Bill Goldring Said What?

Okay Okay Okaaaaaay Tulane Powers That Be (TPTB). We get it! Tulane is not allowed to compete with anybody outside of the FCS. Or at least pretend to want to be bad asses. It would be unseemly. or something.

Former TU Quarterback Tommy Hightower is going to be sad to learn that we have no interest in a plan to compete and advance to the Big12.

Every school we recruit against in our already hamstrung recruiting situation is going to pull that money quote out and show people, and say: see? You want proof Tulane has no interest in competing outside of the bottom of the G5? Here. One of Tulane's biggest donor puts the paw up on finding another Rich Rod or recycling a Tommy Tuberville. We're plum happy with our 4 play playbook and our Special Teams disarray just fine thank you very much.

Futility and settling is the plan and we are sticking to it. So just get over yourselves Greenies and your delusions!

Lawd UConn just beat UCF 40-3 today too. I'm just gonna leave that at that. I may be feeling a little sorry for the Citronauts right now.

Well just like that our winning streak is over. Or our out of state road game losing streak continues. Or our Month of being the Homecoming opponent commences. Half glass full sort of a thing depending on how you prefer to look at it.

As I may have mentioned, Coach Hullabaloo has put his foot down and has refused to permit away game travel like we have traditionally done. Which meant no Temple. Booooo. So we got up on Saturday, put on some cute outfits, and went over to the TU New Orleans Club "Watch Party" which was at Rock-N-Bowl.

I was glad to see a few Greenies at the watch party which I have already had the pleasure of meeting in the past like the Homecoming King. I also got to meet a couple of new people, including a former club president of the New York club.

In all, it was as pleasant as it could be given the game. I adored how Coach Hullabaloo did his name tag. So cute. I do love you my Coach Hullabaloo!

Anyways, even though it was pleasant I do hope that the club picks a more fun place to watch the games in the future - like Barcadia (<-- owned by a former player) or the Rusty Nail. At least some place with natural light so that I can take decent photeauxs.

So the game....lawd have mercy where to begin. To be fair, I'll start with the positive.

#1 Rob Kelley's JUMP. Fun, fun FUN!

#2 The lead. Which faded away. Sad panda.

A 7 yd pass from Lee to Veal regains the Green Wave lead. #Tulane up 10-7 on Temple w 13:23 in the 2Q #RollWave pic.twitter.com/yRaLfmUxWa

— Tulane Football (@GreenWaveFB) October 10, 2015

Ok, so now for the u-g-l-y (and we ain't got no alibi!)

#1 The refs. Egregious. Probably the most outrageous call to date, and I have witnessed some awful officiating. Remember Anthony Scelfo and the Homecoming time clock fiasco?

#2 Lateral passes behind the line of scrimmage or actually just the "simplified" playbook in general. I can't even.

#3 Penalties and our incessant trouble with counting to ELEVEN. Lawd. Maybe we need a Polydactyl on the staff. Let's find us one.

#4 Punting and kicking. The good news is, we didn't give ourselves a safety like UCF did today when their receiver stepped out the endzone, stepped back and then kneed it for a safety for Uconn. Oh my goodness! Thank you Citronauts for the freebie points. Anyways, when we were punting in the first quarter, there was a fan at the Watch Party by the name of Jim who looked at the screen and said "Is That Picarelli?" and then wham-o poor Block who was punting, drops the ball! We were dying of laughter. Even if you say his name the kicking gris-gris descends on us.

Here's Coach Hullabaloo shaking the spirit shakers til the end of the game.

