Long drive contest: OU football fans going to El Paso
I’m calling bogus on Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh’s assertion that he drove from Houston to Artesia, N.M., when he was recruiting Landry Jones, who eventually signed with OU and will quarterback the Sooners against the Cardinal in the Sun Bowl.
Artesia is about three hours west of Lubbock, Texas. Which makes it about 31/2 hours northeast of El Paso. Now way did a major-college football coach drive from Houston to Artesia.
It’s 684 miles from Houston to Artesia. Most likely, Harbaugh flew to Lubbock, then drove over. Harbaugh wasn’t bluffing about everything; he talked about seeing tumbleweeds, and there’s no holes in that theory. You can see plenty of tumbleweeds on the Texas prairie outside Lubbock.
But Harbaugh’s story tells the problem OU fans face with the Sun Bowl. It’s a long way out to El Paso: 739 miles from Oklahoma City. That’s one reason Sooner fans preferred the Alamo Bowl. San Antonio is a better destination, yes, but also the travel is much easier.
Sometimes, people don’t have an appreciation for how far west is El Paso. It’s more than halfway across New Mexico, which is one big state.
Here’s another way of looking at it. When you drive from Houston — which remember, is in southeast Texas, just up the road from the gulf coast — to San Diego, El Paso is more than halfway there. It’s 750 miles from Houston to El Paso; 723 miles from El Paso to San Diego.
We think of the Sun Bowl as a Texas bowl, with good reason, and therefore a natural Big 12 bowl. But the truth is, the Sun Bowl is more of a Pac-10 bowl. El Paso is 316 miles from Tucson, Ariz., and 430 miles from Phoenix. El Paso is 811 miles from Los Angeles; it’s 802 miles from Stillwater to El Paso.
Of course, the Stanford fans have it even worse. Palo Alto, Calif., is 1165 miles from El Paso, which is about the same distance as Ames, Iowa, to El Paso.
Forgive me. I can get lost having fun with mileage and American geography. But the simple truth is this. El Paso is way out there and hard to reach without Southwest Airlines.
OU will struggle to sell tickets to the Sun Bowl. El Paso once had an exotic allure. Just across the river from Juarez, Mexico, a metropolis of four million that would give you a good taste of Mexican culture. Now nobody in their right mind would go over to Juarez, which is bucking for murder capital of the world with the drug battles going on.
Still, El Paso has its charms. The mountains begin at El Paso, and the Sun Bowl Stadium sits nestled among the bluffs of the Rockies. It’s a nice setting. And the Mexican food is outstanding.
It was in El Paso where Don Haskins introduced me to stacked enchiladas. If you haven’t had them, you must. They are enchiladas that aren’t rolled but instead are stacked on top of each other.
Haskins is my biggest regret of this Sun Bowl. The legendary Texas-El Paso coach died last year at the age of 78. And I do mean legend. A college basketball legend, for taking then-Texas Western to the 1966 NCAA title with an all-black starting lineup, and an El Paso icon.
I went out to El Paso in 1999 and did a story on the Bear, who still was coaching then. He was an Oklahoma State graduate and still loved his school. Over the last decade, he would call me to chat about things, see how the Cowboys were progressing. He pulled for Eddie Sutton and Sean Sutton and even Travis Ford, a product of Kentucky, the blueblood school Texas Western beat in that memorable 1966 NCAA final. The last time we talked before he died, Haskins called to chat about the hiring of Ford, in April 2008. Haskins died that September.
A trip to El Paso won’t be the same without Haskins. But it should be interesting for Sooner fans willing to go halfway to Los Angeles to get there.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Hi Berry! I am reminded of a quote from the tv show Seinfeld.
Kramer: “El Paso? I spent a month one night in El Paso!”
Rob in Baghdad
We drove to the Fiesta Bowl in 2007 had to go south because of the winter storm about to hit NEW Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma then. Wow what a drive from Norman, Oklahoma that trip was.
I’ll stay home on this one…
I was there about 3 months ago, and it is a neat looking city. Modern suburbs and old homes all over the hills nearer downtown. I’d like to go to the game and enjoy the city and the Sooners victory, hopefully!
OKC to ALBQ. flight.
Rental drive to El Paso.
Rental drive back to AlBQ.
ALBQ. to OKC flight.
GO SOONERS!!
Here is one other. If you flipped TX to the East El Paso would be in the Atlantic ocean. Flip TX to the west and Beaumont TX would be well out into the Pacific Ocean.