did even that since the mile high elevation of Albuquerque gave me “fits” during my first year there, and the dry climate gave me even worse “fits” with nosebleed that turned out to be only raw, swollen, and bleeding sinuses. Since I had never had such a thing before in Alabama, I naturally thought there was something seriously wrong with me until, about a year later, I became acclimated, and actually loved the climate. I wondered how these young football players put up with it out there on the football field, but I guess they were mostly all from New Mexico and was already use to it. Anyway, the total of my Lobo-watching experience was in watching them practice because it was free. Besides, my Kirtland AFB days was my first experience with Daylight Savings Time. This newfangled time gave me an extra hour of daylight after work to go down to UNM to watch the Lobos practice. Although they almost never won, I learned to love the Lobos. They reminded me of Alabama in the Fifties before Bear Bryant was hired in 1958 when Bart Starr played his heart out, threw some beautiful passes, and never won a game until he got to Green Bay where he almost never lost. At Green Bay he had some one who could catch his bullet like passes. That made the difference. He had a coach too who taught him how to win.

I have heard complaints that Bama has a real light schedule this year, but I don’t believe that there is really any such thing as a light schedule in college football since the NCAA rules appear to favor equality between the traditionally big and the smaller schools. After all, only 11 players are allowed on the field at any particular time, so there is really no difference between the smaller and the larger schools. I think that is the way my Dad felt when he was playing for PCHS when they went up to Birmingham to play Woodlawn High School: the largest high school in the state at the time. Today I wish I had his tales about that game on tape. It was hilarious to hear him talk about it. PCHS actually won the game. PCHS took only about 13 players dressed out to play. I remember how he talked about Woodlawn fielding three or four teams that looked like college players when they came on the field. That is my point. Only 11 players are allowed to play at any given time.