#athleticstadium

“Alright everyone let’s get ready to de-bus.” Braxton said.

“What the fuck is a de-bus?” BrisQuo asked. “This nigga been making up words since we got here. You better be careful Theo. I think he feeling you. His head lean a little bit harder when he look at you.”

Our tour guide was a proud alumnus, and never missed an opportunity to point out landmarks from a land before their time in Austin. He was a tall slender man with a large oval shaped head. It appeared to bobble as he walked. His voice was high-pitched and he made sure to enunciate every syllable, with particularity.

We arrived at the University around noon or so. It was another Texas scorcher. Temperatures rested relentlessly in the triple digits. What else could we have expected in mid- July? Anything other than one hundred plus just wouldn’t have been right.

After a three-hour drive, that felt like days, we’d finally arrived at The University campus. Most of us on this trip were bright-eyed first generation college students with no clue of what to expect. All we knew about the University was what we’s read in pamphlets and heard from recruiters, like Braxton. “What starts here...”

“Gone on BrisQuo.” Theo said. “He can’t be looking at me Young, cause I ain’t even got the time.” Theo said looking in Young’s direction as he spoke. 

Theo and Young had spent countless hours scrubbing the Chick & Strip floor, cleaning deep fryers and serving up customers.  They talked about dreams of what they’d do when they finally left Dallas. For Young, he was deciding between being a lawyer, a sports agent or some combination of the two. For Theo, it seemed like the goal was college itself and anything after that, he expected it to come to him. To their families, it was an accomplishment just to be leaving high school with a diploma. The prospect of college and what it had to offer, felt like a miracle.

The campus was unlike anything the Dallas Troop could have imagined. It spanned Fifty Acres. From highway 35, they could see the monumental tower that stood in the center. It stood over 300 feet and cast a long shadow that left everything in its posterior shrouded in darkness. Another notable structure was the monumental Athletic Stadium that rested at the base of the campus. The stadium sat over 333,000. It was a cathedral of browning stone dedicated to the campus’ largest stream of revenue, aside from the students.