Anyways, there's not much more I'm a say about today's performance that hasn't already piled up over on YOGWF or GoTula. or on Twitter. Fans on twitter were like the Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story. You had the apologists on one side who were blaming the entire loss on the refs, and then the disgruntled fans who are just tired of the excuses (we are such a young team! we'll play better with teams similar to us! our whole roster is local!). One fan called me an "Elitist Piece of Crap" for my opinions - yes! he wrote that. I thought that was hilarious actually. I think it would look nice in roman engraved font on business cards. "Mrs. Doctor Hullabaloo, Elitist POC at your service"

Coach Hullabaloo was upset about how we lost, but went totally off the rails listening to the postgame radio show when Coach CJ said that the team was fragile. We had actually just got done watching Miracle last night about the US hockey win over Russia and Kurt Russel's brilliant speech to fire up the team. Coach Hullabaloo put the pedal to the medal on our little zoom zoom car and took us straight over to do some shoe shopping to vent our frustrations. Followed up by Dairy Queen Blizzards and a super cute movie (The Intern) to forget our woes.

It was a serious downward spiral - I got heath bar AND peanut butter cups in my blizzard. sigh.

These are our cute new gameday shoes. Come see them next week.

'Til next week my Greenies.

Well That Stung

The more things change, the more they stay the same....

Special Teams, Referees, and Penalties, oh my! Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Only difference is we just got a new stadium to do it in. sigh........ Peggy is going to be talking about Picarelli just standing there after that blocked punt for a while. Coach Hullabaloo and I still talking about how Devin Powell does not get the recognition he deserves for managing a game and not making major mistakes. He's our trusty old faithful.

Anyways, I blame our parking passes.

And did I mention that Schott Cowen was there to try and steal more thunder? Bringing his suspect juju to the new stadium. I spied some peeps in the stands "saluting" Cowen with one finger when he took the field to be clapped at. Hopefully that was enough clawing for attention on his behalf and he can be on his merry way now.

So the photo above was me and our friend Baldboy comiserating postgame as we have always done. A Tulane Tradition.

The day started out well. Everyone seemed to be having a ball. I loved my Tulane dress I had made.



Two of my chickadees came by to our tent to say hello. They are so cute, I'm such a lucky Town Mom.

A major highlight is I got to meet Taylor and Gabby who were the Tulane co-eds who got first in line at 4am in order to get student tickets for the game. They contributed these goey frito peanut butter bars to add to our tailgating and they were SO good!! (thanks y'all!!)

I got interviewed by the NY Times who were in town for an upcoming article about the Tulane-Uconn game in October. My friend Tyronne Power jokes that I need to hire his friend Babelicious as my agent after being on TV this week and now the NY Times. .....mmmmkay!

Did you hear I was on TV? WUPL-TV My 54 called up and asked to tape me for a segment of their "The 504 Show" hosted by Sheba Turk. Here is a link of the segment in case you missed it. What fun!

So at tailgating I unfortunately did not get to walk around at all, I didn't get any free giveaways, or see anything other than what was in front of me because as mistress of ceremonies at our tent I didn't even barely get a bite of food. Coach Hullabaloo sez that being the spouse of Mrs Hullabaloo is like having a receiving line at a wedding. a social whirlwind. But Coach Hullabaloo did get to sneak away and went and dove into the mosh pit which was the LBC Quad and reported that it was like being in the infield at the Preakness. Good Times.

Our tailgate set up actually came together better than I expected. Not sure who to send a thank you note to for the mixup, but one of the rare times I was happy when something goes awry at my alma mater. This was our fancy pants tent that literally landed in our lap at the last minute because of some snafu with someone else.

We got a sign and everything!

With work, life, and everything going on this past month I had honestly given the most minimal thought to the actual tablescaping than what I normally expect of myself. My original idea was to theme it "Something Old, Something New, Something Olive, Something Blue" in a nod to our return to campus.

I had ordered the endzone-like fabric over the summer with intentions of glamming it up into a truly fabulous tablecloth. The vintage pennants were supposed to be a breathtaking garland. But I found myself on Friday afternoon with none of it done and no overall tablescaping "concept" - so I was just pulling whatever from my tailgating stash and hope that it was worthy of our first ever on campus tailgating.

