No, those weren't crawfish ponds we drove through Friday in south Texas on the way to Corpus Christi, but it looked that way.
Up to eight inches of rain fell in these parts over the last 60+ hours, although the skies cleared today and we had Chamber of Commerce-looking weather, if a little windy.
The Demons' basketball road trip began Thursday night with a run to Humble, Texas, around the airport, with the idea to carve in half the longest league road trip of the season. The team practiced at Houston Baptist, where we had the chance to visit with NSU alumnus Barbara Tolar, wife of the late Demon football great Charlie Tolar. Barbara works in the HBU athletic department after nearly 30 years working at Rice.
She went to great effort to help us get the team bus pulled up right to the back door of the gym so the team wouldn't have to walk through rain about 100 yards out to the parking lot at HBU.
Now that we're here at the American Bank Center in Corpus, another big name from NSU history comes front and center. The Demons' basketball scoring king, Billy Reynolds, is here to watch his son, Justin, a junior forward for the host Islanders.
This is their first home game in 52 days, a scheduling mistake that they don't want to repeat.
Billy and Demons coach Mike McConathy had a nice visit about an hour before tipoff. They were darlings of the Louisiana basketball scene 33 years ago as both ended their playing days with over 2,000 points.
Billy wanted us to pass along special greetings to his NSU coaches, Tynes Hildebrand and Derwood Duke. Reynolds lives in Houston and had a great visit with Dr. Duke, now Natchitoches Parish superintendent of schools, at the TAMCC game in Prather Coliseum last year. Sure bet that Billy will make the four-hour trip to Natchitoches for the meeting of the Demons and Islanders next season.
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