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Each month, Texas State University President Dr. Kelly Damphousse sits down with faculty members, staff, students, alumni, and community members for a conversation about all things TXST — the past, the present, and the bright future of the university.
Part of the TXST Podcast Network: https://www.txst.edu/podcast-network.html
Kelly Damphousse (00:05):
Hey, Bobcats, it's Kelly Damphousse, president at Texas State University, and welcome to the very first edition of the current podcast where we hear from faculty, staff, students, and alumni learning more about them, their Texas State story, and learning more about Texas State through the process as well. And I'm so excited today to welcome two of my really good friends here. Actually, you guys were the very first podcast that I did when I was coming to Texas State, the hosts of the Squarin’ Around podcast. So let me allow you guys to introduce yourself to our audience.
Jakob Rodriguez (00:34):
Yeah, what's up? Thank you for having us. I love the intro. Yeah, what's up? Yeah, exactly. Hey, K Damp. What's going on? What's going on? Welcome to Squarin' Around. This is The Current, right? It's The Current. So thank you for having us on. Again. I'm Jakob Rodriguez. We're the host of Squaring Around. This is my best friend, Andrew Zimmel.
Andrew Zimmel (00:51):
Yes. Both class of 2020. Both did student media here at Texas State. I did KTSW and then Jacob was the editor in chief of the University Star.
Jakob Rodriguez (00:59):
My biggest claim to fame for sure.
Kelly Damphousse (01:00):
So 2020. And so did you graduate in May of 2020?
Jakob Rodriguez (01:05):
May off 2020.
Kelly Damphousse (01:05):
So you went through Covid? Together.
Jakob Rodriguez (01:08):
And then I came back and I jumped in the river and did a whole graduation at the stadium when they had it there for my class. But Andrew famously did not walk.
Kelly Damphousse (01:16):
So Andrew, I've got a deal for you.
Jakob Rodriguez (01:18):
I know you do.
Kelly Damphousse (01:19):
In December, graduation, we're inviting everyone who graduated in 2020 who didn't walk for whatever reason. And I don't want to point fingers, but we're inviting 'em to come back so they can graduate. You need to come walk.
Andrew Zimmel (01:31):
You know, you keep telling me this.
Kelly Damphousse (01:32):
What a great picture would be. You and me together like four years later.
Andrew Zimmel (01:36):
Four years later. I'm wondering though, I don't look as good as I did in 2020.
Kelly Damphousse (01:39):
No, you look great.
Andrew Zimmel (01:40):
I look better? Now you're going to make me blush.
Kelly Damphousse (01:43):
You got a face for the radio, that's for sure. So anyways, yeah...
Jakob Rodriguez (01:47):
You're in the right business buddy.
Kelly Damphousse (01:48):
So tell me about the first time, you guys have a great relationship, I can tell. I saw you guys together at the volleyball match on Saturday and it's fun to see people engaging with each other and things that are happening at Texas State. Alumni coming back to campus. But how'd you guys, you remember the first time you met?
Jakob Rodriguez (02:04):
Oh yeah. It sticks out like a yearbook photo pretty much for me. It was a mixer for the University Star and KTSW. And Andrew was in the middle of telling everybody how great San Antonio tacos are. They're the best in the world.
Andrew Zimmel (02:17):
They are...
Jakob Rodriguez (02:17):
All this stuff. As a person from Macallen, Texas, I took great offense to this and we went back and forth, had an exchange of words, and to this day he still says that San Antonio tacos are better. I disagree. He's never even been to the Valley. So maybe he'll come back for Thanksgiving with me this year.
Andrew Zimmel (02:33):
Here's my take. So, if you are a very successful person making tacos in the Valley, you're going to go to the next metropolitan city and sell them. And that would be San Antonio? San Antonio tacos by far, breakfast tacos, by far, the best in the world now.
Kelly Damphousse (02:47):
Okay. Best taco in San Antonio?
Jakob Rodriguez (02:50):
Oh man. You didn't even have a taco spot in San Antonio.
Andrew Zimmel (02:52):
I like the place that we went.
