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The Miners Knock Off Arizona!

I put on my Miner orange welder’s goggles and leaned back. I thought about my UTEP MINERS winning their game against Arizona this evening on national television. The Miners had the ball first and Arizona set up their defense. Cheating toward the line, the Miners snapped the ball and handed it off to the running back who struggled and fought for the two yards he got.

On the second down, the quarterback dropped three steps and hit a streaking tight end across the middle , getting behind the linebackers and dragging three defensive backs for an extra ten yards before they could wrestle him to the ground, and shocked the 15 thousand die hard fans to attention. The next play from scrimmage went to a wide open wide receiver on his way to the first six points of the night. The Miners in uniform mob the two conspirators celebrating their pitch and catch in the end zone, but rush to get off of the field. The team is unintentionally showing their inner joy. They have been told that there will and must be passes downfield. They must be completed! The energy is deafening!

The Miners defense comes out on fire and holds Arizona to three downs and a punt. The Miners offense sprints onto the field. The offensive line pancakes the Arizona defensive line and UTEP goes straight up through the middle for 35 yards. The quarterback hurries the team to the line and while Arizona reels, he fades back to throw. Defenders run on instinct towards the quarterback and receivers. The delayed draw catches the defense completely out of position to do anything but watch, as the back trots into the end zone. With 10 minutes and change left in the first quarter, the Miners have jumped out to a 14 to nothing lead.

The rest of the first half is a back and forth affair, each team getting into the end zone twice more. The second half opens with the Miners leading 28 to 14. The Miners defense allows Arizona to pull to within a score on a long drive, but the Miners also force them to use nearly 12 minutes to do it. The Miners offense takes another 12 minutes off of the clock with their next possession and once again the lead is back to fourteen. They score quickly, going up field in chunks of ten to twenty yards at a time and with three minutes left make the score 35-28 Miners. On the ensuing kick, the Miners returner runs it back for a touchdown! The crowd goes wild. No, I mean the crowd is frenzied. My own wife is kissing all over me in the excitement! So much so that she is getting slobbery and downright annoying! Alright! That’s enough! Dang! I push her away and she barks at me. Ok, now, that’s enough! Nock it off! I can’t even see her with these welder’s goggles on. I must have nodded off. I pull the goggles off and rub my eyes to adjust them to the light. My dog is on the couch telling me it is time for her afternoon treats. Dreams of a Miners fan.

Sports, UTEP, and Dr. Natalicio

I hate that it is all that I do lately but here is more downer shit. Dr. Natalicio has been in charge for more than a quarter of a century at UTEP. Ask yourselves what the football has been like during that period. Now, do you think she hasn’t heard anything before? She teaches kids. Football is a diversion for the students, and since they don’t care, she reads that quite clearly. It doesn’t matter to anyone except silly fans. I know exactly how it works on a campus. Leadership comes from the captain of the ship. What do you think she does, what her job is? To run all of UTEP’s different departments and set the agenda, tone, and measure the results. Literally, she and doesn’t ask Stull, she tells him the agenda, makes sure he understands how she feels about it, and has watched the results. Since Stull was here as long as he wanted to be here, he was obviously doing exactly what she wanted done. She is the President and she has never been a rubber stamp figurehead. She is a very strong leader. Any teacher out there knows which principals run a tight ship, one that gets it done in all areas, academically, athletically, cafeteria, and sparkling shiny floors. Any one on that ship not performing at a level of expectations will be gone. Nothing personal. They are cold blooded when it comes their ship. Oh, and the people who work there, love it and the Captain. They shine just like the floors. It is pretty obvious to me that Dr. Natalicio has weighed the different aspects of the Athletic Departments role and is comfortable with its level of performance. As for it being the face of the University as seen across the country, ask yourselves how many of her students come from anywhere other than El Paso county. Nope, for her, and to those she is serving The Best Bang For the Buck recognition for the degrees she hands to her kids is all that matters. Everything is perfect in Minerland. Even the football players are getting good grades.

Why Are Perenial Losers Perenial Losers?

When you are a UTEP Miners football fan, when that team is the team that represents the university that you love, you have plenty of opportunities to think about losing. UTEP should offer a Doctoral Program in Losing. Most of us longtime fans could test out and be awarded the degrees, especially if there were verbal exams before boards of fellow Doctorates in Losing.

But, today, I thought I would narrow the topic a bit. First, we have to acknowledge that there are such a thing as winners and losers. They can change over time and one can become the other, but we have to agree that there are losers. Everyone is a winner and everyone has experienced losing. But, there are the Golden Childs and there are the Born Losers. And what is also true is that there is a certain amount of human nature that reverts to the animalistic behavior of pecking and picking on the “loser” to drive them out. We would love to deny it, but there is that part of us that is more than ok with it. Now wait a minute! I’m not talking about a regular old day to day person having a tough time. No, they get all of the right emotions and thoughts. Nope, I’m talking about the “born losers”. It is almost like they like it and deserve it, but we know that is just bs. But, still. There is that feeling. What a loser! Contempt and so much more.

Are the Born Losers genetically predetermined or did they learn to be losers. Nature versus nurture. Native American burial grounds, the Curse of the Bambino, or living down to the standards and expectations of a tradition of losing. Who knows? My question is, can a born loser change that, or it the answer in the name? Can UTEP Football ever be anything other than it has been for more than a few years once in a Blue Moon?

Of course it can. The world is full of stories about the hopeless finding a way. Or a way finding them. They are the very best stories of all, and we love them. Even when we are proved wrong. More so, maybe, because it reinforces our having faith in turning the things around in our own lives. Not today, necessarily, but a some time when we need it them most. I hope our worm gets turned sooner than later. We’ve been down for so long we have to look up to see the soles of our feet.

But, we continue to look up, and build character, perhaps. We are, after all, Miners.

But, Hey! We Have Pretty New Helmets and Uniforms and How About Some Nice Box Seats

This is going to make even more Miners fans mad at me, but any of you that were excited about helmet logos or new jerseys and colors leave me shaking my head. We are villagers in Dark Ages Europe with the Black Plague raging and some of you are impressed with the size of the rats! I know, you are just trying to be good fans. Looking for anything positive. I know. I understand. Maybe Kugler can get some of those cool little stickers to put on the pretty new helmets. That white was intimidating, now wasn’t it. More like uniforms made out of French surrender flags!

OK, I honestly have to ask. Are the Club Box Seats Stull envisioned for the Richie Riches to watch Monster Trucks and U2 Concerts? Cartel money from across the border for soccer matches? Because, seriously, it can’t be for Miners fans to watch Miners football, can it? Really? Let an individual, or some corporation try and get a loan for that idea. Yeah, sure, we are going to sell these nice Club Boxes to people with lots of money or like companies to give the tickets away to their customers. Oh, yeah, those will sell like hot cakes. Who can’t wait to spend an evening watching the home team getting used and abused like a Mike Tyson sparring partner. No, it has to be for the other things.

Discuss it here;

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