The M.O.B. Strikes Again!

We are blessed to have some amazing college bands in the Houston area like TSU's Ocean of Soul, Prairie View A&M's Marching Storm, and UH's Spirit of Houston.

But none of them can match the legendary irreverence of Rice University's Marching Owl Band, or 'The MOB' as they are affectionately known.

The MOB doesn't wear traditional band uniforms or march onto the field.  They scatter into formations in their pinstriped three piece suits and fedora hats.   They also live for irreverently poking fun at their game day rivals, politics, life on the Rice campus and themselves.

While those MOB shows can be good natured at times, there are other times the MOB drew ire from their targets because they struck a nerve.   One memorable MOB show involved them during a November 17, 1973 game at Rice Stadium poking fun at cherished Texas A&M Aggie traditions. 

The MOB Nazi goose stepped onto the field, mocked the Aggie War Hymn and the Corps of Cadets, and formed a fire hydrant while playing 'Oh Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone' to mock the Aggie mascot Reveille



The Aggies were not amused, and losing the game to Rice didn't help matters    The pissed off Aggie fans formed a mob of their own that trapped the embattled band in the stadium tunnel for several hours after the game.   HPD had to come in to disperse the crowd as the band escaped the Aggie wrath in empty food trucks

In 2007, the MOB mocked the legal woes of the Texas Longhorns by playing the theme from Dragnet as three band members dressed as Longhorn players were chased by other band members carrying cardboard police cars.

In 2011, days before Texas A&M announced they were leaving the Big 12 for the SEC, during the Owls season opener against Texas in Austin, they formed the words '$EC' during their halftime show.

In  2016, when Baylor last made the trip to Houston to play the Owls, the MOB not only formed the roman numeral IX to refer to Title IX and the sexual assault scandal engulfing the school at the time, they formed a star and played 'Hit the Road Jack' to allude to the firing of former Baylor president Ken Starr

They whacked UT again this season when they spelled out '2.89', which is the cumulative GPA of the Texas Longhorn football team.   



The MOB struck again last Saturday as they hosted Baylor at Rice Stadium.    They took a jab at Baylor for denying a charter for an on campus LGBTQ group.  They formed the word 'Pride' and played the Village People's YMCA as students ran onto the field carrying the various TBLGQ community group pride flags.

Aw yeah.   Going to have to check out a Rice home game before the season is over to see what the MOB does next.

 

BLM HOU Panel At Rice University

Header to the Rice University campus starting at 11 AM for a panel sponsored by BLM HOU.

Even though as a proud Cougar there's a rivalry between the two schools, even we have to admit that Rice has a beautiful campus that like ours, has hosted some historic events like the G7 Summit in 1990.

Today we'll be at Cohen House from 11-1 PM to discuss social justice issues of importance to the Houston area community.

Looking forward to seeing all the Rice students who read TransGriot there and those of you who can attend it be there.   

Rice University Makes Princeton Review List of LGBT Friendly Colleges

As a proud UH Cougar, hating Rice University when we play them in any sport is Job One. 

But there's no shade involved when it comes to discussing this remarkable accomplishment by our brothers and sisters on that century old campus.

In the recent 2105 update by the Princeton Review of the 20 most friendly/unfriendly LGBT campuses in the country, H-town's Rice University cracked the Top 20 and made the 'Most Friendly LGBT Campus' list 

Rice was the only Texas school on the 'Most Friendly LGBT Campus' list at number 20, with Stanford University topping it this year.  And yeah, I question Smith College's #4 ranking when they are and have been hostile to the enrollment of transfeminine students. 

In case you're wondering who made the LGBT unfriendly list, Baylor and Texas A&M made it on the 20 most unfriendly LGBT schools list for the second consecutive year. 

I'm happy there are no HBCU's on that Top 20 LGBT unfriendly list, but disappointed none have made the Top 20 friendly list either.  

Time to get busy changing that perception HBCU's.  Black LGBT students exist, and failure to deal with that reality will cost you in the long term.

The Princeton Review, not affiliated with the more famous Ivy League university, since 1992 has published an annual review of 379 colleges based on student surveys in 62 categories. 

The annual survey asked 130,000 students at 379 top colleges to rate their schools on dozens of topics and report on their experiences at them. Students were asked 80 questions about their school and themselves during the 2013-14 and/or previous two school years. An average of 343 students per school were surveyed. 

“Our purpose is not to crown one college ‘best’ overall or to rank these distinctive schools 1 to 379 on any single topic,” said Princeton Review senior vice president Robert Franek. “We present our 62 ranking lists to give applicants the broader base of campus feedback to choose the college that’s best for them.”

So yes, this is a BFD for Rice and megacongratulations to them for cracking the Top 20 on the 'Most Friendly LGBT Schools' list.  