I ended up zigzag cutting the fabric right there during set up and ordered Coach Hullabaloo to toss the pennants up onto the tent frame with fishing wire I keep in my tailgating emergency kit. Grabbed our old trusty tailgating banner from throwback days at the Dome, the VW bus, and the leftover napkins from our Pre-Season Tea and I called it a day.

Some tailgating highlights:

We were next to the Glazers in our fancy pants location and Momma Glazer gifted me this! And I absolutely love it. So perfect for tailgate decorating.

Nell brought these cutest cookie cake pops. Seriously, how cute!!

Raven! Don't you just love? She is an adorable Pugle and if I have any say, our future tailgating mascot. How cute is she?

and look, Chardonnay made these adorable condiment dispensers for our tailgating!

and look at these totally caaaah-uuuuute cups from the Scofields. Some of our booster club wave mommas had set up a few spaces over from us for the Football parents to finally have tailgate real estate of their own.

Perry Mason's wife whom I'll call Tequila made the best vidalia onion dip for our "Georgia" themed Peaches, Peanuts and Sweet Tea themed menu and here it is. So easy and really delish.

HOT VIDALIA ONION DIP
2 Vidalia Onions, chopped
2 cups of blended grated cheese mix (like colby/jack)
1 teaspoon of hot sauce
1/2 cup of mayo

Mix ingredients until blended and bake in the oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

So next up we finally made our way to the stadium. I ended up missing the entire opening, the team running on to the field, and the video intro which I had really wanted to see.

My girl, Lucy's Mom, posted this great photo of the entrance and one of my sweet sorority sisters texted me this video of the team running out which I uploaded for posterity.

I also missed the fumble and touchdown. Which my friend Tyronne said he thought the stadium was simply going to explode. I would have loved for that to have happened and then rained our happiness all over the NIMBYs. ha.

I did get to partake in a few hullabaloos which was fun.



One thing I absolutely loved was these peeps at the stadium. They were engineering alumni and so they started making these hats for people out of the Advocate newspapers and selling them for $5. How hilarious. It was so blazing hot and this was so enterprising. So very Tulane.

So in the time since we received the hard hat tour of the stadium they made a few changes. I'm neutral on the fabulosity of the stadium. And that's ok y'all. I have high and unreasonable expectations. We ended up with completely covered seats, thank goodness. So that's a plus. But OMG on the Advocate's plastic bags bleeding green all over the seats and onto people's behinds. Talk about snafu.

One glaring thing we noticed - other than the lack of soap dispensers in the bathrooms and warm $5 bottled water - is that the access which the booster section was supposed to have to the "beer garden" appears to have been taken over by a glass enclosed private suite. How awesome. So when those fancy pants people stop coming to games and all of us who normally do, and stay for the duration, will no longer have access to anything fun.

Don't get me wrong: I had fun on Saturday, I loved seeing all of our friends and breaking bread and making friends with new ones. I was glad that out of all of the bandwagon peeps that showed up Saturday there might be a new generation of superfans in the making to carry the torch for us diehards.

And speaking of diehards, I compiled a list of favorite memories from some of my favorite greenies of their opening day at Yulman

Lil General said that she wanted to be the very first person to enter the stadium and she was! "I was first in line to enter in the bag check. Security used my bag to demonstrate to the helpers what to look for and looking ! LOL!! My old Tulane Bag that I decorated many, many years ago and still use it !!"

My girl Luscious and her mom went to visit her daddy's grave to say a prayer before the game. She's had her own season tickets since she was 5 years old. Her dad had been a monster superfan and even wrote a newsletter and co-hosted a radio show. Luscious said that her favorite memory was when the team ran out, she cheered and cried and video taped it.

Tyronne said he loved waiting at the light with Riptide to cross Willow. And of course Tech's first play from scrimmage and the aforementioned explosion of spirit in the stadium.

Prof said his favorite was walking from tailgating to the stadium. And the students chanting/taunting Tech after their fumble. ha.

