[SIZE=12pt]OK, here goes…[/SIZE]
1st of all: born in Big Spring, raised in Houston. I'm 56. One younger brother went to Texas and is now with the NTSB. Other brother runs a flight dept for an extremely wealthy family (he played for the Bear at Bama.) Dad would have played at Texas but he tore his knee up in State Championship game. Wife of 30 years works at Rice (pretty high up in Admin, that’s where I got to know Chris Del Conte and Major) one daughter, 24 years old , actress, named… Jennifer Lawrence.
UT stuff: As my parents told us, my brothers and I are OU babies. Mid July birthdays, do the math. Dad was well connected to the program his whole life. He and a few other friends had rooms at the Villa Capri every football weekend, right by the Pool. Coach Royal and others would roam room to room shaking hands and chatting. I remember even sitting on Charlie Pride’s lap as he sang one night. I wish I had been able to chronicle those events with video.
When they expanded Memorial Stadium and added the 200 Club my father’s good friend Mike Campbell called him and asked to get some friends to join the new club, which he did. When it opened my father and mother usually sat with Mike and Mary before, during and after each home game in the 200 club. Coach Royal joined them on a few occasions. Again, I wish I had recorded some of those conversations. I've missed just two OU games since 74.
We still have the 200 club seats( now called the Centennial Room) and have another 16 tickets 8 in sec 5, 4 in sec 4 and 4 up on the second row of the west upper deck.
Me: degree program was PLM at UT (back when they had it) but I took a lot of RTF classes before they were cool. Worked in Oil and Gas a few years, got CFP and eventually became in-house fee-only financial planner for a prestigious tax and estate planning law firm. When I realized I really didn’t like many of my clients due to the asset protection specialty niche I had fit into, I sold my practice and chased my long time passion of Sports Media Broadcasting. Became a cameraman that worked most every PGA Tour event and an NFL game during football weekends. Primarily for CBSSports. But I shot everything over the years. I’ve been on the field for Super Bowls, World Series, NBA Championships, Masters Tennis Championship etc, etc, etc. I also worked 15 Masters and PGA Championships as well as every Tour event carried by CBS. Never worked a Open or British. Though you’ve seen a lot of my shots the one that most people in the biz remember me by is the shot of the Bag Pipe player coming out of the fog at the Memorial Service for Payne Stewart during the Tour Championship at Champions GC. I told that story on TOS.
I am also an actor. When others went to Toastmasters during sales training, I went and took acting lessons. I don’t do local theatre any longer but have been in some feature films. In the mirror Dimly, Career Day, Home Fries, Michael, The Alamo (I played Edward Burleson) and a slew of bad made for Lifetime movies of the week. My closest friend played the Surly bartender in Lonesome Dove and I have an ongoing promise to Slim to drag his ass to one of Slim’s tailgates. Brandon was also in The Alamo as JC Neil.
When I wasn’t on the road I worked in sales for my father’s Chemical Company. We were basic to SABIC in MEG so I blended my own antifreeze and sold it in bulk and packaged. It was fun and challenging, one day I might have lunch with a member of the Royal Saudi family and then go meet some small jobber in the afternoon that barely had a pot to piss in.
Now I do some consulting work in Sports Broadcast Media, shoot some commercials and industrials and occasionally end up “in†a commercial or two each month. I’m also working on something unbelievably promising with a couple of other members of this board. Stay tuned.
