The Pecan Park Eagle

Babe McCurdy was the UH Mad Dog Defense mascot at the Astrodome in 1979-80.

Well, truth to tell, it was actually a tale of two mad dog seasons at the Astrodome in 1979-80 when my late and beloved pet Bulldog Babe McCurdy served as sideline mascot for the University of Houston Cougars football team. Ah, Yes! I remember it well! It was the beginning, albeit, the early beginning, of my wonderfully fun and funny second childhood.

It started in the summer of 1979 when I went out to UH as an alumnus and proposed two actions to the UH athletic department: (1) Retire uniform number 1 and make that game official #1 jersey available only to fans. 1979 was immediately prior to the sale of any university official jersey to any fan group so UH had the chance to both be the first to do so and also take a step toward building a little tradition for once. (2) Allow my bulldog Babe, who came with me to that meeting at UH, to serve as mascot of the team’s “Mad Dog Defense” as we also designed tee shirts for fans along that theme.

 UH jumped on the #1 jersey sale idea like a frog on a June Bug, but they stated they would prefer to delay the actual retirement of the number plan until after the season. They also named Babe to serve as Astrodome sideline mascot right after I gave Babe the command to gently attack their marketing director by grabbing his pants cuff in her teeth.

The growl and the grab were both impressive, revealing the marketing guy’s hidden soprano talent.

Mad Dog Babe and I spent the 1979 Cougar football season at every UH home game. Babe learned to attack little dummies of the opposition’s mascot on the sidelines, ripping them apart by game’s end. We would also sometimes pull off a few half time tricks, ala the San Diego Chicken, and sometimes run onto the field ahead of the UH defense at the game’s start. 1979 was a wildly great year for UH and Babe and I also went to Dallas with the team when we played Nebraska in the January 1, 1980 Cotton Bowl. We even had a room at the downtown Hilton. Babe loved it so much she consented to attacking corn husks in the lobby as the band played the Cougar fight song.

Sleep was impossible that night. People knock on doors all night on New Years Eve. And door knocks just happened to have been one of Babe’s loud bark and growl command signals.

The Cotton Bowl, January 1, 1980: Made Dog Babe McCurdy takes down another Cornhusker!

At the Nebraska-UH game, Babe destroyed a Cornhusker player model in front of the Husker bench – and then growled away a couple of players who tried to rescue the helpless figure. It was a great day made better by a UH victory at the end and a 4th place finish in the final polls.

1980 was not so great on the field for the Cougars, but Babe and I were back for one more season, regardless. Our highlight time came about on October 11-12, 1980, when it took two calendar days to start and finish the UH game with Texas A&M.

Here’s what happened:

Mad Dog Whisperer at the Beach, Later in the Day, Sunday, October 12, 1980. I had to watch the Astros lose the pennant to the Phillies on TV from Galveston.

The need for an NLCS baseball playoff Game 4 between the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies already had pushed back the kick off of the Texas A&M-UH football game until later in the evening. Unfortunately, the Astros missed their chance to take a first NL pennant that night by losing 5-3 to the Phillies in ten long, pitcher-grueling innings that also now pushed the kick off of our football game back to 11:33 PM. (On a sadder note, the Astros would lose Game 5, again in ten, the following day by 8-7 and give over the NL flag to the Phillies in 1980.)

Because the football game crowd was already there well in advance of its possible start due to the need for changing the playing field configuration, we decided that we needed to create some pre-game diversions. I got to dress up in an Astros uniform and pretend to be just another pitcher warming up in the bullpen, as though the baseball game were still going on. When I was ready, I walked in as though I was going to pitch, even though I could only throw to my catcher in front of the Astros dugout. The field crew was busy removing the actual pitching mound. Our routine didn’t draw a lot of attention, but it was still my first new big Walter Mitty Moment of the evening.

Walter Mitty Moment Number Two came way after midnight at half time when I was allowed to attempt and make a 35 yard field goal at the East End Zone. I did it straight on, via Lou “The Toe” Groza, and, of course, I did not have any J.J. Watt types bearing down on me as I lined up and carefully executed my kick.

I still made it. – It was the first and briefly the lone “after midnight” field goal in Astrodome history. That changed in the fourth quarter when David Humphreys of the UH Cougars made the first game-conditions field goal, a 30 yarder with 7:46 left in the game. That’s OK. My technically good effort was still the first – and the longest “after midnight” field goal in Astrodome history by a whopping five yards.

The Cougars beat the Aggies, 17-13, in a game that finally ended at 2:41 AM, Sunday, October 12, 1980.

Babe and I retired from sideline mascot service for UH at the end of the 1980 season, but we sure had a good time while it lasted.

Babe McCurdy, 1979: The Love of My Life. Forever.