Sports Center Saturday: TAMU RPTS Stories - R&P Club Intramurals, 1976-77

Here are two more pages with photographs from the scrapbook I kept in 1976-1977 as the Reporter-Historian of the Texas A&M University Recreation and Parks Club, being posted here in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences Department.

These pages talk about the club's intramural teams in coed flag football, girls swimming (which WON the university championship), and coed softball, with photographs from flag football.


Below:  Quarterback Russ Tillman '78 (at left) looks for a receiver, while Chris Andrews '80 and Denise Abendschein '76 try to block a member of the opposing team (on the far right).

Above:  Denise Abendschein '76 picks up a first down.  Watching her (also in dark shirts) are (from left) Sherry Camp '77, Wilfred Korth '79, and (on the right) Max Reed '79.

Below:  Speedy Chris Andrews '80 (far right) scores the first touchdown of the season.

© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

Sports Center Saturday: Fishing

Elizabeth Massmann Pape & Paul Robert Pape, Sept. 1952

My paternal grandfather, Paul Robert Pape (1896-1970), above right, loved to fish, so his family members got to fish, too.  He and his wife, my grandmother Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1908-2000), even planned to fish on their honeymoon in Woodruff, Wisconsin, but, unfortunately, it rained hard the whole time, so they went back to Chicago early.

Above left is my dad, Frederick Henry Pape, at age 10 or 12, around 1939-1941, with the bass and pike he caught over several days at Big Lake, just west of Dairymen's Country Club in north central Wisconsin.


© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Sports Center Saturday: Homecoming Mums

Recently a genealogist blogger friend of mine, who did not grow up in Texas, asked about homecoming mums.  Back when I was in high school in Houston, in the early 1970s, a homecoming mum was a corsage made with a large, real chrysanthemum, and decorated with ribbons in the school colors.  Pipe cleaners were used to put the school's initial or initials (or, if you were dating a football player, his jersey number) on the flower, and sometimes your name (and your date's name) were spelled out in glittery letters stapled to one of the ribbons.  There might be a tiny cowbell.

In the photo at the top of this post, I'm wearing the homecoming mum my date (let's call him Bill) gave me on November 15, 1974.  You can see the "S T" in red on the mum, which stood for his school, St. Thomas (an all-boys Catholic high school in Houston).

In the black-and-white photo below, Bill and I are at the St. Thomas Homecoming Dance the following night, November 16.  To make it easier to dance, I transferred the mum corsage to my wrist.  You can also see my name spelled out on one of the red ribbons.  In the background of the photo is another girl with a bigger mum, almost as tall as she is.  Back in 1974, that was considered a little gaudy - but apparently, it was a portent of what was to come.

Nowadays in Texas, homecoming mums are a even bigger deal.  Silk flowers have replaced real ones - although some "mums" don't seem to have any flowers at all, instead a stuffed animal of some sort is the centerpiece.  They are also so huge that one wears it with a cord around the neck (instead of pinned on), and some of them completely cover the wearer.  With all the ribbons, feathers, glitter, beads, animals, and other trinkets, these monstrosities can weight up to 12 pounds and cost up to $500!   Apparently, in many areas, guys wear them too, in the form of an armband (called a garter though).  Frankly, I think most of them (for guys and girls) are way too big and gaudy and (often) ugly and ridiculous.

Nowadays, of course, with the flowers (if there are any at all) not being real, the homecoming "mum" is often a keepsake.  Naturally, my real flower mum died, but I saved the glitter letters spelling my name on their red ribbon, and the red pipe cleaner S and T, and put them in my scrapbook. 

At left and right: peewee football "home-coming"
mums, September, 2006.  These are homemade and pretty tame (and tasteful) compared to many today.






Homecoming "garters" (worn on the arm) for guys, 2012; and a homecoming mum from 2007:

copyright © Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.