Football in Dallas (#209, Topic G)

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal has a half-page review of a book entitled Running With the Big Dogs. It is on a football rivalry between U of Texas and U of Oklahoma, now 100 years old. The game is invariably played in Dallas, a neutral site between these two universities. For several years, I was a professor at U of Texas at Dallas, so I am reasonably familiar with this annual affair. It is quite clear that Texas is very fond of -- perhaps crazy about -- football. Another ritualistic match would be professional football games between Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins. The first year we were in Dallas, my wife and I happened to be shopping in downtown Dallas one day, and found the downtown areas deserted -- very few cars, practically no pedestrians, few shoppers in stores. Reason: the Cowboys-Redskins game was on, and everyone was watching the game on TV (I think that game was an away game for Cowboys). In addition to the professional and college varieties, Texas was/is also big on high-school football, which invariably was/is played on Friday evenings. On occasions when I drove by one of these high schools when the game was on, the stadium would be well lit and packed with spectators. When we moved to Bethesda, we were only a block-and-half from Whitman High School. Though its stadium would be well lit on Friday evenings when a football game was on, the noise level was subdued. Texas in general and Dallas in particular are, in terms of their fondness for football, in a league by themselves.