July 1, 2010
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65 DAYS UNTIL KICKOFF - With a team-leading15 tackles, including one for a 2-yard loss, Bo Brown was Lamar University's most prominent defensive player in the Cardinals' last game - played on Nov. 18, 1989 before a crowd of 3,263 in Cardinal Stadium.
A 5-foot-11, 221-pound linebacker from Vidor, Brown was also the Cardinals' leading tackler for the season with 133, and he was named the Division 1-AA Defensive Player of the Week after making 19 tackles in an early-season 21-19 victory over Texas-El Paso.
"The coaches set up the defense to allow me to run to the ball," said Brown, now the general sales manager for News Radio 740 KTRH and Sport Talk 790 KBME in Houston. "Keith Powe and those other guys in our front four kept the blockers off me and gave me plenty of time to run and find the ball."
At 42, Brown is no longer able to "run to the ball," but he is overjoyed other linebackers will soon have the opportunity to assume his former position as a prominent defensive player for Lamar.
"I'm proud to have been a part of the 1989 team and of the fact we rallied in the fourth quarter to win the final game (22-17) and finish with a breakeven season," said Brown. "Most of us (players) knew the whole week of the game that it was pretty much over for the football program.
"We were playing McNeese - our biggest rival. McNeese had squashed us seniors for three-straight years, and we wanted to go out by doing the same thing to those guys, many of whom we had gotten to know.
"Besides Coach (Ray) Alborn was the ultimate motivator. He wasn't going to allow us to walk out onto that field and turn in our gear even before the game started. He had us fired up for a fight."
And fight those Cardinals did, despite trailing 14-6 going into the fourth quarter. Their 16-point fourth quarter consisted of a 15-yard touchdown pass from John Evans to Chris Ford, a 31-yard field goal by Frank Van Renselaer and a 2-yard scoring run by Kenny Franklin with a mere nine seconds remaining.
"You couldn't wish for much more determined, exciting and dramatic football than we played that night," said Brown as he recounted details of that evening and the season. "The important thing now, though is the college football-starved fans in Southeast Texas will again have the chance to see that kind of football right in their backyard.
"Since I haven't been able to go back to my alma mater for football games, I've been going to Baton Rouge with some of the guys I work with who are LSU-exes. That was okay, but it wasn't quite the same as watching your old school play. Now, I'm going to bring my LSU buddies to the first game back in Beaumont (on Sept. 11, vs. Webber International) and we're going to be in the stands cheering on the Cardinals."
The Texas State University System Board of Regents approved an athletics fee to help restore the football program in February of 2008, and Lamar named former NFL player Ray Woodard its eighth head football coach on June 19, 2008.
The Cardinals will play an 11-game schedule this season with six games to be played in Provost Umphrey Stadium. The season opener will be at McNeese State on Sept. 4.
Tickets for this historic season are currently on sale and can be purchased by calling the Lamar athletics ticket office at (409) 880-1715 or by visiting the athletics website at www.lamarcardinals.com/tickets/footbl-s-tickets.html.
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