Jakob Rodriguez (02:53):
Oh, Taco House. The place that I...
Andrew Zimmel (02:55):
Taco House fire. If we're giving it, I know no free plugs, but I'm just saying there's plenty of good spots.
Kelly Damphousse (03:01):
Free plugs.
Andrew Zimmel (03:02):
Yeah.
Kelly Damphousse (03:02):
Come back next week to find out which one it was that paid us 50 bucks to mention their name.
Andrew Zimmel (03:06):
I'm just saying no free shoutouts. But the take has been, and it continues to be that I think San Antonio tacos are the best in the world. Now the problem with that take is that immediately I put it on Twitter, of course. And I was very much disagreed with.
Jakob Rodriguez (03:23):
Went viral in the Valley.
Andrew Zimmel (03:24):
Yeah, it did. It went big in the Valley. And I'm still getting dms. So this podcast, thank you for bringing it back up again. I'll guarantee..
Kelly Damphousse (03:34):
Recirculate that same thing.
Jakob Rodriguez (03:35):
Yeah
Andrew Zimmel (03:35):
Same thing
Kelly Damphousse (03:36):
It's going to be like a number one hit again. We're going to go back and recycle.
Jakob Rodriguez (03:39):
They're all really bots that I run.
Kelly Damphousse (03:41):
Now when you guys were students, you were involved in media, of course, but were you also like athletics fans? Did you go to the games or did you go to the tailgates or how'd that all work?
Jakob Rodriguez (03:50):
Oh yeah. Before I started covering the team, I was a fan first and I wanted to see Texas State succeed on the football field across any arena really. But I remember we would tailgate volleyball. That is a really big core memory for me and Andrew and some of our friends.
Kelly Damphousse (04:03):
Tailgate volleyball? Now I've never heard that before.
Jakob Rodriguez (04:05):
Volleyball school
Kelly Damphousse (04:06):
We really are.
Jakob Rodriguez (04:08):
So when I say that to Coach Sean Hewitt on our show, I mean it. I was there. We did that. We support the team.
Kelly Damphousse (04:13):
We need to bring back tailgating for all those sports, right? Soccer, tailgating. We've got a great crowd that comes out for soccer. By the way, first the students come out there, so close to residence hall, but we've got a group that's from a church group that started doing bible studies with the women and then said, we want to go support the team. And they're I think called Boko's Army. And so every time we score a goal, they go up and down with the smoke things and kind of what are they? Smoke bombs or something like that. So they're really active and they're always banging on drums and blowing horns and stuff like that.
Jakob Rodriguez (04:42):
That side of campus gets rowdy.
Kelly Damphousse (04:44):
And I always think about people who don't go to athletics, what are they missing? Whenever I talk with students, I said, you got six Saturdays in the fall to make memories that last a lifetime. How do you miss that? But I guess it's not everyone's deal, but for me it was super important.
Andrew Zimmel (05:01):
Well, before we had this essentially a revolution when it comes to football at Texas State, there were a couple of bad years and I vividly. I remember vividly being one of six people in the crowd for like the last game of the season.
Jakob Rodriguez (05:14):
One fan of the game.
Andrew Zimmel (05:15):
One fan of the game one time.
Kelly Damphousse (05:18):
You're in the top 10.
Andrew Zimmel (05:20):
It was when the student section was behind the end zone. It was just me yelling at a ref arms. And there was a very picture of me on sponsored...
Jakob Rodriguez (05:27):
By Whataburger
Andrew Zimmel (05:27):
It was the What-a-fan of the game. It was just me. But I came to Texas State knowing that football, but I wanted to cover a team. There was only one chance to cover a division one football team. You know what I mean, in central Texas where you can go to every press conference and be on the field and do and KTSW gave me that chance and I didn't look back.
Kelly Damphousse (05:47):
Well, I want to get back to that question. So you're a high school student and you're thinking about where I'm going to go, and I ask this question to students all the time, why'd you come to Texas State? You want to start taking...
Jakob Rodriguez (05:58):
Yeah, sure. Both of my parents went to Texas. That's how they met. They actually got engaged at Palmers.
