T J Rios

The TeXennial Football Experience T J Rios

Being born and raised in San Antonio, TX, football wasn't just a weekend game. My friends and I played football every day of the week and watched it twice on Sunday. Two Texas teams occupied our TV. One team wearing a "Star" on their helmet, with the other team sporting a "rig". We spent Saturdays watching burnt orange "steer" or maroon and white "farmers," hoping one day to sign a letter of intent to step onto those storied fields. And Friday, the main event of the entire weekend, was a night filled with the greatest sights and sounds of my childhood. The smell of freshly cut grass, the exuberance of the marching band, the rattling of the bleachers and the roaring of the home crowd. In my thirty-six years on earth, that home crowd has been in Converse, TX, home to one of the state's most celebrated and imitated football programs ever, the Judson Rockets. I grew up idolizing those guys, never wanting anything else but to play and win a championship like the teams I watched as a kid. While many of my peers were playing catch under the bleachers, I was focused on the game and what was happening on the field. And I guess it started there, as a young kid watching the best high school team in the state of Texas, fully obsessed with every aspect of the game. This trip down memory lane is for the avid football fanatic, and anyone who grew up in Texas during the 80s and 90s.