Friday, Nov. 20, 2009

ESPN Gameday invades Fort Worth

Jay Betsill

Twitter.com/TheFamousJay

The city of Fort Worth literally turned purple last weekend in honor of the #4-ranked TCU Horned Frogs football success as they hosted #16 Utah. Skyscrapers in downtown were lit up with purple lights as the skyline morphed into purple mountains majesty.

Saturday morning, ESPN College Gameday broadcast from the TCU campus, which stamped the team and city with credibility. The show featured anchor Chris Fowler, former Heisman Trophy winner and Super Bowl MVP Desmond Howard, Kirk Herbsreit, and coach Lee Corso. Kirk bragged about how his mom was from Fort Worth. Desmond proclaimed: "I love Ft. Worth, I wanna come back!" Lee Corso actually donned a Horned Frog mask as he predicted a TCU victory.

But the real entertainment was the scene! Thousands of rowdy people were on hand, including many who camped out overnight, with hundreds of signs ranging from "TCU = Texas Championship University" to "Chicago Luvs TCU" all the way to "[All-American Defensive End]" Jerry Hughes is My Facebook Friend!" An ocean of fanatics surrounded the huge stage and dozens of people were wearing orange hard hats provided by the show's title sponsor Home Depot. This was the college football atmosphere I have always seen on TV, but never been a part of...until now! Obviously being at TCU, I was completely surrounded by beautiful purple-clad girls, many of them scrambling to be on the live national TV show.

When the TV show went off the air at 11:00, ESPN Radio broadcast the rest of the afternoon as the actual game did not begin until 6:30, over seven hours later. In case you missed it, TCU demolished Utah 55-28. This is definitely an experience I will never forget and hopefully the support given to this event by the people of Fort Worth will guarantee a return engagement and another huge party on a fall Saturday morning.

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