This is primarily a Tulane football blog, although I do occasionally comment on all matters Tulane that may or may not be any of my business. I love following Tulane Greenwave football, zing-zang Bloody Marys, hostessing cute tailgating parties, and life in New Orleans. It's fabulous. oh and I adore Mr. Hullabaloo.
PS This blog is not affiliated in any way "officially" with Tulane University or Tulane Athletics. It is purely the crazy antics and obsessions of Mr. and Mrs. Hullabaloo who love them some greenwave (I say tee-ay (!) y'all).
A1A beachfront avenue! Ok....that doesn't quite work in this scenario, but whatever: Coach Hullabaloo and I are here in Houston with the team in our final mainland game of the Hutson-Toledo era. and Big News: we'll also be in Hawaii next week!
I'm preemptively writing now cuz we fly back today immediately after the game - literally they load us all up on the buses and zip straight to the airport. So I'll do a write up on Sunday since the Saints have a bye (just warning yous in advance cause y'all just race on to the webs and spike up the traffic here like a nano second after the game and I need some time to collect my thoughts).
Well it's a big day here in Houston regardless cause College Gameday is covering the SMU Houston game across town. Tis is a mini reunion of CUSA here in Houston. Hope Tulane brings it and we can therefor piggyback some media to counteract all of Tammy's bull the past few weeks. And all the blah blah about Old Man Keenum and his Cooters (aren't y'all like over it? a 40 year old up for the heisman! just kidding, he's not 40, but dernit I think I was still in college when he started playing).
And listen y'all what I want to counteract most: our woes this season are not cause we don't match up. No ma'am. Cuz after riding elevators with team members, our guys are most definitively "bigger, faster, stronger" (remember that ditty?). I was like WHOAH when I was standing next to them on the elevators. And the funniest thing was the plane ride. We took a Southwest charter and somehow the seating got bungled so instead of ample room allowing 2 to a row, everyone got crammed in side-by-side like sausages. To the flight attendant's credit, they did play our fight song over the speakers to get us riled up.
So it's almost time for kick off, so OccupyRice y'all! Let's finish strong!
Word. Tulane has a Division 3 Ice Hockey team. My next project! Squeal!
I just love, LOVE hockey. Well, in theory I love hockey. I don't like follow it professionally so don't call me out for being completely deficient in the hockey knowledge department.
I just heart trash talking, aggressive beat downs. So Hockey fits the New Orleans nature to a "T."
Coach and I used to geaux to the New Orleans Brass games when they occupied the New Orleans Arena. With all this dreariness of the NBA lockout I wish that they had just left the Brass alone. Much more fun, and the only drama was the performance on the court. It was awesome.
So I am rounding up a possee to hit the road to Decatur, Alabama for the last weekend in January to catch Tulane "Stick It" to Mississippi State.
Decatur appears to be near Huntsville, Alabama, so I shall double dip the trip and stop by Jim N Nick's Barbeque in Birmingham (sooo good!). Men's basketball is away that weekend, Women's basketball is off, so it's totally a win-win.
If you would like to support some smashmouth hockey - check em out here.
Yeah Yeah Yeah - I flaked out on posting. It was a work day Friday so sue me.
Anyways, I really didn't pay attention to the game after the first half with all of the commotion going on up in the suites and all. It's ALL anybody can talk about so I need not discuss it further until the souffle is totally baked.* And no, ain't takin about Mathieu's locker.
*(well, one small note - everybody's got "a source" and Comedian Al's is hilarious. He claims he is sleeping with a friend of you know who's daughter. You know who's daughter is 15, so this would make Al a dirty old man. The bottom line is this: I can't wait for this to be concluded so that we can all come out in the open and say for real who knew what, when and how. Because the only people who don't know what's up are the media and TammyFletcher they are acting like fools)
But listen, everything is gonna be Alright. Coach Hutson is up for the head coaching position at Eastern Illinois, we have great candidates up for our open position and Tammy Nunez got exposed for the fool that I knew she was all along.
So we had a great Tailgate/Going Away for one of our favorite tailgatresses whose hubby has landed his dream job in the NFL. Quite exciting and we are so proud of her and her family moving on up.
It was our Texan Burger tailgate and I spent Thursday in the kitchen making Jalapeno Popper Dip (!), Chipotle mayo, Sandra Lee's southwest burgers and Cowboy caviar. The cowboy caviar was ok, I wouldn't call it a kepper. But the Jalapeno Popper Dip was simply amazing - and it actually tasted like jalapeno poppers! So Easy.
Word. I've already posted the Jalepeno Popper Dip once, but it's so good that it deserves to be reposted twice, three times. Whatever it takes.
