Or as we say at my house, keep expectations low, as usual, and no one will be too disappointed.
It wasn’t until this morning that I read the article that accompanied the picture of Dr. Lovett in a football helmet. There’s quite a bit of interest in there, beginning with ten thousand fans showing up on a Friday night for a booster event. This marked the beginning of Coach Jimmie Kitts’s second year, following on a SWC championship championship season. We’ve talked about that 1934 season before, or more accurately we’ve talked about a silver trophy that the young women of the Elizabeth Baldwin Literary Society presented to the team ten years after they expected to.
Note also the mention of new and improved facilities for the games, including increased seating capacity. I wrestled with the birth and demise of those bleachers a couple of years ago, here, here and here.
Finally, Dr. Lovett was sort of right. The Owls went a respectable 8-3 for the 1935 season but wound up in the middle of the pack in the Southwest Conference with a disappointing 3-3 record.
Bonus: Another wet, drippy day.
It may have been wet & drippy outside … but nearby is the beautiful & dry Baker Commons.
Goog;e “1935 Rice Owls” to get the complete story. SMU was the undefeated conference champion, and the four private school finished ahead of Arkansas, UT, and TAMC. I doubt that this has happened very often in SWC history.