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It appears that Herman is finding a groove and an identity for how he wants to recruit at Texas, and it's a pretty good moat against negative recruiting and pitches from other programs. He's doing a few things that are really important: Identifying players that they absolutely do not want and playing a role in directing them elsewhere. Others do this, but he's doing it as a fired volley in order to actually pursue similar players that UT covets. Identifying players that are the highest priority and building a full pitch to each of them in a bespoke manner, based on legitimate personal research. Some of the analysts get this started on freshman and sophomore players. It's one thing to talk up Austin or tradition or show hot girls on campus, it's another to introduce players to professors from fields in which they've expressed interest, to put together a suite of high quality unique graphics, or show film of specific opportunities/issues with current talent and juxtapose/compare that to the recruit's role in the same situation. Going with the "I don't have a game" approach, which is the greatest game to play. Offering up total transparency around where recruits would fit on the depth chart is one thing, telling them where they fit on the recruiting board when they're not number 1 is another. Involving the parents and walking everyone through statistics about percentage of players who make the NFL vs. enter the work force, and then comparing that to other schools and average salaries, etc. Showing them that Billy Sims has been homeless in the not too distant past and that Earl Campbell still gets paid a salary is quite a contrast. With Saban and Swinney around, he's not unique in being thorough, but it is a difference compared to other staffs directly east in BCS and Baton Rouge. It also helps to establish relationships with trainers, 7x7 crews, uncles, etc., given that this is college football at this point.

8:35 Tom Herman 27:25 Kris Boyd 39:00 Tim Beck 44:30 Chris Del Conte 1:02:09 Todd Orlando 1:14:32 Andrew Beck

That's not what your mom said last night

I sure hope this stops being a thing soon.

That should be the picture that gets hung up in every post office.

So I’ll be a brain surgeon if football doesn’t work out but if it weren’t for football I’d be dead.

