HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS >> Partly to unwind, partly to celebrate, Sam Houston officials drank Miller Lite and traded stories following the Bearkats’ 31-13 football victory over Hawaii at Bowers Stadium.
They don’t make much money, they insisted, but they like to have fun. And a football game on a Texas Saturday night is fun.
It is in contrast to the Rainbow Warriors, who appear to be less joyful these days. They headed back to Honolulu, by chartered flight, with a 1-2 record.
The outcome was surprising, but it also was not. In its second year with full-fledged FBS status, Sam Houston is committed to building a football program. It joined Conference USA. It is playing an all-FBS schedule. It convinced its neighbor — the Texas State Penitentiary — to issue black and white jumpsuits to prisoners so escapees’ attire would not match the orange team color of the Bearkats.
The Bearkats do not have an organized collective to provide name, image and likeness opportunities — and money — to student-athletes. But they raised money to install a new artificial surface at Bowers Stadium. On Friday, renovation work was completed on the visitors’ locker room that the Warriors used the next night.
After the season, the West section of Bowers Stadium will be razed, and new stands with individual seats, luxury boxes and coaches/media booths will be built. The combination of a state bond and private donations will pay for the $80 million project.
School president Alisa White has twice served on the NCAA’s Division I Presidential Forum, is vice chair of Conference USA, teaches a mass communication class, and greets visitors on Bowers Stadium’s concourse, and in the elevator and booster room.
UH, meanwhile, is facing a leadership change. David Lassner is retiring as UH president at the end of this year. The field has been whittled to two finalist seeking to become Lassner’s successor.
When this series was arranged three years ago, Sam Houston’s intent was to fill dates while ascending to full FBS eligibility. (The teams are scheduled to play in Hawaii next year.) “All of a sudden you’re scrambling and looking for games,” Sam Houston coach KC Keeler said. “A lot of schedules are three, four, five, seven years out. We were just happy to pick up a game like Hawaii, a Group of Five school we think we’re comparable to in terms of the level that we should be and the level of football they currently are.”
But after Saturday’s game, the balance might have shifted.