It's not only something for you Rice Owls to pop your collars about, but gives Rice LGBT alums like Mayor Annise Parker and us TBLG Houstonians something else to brag about concerning our hometown in our national community circles. 

It's also giving us another reason to fight hard to ensure the HERO is a permanent fixture in our Houston Code of Ordinances so that Houston gets the benefits of the future LGBT kids drawn to Rice to get that quality college education on an LGBT friendly campus.

Rice Wins 2013 C-USA Football Title!

Some of my local TransGriot readers are Rice University students, and despite the fact as a Cougar alum they are one of our big rivals and we UH fans enjoy (and vice versa) beating the crap out of them in whatever sport we play them in, (baseball is a different story because Rice dominates us) us), have to give them a major TransGriot shoutout  for winning the C-USA title game that was played in Houston yesterday. 

The Owls knocked off C-USA East Champ Marshall 41-24 at Rice Stadium to go 10-3 on the season, earn a invite to the Liberty Bowl against a soon to be named SEC opponent and win their first outright conference championship since they were members of the dearly departed (sniff sniff) Southwest Conference in 1957.

So there was probably some celebrating happening on their South Main campus.   Even this die hard UH Cougar fan has to show them some love after winning their first outright conference football title in 56 years and their first since they joined C-USA in 2005.

Congrats to Rice and good luck in the Liberty Bowl!
 

2011 UH Cougar Watch-Record Breaking Cougars Eat Up Rice

The Ruck Fice shirts were in full effect along with a raucous sellout Robertson Stadium crowd that braved rain brought in by a cold front transiting the Houston area to watch the Coogs take back the Bayou Bucket with a 73-34 victory over our crosstown rivals.

The 18th ranked Cougars are now 8-0 and 4-0 in C-USA West Division play, and matches the 1979 SWC championship squad and the 1990 team for the best in school history.

Rice put up a fight in the first quarter.   The Owls took advantage of the rain, their Wild Owl rushing attack and three Cougar first quarter turnovers to forge a 17-7 lead after Tyron Carrier took the opening kickoff and returned it 100 yards for a touchdown to tie former Clemson RB CJ Spiller's NCAA record of seven career touchdowns and take an opening 7-0 advantage before the skies opened up.  

But once Case and Company got it in gear and Rice stubbornly kept trying to blitz Keenum and play the speedy Cougar receivers in man coverage, UH scored touchdowns on nine of its next 11 offensive possessions to quickly erase that 20-14 deficit and forge a 38-20 halftime lead.

With Rice lining up in a seven man front and daring the Cougars to throw deep to beat them, UH accepted the challenge and repeatedly toasted the Rice secondary like Quiznos subs.for the rest of the night.   

Mmm mmm tasty.    

The guy doing most of the toasting was Patrick Edwards.  He caught seven passes for five touchdowns and 318 yards.  He tied Elmo Wright's UH school record with five TD receptions in one game and the career record for touchdown at 34.

Case Keenum after the shaky start was 24 of 37 for nine touchdowns and 534 years with one interception.   He also passed Graham Harrell of Texas Tech to become the all-time FBS leader in career touchdown passes with 139

Rice had a record setter in this game as well.  Owls running back Tyler Smith got loose for a 97 yard  touchdown run that broke the Rice school record for the longest one in their 100 years of playing football.

It also broke the C-USA record that was set by UH Antowain Smith in 2006 that was a mere 96 yards.   

Next up for the Cougars is a road trip to Alabama to face the UAB Blazers and a trip to the Superdome to play Tulane on November 10.

2011 UH Cougar Watch-High Stakes Bayou Bucket Battle

For only the third time in the football playing history of the University of Houston we've gotten off to a 7-0 start after last weekend's C-USA blowout of the Marshall Thundering Herd 63-28.

But now we play a C-USA West Division game against our crosstown rivals the Rice Owls for bragging rights and the Bayou Bucket trophy. .

Despite the fact the football series only started in 1971 when UH joined the Southwest Conference, it has some history.  Cougar fans haven't forgotten that Rice beat us 14-13 in Bill Yeoman's last game as UH's head coach in 1986.  Andre Ware's 1989 team lit up Rice 64-0 before he picked up the Heisman Trophy the next week . The last SWC football game was played between Rice and UH in 1995 which we won 18-17.   

Despite the fact that UH has a 25-10 record against the Owls in this Bayou Bucket series, Rice has a maddening habit of ruining our best laid football plans.  In addition to them beating us last year 34-31 at Rice Stadium to reclaim the Bucket after the Cougars barbecued them 73-14 enroute to the 2009 C-USA championship game, there was a more upsetting 52-45 loss in 2008 that cost us the C-USA West Division title and a chance to go to the C-USA title game that year.

The Bayou Bucket game is moving to a neutral site at Reliant Stadium for the next two years, so my fave college football team is going to go into this game knowing that the Owls will fight, scrap, claw and try to do everything it can over that 60 minutes to walk out of Robertson Stadium with the Bayou Bucket still in their possession.