Kelly Damphousse (06:03):
Oh, is that right?
Jakob Rodriguez (06:03):
And so I just grew up kind of indoctrinated. Texas State is an awesome place and I had really no idea until my senior year of high school when they brought me up here and toured around. And I was like, well, I'll definitely apply, but I really don't know what I'm going to do. And kind of was really into documentary filmmaking, like Vice News, that sort of stuff. And I was like, journalism sounds pretty cool, but I had never done that. And so when I got here at The Star, I signed up and then boom, that's how I started. And like you know.
Andrew Zimmel (06:29):
I came to Texas State and I went to other campuses and it was kind of concrete and it was kind of overcast. And I swear to you, I walked on campus and there was a rainbow and there was butterflies and I never looked back. I joke with people all the time, but Texas State's campus is so beautiful that even if there was another school that I thought about, I wasn't going to go anywhere else. And then again, KTSW. I went to talk to Dan and the group down there, I got the little business card and first thing I did when I signed up for campus, I went to Tower Hall, unpacked my stuff and then went to Trinity.
Kelly Damphousse (07:03):
That's crazy. I mean you were locked in quickly.
Andrew Zimmel (07:05):
Oh yeah.
Kelly Damphousse (07:06):
A lot of our students come and they're not sure what they're going to do. Takes some a while to find their stride. But you were like locked in real quick.
Andrew Zimmel (07:10):
Jacob I think would agree.
Jakob Rodriguez (07:12):
This guy is a fly to a light. Just vroom.
Andrew Zimmel (07:15):
Look, some people, and I understand and I respect the people who come to college and then figure it out when they get here. Cause that is one path. My path was always I knew what I wanted to do and now how do I get to that point? Where do I go? I had my four year plan at Texas State like, okay, I'm going to do this junior year, get an internship senior and get a full-time job. I got a part-time job my sophomore year, moved the kind of goalpost a little bit and then Covid changes it again. But I always knew, okay, I want to do radio, I want to do sports stock, how do I get there? And luckily I met great friends along the way, like Jacob and some of my other closest friends in the world through that path.
Jakob Rodriguez (07:52):
Yeah, I might have a little bit of a story I guess that most people can relate to, maybe don't know exactly what they're going to do, but I had kind of an idea like, oh, this sounds like a good try. Maybe if I try this then I, I'm going to regret it if I don't try maybe. And so I just kind of walked up to the University Star one day and they were like, do you know what an opinions columnist is? And I was like, yes. And immediately after the interview I Googled what is an opinions columnist. And so I just kind of took the opportunities that were presented to me and ran with it. But my dad ran track here, so I grew up hearing stories about Drew Fucci and Charles Austin, all these insane athletes. And so I was like, oh, well yeah, I guess I could cover sports at some point. Maybe that would be fun.
Kelly Damphousse (08:33):
That's really cool. So how did the podcast come into being and what does squarin' around even mean?
Jakob Rodriguez (08:41):
I guess it's the take on just messing around, but obviously it's homage to one of our favorite places to Square right downtown. A lot of great memories there. And really like...
Kelly Damphousse (08:52):
I got to get back to the memories thing a little bit. Come back to that.
Jakob Rodriguez (08:55):
If I can remember them. Yeah, I'll tell you all about 'em.
Kelly Damphousse (08:55):
A lot of great memories, I can't remember. Yeah.
Jakob Rodriguez (08:59):
Actually my quote for the University Star, my senior 30 line was shout out to all the early mornings on the square and the late nights in the office. Something like that. Pretty funny. But about two years after we graduated, me and Andrew, we had a podcast at the Star called Cats Got Our Tongues, very fun.
Kelly Damphousse (09:18):
Oh really? Okay. Oh, we got to get in the archives for that.
Jakob Rodriguez (09:21):
Roll up in the SoundCloud. But two years after we graduated, we were still calling each other and talking for hours after the football games dissecting what had happened.
Kelly Damphousse (09:30):
Can you believe they did that?
Jakob Rodriguez (09:31):
Exactly.
