The winner is ... Cowboy football
Wyoming athletics director Tom Burman must have felt like he was presenting himself an award on Monday. It turned out to be a day of acceptance speeches.
New Mexico Bowl Executive Director Jeff Siembieda was to be in Laramie to officially extend an invitation to the Wyoming football team to play in the bowl game. He only got to Denver, though, and decided to head back to Albuquerque because of the Rocky Mountain winter.
So Burman was left to extend the invitation in place of Siembieda.
If Burman was in Hollywood, he probably would have said: “The Academy Award goes to ….. me.”
Well, maybe not quite. Wyoming coach Dave Christensen and the Cowboys were the recipient of the bowl invitation.
Burman would be the producer of the movie that won the Academy Award.
“We are here to finally accept the invitation to play in the New Mexico Bowl,” Burman told the gathering at the Rochelle Athletics Center, just a few minutes past 1 p.m. “We are so very, very proud to accept that invitation. We can’t wait until we officially get that offer from Jeff Siembieda in a matter of minutes.”
That is, if Siembieda calls in.
Burman glances over to Wyoming Associate Athletics Director Tim Harkins, who is standing to his right.
“Jeff Siembieda was scheduled to fly in today and as we look outside, he has not made it Laramie and he got stuck in Denver,“ Burman added. “But we were hoping that Jeff would be able to call in, but it doesn’t look like he has called in. Jeff asked me if I would make the formal invitation to Coach Christensen if he couldn’t do it.”
Insert official invitation.
“So on behalf of the New Mexico Bowl, Jeff Siembieda, who is the executive director, the bowl committee in Albuquerque, would like to formally invite Coach Christensen and the Wyoming Cowboys to the New Mexico Bowl on Dec. 19.
Insert applause as Christensen walks to the podium.
“We are certainly appreciate of the invite, and on behalf of the 2009 Cowboy football team and one unbelievable senior class of leaders and the great coaching staff, we accept the invitation," Christensen said.
Remember when …
It was 20 years ago today, when Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play ….
Sorry, wrong thought.
It was almost a year ago, on Dec. 1, 2008, when Christensen was named the 31st head coach in Wyoming football history.
Twelve months and change later, he has guided the Cowboys to their 12th bowl game in school history and first since the 2004 season.
“It seems like it was a year ago at this time that I stood up here and was accepting the head coaches job at the University of the Wyoming,” Christensen said. “I made a couple of proclamations at that time, and they weren’t promises of number of wins or those types of things, but we set an expectation level, and we set that expectation level with our football team and to our fan base. That was, we expect to win, we expect to complete for a conference championship and we expect to play in bowl games. In a short year we have been able to reach two of those expectations --- winning and going to a bowl game. We hope that there is no stopping at that.
“There has been a lot of hard work in the last 12 months by this football team and this coaching staff. They have worked extremely hard to find as way to come up with enough wins to get a bowl invitation.”
Get your tickets while they last
There plenty of reasons as to why Burman, Christensen and the Cowboys were all smiles on Monday. Not only did they get to a bowl game in this first year of reclamation, but they are going to Albuquerque. While the city is the home of a Mountain West Conference foe in the University of New Mexico, the community has often been kind to the University of Wyoming and their fans.
In recent times, the Cowboy basketball team enjoyed its stay in the 2002 NCAA Tournament in Albuquerque. The Cowgirls did the same in 2008. In both cases, local New Mexico fans joined Wyoming fans in support of the UW teams.
The third time could be a charm again for the Cowboys.
Earlier in the show, Burman encouraged the UW fans, either at the news conference or via the live radio or Internet feed, to get their tickets now.
“We are confident that our Wyoming faithful, our fan base, will be in Albuquerque for that game,” Burman said. “It is very important that our fan base travels there and has a great showing and shows our Wyoming pride. For those who can’t make it, there is a wonderful opportunity to buy tickets and donate them back to the university, where we in turn will donate them back to a military base outside of Albuquerque. We’ll also use some of those tickets to promote the game.
“But it is essential that we sell 4,166 tickets to this game. The good news is that we haven’t officially gotten an invitation (before he officially made the invitation) and we have 2,500 of them sold right now. We are well on our way to eclipsing that 4,166 and we’re very excited about that.”
Christensen also echoed Burman’s thoughts and praised the Wyoming faithful. After all, this bowl game is for them as well.
“I would also like to thank our fan base for all of the support that we have had this year,” Christensen said. “We were down at Boca Raton, Fla., and I looked up at the crowd and I was amazed of the number of people from Wyoming that made that long, long trip. They have been at all of our road games. It’s my plea to all of our fans to, if they possibly can, to get down to Albuquerque and support this team. We would like to make this a yearly tradition of going to bowl games. We’re excited about it and we’re thrilled to go to the New Mexico Bowl.
