The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
09.06.2013 | Football, Bill Little Commentary
As the Longhorns prepared to go together on their first road trip of the 2013 season, they took time to remember those who often walk alone.
About seventy Texas Longhorn football players will be heading this weekend to Provo, Utah, in the valley below the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains, in the towering shadow of Mount Timpanogos. And as they prepared to go together on their first road trip of the 2013 season, they took time to remember those who often walk alone.
While students had a day off from class on Monday because of Labor Day, Longhorn football players mustered to write letters and pack boxes to be sent to deployed U.S. troops as part of a project called Caring For Camo -- a unique student organization started by three UT undergraduates, including Longhorns team manager Alan Dukor and two classmates in the McCombs School of Business.
With a mantra of "Be a hero, for a hero," Caring for Camo defines itself on its website (caringforcamo.com) as a "student organization dedicated to supporting currently deployed U.S. troops by sending letters and care packages."
Dukor and two of his classmates came up with the idea last December.
"People would ask 'do you support the troops,' and people would say yes - but how can I do that?" Alan says. "So we said, 'help us.'"
It didn't take long for Alan and his friends to draft Longhorns deep snapper Nate Boyer, a Bronze Star winning Green Beret who remains in the military and was deployed this summer with the U.S. Army serving with Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan, working with Special Forces from other NATO countries.
With Boyer's backing and an appearance last spring from former Longhorn Colt McCoy at an event to raise funds for postage and other materials, the Austin chapter of Caring for Camo embarked on their project. At the same time, students at three other universities - Wisconsin, Alabama and Central Florida, began their own chapters.
The Longhorns' team theme -- "for the man on my right and my left" -- was chosen because of the close connection of teamwork and camaraderie shared by football and America's fighting men and women. Boyer, who came up with the idea for the theme, is the first to acknowledge the difference.
"We understand there is a great difference between the football field and the battlefield, but the main message -- that you have to be responsible, trust each other and count on each other, is the same," he said.
To underscore the commitment to the theme and for those for whom it stands, Mack Brown and the staff joined the UT team in dedicating their BYU game to the military. While the players wrote and signed letters of support that were destined to men and women they had never met, equipment manager Chip Robertson came up with some extra Longhorn tee shirts to put in the boxes along with things the players had brought.
"There are some things you can't send," said Sarah Smith, a student associate in the athletics directors office who served as events director for the organization. "Chocolate and bubble gum are out because they would melt. We try to get DVD's and staples such as jerky -- things they would like."
Boyer says, from personal experience, that "there are a lot of young people there who are the same age as our students, and often they have no contact with folks back home. It really means a lot to let them know they are appreciated."
All of that brings us full circle, to the game, the valley and the mountain. Mack has always said a college football team is in the education business during the week and the entertainment business on the weekend, and Saturday's trip to Provo should prove to be both. The entertainment part is certainly covered - just thirteen miles up the mountain to the east, Robert Redford's Sundance Resort with its Sundance Film Festival, mirrors the South By Southwest Film Festival which is held in Austin in the spring.
Texas football is making its second trip to Provo -- the first came in 1988 -- and the game is a rematch of a 2011 meeting in Austin when Case McCoy came off the bench in the first of his several rescue efforts to bring the Horns from behind in a 17-16 victory. The game also featured the debut for young quarterback David Ash, who contributed as a true freshman and now, as a junior, leads Texas into this meeting.
The teams come into the game from totally different directions. Texas opened at home and scored 56 unanswered points to come from behind to beat New Mexico State, 56-7. BYU opened on the road at VIrginia in a torrential rainstorm with lightning that delayed the game for more than two hours, and lost, 19-16.
So, with a national television audience tuned in, the two teams which feature "hurry up" offenses will go at it in a picturesque setting that should showcase a really pretty evening of college football.
Within a few days -- at some point next week -- deployed U.S. troops will receive a surprise and welcomed care package. Some will have stayed up until 3 a.m. to watch the game in faraway places where they stand in harm's way so that young guys their age can play a game called football.
And Sarah and Alan, the rest of the UT chapter of Caring for Camo and those who have joined the movement around the country will be getting ready for fund raisers (it costs about $40 a box to send overseas) and packing parties.
There is one final sidebar to all of this. High on Mount Timpanogos lies the remains of a World War II B-25 bomber which crashed during a training mission in 1955. You have to figure that the ghosts will be watching, far down in the valley, as the Longhorns proudly wear their white "storm trooper" uniforms, where young people celebrate because of the sacrifice of so many.
And they will be very pleased to know that somebody really does care.