LIFE CHANGING JALAPENO POPPER DIP 2 packages of softened cream cheese, room temp 1 cup mayo (yeah. this is not a low cal dip) 1 cup grated parm cheese divided 1 can diced jalapenos drained 2 fresh jalapenos sliced, seeds/ribs removed 1/4 cup bread crumbs
Let cream cheese sit out til it's soft soft. Preheat oven to 375. Mix together with a cup of mayo and half cup parm cheese. OK, do not try to do this by hand because you will die. I was dumb enough to do that. Use a mixer if you own one. Fold in your fresh and canned jalapenos. Pour mixture into a baking dish and scrape every last morsel out of the mixing bowl (I used an aluminum one that fit into our chaffing dish stand). Mix bread crumbs and remainder of parm cheese together and then crumble over top of the delicious creaminess. Pop into the oven and bake for 20 minutes or so until the bread crumbs are browned. Serve warm at tailgating and stand back because it will be gone.
What was most definitely not alright was this (!)
Pictured here, anonymously, is Colonel Reb. Our favorite Ole Miss Tulane Fan. Yes, they exist. He grew up lovin The Wave, but did his schoolin up in Oxford. He is a trip. Last week at SMU (yes he travels to away games also, so we see him often) I ended up getting a sideline pass and gave it to Colonel Reb. We started doing well and so we made him stay down there on the sideline. He loved it loved it, because he got to hear up close and personal the Greenies start trash talking the Ponies.
So you can imagine my surprise when he showed up at tailgates with that in his hand (!). Anyways, his story is that one of the Greenbackers sent their son to pick up a case of beer for him to bring to tailgate and said son purchased these. Seriously. Colonel Reb will drink anything, so they told him to take some. Well when he got to Mrs. Hullabaloo's tailgate we covered that puppy up with a Tulane koozie lest it leave us permanently scarred for life. For sure.
This was so funny that I couldn't wait to report on it.
Apparently a Greenie Dat is friends with a Cooter and they tried to sit near us in our section at some point in the first half. The Cooters scored and he jumped up and down and started hootin and hollerin like this was the first time he'd seen a touchdown. Coach Hullabaloo was livid. Peggy started wondering aloud who this fool was. So I decided to take the direct approach:
Cooter Fan: YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! That's what I'm talkin about!!!
Mrs. Hullabaloo: Hey! Hey! Hey You! (finally getting Cooter Fan's attention) When's your next workout video coming out?
Cooter Fan: What?
Coach Hullabalo: Yeah! Richard Simmons called and he wants his headband back!
It was hilarious. Look at Coach Hullabaloo acting sassy! Surpised the heck out of me. Peggy was still laughing to herself well into the third quarter over the headband comment. Cooter Fan tucked his tail between his legs and took off. But not before I snapped this picture of him silenced and his friend snickering at him.
After Cooter Fool had left, Peggy and I were miming "He's a Maniac! Maniac! on the floo-oor" .... He's a Cooter Town Fool on a Thursday night, looking for the fight of his life.. In the real time world, no one sees him at all ...They all say he's craa-zy..." Ok anybody not of the Flashdance Era will not get this Michael Sambella ditty.
Yes we were immature, but sooooooo worth it.
You know what else was worth it? Screaming to the ref who called an unsportsman-like or excessive hit or whatever penalty that was that spotted the Cooters yet another touchdown. It was quelle bull. Definitively. Earlier in the game a ref got taken out ice cold and wheeled off in a stretcher. I kept yelling that this other bogus ref needed to be taken out on a stretcher also. Cause it was pitiful.
Anyways, with the appearance of UTFM - I decided to social butterfly amongst my Greenie Dat peeps. I took this cute video of the Shockwave Dancers.
I just loved the little future shockwave dancer trying to imitate them! Chickadee's Newcomb little sister is a member of Shockwave, so I was glad to have some shots of her. The TU Brass Band is one of my favorite game day traditions.
Next to this one.
Isn't this cool? Will make me miss the dome when we move the games back to campus....
This Wave Momma was a trip! She got up and started hollering "Trent! Bring Me That Ball!" or "Come on Defense!! Give Me Seven!!!!"
And then Dominique Robertson got that very exciting fumble touchdown! Which started our Third Quarter Mo. So we have Wave Momma here to thank.
One of the gems she quipped was to Ryan Griffin: "The Pocket Is NOT Your Friend!"
To all our unsportsmanlike penalties, she started screaming: "That's all right! We'll take that flag! You ain't seen unsportsmanlike! It shows some passion! Shows that you care! Hell I wish I had a flag!"
