Five pledge brothers over Five days: the AC Crimson & Gold Challenge.
This year, my AC fraternity pledge class celebrates a 35th anniversary. This week, Austin College Athletics is raising funds for its Crimson & Gold Challenge.
You can donate to a specific AC sport. And one big characteristic of my 1989 pledge class? We all played different sports. Man, we had them all covered.
So, to help raise money, I’m going to highlight five members of my 1989 pledge class alongside their five respective sports. I’m also going to donate to their sport of choice.
Day #1: Football
AC Quarterback John Talley led the 1991 Roos to a winning season that included victories over Trinity & Tarleton State. That last win over Tarleton was the final matchup ever, as the state school in Stephenville (the 2nd largest in the Texas A&M System) had their sights set on loftier heights.
Tarleton State is now Division 1 and will be facing Texas A&M at Kyle Field in 2025. But their record against Austin College will forever remain a pitiful 11-18. That last loss of the 18 was due in part to the accurate arm of my 1989 pledge brother John Talley.
On Monday, I think I’ll donate to football in honor of JT. See the comments to donate.
Five pledge brothers over Five days: the AC Crimson & Gold Challenge.
This year, my AC fraternity pledge class celebrates a 35th anniversary. This week, Austin College Athletics is raising funds for its Crimson & Gold Challenge.
You can donate to a specific AC sport. And one big characteristic of my 1989 pledge class? We all played different sports. Man, we had ALL of them covered.
So, to help raise money, I’m going to highlight five members of my 1989 pledge class alongside their five respective sports. I’m also going to donate to their sport of choice.
Tuesday, Day #2: Basketball
Wayne Whitmire (pictured here with AC Hall of Honor inductee Kevin Krause) played baseball at AC, but I’m donating to basketball in Wayne’s name. Why? Because I know a little story that none of y’all do. And it’s a good one.
In 1987, just one year after Akeem “The Dream” Olajuwon led the Houston Rockets to the NBA Finals, Akeem’s kid brothers Afis & Taju Olajuwon led Houston’s Marian Christian High School to the TAPPS Class 3A championship game.
But “the dream” of a state title ended for the Olajuwon brothers, when Wayne Whitmire (#43 in the photo) and the Incarnate Word Angels defeated Marian Christian in OT. Yes, that’s right Roo fans. Wayne Whitmire……former Roo baseballer…….is a Texas state champion in BASKETBALL.
On Tuesday, I think I’ll donate to basketball in honor of Whitmire. See the comments to donate.
Five pledge brothers over Five days: the AC Crimson & Gold Challenge.
This year, my AC fraternity pledge class celebrates a 35th anniversary. This week, Austin College Athletics is raising funds for its Crimson & Gold Challenge.
You can donate to a specific AC sport. And one big characteristic of my 1989 pledge class? We all played different sports. Man, we had ALL of them covered.
So, to help raise money, I’m going to highlight five members of my 1989 pledge class alongside their five respective sports. I’m also going to donate to their sport of choice.
Wednesday, Day #3: Baseball
Kelly Carver (far right, with Kevin Krause and my fraternity pledge brother Phil Novicki) was a baller. After an All-District career at Sherman HS, Carver was part of a core group of Roos that turned AC baseball into a winning program against non-scholarship NAIA competition. That group suddenly began administering quite a few beatdowns.
Hey, the pledge class of 1989 knows beatdowns.
Carver finished his career TIAA All-Conference, earning the Cecil Grigg MVP award for AC baseball. Boy was he good. But don’t take my word for it! Just ask his Roo baseball skipper: AC Athletic Director David Norman. Coach Norman led AC baseball in 1990, the same year as my favorite Carver baseball story.
In 1990, the AC tennis courts were located behind the left field wall of Baker Field. In a match against McMurry, I was winning easily. As a friendly gesture to my struggling opponent, I invited him on a break to watch Kelly’s at-bat in the distance. Carver proceeded to knock a home run over the left field wall that rolled right up to our court. The McMurry guy and I briefly celebrated together, before I resumed his tennis beatdown.
Hey, the pledge class of 1989 knows beatdowns.
On Wednesday, I think I’ll donate to baseball in honor of Carver. See the comments to donate.
Five pledge brothers over Five days: the AC Crimson & Gold Challenge.
This year, my AC fraternity pledge class celebrates a 35th anniversary. This week, Austin College Athletics is raising funds for its Crimson & Gold Challenge.