Texas Football Fan's Diary A chronology of events for Saturday, December 4, 1999, and the early morning hours of Sunday, December 5, 1999: 6:00 AM - Arise, play the Eyes of Texas and Texas Fight at full-freaking blast 6:20 AM - Get in car, drive to New Braunfels 7:30 AM - Tee off (me and a buddy were the FIRST tee-time of the morning) 8:50 AM - Turn 9 (crack open first beer) 8:53 AM - Crack open second beer 8:58 AM - Crack open...(you get the idea) 10:30 AM - Finish 18 (holes, as well as beers), sign scorecard for smoooooth 95 10:35 AM - Headed for San Antonio 10:50 AM - Buy three 18-packs for pre- and post-game festivities 11:10 AM - We decide we don't have enough booze, so we double-back to a liquor store and buy the good ol' 750 ml plastic bottle "Traveler" Jim Beam 11:50 AM - Arrive at the tailgate spot. Awesome day. Not a single cloud in the sky. About 70 degrees. 11:55 AM - I decide that we're going to kick the shit out of Nebraska. 11:56 AM - I tell my first Nebraska fan to go fuck himself. 12:15 PM - The UT band walks by on the way to the Alamodome. We’re on the second floor of a two-story parking garage on the corner (a couple hundred of us). We're hooting and hollering like wild men. The band doubles back to the street right below us and serenades us with Texas Fight and The Eyes of Texas. AWESOME MOMENT. 12:25 PM - In the post-serenade serendipity, 50-100 grown men are bumping chests with one another, each and every one of them now secure and certain of the fact that we are going to kick the shit out of Nebraska. 1:00 PM - The Nebraska band walks by on the way to the Alamodome. Again, we hoot and holler like wild men. Again, the band doubles back and stops right below us to serenade us, this time, however, with the Nebraska fight songs. *Although somewhat impressed by their spirit and verve, we remain convinced that we are going to kick the shit out of Nebraska. 1:30 PM - I begin the walk to the Alamodome, somehow managing to stuff the "Traveler" and 11 cans of beer into my pants. 1:47 PM - I am in line surrounded by Nebraska fans. They are taunting me. I am taunting back, still certain that we are going to kick the shit out of Nebraska. I decide to challenge a particularly vocal Nebraska fan to play what I now call and will forever be remembered as "Cell-Phone Flop Out." Remember flop out for a dollar? The rules are similar. I tell this Nebraska jackass that if he’s so confident in his team, he should "flop out" his cell phone RIGHT NOW and make plane reservations to Phoenix for the Fiesta Bowl. And then I spoke these memorable words: "And not those damn refundable tickets, either! You request those non-refundable, non-transferable sons-of-bitches!" He backs down. He is unworthy. I call Southwest Airlines and buy two tickets to Phoenix, non-refundable and non-transferable. Price: $712. He is humbled. He lowers his head in shame. I raise my cell phone in triumph to the cheers of hundreds of Texas fans. I am KING and these are my subjects. I distribute the 11 beers in my pants to the cheering masses. I RULE the pre-game kingdom. 2:34 PM - Kickoff. Brimming with confidence, I open the Traveler and pour my first stiffy. 2:45 PM - I notice something troubling: Nebraska is big. Nebraska is fast. Nebraska is very pissed off at Texas. 3:01 PM - The first quarter mercifully ends. 9 yards total offense for Texas. Zero first downs for Texas. I'm still talking shit. I pour another stiffy from the Traveler. 3:36 PM - Four minutes to go in the first half: the Traveler is a dead soldier. I buy my first $5 beer from the Alamodome merchants. While I am standing in line, a center snap nearly decapitates Major Applewhite and rolls out of the end zone. Safety. 3:56 PM - Halftime score: Nebraska 15, Texas 0. I wish I had another Traveler. 4:11 PM - While urinating next to a Nebraska fan in the bathroom at halftime, I attempt to revive the classic Brice-ism from the South Bend bathroom: "Hey, buddy, niiiiiiiiice cock." He is not amused. 4:21 PM - I buy my 2nd and 3rd $5 beer from the Alamodome merchants.. I share my beer with two high school girls sitting behind me. Surprisingly, they are equipped with a flask full of vodka. I send them off to purchase Sprites, so that we may consume their vodka. I have not lost faith. Nebraska is a bunch of pussies. 4:51 PM - No more vodka. The girls sitting behind me have fled for their lives. I purchase two more $5 beers from the Alamodome merchants. 5:18 PM - Score is Nebraska 22, Texas 0. I am beginning to lose faith. This normally would trouble me, but I am too drunk to see the football field. 5:27 PM - I call Southwest Airlines: "I'm sorry, sir. Those tickets have been confirmed and are non-refundable and non-transferable." 5:37 PM - I try to start a fight with every person behind the concession counter. As it turns out, the Alamodome has a policy that no beer can be sold when there is less than 10 minutes on the game clock. I am enraged by this policy. I ask loudly: "Why the fuck didn't you announce last call over the fucking PA system??!!" 5:49 PM - Back in my seats, I am slumped in my chair in defeat. All of a sudden, the Texas crowd goes absolutely nuts. "Whazzis?," I mutter, awaking from my coma, "Iz we winnig? Did wez scort?" Alas, the answer is no, we were not winning and we did not score. The largest (by far) cheer of the day from the Texas faithful occurred when the handlers were walking back to the tunnel and Bevo stopped to take a gargantuan shit all over the letters "S", "K", and "A" in the "Nebraska" spelled out in their end zone. I cheer wildly. I pick up the empty Traveler bottle and stick my tongue in it. I am thirsty. 6:16 PM - Nebraska fans are going berserk as I walk back to the truck. I would taunt them with some off-color remarks about their parentage, but I am too drunk to form complete sentences. With my last cognitive thought of the evening, I take solace in the fact that if we had not beaten them in October, they would be playing Florida State for the national championship. 6:30 PM - Back in the car. On the way back to Austin for the 8:00 Texas-Arizona tip off. We can still salvage the day! I crack open a beer. It is warm. I don't care. 7:12 PM - We have stopped for gas. I am hungry. I go inside the store. I walk past the beer fridge. I notice a Zima. I've never had a Zima. I wonder if it's any good. I pull a Zima from the fridge. I twist the top off and drink the Zima in three swallows. Zima sucks. I replace the empty bottle in the fridge. 7:17 PM - There is a Blimpie Subs in the store. I walk to where the ingredients are, where the person usually makes the sub. There is no one there. I lean over the counter and scoop out half a bucket of black olives. I eat them. I am still hungry. I lean further over the counter and grab approximately two pounds of Pastrami. I walk out of the store grunting and eating Pastrami. The patrons in the store fear me. I don't care. 8:01 PM - We are in South Austin. I have been drinking warm beer and singing Brooks and Dunn tunes for over an hour. My truck-mate is tired of my singing. He suggests that perhaps Brooks and Dunn have written other good songs besides "You're Going to Miss Me When I'm Gone" and "Neon Moon" and that maybe listening to only those two songs, ten times each was a bit excessive. Perhaps, he suggests, I could just let the CD play on its own. I tell him to fuck off and restart "Neon Moon." 8:30 PM - We arrive at the Erwin Center. My buddy, against my loud and profane protestations, parks on the top floor of a nearby parking garage. I tell him he's an idiot. I tell him we will never get out. I tell him we may as well pitch a fucking tent here. He ignores me. I think he's still pissed about the Brooks and Dunn tunes. I whistle "Neon Moon" loudly. 