Tuesday, December 17, 2013

FOR THE GOOD TIMES

For the first time in school history, the Vanderbilt football team is practicing for its third consecutive post-season bowl game. This year it's the Compass Bowl in Birmingham, Alabama versus the Houston Cougars with kickoff at high noon (ESPN) on Saturday, January 4.

The bowl trip comes after a regular season that saw 8 wins in back-to-back seasons for the first time since the 1920s. It was also the first time ever Vandy defeated Georgia, Florida and Tennessee all in the same season. And it's the first time since the late 1920s we've bested the Big Orange two years in a row.

Beating UT is always sweet and two straight is something we've never experienced. So here's a video with a chance to re-live it from the VU players' perspective and/or enjoy it again if you've been celebrating since the Dores pulled off the victory in Knoxville last month....


http://www.vucommodores.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/121213aac.html

These Revealed videos have been produced by the Vanderbilt athletic department after each of the team's wins home and away the last two seasons (with this year's Wake Forest win still in production). You can find them all by googling the words Vanderbilt Revealed. You can also likely find them at www.vucommodores.com.


As we glory in the good times for the VU football program, those two words came into my mind as well when I heard of the death of country music star Ray Price. "FOR THE GOOD TIMES" went platinum for him and was a number one country hit back in 1970 while we were in school.

It was a much mellower sound than the honky tonk hits Price had in the 1950s and 1960s. Maybe that's why it was also a cross-over hit, rising as high as #11 on the pop charts. I seem to recall we played it some on WRVU (and we almost never played country music).  Maybe the song being written by Kris Kristofferson helped too.  Regardless, here's that mellow tune with some very nostalgic lyrics courtesy of YouTube......


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ZKIX0ICZo


And so, as the song says at the end (to the members of the VU Centennial Class): "Let's just be glad we had some time to be together (our 40th Reunion weekend in October). ...For the good times...for the good times."

Happy Holidays, everyone!

1 comment:

Steve said...

Merry Christmas, Pat.

I can't say I remember playing Ray Price on WRVU necessarily, but I remember The Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Horton being a News Council favorite whenever the disk jockey overslept, can you say "Anzek?" (Sorry Mike, I had too).

I remember the day we had WRVU broadcasting from Opryland our senior year. I believe it was College day, and you could get a dollar off on admission with a Vandy ID. That meant it was still $5, but you could ride the flume zoom as many times as you wanted.

Anyway, I remember Bob Nelson being on the air saying WRVU was the only place you could hear Ferlon Husky (Wings of a Dove) and the Rolling Stones (Brown Sugar) back to back. He had a field day that day going from country to Rock as I think did all the Jocks...meanwhile I was waiting in line on the Timber Topper and the Tin Lizzy rides.

I'm giving serious thoughts to coming over to Birmingham. Are you and Bailey going?

Steve Womack