AJ said "those first 10 minutes right before kickoff. I was just standing there with my friend and we looked at each other and it just hit us that all of it was actually happening. Then of course we had my personal favorite part of every Tulane sporting event, everyone yelling "home of the WAVE!" at the end of the national anthem."

Big Mac said that when he made it out of the tunnel on to the field he realized he "was a part of long and storied history. When Brian Batt sang the anthem, I looked at the flag, looked down to the field, and looked back to the flag and cried. And this coming from someone who opposed the stadium: it's nicer than I ever expected"

Babelicous said that her favorite moment was looking around at the new stadium, she and her dad "smiled at each other and hugged. It was priceless."

StPeteWave said his favorite memory was "Bodies! Many Bodies, students, simply the newness of TU football Uptown. Greatest day for a diehard. What my heart felt: peace and joy."

What was my favorite memory? Doing postgame sitting on our ice chests afterwards, nibbling at leftover tailgating food, and laughing with Perry Mason and Baldboy. The best part of football season, other than the touchdowns and turnovers, is the comraderie with our tailgating peeps.

P.S. wasn't there supposed to be a float? and I remember there was supposed to be a blow up spinning jester for touchdowns....no?

On The Anniversary of Katrina This Happened

Good Morning Greenies!

So today is the anniversary of Katrina. And last night we reprised our favorite way of losing: giving up a lead and losing in overtime. And all I get to see in the papers and on recaps here in Tulsa is of the amazing rally that Tulsa got to stage for a national television audience. How awesome!

So reminiscent of the Michie "Miracle" of 2007 when Army came back in the final 2 minutes of regulation to tie the score with a questionable out of bounds "TD" catch and then we promptly shanked a FG in overtime. Gift wrapping a win for our opponents. Oh gut wrenching losses! How I have missed you!!! Welcome back!

And because we haven't quite completed our stroll down memory lane: next week we face a West Point style Option in Georgia Tech.

New "Era" of Tulane football? yeah, mmmmkay.....

Coach Hullabaloo made me giggle when he pouted after the game and said "They wouldn't even let us win with Devon Walker being here and everything". awwww, my manpie!

This morning my dearest friend Peaches whom I love, but who doesn't follow football - bless her heart - sent me this, along with a text of "Must have been exciting!"

omg Yahweh give me strength. So yeah, I can think of many, mannnyyyy, other adjectives to describe my gut being ripped out and dragged all over Chapman stadium.

My completely awful, pessimistic, and cynical attitude about this "new Era" (I'll believe it when I see it sez MrsHullabaloo) is of - God bless them- alumni who have been so out of the loop on things that A) they don't know the hullabaloo (see photo below shared by Booty Judy) and B) they are easily pleased with moral victories.

This photo here ^ of Tulane alumni after the first touchdown when we were actually up 7-0. Can't tell if they are shocked or just don't know what to do. Lost lambs.

Booty of course posted a progression of Hullabaloo photos from the alumni party, each being more spirited than the preceeding. But no wonder the Tulane Alumni office called this party a "Training". Indeed. Everybody's homework is to go and belt the hullabaloo in front of a mirror until you are television camera-worthy. OK?

Anyways, meanwhile back in Tulsa... I got to meet the SWEETEST and most passionate greenies on the planet. Why is it that the most passionate Greenwave fans are not alumni?

This is a family who have stuck by this team through thin and thinner since the days of Warren Bankston being under center, and who traveled 11 hours to Oklahoma from South Louisiana complete with signs, spirit shakers, and 4.5 hours worth of cheers.

Aren't they fabulous? I loved them!

I chatted with the matriach whom I'll call Delilah. Delilah had a bunch of stories and I wished that I could have sat all night and heard more. Her uncle was a passionate Greenie from back in the days of yore and instilled his passion in all of the family's offspring. So at the game last night was 3 generations of nieces, nephews, and cousins, who all hailed from Hammond and who are devoted to the Greenwave. Delilah shared that her uncle (also not alumni) donated and supported the program his entire life and when she was a little girl, her first memory was getting to go on the field with her autograph book and get Warren Bankston's autograph. Delilah said that the family didn't end up getting enough season tickets this year, but that everybody in the family is going to campus next week anyways just to experience the opening of Yulfogelmevlin. Talking with her warmed my heart.