8:47 PM - I am rallying. I have 4 warm beers stuffed in my pants. We're going to kick the shit out of Arizona. 9:11 PM - Halftime score: Texas 31, Arizona 29. I am pleased. I go to the bathroom to pee for the 67th time today. I giggle to myself because of the new opportunity to do "the bathroom Brice." There are no Arizona fans in the bathroom. I am disappointed. I tell myself (out loud) that I have a "Niiiiiice cock." No one is amused but me. 9:41 PM - I walk to the bathroom while drinking Bud Light out of a can. Needless to say, they do not sell beer at the Erwin Center, much less Bud Light out of a can. An usher stops me: "Where did you get that, sir?" I tell him (no shit): "Oh, the cheerleaders were throwing them up with those little plastic foot balls. Would you mind throwing this away for me?" I take the last swig and hand it to him. He is confused. I pretend I'm going to the bathroom, but I run away giggling instead. I duck into some entrance to avoid the usher, who is now pursuing me. I sneak into a large group of people and sit down. The usher walks by harmlessly. I am giggling like a little girl. I crack open another can of Bud Light. 9:52 PM - I am lost. In my haste to avoid the usher, I have lost my bearings. I have no ticket stub. I cannot find my seats. Texas is losing. 10:09 PM - Texas is being screwed by the refs. I am enraged. I have cleared out the seats around me because I keep removing my hat and beating the surrounding chairs with it. A concerned fan asks if I’m OK and perhaps I shouldn't take it so seriously. I tell him to fuck off. 10:15 PM - After the fourth consecutive "worst fucking call I have EVER seen," I attempt to remove my hat again to begin beating inanimate objects. However, on this occasion I miscalculate and I thumbnail myself in my left eyelid, leaving a one-quarter inch gash over my eye. I am now bleeding into my left eye and all over my shirt. "Perhaps," I think to myself, "I'm taking this a bit seriously." 10:22 PM - I am standing in the bathroom peeing. I;m so drunk I am swaying and grunting. I have a bloody napkin pressed on my left eye. My pants are bloody. I have my (formerly) white shirt wrapped around my waist. I look like I should be in an episode of Cops. 10:43 PM - Texas has lost. I put my bloody white shirt back on my body and make my way for the exits. I am stopped every 20 seconds by a good Samaritan/cop/security guard to ask me why I am covered in blood, but I merely grunt incoherently and keep moving. 10:59 PM - With my one good eye, I have located the parking garage. I walk up six flights of stairs. . . promise that when I see my friend I will punch him in the face for making me walk up six flights of stairs. . . find the truck .. . . and collapse in a heap in the bed of the truck. I look around and notice that traffic is lined up all the way around the garage, six whole flights, and no one is moving . . . I take a nap. 11:17 PM - I awake from my nap. I see my friend in the driver's seat.. I lift my head to look out the bed of the truck and notice that traffic is lined up all the way around the garage, six whole flights, and no one is moving. I am too tired to punch my friend. I call my friend a "Stupid cocksucker." 11:31 PM - I lift my head to look out the bed of the truck and notice that traffic is lined up all the way around the garage, six whole flights, and no one is moving. I call my friend a "stupid cocksucker." 11:38 PM - I lift my head to look out the bed of the truck and notice that traffic is lined up all the way around the garage, six whole flights, and no one is moving. I call my friend a "stupid cocksucker." 11:47 PM - I lift my head to look out the bed of the truck and notice that traffic is lined up all the way around the garage, six whole flights, and no one is moving. I call my friend a "stupid cocksucker." 11:58 PM - I am jostled. The truck is moving. I lift my head to look out the bed of the truck and notice that traffic is beginning to move on the second floor. I jump out of the truck, walk to the edge of the parking facility, and pee off the sixth floor onto the street below. My friend looks at me like I just anally violated his minor sister. I turn around and pee on the front of his truck while singing the lyrics to "Neon Moon." 12:11AM - We are moving. We are out of beer. I jump from the truck and go from vehicle to vehicle until someone gives me two beers. I am happy. I return to my vehicle. 12:26 AM - We have emerged from the parking facility. We make our way to my apartment and find Ed sitting on the couch with a freshly opened bottle of Glenlivet on the coffee table in front of him. . . . . We are all going to die tonight. 12:59 AM - We have finished three-quarters of the bottle of Glenlivet. We decide it would be a wonderful idea to go dancing at PollyEsther's. Ed has to pee. He walks down the hall to our apartment and directly into the full-length mirror at the end of the hall, smashing it into hundreds of pieces. We giggle uncontrollably and leave for PollyEsther's. 1:17 AM - The PollyEsther's doorman laughs uncontrollably at our efforts to enter his club. "Fellas," he says in between his fits of spastic laughter, "I've been working this door for almost a year. I've been working doors in this town for almost 5 years. And I can honestly say that I ain't never seen three drunker motherfuckers than you three. Sorry, can't let you in." We attempt to reason with him. He laughs harder. 1:44 AM - We find a bar that lets us in. We take two steps in the door and hear "Last call for alcohol!" I turn to the group and mutter: "See, dat wasn't that fuckin' hard. Day don't fuckin' do that at the Awamo...the awaom...the alab....fuck it, that stadium we was at today..." We order 6 shots of tequila and three beers. 2:15 AM - Back on the street. We need food. We hail a cab to take us the two and one half blocks to Katz's. The cab fare is $1.60. We give him $10 and tell him to keep it. 2:17 AM - There is a 20-minute wait. We give the hostess $50. We are seated immediately. 2:25 AM - We order two orders of fried pickles, a Cobb salad, a bowl of soup, two orders of Blueberry blintzes, two Rueben sandwiches, a hamburger, two cheese stuffed potatoes, an order of fries, and an order of onion rings. 2:39 AM - The food arrives. We are all asleep with our heads on the table. The waiter wakes us up. We eat every fucking bit of our food. Most of the restaurant patrons around us are disgusted. We don't give a fuck. The tab is $112 with tip. 2:46 AM - I'm sleepy. 9:12 AM - I wake up next to a strange woman. She is the bartender at Katz's. She is not pretty.

