Quickly, some housekeeping before the news: Regular BON'ers have undoubtedly noticed the marked decline in content posted to the site over the last 4-6 weeks. As noted before, that's not due to my having nothing to say (Lord knows that's never the case); rather, I've been racing to meet the deadline for The Eyes Of Texas 2007, a 112-page book I'm editing in preparation for the upcoming season.

The manuscript heads to production this week (deadline: Wednesday), just in time for me to depart Thursday for a much needed 10-day vacation in Paris and Barcelona. The good news is we have some very capable stewards ready to step in to keep things moving in my absence. Though I'll be sad to be missing the beginning of baseball's postseason, you'll be in good hands as the co-authors of 40 Acre Sports step in to do some guest bloggin' here at BON. They'll take you through the 28th or 29th of May; my brother will step in and take things over after that until I return on the 5th of June.

And that's that.

Well, almost. One more bit of housekeeping: a brief word on yesterday's note about the OU national champion. Truth be told, I went back and forth on whether to even publish the post, mostly because I'm pretty damn sympathetic towards how difficult it must be for homosexuals to come out to society. What tipped me towards "publish it" was the fact that the BON community has proven itself to be remarkably sophisticated and tolerant. (Maybe not so remarkable, I suppose, given Austin's general tolerance.) Still, I worried about being the person who gift-wrapped an opportunity for others to be nasty. Basically, I knew that these kinds of haters inevitably would crawl out of the bigotry closets.

Bottom line, though: I'm glad to be the proprietor of a website where an openly gay reader and I can take turns cracking gay jokes about our rivals. And why can we do that? Because it's so clearly and firmly established that the BON community is welcoming of everyone. You can't get away with that everywhere... It's nice that everyone here knows that gay, straight, or anything in between - ye all be welcome.

And just for emphasis, may I note that my favorite baseball writer is a transsexual?

Done.

On to sports... Not yet officially noted in this space, Texas pasted A&M on Sunday 9-1 to sweep the Aggies and add an exclamation point to an already exhilirating weekend. The sweep gave Texas the most wins in conference history (21) and locks them in to the top seed of the Big 12 tournament. The Longhorns will open up Big 12 tournament play in Oklahoma City with a 1:00 p.m. game against 8th-seeded Kansas State on Wednesday.

Last, a baseball link worth your time: Kyle Russell's 2006 walk off homer against Rice. Enjoy.

Switching gears to football, Mack Brown and his staff have unveiled a new theme for the squad: "Attitude Is Everything." While football pep speak is, almost without exception, comically repetitive and simplistic, this is at least a more appealing motivational slogan than last year's (in my view) miscue: "Just do what you can do."

While the '06 slogan - well-intentioned as it was (Don't try to make up for VY's absence on your own!) - seemed, at least to me, like a curious motivational catch-phrase, this year's theme hones in on more Tomey-like principles of player attitude and maximizing personal potential. I don't want to read too much into this, but seriously - last year's slogan was cautionary, while this year's is proactive. Big difference, if you're the type to take the intended message to heart in the first place.

Via BevoSports (Laura, why didn't I get a tip on this story?), we learn that Cat Osterman's new Under Armour commercial is up for public consumption at the UA website. It's a slick production - well worth checking out.

Briefly: the Orlando Sentinel has a nice piece on NCAA football scheduling; more on this later in the summer... As usual, Sunday Morning Quarterback is overloaded with A-rate content, including a first look at '07 football opponent TCU and a thoughtful essay on misplaced elitism... Orson declares Boston College on the cusp of a breakthrough. Hey: sometimes losing a coach inspires despair. Sometimes, optimism... And last, head over to the ESPN College Football Page and look in the right corner for the video player featuring Colt McCoy. Nice little segment on our sophomore signal caller.

--PB--