Size matters ... in the Big XII

As Montana football fans know, Washington-Grizzly Stadium is getting a facelift; an expansion to increase seating up to 26,000 capacity. Well, it needs about 70,000 more seats to impress me.

(Photo from UTexas.edu)

That's Darryl K. Royal-Memorial Stadium, home of the Longhorns and, on Autumn Saturdays, nearly 100,000 rabid Texas fans. And the back end zone is currently undergoing expansion to give the stadium full seating all the way around.

Today my mentor at the paper, a remarkably talent writer named Alan Trubow, took me to lunch at a barbecue joint in Austin. We talked about journalism, feature writing and Ray Fanning (turns out Alan went to Columbia College in Chicago whilst Ray was a professor there). Then Alan took me to Memorial Stadium, and it was truly awesome. I walked through where all the golden trophies rest, which was very impressive. Lots of success here.

Alan isn't my only new friend at the Statesperson. Blair, an editorial assistant in the business department, and I have spent the past couple of days emailing each other "the next line" for a story we wrote together. It turned out a little something like this.

Also, in case you're thinking all I do is practice my Southern accent and make up weird stories about ogres, here is my seventh bylined story to run in the Statesman. It's also one of my favorites because, as those of you familiar with my writing might notice, I'm getting comfortable enough to use my own voice -- which is awesome.