With nearly one million revelers joyously drinking in their team’s first championship, the Astros’ World Series victory parade had wended through the sun-baked streets of downtown Houston to City Hall, where the next phase of the celebration would take place. On stage, the exhilarated Astros were joined by local politicians and a number of luminaries at the start of the official ceremony honoring the team. It was then that Rich Dauer, the club's first base coach, abruptly began to stagger, almost as if he was drunk. He stepped to the back of the stage with the other coaches as the players were being introduced to the crowd. Something clearly was not right. Manager A.J. Hinch immediately noticed a difference in Dauer’s color and in his state of mind that was alarming. At that point, even Dauer knew there was a problem. “I don’t really feel too good,” he told the team’s assistant hitting coach Alonzo Powell. Then, suddenly, Dauer became less responsive. Bench coach Alex Cora was anxiously looking on and started shouting to Dauer: “Are you OK? ARE YOU OK?” Very quickly, and almost entirely out of public view, a drama was unfolding that would determine whether the 65-year-old Dauer would live or die. Jeremiah Randall, the Astros’ head athletic trainer, had no idea Dauer’s life was in danger when he saw the EMTs descend from the stage, carrying the coach on a stretcher. The stage was so crowded, Randall and his assistant athletic trainers, Scott Barringer and Daniel Roberts, were standing below, off to the side. The three quickly conferred, trying to figure out how to get Dauer through the crowd, to an ambulance. Their initial conclusion was the same as everyone else’s who had noticed Dauer’s sluggishness that day; he was dehydrated, exhausted from the Astros’ long playoff run and exuberant celebration downtown. The trainers and EMTs found a golf cart and placed the stretcher with Dauer onto the back of the vehicle. Randall sat in the front and called the Astros’ head team physician, Dr. David Lintner. The two discussed whether Randall should take Dauer to a small, local emergency room or a larger facility. Lintner pushed for Houston Methodist, a hospital rated No. 1 in Texas and No. 19 nationally in the 2016-17 rankings by U.S. News and World Report, “just on the outside chance there was something bad going on.” First, Randall had to locate an ambulance. The nearest one was three blocks away, no easy distance to navigate through jam-packed streets. “There were a million people downtown,” Randall says. “You couldn’t get anywhere. The roads were all blocked off. There was just nowhere to go.” Traffic remained a major problem even as the group reached the ambulance and got Dauer inside. Randall estimates the ambulance did not move for 30 minutes. The driver made calls, trying to determine the fastest path to Houston Methodist. Randall studied traffic apps on his phone in between giving Dauer’s medical history to the EMTs and talking to Lintner and another team physician, Dr. James Muntz, who were helping prepare the hospital for Dauer’s arrival. The situation was growing more urgent. “If you’re dehydrated and they put an IV in, you respond to the painful stimuli of the needle,” Randall says. “He wasn’t responding.” Dauer’s wife, Chris, did not attend the parade; she had grown ill, perhaps from food poisoning, and returned to the hotel where she and Rich were staying. Hinch’s wife, Erin, called Chris with the first warning, saying, “I don’t want to worry you, but Rich doesn’t look good.” Randall followed shortly thereafter and said, “We’re taking him to the emergency room.” Chris gathered herself and headed to Houston Methodist. Trey Hillman, the Astros’ bench coach in 2015 and ‘16, was with his wife, Marie, preparing to watch the sunset from the back porch of their lake house in Burnet, Tex., when he got a text message from Astros hitting coach Dave Hudgens. “Pray for Richie,” Hudgens wrote. “He collapsed and was dehydrated at the parade.” Hillman, a close friend of Dauer’s who is now the manager of SK Wyverns in South Korea, immediately called Randall, with whom he had worked in 2011 for the Los Angeles Dodgers; Hillman was the team’s bench coach and Randall its physical therapist. Randall answered on the second ring. “Trey,” he told Hillman, “you need to get down here.” Trey, accompanied by Marie, rushed out and made the 45-minute drive home to Liberty Hill, Tex., northwest of Austin. They showered and changed, then got back in the car and reached Houston Methodist in approximately three hours. Powell, the Astros’ assistant hitting coach, also was far outside Houston when he received word that Dauer’s condition was serious. Powell, who was about to be named the San Francisco Giants’ hitting coach, had left the celebration early and started the 16-hour drive home to Peoria, Az., with his wife, Jana. He needed to fly to San Francisco for a potential news conference that would take place in three days. “I thought the Giants would understand if I was a little late—Richie is a little more important than a news conference,” says Alonzo, who wound up doing a conference call on the appointed day instead. Jana had been a brain injury rehab nurse before becoming a school nurse about seven years ago, a change she had made to spend more time with Alonzo. She had sat on one side of Dauer during the parade, while Randall had sat on the other. When Jana saw the EMTs take Dauer away on the stretcher, she immediately thought to call Chris Dauer. But Jana’s phone battery had run out of juice after she used it to videotape the parade and celebration; she could not charge it until she and Alonzo got into their truck for the ride home. As soon as the phone had power, Jana saw a text from Chris asking her to call. “Richie collapsed,” the text said. “I’m on my way to the hospital.” Jana called, told Chris she knew about Richie, and apologized for her inability to phone earlier. At the time, Chris, like most everyone else, thought Rich only was suffering from dehydration. Chris, as Jana remembers, did not seem the least bit concerned. She agreed to keep Jana updated, and about 90 minutes into the Powells’ drive, Jana’s phone rang again. The news was unsettling. The Powells immediately turned around and headed back to Houston. Hours earlier, on the fire truck, Jana had noticed Dauer was not himself. He was quiet, wearing sunglasses, holding up his phone as if videotaping the parade. But Jana noticed his phone wasn’t even on. “I could see the signs then, but just shrugged it off, thinking it was exhaustion,” she says. Recalling the parade ride, Randall also asks himself, “How did I not know something was not right with him?” Randall says his conversations with Dauer on the fire truck were normal, but others later informed him of odd interactions they had with Dauer that day. Yet, even if Randall had been aware of those interactions, he is not sure he would have interpreted them as a sign of a medical issue. Dauer, as an infielder with the Baltimore Orioles from 1976 to ‘85, earned the nickname “Wacko” from Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer. The Astros also knew his quirky, colorful side. “He’s just kind of this off-the-wall character. It’s just him,” Randall says. “Sometimes you have a weird conversation and you don’t think anything of it. I think that’s what some people thought that day: ‘It’s Richie. It’s Wacko.’ After the fact, we were all like, ‘Dang, we should have seen this.’” Once Dauer arrived at Houston Methodist, Dr. Muntz—the team physician who specializes in internal bleeding—sprang into action. Muntz did not attend the parade and had raced to Houston Methodist, a five-minute drive from his home, after learning of Dauer’s collapse. The moment Dauer arrived, Muntz sensed trouble. Dauer was wild-eyed. He had gone into respiratory arrest, requiring the insertion of a breathing tube. His body was in a posture that indicated severe brain damage. “He was unresponsive,” Muntz says, “just a disaster.” Dauer underwent an immediate CAT scan, and the results showed what Muntz feared: “Blood everywhere” around his brain. Adding to the predicament: Due to a heart condition, Dauer was taking Xarelto, a blood thinner that is difficult to reverse. Undaunted, Muntz made a snap decision. “We have some fancy reversal agents, super-expensive,” Muntz says. “I said, ‘Just give them to him.'” Muntz cut through any delays, at one point snapping at the staff, “No more questions! He goes to the operating room.” Muntz also called two neurosurgeons and said, “If you can’t get here in five minutes, I’m calling someone else.” One already was at the hospital. The other, Dr. David Cech, arrived within four minutes, with Dauer’s surgery just getting underway. Cech had been across the street, catching up on paperwork in an office building connected to Houston Methodist by a sky bridge. “They called me and said, ‘Listen, we need you to come over here and operate on this guy,” Cech recalls. “I just zoomed across the street on the sky bridge.” By the time he got there Dauer was in a coma, “almost brain dead,” said Cech. Cech made a question-mark shaped incision on the side of Dauer’s head, removed a piece of bone, then removed all of the blood. The procedure, lasting about three hours, was especially painstaking due to the time it took for the reversal agents to stop Dauer’s bleeding. His brain had shifted about a centimeter from the right to the left, pushing against the brain stem. Cech and his team relieved the pressure on the stem by pushing the brain back toward the right side. The Powells arrived at the hospital while Dauer was still in surgery. Jana Powell, drawing on her expertise with brain injuries, spoke with Chris but could provide only so much comfort. “I was trying to be there for Chris, but trying to be realistic—this was not good,” Jana recalls. “I was trying to prepare her for the worst. But she was in shock. She really wasn’t comprehending anything that night.” After the surgery, Chris asked Jana to join her in speaking with Cech. The conversation, as Jana recalls, was chilling. “He was trying to explain to her that this was really bad, that if he made it through the night, he wouldn’t be the same—he said he’ll never be the same,” Jana says. “He said he wouldn’t know the extent of the brain damage until Richie woke up. All Chris said to the doctor was, ‘Is he going to be OK? All I want to know is if he is going to be OK.’” Says Chris: “I was kind of numb. I prayed. I said, ‘God, please don’t take my husband now.’ I went into the bathroom stall and prayed. But I felt I needed to be really strong through the whole thing. There was a part of me that thought, Maybe he’s not going to make it. But another part thought, No, he’s going to make it.” The chances of significant brain damage were indeed high—“most of these people end up vegetative, in a nursing home,” Cech says. But Cech also recalls telling Chris he was cautiously optimistic because the surgery had gone well. Dauer underwent a second CAT scan about an hour after the surgery to make sure the blood was gone and his brain was back in the proper position. The scan looked good. The pressure on Dauer’s brain stem had eased. Cech returned to the waiting room and found two security guards outside, allowing privacy for the growing contingent of Astros personnel—Hinch, his coaches and team staff members, along with some of their wives and Hinch’s daughters, Haley and Kaitlin. The bond between Hinch and Dauer dated to 2001 when Hinch was a Kansas City Royals catcher and Dauer was the team’s third base coach. Hinch, as the San Diego Padres’ assistant GM, had helped hire Dauer as the team’s Double A manager in 2013, then added him to his coaching staff after becoming Astros manager entering ‘15. Game 7 of the World Series was perhaps the culmination of their friendship. Two days later, Hinch found himself at Houston Methodist, not sure Dauer would survive. “I just couldn’t believe what was happening,” Hinch says. “I couldn’t comprehend it.” Randall, who was part of the contingent in the waiting room, had Dauer’s belongings, including his cell phone. Few outside of the Astros’ family knew Dauer’s life was in jeopardy, but everyone connected to him knew the Astros had just won the Series. In those terrifying moments when Dauer laid unconscious, about to undergo surgery, Randall gained a greater appreciation of the longtime coach’s popularity within the baseball world. “His phone just lit up,” Randall recalls, “all these people reaching out to Richie to say congrats.” The doctors advised Chris to have family members get to the hospital as quickly as possible. One of the Dauers’ daughters, Casey, arrived in Houston from Atlanta before Rich was out of surgery. Two others, Kelsey and Katie, arrived the next morning from Cincinnati. By that time, their father already was defying the odds. Dauer was responsive, stunning Chris, Casey and Trey and Marie Hillman, all of whom were by his side. Photo courtesy of the Dauer family In a group text shared among baseball people, Randall called Dauer’s progress, “nothing short of a miracle.” Dauer followed nurses’ commands, moving his left arm and leg. His right side was more problematic initially, but he gave a nurse a thumbs-up with his left hand as she explained where he was, what had happened. The doctors gave Dauer a “sedation vacation,” allowing his system to slowly awaken so they could check his responsiveness, get his limbs moving. They also removed Dauer’s breathing tube three days following surgery after initially saying he might need it for a week or more. “The magnitude of what he had wrong was intimidating, astonishing,” says Lintner, the Astros’ head physician. “The pace of his recovery was just as astonishing.” During her time as a brain injury rehab nurse, Jana Powell had seen hundreds of similar cases, but never a recovery quite like Dauer’s. She remembers thinking, There is no way this is possible. Yes, people recover, but they have developmental issues, mental issues. Dauer, though, was completely alert. “I never repeated my name and the date so many times in my life,” he says. “Every question was, ‘What’s your name? Where are you? Who is the president?' I knew all that. There was never any time when I was out of it, never any time I couldn’t function. If it was up to me, I would have left (the hospital) as soon as I opened my eyes.” He wasn’t kidding. Lintner recalls Dauer, with his wife and daughters present, “fussing about” two days after surgery, saying he needed to get up and walk around, go home. “Do I hear complaining? Are you really giving these people a hard time?” Lintner asked. “What? I feel great,” Dauer replied. Lintner then asked Dauer if he knew how close he had come to dying. “He really didn’t,” Lintner says. “He has always been healthy and active. The whole concept of a brush with death was completely foreign to him. I got one of his daughters to take a picture of the back of his head where he had the procedure. There were still monitors going under his scalp, into his skull. He saw those and quieted down a bit.” Says Hillman, “Even in talking to Richie now, I know he knows what happened. But I’m not sure he can fully grasp the severity of it. We were seeing things he wasn’t seeing. In his mind it was, ‘Hey, I’m OK, get this tube out of my throat. I’ll just be fine. I need to tell you guys what is going on here.’ It was very typical Richie.” Days after surgery Dauer was out of bed and enjoying visits from Astros players George Springer, Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and many others. At one point, he texted friends a video of himself walking around the hospital, saying, “I’m already up to 50 percent of my jogging to first-base speed.” Eight days after surgery, in another text, he said, “I get my last drain out of my head today. Who would have thought my brain needed drains?” Fluid in Dauer’s lungs lengthened his stay, but he was released on Nov. 15, exactly two weeks after the Astros completed their Series triumph and 12 days after he entered the hospital. Jake Kucherka, one of the team’s clubhouse attendants, helped Dauer get to his offseason home in Atlanta, sharing driving responsibilities with Chris on the two-day ride. Once home, Dauer visited a neurosurgeon, Dr. Daniel Barrow, who told him, “I’m amazed I’m even talking to you.” Barrow told Dauer he could resume his normal workouts. Dauer will continue to receive periodic checkups, but says his brain is “perfectly fine.” His sense of humor certainly is intact. Lintner chuckles about a video Dauer sent of himself doing housework with the caption, “Get me out of here!” Muntz cherishes a text Dauer sent him on Dec. 5, barely more than a month after undergoing surgery: “Hey Dr. Muntz, we’re doing well. My workouts are up to 50 minutes on elliptical and treadmill. I lifted light weights today and just left Taco Bell with a seven-layer burrito! Life is good!” To which Muntz replied, jokingly, “If the subdural didn’t kill you, the burrito will.” Dauer even offers a punchline in his story about asking Chris what God had in store for him. “I figured it out,” he says. “Fortunately for the fans of New York, I didn’t get the Yankees’ managing job.” But he and Chris, both Christian believers, talk about the role of divine intervention in his recovery. Hillman echoes their thoughts, attributing Dauer’s healing to “the miracle of medicine and the miracle of God’s grace.” Chris refers to Deuteronomy 31:8: “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave nor forsake you.” She mentions the good fortune of Randall standing nearby at City Hall to help Rich immediately, Muntz making the necessary snap decisions at Houston Methodist, Cech doing paperwork across the street on a day he otherwise might not have been at the hospital, Hillman making the three-hour drive to Houston and helping in any way he could. “I think you could see God before us,” Chris says. Photo courtesy of the Dauer family. Dauer, who had already decided to retire, recalls nothing about what happened on stage; his last memory is of riding on a fire truck in the parade. Hinch later informed him of an exchange they had just before Dauer began deteriorating. “A.J. said he turned to me and said, ‘You don’t look good. Are you OK?’” Dauer says. “Apparently, I said I was fine, like all old-school baseball players do.” Clearly, he was not fine. The night before, he had slipped on a wet floor and hit the side of his head. He never thought he was seriously injured, never had a headache, never considered missing the parade. But Dauer had suffered an acute subdural hematoma, a collection of blood outside the brain. Before undergoing surgery, his chances of survival—according to what doctors told Chris and friends gathered at Houston Methodist—were 3 percent. And even if he survived, his chances of avoiding significant brain damage were slim. Dauer, grateful to all who helped him, frequently calls Randall for the names of people he does not recall meeting but wants to thank. It bothers him that his trauma perhaps diminished the Astros’ joy as the franchise celebrated its first World Series title. But Alonzo Powell, the team’s former assistant hitting coach, says the way the Astros responded to Dauer typified their season. The team started out close, grew closer after Hurricane Harvey ravaged Houston and rallied one last time around Dauer. Muntz calls Dauer’s case the most fascinating he has seen in his 30 years in sports; every second counted, every step of the way. Randall credits the ambulance driver for skillfully shaving minutes off the trip to Houston Methodist. Rich, like Chris, marvels at how “all the miracles lined up” at the hospital. Lintner says, “If any of the dominos had fallen differently, we’d be having a very different conversation.”

