Friday Follies: Hold Tight!

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Melissa Kean

Looks like mid-80s. Also appears to be a special occasion of some sort:

New goalpost hanger mid80s oversize

Bonus: I’m not sure exactly what this entails but I feel like I would excel at it.

Beer Camp Vail 2015

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19 Responses to Friday Follies: Hold Tight!

  2. Dagobert L. Brito says:
    January 30, 2015 at 2:34 pm

    Could that be the last Time Rice played Texas and won? We were there and I seem to remember the goal posts coming down.

    Reply
  3. Steven Catlett says:
    January 30, 2015 at 3:21 pm

    Dagobert, it might also be the prior year. 1994? When Rice beat Navy to clinch its first winning season in forever. We tore the goal posts down then, too. And made the CBS Evening News.

    Reply
  4. Rick says:
    January 30, 2015 at 3:25 pm

    Sorry, Dagobert but we beat Texas on a rainy Sunday night so that would not be it. It does look like we won a game and the goalposts were coming down. I did not look up the year but I would bet in the mid-80s, possibly when Rice was in the midst of a three year run where the record was 1-32. Could have been ’85 when safety, and financial, concerns prompted the Campus Police to crack down on such things. Batons were used against students and that created a huge backlash.

    Reply
  5. Syd Polk says:
    January 30, 2015 at 3:37 pm

    That is the tearing down if the goalpost after Rice broke s long losing streak in 1983.

    Reply
    • almadenmike says:
      January 30, 2015 at 4:44 pm

      Rice’s 22-21 win over Southwestern Louisiana on Sept 24, 1983, which broke the Owls’ 15-game losing streak, was a night game. The Sept. 30 Thresher articles (on pp 1, 8 & 14) and a front-page photo describe the south goalposts being taken down. (https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67553/thr19830930.pdf?sequence=1) The photo above shows the north goalpost and looks to be a day game, so it was probably not taken at the 1983 win.

      The goalposts also came down after Rice’s next win, a 36-19 thrashing of Lamar on Sept. 22, 1984. But that was also a night game, as shown in a photo in the Sept. 28 Thresher.

      While some expressed concern about student safety and replacement costs of the goalpost dismantling, Coach Watson Brown loved the student enthusiasm … and, of course, the win in his second game as the Rice coach. “I’ll put a new one up every week,” he told the Thresher reporter. “I may even pay for it myself,”

      Alas, it was his and Rice’s only victory that year.

      Reply
  6. loki_the_bubba says:
    January 30, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    Cops rockin’ some sweet ‘staches.

    Reply
  7. marmer01 says:
    January 30, 2015 at 5:22 pm

    I was in the MOB with Syd and I seem to remember it happening, too. And it was a day game. But for some reason I thought it was beating Texas. That didn’t happen until the 90s.

    Reply
  8. marmer01 says:
    January 30, 2015 at 5:22 pm

    Bonus: I approve of the beer camp sponsor.

    Reply
  9. marmer01 says:
    January 30, 2015 at 5:24 pm

    The cops are Harris County Sheriff’s Deputies, not Rice Police, by the way.

    Reply
  10. grungy1973 says:
    January 30, 2015 at 8:16 pm

    Interesting…
    A completely-indecipherable t-shirt (although someone visiting here may recognize it), and the group of people in the stands just above the well-grasped ankle – women in long skirts and men wearing ties.
    We are likely seeking the lone day-game-first-victory-after-a-long-string-of-losses.
    I do seem to remember a victory after which the south goal post was heavily guarded, and the students simply sprinted for the unguarded north end zone.
    But I cannot recall what that game was.

    Reply
    • grungy1973 says:
      January 30, 2015 at 8:27 pm

      No mention of the goal posts coming down in the Thresher that reported the victory over Baylor in ’78 (only home victory that year, and this after four straight losses, and a day game).

      Reply
  11. John Witten says:
    January 31, 2015 at 9:01 am

    In the early 80’s the Rice Football team owned the countries longest losing streak. it spanned two seasons. this seems to be the celebration of the streak ending

    Reply
  12. marmer01 says:
    January 31, 2015 at 12:28 pm

    I’m pretty sure I remember this and it was in the early 80s because I got here in 1980. The Owls went 0-11 in 1982 and 1-10 in ’83 and ’84. My guess is this was ’83’s only victory, Sept. 23 vs. Louisiana-Lafayette. Or it could have been the Lamar game in Sept. ’85 or the first SWC victory since 1981, TCU in Oct. 85.

    Reply
  13. Deborah Gronke Bennett BSEE Hanszen 1982 says:
    January 31, 2015 at 10:56 pm

    Did you know there is an online Beer-Bike shirt gallery? The things you find online these days!
    http://shirts.dsandler.org/
    (No, the indecipherable t-shirt is not in there).

    Reply
  14. Deborah Gronke Bennett BSEE Hanszen 1982 says:
    January 31, 2015 at 11:14 pm

    I cropped the image down to the back of the t-shirt and did a google image search with no luck. The goalpost incident had not happened when I graduated and moved in 1982.

    Reply
  15. Richard Schafer says:
    January 31, 2015 at 11:54 pm

    The indecipherable T-shirt looks like it’s some sort of E.T. shirt — look at the hand in the image closely. The script above and below the image suggests to me some sort of attempt at an alien script. If it’s ET related, that would also suggest an 1982 date.

    Reply
  16. James Medford says:
    February 2, 2015 at 9:59 am

    I have two friends in the photo who arrived at Rice in the fall of 1985, and one of them says this would be the win over TCU that fall.

    Reply
    • almadenmike says:
      February 2, 2015 at 2:51 pm

      Thanks, James. That makes perfect sense. The Oct 25, 1985, issue of the Thresher has a number of stories and two full pages of photos (pp 20 & 21) about this game, the Owls’ first SWC win in nearly 4 years (a Nov. 14, 1981, win over Baylor), the controversies associated with the goalpost destruction and the state of Rice football under new Rice president George Rupp: https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67696/thr19851025.pdf?sequence=1

      Coming on the heels of the students’ goalpost takedown after the Sept 28 win over Lamar (a night game, see the Oct. 4 Thesher for story and front page photo), the TCU post-game celebration resulted in several student injuries as the Sheriff’s deputies tried to “defend” the metal tubes.

      BTW, Rice won its next game, too — a last-second win over Texas Tech in Lubbock on James Hamrick’s record 57-yard field goal (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bGWSWUiqlk) — to get to a 3-3 record, a level of success that wouldn’t be surpassed until 1991.

      Reply

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