If they can knock us out of the unbeaten ranks and ruin a potentially special season for us, so much the better for their ability to rub our noses in it. 

The Coogs will do everything possible to protect the Rob, their rankings in the BCS, AP and coaches polls, bring that trophy back to Cullen Blvd where it belongs and get to 8-0 and 4-0 in the C-USA West Division.

Should be fun to watch.

Close But No Cougar Championships

I spent the day pulling for my UH women's softballers and men's baseballers hoping they would emerge victorious today, but it was not to be for either team. 

The Cougar women were up in Stillwater, OK in a super regional against Oklahoma State.   They were playing  for the opportunity to advance to our school's first Women's College World Series.  

Despite banging out 10 hits in the first game of the series, they couldn't get the key hit they needed to score some runs and were shut out 3-0.  It also didn't help that UH's ace pitcher Amanda Crabtree had to leave Game 1 with a reinjured wrist after only two innings..

That put the Cougars in the position where they had to win Game 2 or go home, and they did so with a 1-0 shutout win courtesy of Donna Bourgeois.to force the decisive third game.

Donna Bourgeois got the start in Game 3 because Amanda Crabtree still wasn't able to go    She got pulled after the Cowgirls loaded the bases in favor of freshman Diedre Outon.

The Cowgirls built a 3-0 first inning lead but the Cougars clawed their way back into it with two runs in the bottom of the first and took a 4-3 lead courtesy of a Jennifer Klinkert two run homer in the third inning.

The Cowgirls struck back in the fifth with three runs to retake the lead 6-4.  UH made it interesting in the bottom of the seventh when Baillie Lott blasted a solo shot to narrow the margin to 6-5.    Unfortunately Houston native and Cowgirl ace Kat Espinosa retired the next three Cougar batters to preserve the victory and clinch the trip to Oklahoma City and the WCWS.

A few hours later the UH baseball team was in Pearl, MS trying to snap a 14 game losing streak against the top seeded Rice Owls in the C-USA tournament championship game.  

Rice has had to overcome slow starts in their tournament games and repeated the pattern against a determined Cougar squad by falling into a 3-0 hole thanks to UH starter Jared Ray pitching a masterful game.  He only allowed one earned run and three total over eight innings. 

After the Cougars stranded a runner on second base in the top of the 10th, the Owls got the game winning hit in the bottom of the 10th to secure their 4-3 win and another C-USA tournament title.

It was close but no championships for both Cougar squads.   The women softballers finished with a 44-18 record, were C-USA regular season co-champs, and considering they were playing without their ace pitcher, came within a few outs of making it to the school's first women's CWS.  

The baseball team was 27-32, has battled injuries all season, but fought and scrapped their way to the C-USA championship game and made the Owls earn it..   

Proud of both teams and hope y'all have better results next season.

This Time It's For The C-USA Title

The UH and Rice campuses are several miles apart and when we're not trash talking each other about our respective campuses, we have heated rivalries in whatever sport we're competing against each other in.

While UH has dominated the sporting rivalry on the football, and basketball side, when it comes to baseball, the Owls are the team to beat.

The Owls captured the 2003 CWS title, have dominated baseball since joining Conference USA in 2005, and won a share of the 2011 C-USA regular season title.   They are a regular fixture in the C-USA tournament championship game, having played in it four times in the last five years.   

And to the consternation of Cougar fans the Silver Glove Trophy, which has been since 1998 awarded to the school that wins the season baseball series between Rice and UH has been owned by them for 11 straight years.   Rice has beaten UH 14 straight times, including five times this season and 19 of the last 20 since 2008.

We've also had to endure the ribbing from Rice fans that for the first time in two decades swept the mens  major sports in the regular season of an academic year.

Case Keenum coming back for a medical redshirt year will take care of that football issue and the Bayou Bucket will reside on Cullen Blvd.where it belongs once again.

2008 was the last time UH won the C-USA tournament title and they struggled through injuries this year in finishing 12-12 in conference play.   True to their season, they did it the hard way once they arrived in Pearl, MS, the C-USA tournament venue.   It took a five run ninth inning rally to beat third seeded  East Carolina in their tournament opener, then beat second seeded Southern Mississippi in a 14 inning marathon that ended at 2 AM.    They dropped a 7-1 decision to Tulane but their 2-1 pool play record was enough to get them to the title game.

And who will be the Cougars 2011 C-USA title game opponent?     None other than the top seeded Owls, who have now made it to five C-USA title games in the last six years..

This all Houston C-USA title affair features one more UH versus Rice matchup at 7 PM CDT.   This time the winner gets the C-USA title and an automatic bid to the NCAA playoffs to determine who goes to Omaha for the NCAA 2011 College World Series.

Sooner or later we're going to beat them in a baseball game this season.   Sure would be nice if it were today.