There are a few players this year that Herman and staff were simply not going to recruit to play at Texas. Some from the drop and some after meeting with the player and/or talking with people not in their direct circle (school counselor, etc). It had nothing to do with their on-field play and while other coaches generally avoid the awkward conversations around why they aren't being pursued further at the risk pissing off a player, a trainer, a parent -- Herman and Yancy are more than straight with them. Further they have pointed out that removing the player from their current circles will be beneficial to them as young men moving forward. Actively giving them direction instead of simply hitting silent mode on their recruitment, despite the fact that there was nothing that this player could do to get back into mix at Texas. One of the trainers that has been very anti-Texas and anti-Herman has come around not because Herman is recruiting more of his kids or blowing smoke up his ass but because McKnight told that kid in no uncertain terms that he needed to remove his head from his ass wherever he ends up because he's already given up the opportunity at Texas and he didn't want to see him throw his life away.

Herman blitzing the state of CA is absolutely tremendous and UT should've been doing this for the last 20 years. It's one of the three most talent-rich states, but it's easier than to pull kids OOS from there than Texas (2 good recruiting schools in state and ever blue blood in the country tries to recruit here) or Florida (3 good recruiting schools and kids seem hesitant to leave the south). In CA, USC is obviously a blue blood and we won't bat a very high percentage when going up directly against them, DeGabriel Floyd notwithstanding, but they recruit nationally and can only take so many good players. Schools like UCLA and Stanford aren't dominant recruiting powers in-state and kids in CA are pretty hesitant to go cross-county to cold northern schools or schools in the south. Oklahoma has been taking advantage of this for years but it's easier to pull a CA kid to Austin than Norman (unless maybe they're from Bakersfield). The state of Texas will have weak spots every year and we need to hit up CA and Louisiana to supplement those spots every year. I've been incredibly impressed with Herman. He gets it. He knows how to manage a massive football program, like UT. It's frustrating because he seems to be doing every single thing right, except getting wins. I don't like that Beck is still our OC, and I think our offense will once again pull down our ceiling significantly but if Herman can just get to 9 wins against a fairly easy schedule and then get a better OC next year, he could really get this train moving. And if he does, I don't foresee this thing stopping for many, many years.