You can donate to a specific AC sport. And one big characteristic of my 1989 pledge class? We all played different sports. Man, we had ALL of them covered.
So, to help raise money, I’m going to highlight five members of my 1989 pledge class alongside their five respective sports. I’m also going to donate to their sport of choice.
Thursday, Day #4: Swimming
Barry “Sly” Holcomb and I endured pledgeship together in the spring of 1989. Sly earned his nickname for his disarming ways with the fairer sex. In reality though, that nickname was probably more appropriate for his smooth splits at Hannah Natatorium.
As a freshman in 1989, Holcomb qualified for the NAIA National Meet in Milwaukee, WI. Sly followed that up with trips to NAIA Nationals in Canton, OH & Seattle, WA, where he was a part of AC swimming relay teams that set school records in numerous events.
But his greatest success came as a senior, when he earned Honorable Mention All-American honors on a 200-freestyle relay team that placed 16th in the nation. That result was achieved in part due to Holcomb’s 50-free split in the race, at that time the fastest in school history.
You wouldn’t know any of that, however, because Sly was just a modest, fun Alan Greenspan-like fraternity treasurer analyzing budgets using monetary units of “kegs.” Barry is your guy to buy pitchers at City Limits, which he did frequently in 1989. And in this photo 35 years later.
Barry’s swimming story is worthy of an Austin College Hall of Honor nomination. So last year, I nominated him. And I’m proud to announce that my pledge brother, Barry Holcomb, will be inducted into the AC Hall of Honor during Legends weekend in the summer of 2025. Well done Sly.
On Thursday, I think I’ll donate to swimming in honor of Barry “Sly” Holcomb. See the comments to donate.
Five pledge brothers over Five days: the AC Crimson & Gold Challenge.
This year, my AC fraternity pledge class celebrates a 35th anniversary. This week, Austin College Athletics is raising funds for its Crimson & Gold Challenge.
You can donate to a specific AC sport. And one big characteristic of my 1989 pledge class? We all played different sports. Man, we had ALL of them covered.
So, to help raise money, I’m going to highlight five members of my 1989 pledge class alongside their five respective sports. I’m also going to donate to their sport of choice.
Friday, Day #5: Tennis
Hey look, it’s me. I don’t write about myself that much. But I have a reason to make an exception here. Yes, Marc has a little secret. Marc knows tennis.
Tennis was everything in high school during the 1980s, from earning a Top-100 ranking in Texas to leading my A&M Consolidated Tigers to a third-place finish in the Class 4A State Tournament in Austin. But the memories of Roo tennis in 1990 are some of the fondest.
That year, I played #1 for AC. I finished the season 11-2, losing twice to the same guy: Tarleton’s #1. He beat me once in TIAA conference play and a second time in the NAIA District 8 tournament. That second win allowed him to reach NAIA Nationals in Kansas City; I consoled myself with a 1st Team TIAA All-Conference designation and the AC tennis MVP award.
That MVP award was something of an inevitability in 1990. Yet at the time it was probably the most meaningful, as I figured it would permanently connect me to my alma mater. And that’s how things turned out. 35 years since the Pledge Class of 1989, I still swing by campus to find this proof that AC was once a place I called home.
I’m in touch online with Steven McCrane, Tarleton’s #1 in 1990. Like many aging tennis champs, Steven now plays pickleball. And how. In 2023, Steven was ranked Top 10 in the nation in the 55-59 age group of the US Senior Pickleball tour (USSP). I better start honing my pickleball skills if I want to exact some revenge against the one guy who beat me in tennis back in 1990.
It’s been fun writing about my 1989 Pledge Class, a bunch of fellas who mean a lot to me. I’m proud of all 12 of them and the many sports in which they thrived. I’m proud of the four I wrote about this week: John, Wayne, Kelly, & Barry. I’m proud that Barry will be inducted into the AC Hall of Honor during Legends weekend in the summer of 2025.
And I’m proud to join Barry next summer. In their infinite wisdom, the “A” Board has decided to induct me into the AC Hall of Honor in 2025 alongside one of my pledge brothers. It should be a fun weekend this summer at the Gar Hole and on campus. Hope you can make it to the Legends party; we’ll turn it into the best Roo Tale yet.
On Friday, I think I’ll donate to tennis in honor of me and all my pledge brothers from the Class of 1989. See the comments to donate.
