Captain Comeback--Major Applewhite and the Holiday Bowl, ten years ago tonight!

(San Diego CA) Dec. 28, 2001: Holiday Bowl-Texas 47, Washington 43

Master magician QB, Major Lee Applewhite, then a 23 year old senior at UT, engineers a thrilling comeback, showing once again his gritty heroics in the fourth quarter, leading the Longhorns to victory with 27 points in the final period.

The game was played before 60,548 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, but one very serious and very tired fan was listening on a small alarm/clock radio in Houston TX. My family and a large moving van spent the day on Branard Street, unloading lots of “stuff;” packing it all into a tiny rental house. Moving all day from Dallas, the driver gave me his business card confidently as he jumped up into the truck saying, “For when you decide to move back.” (I think he was a solid Dallas-boy?!) Well, we stayed! We've loved it...

Even though underdog Univ. of Washington held tightly to a 36-20 lead at the start of the 4th quarter, QB Applewhite, who now coaches for the Longhorns, led his offense to 4 last-frame touchdowns, the final thrust occurring with just 0:38 left on the fancy scoreboard, forever cementing his place in NCAA bowl history. It was his last game in burnt orange & white, assuring another top-ten finish for Texas in the BCS voting.

Exhausted by the time we put our 6-month old daughter down in her crib, we collapsed on our queen-mattress amidst the piled brown boxes. But I awakened later in the night, remembering the big game! Frantically searching for a radio, because the TV was not anywhere near an electrical outlet; I found a small alarm/clock radio and sitting with it in my lap, I listened to the miracle comeback. It turned into a Longhorn keepsake.

Simms versus Applewhite dominated the discussion that fall in Austin, the future coach as disparate from the future bust as could be. Always rooting for a redhead when I can, Major Applewhite burned a place in my memory unlike any other Longhorn legend.

A lot has happened during the decade that has slipped by without realizing it. During the ten-years elapsed, the family was given a boy to raise also, the Longhorns won a national championship led by another unique QB, the most popular Houston corporation is gone, and I am beginning a new career, in another business from that which caused me to move in the first place.

Hard to believe that on the tenth anniversary of that day, the Texas team with an historic RB coach, Major Applewhite, returns to the same field he dominated a decade earlier.

Starting another life in one of the most dynamic southern cities in the US, ten years ago tonight, Major Applewhite finished his fabulous career as a Texas player with one of the best comeback victories in the annals of UT sports. It was one of the most stirring radio broadcasts I have ever heard; I went to sleep happy that dark night in Houston! #hookem Major.

[Texas plays California tonight on ESPN in the Holiday Bowl. Longhorns are favored by 3 points.]

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Praying for young people and Revival

Every year at HC, the faculty and staff pray that God would revive us again; that the teachers would be facilitators of joy among the students, so that they might rejoice in God, draw near to God, seek his kingdom, and his righteousness. 

With all this prayed over, there is then a peace that all the things of the coming school year would be added to them as it progresses. Everything will work out fine. In August every year the train leaves the station and picks up speed as it roars to the graduation ceremony in May. There are nice “rest” stops along the way but so much is accomplished that a fatigue builds up due to the “labor” of the school year. We started out this year well, breaking in the new principal, hosting numerous events, football and volleyball games, a capital campaign moving "Forward in Faith," new athletic conference announced [“SPC”], recruiting next year’s freshman, and many other tasks. It is a busy place, but a hopeful place!

Pray for Revival

I recently heard a Yale professor David H. Gelernter speak about the possibility of religious revivial starting with our young people:

"The next great American religious revival will start, my guess is, on (high school or) college campuses —and it will start fairly soon. The need is great, for they are the driest timber I have ever come across. In a spiritually dried-out land where “careers” alone are holy, the thirst is acute. Mostly they know little or nothing about religion; little or nothing about Americanism. Mostly no one ever speaks to them about truth and beauty, or nobility or honor or greatness. They are empty--spiritually bone dry--because no one has ever bothered to give them anything spiritual that is worth having. Platitudes about diversity and tolerance and multiculturalism are thin gruel for intellectually growing young people."

Gelernter thinks that "someone will start preaching." 

Maybe it is an ordained pastor from RUF? (www.ruf.org) or a high school chaplain like Drew Zeiler?

Audiences will be small at first, but young people want to hear this message:

‘Forget your career and think about your family.

Forget your rights and think about your duties.

Forget your bank account and think about your country.

Forget yourself and think about your God.’...

"(S)omeday soon some sympathetic disciple of the founding fathers will compose the indispensable companion to our Bill of Rights...a Bill of Duties that conveys the exact same truths in terms of responsibility, instead of entitlement." (Gelernter continues...)

"Let the right person speak to them, and they will turn back to the Bible with an excitement and exhilaration that will shake the country. In reading the Bible they will feel as if they are going home--which is just what they will be doing. Nothing would do America more good than a biblical homecoming."  (David Gelernter)

At Houston Christian ["HC"] students are exposed to a biblical world and life view. Many are "un-churched" or merely "seekers" of the ways of Jesus. But at least they get to hear from this important book, see how other Christians live out their daily walks with Him. In addition to great Bible teachers at HC, they have access to peer-to-peer discipleship groups after school, if they want to talk about their questions and walk with fellow students as they grow in spiritual maturity. It is my hope that God will send out leaders from HC who will help other college students (even the ones at Yale, prof. Gelernter) to see there is a higher calling in life than just materialism, consumption, power, money and lust. I hope that they feel responsible for the next generation of American exceptionalism, and that God will be important in their lives. If this happens then all these things will be added unto us.