Ignatius, Chauncey Gardiner, Generic Bond Villain, Benny Hill, and how about these too: (Watching Fox News) Fantasizing about positive TV coverage Being a mad child with too much fucking power Having constant delusions and no one corrects him And talking like a 14 year old girl. "I'm, like, really smart...and we're leaving Syria, like, really soon."

That gentleman is speaking for me. Don't believe it could have been said any better by anyone.

Flounder was a Faber College legacy.

If you come to the realization that a player is probably going to wind up being a cultural problem or worse, be clear in the intent to not recruit the guy and let him pursue his other local choices. Find the facsimile of said player without the baggage and recruit that guy. Marcel Brooks and Beason to some degree each fit this. I think Carter does as well. I'd like to say this is true of Austin Stogner, but he pretty much was born to be a sooner. There's also an opposite play to make later on in the cycle, and we saw some of that last year. Maintain low key conversations with recruits that wind up committing to ATM, TCU, OU, and LSU and then turn up the heat during the season or shortly thereafter so that those programs have to go spend a disproportionate amount of time keeping those guys happy versus pursuing open recruitments that involve UT as well. You absolutely have to have high quality analyst-level talent to pull this off. Carrington, Chang, and Langi fit that bill. Texas is going to add to that and the other guys are playing from behind. If all of that is truly part of a strategy, then the credit for being intelligent that Herman receives from everywhere and pours onto himself is actually deserved on some level. It's hard for me to believe that a coach is really capable of thinking in these layers but I guess Billy Martin did and Nick Saban does, so there you go.

Thanks for posting this. We need to be reminded that the Ding-Dongs are not are the real majority. If you get caught up in the newspaper/TV, you start to wonder what happened to us. This man spoke from the heart and captured how the majority feels and that needs to celebrated. Not shunned. The ding-dongs may have a few minds, but until they capture the heart, there is still hope for America. As usual, the President Ding-Dong has more more hypocritical propaganda to push.

No one is gonna remember the Masters five years from now...who won, who lost, but they're gonna remember your thirteen!

The approaching hoard of illegals has been joined by a naval armada composed of ms-13 members riding on manatees. Rolling back the protections for manatees and other endangered species is the only way to keep us safe.

You have to teach them not to put the pussy on a pedestal.

While he obviously doesn’t need one, putting Shipley’s roommate as the descriptor would have been pretty funny.

And DOTUS is getting laaaaarrrrrger.

"Goodspeed to you read me?" "This is Goodspeed." "Are the hostages alive?" "Everyone of them." "What about Mason? Is he still alive?" "He's dead, sir."

He was a hell of a coach. Posted these years ago at the old shaggy homestead, but thought I'd do it again here if you don't mind. These are pages from the game program for the UW - Illinois game at Husky Stadium in 1956 (my grandfather took his little girl - my Mom - to that game and she brought back this program). That was DKR's one and only year here before heading to the Forty Acres; until Sark bailed on us (we survived) he was the last coach that left here for another school of his own volition. Hook 'em, DKR - and thanks for spending a year here!

Thoughts? I think Bob Stoops is a piece of shit and an asshole.

Nervous about this tee shot Fuck...

When you are doing all kinds of corrupt shit to enrich yourself, you want to keep it a secret.