Amen!
So my regrets:
I do regret that this transformation hadn't taken place during the first half, because then it woulda been a different game.
I also regret that the Refs spotted SMU a touchdown, the guy was clearly out at the 1 yard line.
I regret that Big Mike and the Greenbackers weren't there to properly orchestrate The Hullabaloo, because the cheerleaders, adorable as they are, somehow got lost and neglected the leading part of cheerleading. And I seriously had to straighten them out when some of them dared to think out loud at tailgating about rooting for not Alabama. If I had been wearing pearls I woulda clutched them.
Tulane cheerleaders. Talking openly. About rooting for not Alabama. In Mrs. Hullabaloo's opinion: It was very unfortunate. (and one word about The Game Of The Century. Quelle Lame-ness, ok, well two words. But it was in one word: Lame).
And then my final regret: when Coach and I were wandering around trying to locate the Tulane tailgating which had been banished to the opposite side of campus, we ran across some tres "colorful," shall we say, boulevarding happening on the SMU boulevard. and I regret not having snapped a few shots of what we saw.
Firsties: some of the SMU cheerleaders (thank you sweet baby jesus this doesn't happen with us) were smoking cigarettes with their non-cheerleader peeps. Yes. In uniform. Well, not completely in uniform - their hair and make-up was did and they had the skirts on, but white t-shirts on. So I don't know if they were off duty or what, but the big obnoxious hair bows, skirts and cheerleading sneakers with the little socks it is quite obvious they weren't just the garden variety trashy boulevard'ers we encoutered.
And then apparently the theme of the SMU Boulevarding this weekend was to turn it into Bourbon Street, cause we saw some of the SMU co-ed's wearing those Beer helmet thingies. You know the those helmets that have can holders and there's straws that loop down to your face? Yes, soo classy! Very "Park Cities" ...but wait! there's more. This genius contraption allowed them to carry yard-sized hurricane glasses.
Oh how I wished I had captured these moments for posterity. Because while, I am far from one to look at co-ed's sideways for having a good time, I am ever thankful that our NY and Southern ladies at Tulane have decided to pass on this apparent SMU fashion trend of accessorizing with these acutrements. In public. At tailgating.
Anyways, we are weeks away from finding out our coaching destiny and I can't wait for that!
In the Big D, for the final Greenie Dat Boulevarding. E-vah. Now that SMU's headed to the Big Least. Bye Bye Now! Apparenlty we are no longer "attached at the hip"
We got a hip replacement. Yay!
Honestly, I don't know how or why TPTB decided that we needed to be figuratively attached to SMU. I'm clearly not shedding a tear over this. I see nothing similar in our schools. Starting with that usually people who don't get into Tulane, get in to SMU and settle on going to SMU. And then the biggie: they don't even have baseball. (WHO in NCAA doesn't have baseball?! In Mrs. Hullabaloo's world I categorize as follows 1. Football G-d and Family 2. Football 3. Baseball and a distant 4. Basketball)
SMU never felt like a rivalry. Like we merely tolerated each other's presence. If we beat them, which was like always, it never felt like a big win. We gave away the last two games which we should have wrapped up and won. But I digress.
Now USM. That's a heated rivalry. We are polar opposites and the rivalry still works.
Anyways, this conference shuffle has been quite interesante and I hope someday to be able to share the nitty gritty which has transpired since the stories have been leaking. But the muffin isn't baked yet, so I can't take it out of the oven. The sad thing in all this though is how random things shake out in the conference thing. Nobody wants USM, but WVU belongs in the SEC? lawd. I spent much time in Morgantown and that place and them peoples is just not SEC material. By any stretch.
My friend Tyrone Powers had this to say, and so I am sharing it with you:
..."So about USM. I really feel for my Mustard Buzzards. They are stuck in a small town with absolutely no TV market and their home city isn't exactly a tourist destination. They have a team that can easily compete with the lower echelon in the SEC, and probably the upper echelon of the Big East. But sadly they can bring nothing to the table. The SEC doesn't want them because of State and Ole Miss. Tulane has a market AND a city that people want to go to....
The Rock is a great place to play and can be quite difficult to play in, but that's not nearly enough to get an invite to a big conference. Plus their minor sports, with the exception of baseball, are very weak. They may have to stick it out with Rice, UAB and the other CUSA schools with a merger with Mountain West. Its sad because they really could be conference contenders in any other conference."
Agreed.
So, SMU goes, USM stays. and Saturday we get to Boulevard for one last hurrah. I hope we leave with a bang. Because HOW could we ever top this? (I say this with much sarcasm by the way)
