Aggie Football Bowl Rally 2023

My face is sunburned, my hands are bruised, and I have a cold.  But, I’m still happy went to the rally.  (Disclaimer: it was 50-degrees out, but I was facing the sun the whole time.  I bruised my hand probably Friday, not sure how.  It wasn’t from clapping at the rally, but there was certainly enough opportunity.  That’s how I found out I had the bruise.  The cold started Friday night from a co-worker, who had showed up sick to work all week.  Being outside in the cold on Saturday probably wasn’t a good idea.) 

 

I hadn’t gone to the Downtown celebration the last time the Aggie Football team had won a bowl game in 2017.   I’d always felt bad about that.  Ron was game to go.  There weren’t any home games this weekend and nothing else going on.  He wanted to go well early so that we could walk down the Farmer’s Market, which is there every Saturday morning.

 

That stroll did take over an hour.  There are a lot of exhibitors and there were a lot people.  I kept trying to get Ron to pick up something that I could get for him, since I never figured out what to get him for Christmas.  He declined, but looked over everything.  I picked up a jar of local honey and tipped a couple of street violinists.      

 

Walking around, I did notice some members of the Volleyball team (Morgan Stewart, Molly Johnson, Kacia Brown, Bianca Perez, Rilen Garcia) and a member of the Softball team (Kayla Bowen) strolling around.  They were also there at the rally, of course. 

 

I think Volleyball girls at least happened to be friends (or better) of the Football team.  This paid off for Ron, at least.  He was staring at Morgan the whole time, completely in love with her.  I would have liked to have talked to the other girls about the season, especially Rilen, but I couldn’t remember her name at the time.  (And I was too embarrassed to go talk to the girls in public.  I’m still unhappy they didn’t have an autograph day this season.)  I think Kayla was working at the event for her degree.  I’d heard an interview with her earlier in the week.  She sounds really sweet.  (Wave the Wonder Dog was also there.  Him, I wanted to pet, but didn’t get the opportunity.)   

These two newspaper clips are from the Las Cruces Bulletin 1/26/23

Me and Ron are in the picture.  My head is cropped by the bottom of the "I" and Ron is to my left.

Here's my pic of the big helmet

They set up the team entry helmet at the edge of the plaza.  There was also the Sports Accessories merchandise tent there.  They had all their Bowl game shirts there at the 25% discount.  I was tempted to get one of the shirts.  I’d noticed it earlier, before I bought the one that I did.  Unfortunately, I didn’t notice it until near the end the rally when I was in line for autographs. 

My shot of the crowd

It was a good crowd for the rally.  There was some synergy between the Market and the Rally.  The Pride Band played their way into plaza, having walked from City Hall, along with the Cheerleaders, and the Sundancers.  The players came in behind and went through a tunnel of fans applauding them.  Coach Kill came up last and shook hands with people in the crowd (including myself).   

 

PA Ed Carnathan was the MC here.  Mayor Miyagishima, University Chancellor Arvizu, and Athletic Director Mario Moccia spoke, along with a representative from the Quick Lane Bowl.  The highlight of the ceremony was the exchange of ponchos between the rep and Coach Kill.  The Coach had made quite the fashion statement wearing one, which was made by a fan, arriving at the bowl. 

 

Mario’s speech, where he read off some stats about the team, probably got the biggest applause when he talked about the defense.  They went from 125-th out of 130 teams to 30-th in the nation.  To liven up the speeches, items were tossed to the crowd, including scarves, t-shirts, and those cool black and white Baseball hats.  I was way back from the crowd (getting sunburned) and had no chance of getting this stuff. 

      

Coach Kill was the last speaker.  Much like the previous coach, Doug Martin, definitely one aspect of being a college football coach is the ability to make an inspirational speech.  Even better, he took his message about the team and made it more broadly about the country in general.  I was a bit disappointed that nobody on the team was invited to speak, but the Coach did have the team singing the Aggie fight song, like they did after every victory. 

 

I had Ron drop me off at Dad’s apartment to watch the Chief’s game afterward.  When I was telling dad about the rally, he went off on Coach Kill.  He doesn’t like him at all for some reason.  All he’s done is get the Aggies a bowl game win, possibly the most unexpected result of his first year as coach.  He donated a bunch of money to the university to upgrade the substandard football facilities and, up until when he left for the bowl game, Kill was actually working without a contract.    

 

There were a bunch of people lined up to get autographs.  There also weren’t enough tables to seat all of the players, so some of them hung around in groups around the plaza.  I had some trepidation, but I definitely wanted that poster.  I went to what I thought was the back of the line to the table, but it was actually the back of the line to see hero quarterback, Diego Pavia.  While I was there, a player came around handing out posters and that’s where I got one. 

 

I watched Diego interact with all sorts of fans.  He was very humble and polite.  I was glad I got to tell him that he willed the win in the bowl game and that he broke Coach Kill’s bowl winless streak.  I also got an autograph from Shiyazh Pete.  He was standing by himself in the crowd, but hard to miss at 6’8”.  He was something of the face of the team in team pictures with his fierce face-paint, but he was very friendly-looking in person.  [Edit: That's actually JJ Jones III in the face-paint in the pictures.  It was the face-paint that confused me.]  He’s a Navajo from Shiprock and was very friendly.

 

Eventually, I made it to the signing table.  I got Trevor Brohard’s and Gavin Frakes’ signatures.  I went to one of the groups of players around.  Sone Aupiu asked for my name and put that with his signature.  I wanted to talk to Chris Ojoh.  He’s one of the stars of the team, but mostly I wanted to talk to him because he personally talked me into going to game (9-25-22 a win against Hawaii).  I shouldn’t have been so shy and just asked somebody to point him out.  (No, I couldn’t pick him out in the crowd.  I wasn’t that familiar with his looks.  I wasn’t even sure if he was there.)    

 

By this time, I had cold hands.  Ron and I went over to Day’s Hamburgers for lunch.  So had a bunch of other people, but their burgers were worth the wait.  I had a thought for punter, Josh Carlson.  He’d left the team for another in the transfer portal right before the bowl.  I wondered if he’d wished he’d hung around a little longer.

Lastly, this fun image came up on the Aggie Sports website.  As I’m unlikely to do any track posts this season, I thought I’d post it here.  Is it an intentional or unintentional Maxwell Smart homage?