Somebody tell this clown he doesn't have to hit it from there.

Leave Huckabeef out of this.

Come On Steal the Noise

So if Mexico's border laws are so strong, then why do we need a wall again?

The Titans own the Oilers logo so the Texans can't do that. It's annoying as fuck. And Bob McNair won't do shit. He is so damn vanilla and has no balls. It honestly wouldn't be that complicated to take his current shit and make it way cooler. Change Texans to Texians. Go with a Texas Revolution type theme like the Patriots do for the American Revolution. Logo could be a stylized cannon paying homage to the CATI flag and cannon from Gonzalez. Or go with a design like Dimmitt's flag at Goliad. Or incorporate the San Jacinto monument into the helmet design. Lots of options.

The list is also quite incomplete. It has the usual litany of options the left likes to trot out, but it's missing most of what the right has proposed. Why are both sides not represented? Enforce existing laws before we add an others. The FBI failed twice after they were alerted. Broward CO. sheriff contacted 39 times! LE screwed up with the S.Carolina shooter. They screwed up in the Texas church shooting. They screwed up in San Bernadino. As a side note - with these clear failures at every level, why would you assume law abiding gun owners would turn over their means of protection in the face of such utter incompetence? Straw buyers. Prosecute these occurrences. In 2013 there were 48k+ cases brought against straw buyers. 44 were prosecuted. GRVO's: gun violence restraining orders Mental Health - why is this not included in background checks? Virtually all these shooters had this in common and were actively take meds for it. Focus on the schools themselves: The utter absurdity of these gun-free zones need to go. Minus one (Gifford), every shooting has occurred in these zones. Every one. How this is not brought up each and every time is baffling. Schools. College campuses. Theatre. Military base. It's the one common denominator. Physical barriers at schools: armed security, monitored entry points. Even metal detectors as you see in inner-city schools.

I'm glad we have smokey here to stick up for white supremacists, they really need a voice.

"Everywhere I look, something reminds me of her" -Frank Drebin

trading a 686 for this tommorrow, always wanted one Talo Bisley Blackhawk 454 Casull. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pete Rose should be in. But Shoeless Joe has an even better argument to be in.

she got a voice so husky it could pull a dogsled.

Did you follow that link and read the article? A humble request: Instead of just posting a tweet that is nothing more than a link to an article, just post a link to the article. Quoting the text of the article, or at least some of it, would be nice too. Yeah, yeah, "point taken," I get it. Just think about it.

I might be the only person to say this, but I hated watching him play. In part, that’s because as a hardcore Astros fan since before the Big Red Machine, I hated Cincy in general. But Rose came across as a special sort of douche. He seemed to think you got style points for making a routine play look way harder than it was. He’d dive for fly balls that didn’t require it, then flop around like a clubbed chicken to complete the show. And he’d mastered the whole hair thing long before Harper was even born. I’m sure not saying Rose wasn’t a highly accomplished player. Anyone can see he was. Ridiculous hit numbers. But the gambling revelation didn’t even make me blink. He’d seemed like a tool all along.

There’s not going to be a border wall, ever. Maybe some semblance of a virtual one. Not a physical one. That’s something dotard and his retarded syncophants will never be capable of understanding. Because they are retards.

Why do some twitter quotes hang over the text below, but are opaque, while others completely block the message below? I'm really starting to lose it with this shit.

This is the crux of what drives the chasm. According to many on the left, those on the right should be "reasonable" and for "common sense gun laws." Let's play that out: The Right plays ball and bans bump stocks, fixes NCIS, and let's say we go nuts and close the "gun show loophole." Over the next year, the amount of shootings don't change Now the professional Left is back at the table, demanding more - so to appear "reasonable" the Right shrugs off the NRA and raises the age to buy a long gun to 21, and bans "hi-cap" mags , only allows for manufacture of 5 round or less mags. Guess what...nothing - there are still shootings, because there are crazy people and 300MM+ guns out there. So... Now the Left is back again. The Right responds to the calls for "no more!" "do something" "be reasonable!" "common sense!" and bans the manufacture and import of ALL semi-auto guns in the U.S., limits ammo sale to one box per month, puts in place an optional Federal buy-back program. Nope...still shootings! Leading to the outright repeal of the 2A, outlawing of all but shotguns and a turning the optional buyback program into mandatory - you have a 2 year window to give them up or we put you in jail. Now that the (law abiding, legal) population is effectively disarmed, guess what? Welp, now there is a massive black market for guns, and the shootings, they don't stop either. Yeah, it's a slippery slope thing. But when people are openly talking about Step 7 being the goal, it's not a hard leap to make. Gun violence is down over the past twenty years even as amount of guns owned have gone up. Mass shootings are up, and that is a Bad Thing, but I put that more on the polarization of our society, the "you're either with me or you're the devil" attitude that people have now than the guns. As a reminder, A Gun Free America in 5 Easy Steps:

Terry Black's on Barton Springs. $ 24.00 for beefer + 1 side. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

I'm in St Louis once or twice a month for work. I've eaten at several places on your list and found them all pretty meh*. Toasted Ravioli is the best local thing going, and since I went no carb, I can't even eat that. Most of the pizza I've had there was a greasy mess, and as an Austinite I find the BBQ subpar in just about every way. Pappy's might be the most over-rated BBQ I've had since I tried Dreamland in Tuscaloosa. *I am not a huge fan of big, heavy Italian meals in general, so maybe they are good for what they are...just not my thing.