“Let’s get win No. 7.”
Insert applause as Christensen walks away from the podium.
New Mexico Bowl Executive Director Jeff Siembieda was to be in Laramie to officially extend an invitation to the Wyoming football team to play in the bowl game. He only got to Denver, though, and decided to head back to Albuquerque because of the Rocky Mountain winter.
So Burman was left to extend the invitation in place of Siembieda.
If Burman was in Hollywood, he probably would have said: “The Academy Award goes to ….. me.”
Well, maybe not quite. Wyoming coach Dave Christensen and the Cowboys were the recipient of the bowl invitation.
Burman would be the producer of the movie that won the Academy Award.
“We are here to finally accept the invitation to play in the New Mexico Bowl,” Burman told the gathering at the Rochelle Athletics Center, just a few minutes past 1 p.m. “We are so very, very proud to accept that invitation. We can’t wait until we officially get that offer from Jeff Siembieda in a matter of minutes.”
That is, if Siembieda calls in.
Burman glances over to Wyoming Associate Athletics Director Tim Harkins, who is standing to his right.
“Jeff Siembieda was scheduled to fly in today and as we look outside, he has not made it Laramie and he got stuck in Denver,“ Burman added. “But we were hoping that Jeff would be able to call in, but it doesn’t look like he has called in. Jeff asked me if I would make the formal invitation to Coach Christensen if he couldn’t do it.”
Insert official invitation.
“So on behalf of the New Mexico Bowl, Jeff Siembieda, who is the executive director, the bowl committee in Albuquerque, would like to formally invite Coach Christensen and the Wyoming Cowboys to the New Mexico Bowl on Dec. 19.
Insert applause as Christensen walks to the podium.
“We are certainly appreciate of the invite, and on behalf of the 2009 Cowboy football team and one unbelievable senior class of leaders and the great coaching staff, we accept the invitation," Christensen said.
Remember when …
It was 20 years ago today, when Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play ….
Sorry, wrong thought.
It was almost a year ago, on Dec. 1, 2008, when Christensen was named the 31st head coach in Wyoming football history.
Twelve months and change later, he has guided the Cowboys to their 12th bowl game in school history and first since the 2004 season.
“It seems like it was a year ago at this time that I stood up here and was accepting the head coaches job at the University of the Wyoming,” Christensen said. “I made a couple of proclamations at that time, and they weren’t promises of number of wins or those types of things, but we set an expectation level, and we set that expectation level with our football team and to our fan base. That was, we expect to win, we expect to complete for a conference championship and we expect to play in bowl games. In a short year we have been able to reach two of those expectations --- winning and going to a bowl game. We hope that there is no stopping at that.
“There has been a lot of hard work in the last 12 months by this football team and this coaching staff. They have worked extremely hard to find as way to come up with enough wins to get a bowl invitation.”
Get your tickets while they last
There plenty of reasons as to why Burman, Christensen and the Cowboys were all smiles on Monday. Not only did they get to a bowl game in this first year of reclamation, but they are going to Albuquerque. While the city is the home of a Mountain West Conference foe in the University of New Mexico, the community has often been kind to the University of Wyoming and their fans.
In recent times, the Cowboy basketball team enjoyed its stay in the 2002 NCAA Tournament in Albuquerque. The Cowgirls did the same in 2008. In both cases, local New Mexico fans joined Wyoming fans in support of the UW teams.
The third time could be a charm again for the Cowboys.
Earlier in the show, Burman encouraged the UW fans, either at the news conference or via the live radio or Internet feed, to get their tickets now.
“We are confident that our Wyoming faithful, our fan base, will be in Albuquerque for that game,” Burman said. “It is very important that our fan base travels there and has a great showing and shows our Wyoming pride. For those who can’t make it, there is a wonderful opportunity to buy tickets and donate them back to the university, where we in turn will donate them back to a military base outside of Albuquerque. We’ll also use some of those tickets to promote the game.
“But it is essential that we sell 4,166 tickets to this game. The good news is that we haven’t officially gotten an invitation (before he officially made the invitation) and we have 2,500 of them sold right now. We are well on our way to eclipsing that 4,166 and we’re very excited about that.”
Christensen also echoed Burman’s thoughts and praised the Wyoming faithful. After all, this bowl game is for them as well.
“I would also like to thank our fan base for all of the support that we have had this year,” Christensen said. “We were down at Boca Raton, Fla., and I looked up at the crowd and I was amazed of the number of people from Wyoming that made that long, long trip. They have been at all of our road games. It’s my plea to all of our fans to, if they possibly can, to get down to Albuquerque and support this team. We would like to make this a yearly tradition of going to bowl games. We’re excited about it and we’re thrilled to go to the New Mexico Bowl.
“Let’s get win No. 7.”
Insert applause as Christensen walks away from the podium.
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