The highlight of the night - besides Sherman Badie being a complete Bad Ass which I can't wait to see more of - was Devon's poignant half time program.

Devon and his mom were there. Devon wore his jersey and wheeled out to the field at halftime. Tulsa gave him a football signed by the team. In the video he thanked the first responders for saving his life, and he thanked the hospital where he initially stayed, as well as the outpouring of donations and support from the UTulsa community. He asked for continued prayers because he intends to walk again. The Tulsa marching band played the Tulane fight song, and they handed out these face paddles with Devon's picture on the front and the Saints fleur de lis on the back since he was a New Orleans Saint.

Devon also mentioned in a Times Pic interview that he gets more letters of encouragement and support from Tulsans than he does from those in Louisiana. Which is a lapse that I personally will see is corrected. Devon was inspiring and beautiful and I hope that the video of it is made available online because it was a tremendous representation of how awesome our Greenies truly are. GEAUX DEVON, we love you!!!

So next up, I am off to Norman, Oklahoma. We brought Daddy Hullabaloo to Oklahoma for a full weekend of football.

A Football Fest in honor of his birthday if you will. I hope that the game we see on Saturday will erase some of his ire from last night tho. LMAO because Daddy is an OU fan so watching Tulane football for him is like completely foreign. He was still complaining on the way home about some of the play calling and Sweet Baby Jesus our absurd kicking situation.

Did you know Ade Aruna volunteered last week to do kick-offs? When he lined up to kick I was shocked and damn if he wasn't better than anybody who was recruited at that position.

Alright, Alight....my list of favorite plays from the game:

That Charles Jones touchdown where Tanner Lee faked handing it off. OMG genius!!!! More of that please. Makes me forget the trick plays that always skidded sideways under Toledo. Talk about a new era!!

Sherman Badie running it back for the TD and then the 73 yard dash at the end of the game that gave us a flicker of hope for putting the game away. More of that too.

Ade Aruna kicking a touchback. LMAO.

Brandon LeBeau's genius interception. Which was called back due to penalty. Dagnabbit!!

and something that has been nagging me: WHY WERE THE TULSA PLAYERS STANDING IN A SHOWER FOR THEIR VIDEO PROFILES?

So onwards now, and cheers to making new memories at Yulfogelmevlin. Til Sept 6th!

Yahweh, Take The Wheel

A fellow Greenie, whom I'll call Perry Mason, has been pestering me about updating Hullabaloo Huddle.

In all honesty, I'd been waiting until I was in a less bitter and patronizing mood to pen something. So I wouldn't sound, well so patronizing and bitter. I'd actually written a few versions of my Nola Bowl recap, but deleted them.

Parker Waters Photography
I've also kinda shut my trap a bit because it's the homestretch in recruiting. Signing Day is Wednesday. And it's a tenuous situation with Temple and Kansas State for the love of Yahweh upsetting the apple cart up in here. I'm holding out hope that CJ pulls a pelican out of his ear and delivers us some serious linemen.

But I am a Tulane fan after all, and ya knows we have our fair share of absurd to plow through if not today, tomorrow. And if not this, week, well TPTB will get around to derailing something next week in an effort to give us something else to roll our eyes about and call for TPTB to resign/be fired/wear a tie/go across the street. And yet, TPTB gets right back to keep on keepin on.

marymouton
So at long last y'all, my two cents about our cameo at the Nola Bowl: Losing to USL was such a bitter pill to swallow. Wretched.

rslipman
I was simply stunned and totes embarrassed. And to all those Moral Victors out there all aglow: I salute you for your fortitude. Because I am a much, much, weaker individual and I am not worthy of your esteem.

I'm not a completely awful, hateful person though. I was relieved that we didn't just roll over and give up.

I have no hard feelings towards any member of the team. Defense kept us in the game and has been so unbelievably fun to watch all season.

But why oh why did we deviate from the running game at the bowl game?

photos by Chris Granger, Times Pic
Hello, this plan was working just fine... If we were insisting on putting Montana back in there after what happened at FAU and UTSA - why oh why were the instructions to pump fake and then throw to the other team? Handing it to Darkwa was just fine.

So alas, after a month of getting over it I was finally thawing out from my painful memories of December 21 to write something that didn't sound deranged.

But just as I feeling up to the task of sharing my thoughts as a civil person and post cute pictures of all our events, Something Happened. I was fixin to have ample couch surfing time and nesting opportunities around Chateau Hullabaloo and everything due to Sneauxmageddon2014. I had even done p-r-o-m-i-s-e-d Perry he would see a new post. And then wouldn't you know... BAM! this unfortunate Georgia Tech scandal up and hit the fan and I got all wrapped up in following that drama.

TPTB was done raked over the coals from all corners of the Greenie Dat Nation, and not just by the so called "lunatic fringe" this time.

Thanks for finally waking up y'all! TPTB is so used to tuning out our usual vitriol over scheduling lame teams like Southernmost Alabama and Jacksonwherever State, that I bet you one zillion latkes that they didn't give a second thought about cancelling the only interesting OOC series we've had going in at least a decade and with a school who wants to come to New Orleans. TPTB always think small time.

and I had to giggle that Consiglieri Yvette Jones was trotted out again to smooth out their foul up and spin like a washing machine that all is just going smoothly and according to plan, nothing to see so move along (and by the way, the stadium will only have 20,000 seats).

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh why, oh, why is it Tulane's karmic fate to only make the national news when either tragedy befalls us or we deliberately wish to look like fools (see our Black Tuesday implosion, see the Big East Meltdown, etc., etc. etc.). If we could only collectively will competency upon those who lead our beloved Olive and Blue.

The only thing missing from the walkback explanation has been the perfunctory reference to Katrina. Because ya know. Oh, Ryan Grant's equipment didn't arrive on time to the Senior Bowl? well you know Katrina .... We hired Bob Toledo and extended him, well you know Katrina made us do it .... We hired a basketball coach with a questionable win record, well you know that pesky Katrina has just been up to no good!

It's just not a proper press opportunity in TU-Land if Katrina is not defamed.

I mean fer real! TPTB just announced that they be hiring a "Person to Blame In Chief" - what I'm calling the new position anyways. It's actually supposed to be a COO, but you already know how that's gonna roll. They will hire some naive/young/inexpensive person who is under the impression that we know what we are doing and then she or he will get knocked in the head with a sack of quarters when they realize what's really up and then get blamed for everything that ever went sideways. Be that as it may, the paper carried an interview about this sudden shift in management strategy over there on Ben Weiner about hiring another worker bee, and wouldn't you know it - just when Katrina thought she was finally in the clear, Wham-O, she gets disparaged yet again (read the final sentence of the article. omg, just kill me now).

What I fall back on during disappointing times, what usually offers me refuge from sad thoughts, is to throw myself into gameday tablescaping, shopping and future menu planning. and believe you me I have been setting my Pinterest on fiya. (I have lots of suuuuper cuuute ideas for our opening Yulfogelmevlin tailgating. Which I plan to defiantly unroll even if I end up doing it in my own driveway on the westbank if the official Tulane tailgating goes sideways. Which, sigh, is sadly such a possibility.)

So on that note .... back to my chronicling of our first bowl game in a Decade. You all know how I felt about the New Orleans Bowl going into it. And the requisite activities surrounding the bowl were seriously stressing me out to plan between the holidays and the weather, and not really having my heart in it. But in the end I couldn't let an opportunity to tablescape pass on by, and I couldn't not have the perfect outfits lined up. Or design this cute logo which I created to inspire me to soldier on.

I was the Martha Stewart of Bowl Games y'all and spent the weeks leading up to it making hospitality bags for our out of town wave mommas and working with my Krewe of Hullabaloo-ettes in making super cute second line parasols.

We even made this cute parasol for Coach CJ's wife Angel!

In the end I very much enjoy spending time with all of my peeps, so that was worth the effort and the pain of losing to USL. It is my hope that we don't have to wait another 10 years to be kidnapped by the Athletic Department for a three hour bus ride though. (a three hour bus ride...a three hour bus ride....)

Everybody else called that bus outing "The Bowl Stroll", but we were calling it "the Night We Were Kidnapped by the Athletic Department."

Thursday before the game, we were packed up onto those touristy double decker buses you see around town, but with insufficient information about what exactly was going to happen. It turned into a 5 mile (not really, but it was long) second line march practically to Chalmette and back - and I was in wedge heels. They were cute though and matched my new tweed blazer perfectly, don't you think?

Needless to say, by the conclusion of our forced march I was walking barefoot through downtown (yes, disgusting).

Coach Hullabaloo and Booty were lubricated and so we were just howling with laughter at our predicament. The grand finale was supposed to be a "pep rally" with the football team at the hotel, but someone didn't distribute the memo so we ended up doing a 100th round of the fight song and the Hullabaloo to the valet parking attendants in front of the Hilton Riverside. Mercifully, an hour later after further wandering the streets of New Orleans on what seemed to be a hijacked bus, we were finally deposited back at New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood where our saga began.

So the following day, Coach Hullabaloo and I went to the "official" Bowl Luncheon which was at the Marriott.

We got to sit with Devin Boutte's adorable family and learned that they took Nick Montana for his first hunting experience down there in New Iberia.

and Steve Gleason gave a nice speech. Here he is with our players. Love that they got to meet him.

Anyways, nothing else was much interesting really to report about the Bowl Luncheon other than my jaw dropped when I walked into the Marriott. The weeks leading up to the game, it was impossible to find out what the full details were going to be for the bowl game activities as far as Tulane's participation. It was aggravating. The buses which we were taken on the night before had one sad little banner strapped to a corner of it.

By contrast the Marriott, where USL was staying, was completely festooned with USL swag. The doors, the ceilings, posters, stands, garland, gobos - everywhere you turned. When we did our flash mob to the Hilton parking attendants the night before, there was not one stitch of Tulane anywhere at our team hotel. I even asked a client of mine who is in group sales at the Hilton about it and she went on and on about Alabama's swag there for the Sugar Bowl and didn't have a response about our decision to remain anonymous. So the lack of proper swag was very un-Hullabaloo Huddle worthy in my humble opinion.

Anyways, I tried to make up for it as I usually do. On gameday we organized a fab brunch for our booster club and friends that was so cute I couldn't stand it. Tulane Alumni Association hosted something themselves, but I still just looved how ours turned out. Look how cute.

I challenged myself to not spend any more of Coach Hullabaloo's fortune given that it was the holidays and I had already purchased multiple outfits and shoes and kept having to revise outfits due to the changing crazy weather.

So, except for ordering the cake and the balloon bouquets, everything pictured were repurposed items or came from my existing stash. Even the coasters I gave out as favors were liberated from the bowl luncheon the day before.

In all, I have to admit that I enjoyed the chance to stretch out the football season a bit. Coach Hullabaloo was delighted that I didn't wig out like that crazy Alabama fan who tried to beat up on those OU college kids at the Sugar Bowl, so that was a plus. And the game was almost a thrilling comeback.

So in an effort to put it all behind me, I'm already pinteresting menus and such for our games at Yulfogelmevlin next fall. And I'm holding out hope that we have a miracle coup on the recruiting front. (please, please, please, please!)

See you at Signing Day and Cheers to an improved 2014!