Kelly Damphousse (09:32):
Why is that guy not playing? Why are we throwing the tight end more often? Yeah, that's always my thing to throw the tight end, right? What is this? I'm a tight end guy. The tight end's always open.
Jakob Rodriguez (09:42):
Connor Fox, I'm rooting for you brother. I'm rooting for you. It's my thing. It's crazy.
Kelly Damphousse (09:46):
I'm always like the tight end's wide open. Throw it to him.
Andrew Zimmel (09:48):
Tightest lions. Let me know.
(09:51):
Every room I'm in. It's two against one. It's crazy.
Jakob Rodriguez (09:54):
Who doesn't love 12 personnel.
Andrew Zimmel (09:55):
Here's the thing I agree with. Okay, we'll get off this, but yes, this is Jacobs the drum, he's been hammering all season. Get the tight end involved, but okay,
Jakob Rodriguez (10:03):
Had a lot of great tight ends here too. Keenan Brown, shout out. But anyway...Gabe
Andrew Zimmel (10:07):
Gabe Schrade, shout out.
Jakob Rodriguez (10:08):
Gabe Schrade, shout out. But anyway, we were talking to each other for hours sometimes against our friends will really, and I was just like, Andrew, we should start a podcast. Start putting these things on record and just letting things happen. And we wanted to cover things our way again. So this is just kind of us taking back what we wanted to do.
Andrew Zimmel (10:26):
Well the other thing too is that Jacob was in a job that he enjoyed but didn't love and he wanted to get into sports. I had to go to North Dakota. They banished me to the tundra during the pandemic. So I had to...
Kelly Damphousse (10:37):
You're almost to Canada. It's not that high.
Andrew Zimmel (10:39):
I mean North Dakota...
Kelly Damphousse (10:41):
You're this close to God's country.
Andrew Zimmel (10:43):
Yea right.
Kelly Damphousse (10:44):
It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there. Right?
Andrew Zimmel (10:47):
So this was a way for us to both be connected to Texas State again in a way that what I think the best part of our life was covering sports at Texas State. This is a way to get back to it. So that was part of it too. But I told Jacob, because I've done a couple podcasts in my life, I know how hard it is to edit and put it. I said, Jacob, if we're going to do this, I don't want to do any of the editing. I just want to show up and talk. And that was the deal we made. And it's turned out to be really good. Jacob is an incredible video producer and we did a video podcast. I did not know the first episode was going to be a video podcast. So there's a video of me eating a big Mac on...
Jakob Rodriguez (11:19):
Muck bang. Really?
Andrew Zimmel (11:21):
Are we on camera?
Kelly Damphousse (11:22):
I wasn't ready for this.
Andrew Zimmel (11:23):
I was eating french fries in my hotel room as we were talking about Texas State.
Kelly Damphousse (11:27):
So this kind of naturally evolves from you guys just talking amongst yourselves and say, this is gold, this is gold, Jerry. We got to get it out there. And so you want to present it in a way that you can reach other people. But now is the new form of media I think. And so as print media is struggling and TV media and so on, people are consuming information through podcasts now. People are driving long distances in cars and listen to podcasts or if you follow a sporting, a team or something like that, there's usually two or three. We've got two or three podcasts associated with Texas State. And so you can kind of get some insider insight. And also I think people in their minds are having the same conversation with you. They're going, dang right, I need to play the tight end more often or whatever. And so it's kind of a new way of engaging with an audience.
Jakob Rodriguez (12:15):
Now literally everybody, their mom and the university president has a podcast, but it's really cool to build the community that we've seen too. We see people at games now and they're like, I was thinking that the whole time and you guys said it, so thank you or thank you for asking that question to coach. I really appreciate it.
Andrew Zimmel (12:32):
And that's really cool too with Jacob's background. He is, and still was and still is a really good journalist and I call it a capital J journalist, the guy who's covering city hall and everything. And I was always more of the goofball, lower K journalist. This is an opinion that we are going to put in the paper type of deal. So when we got together, Jacob was like, okay, no, we're going to go to the interviews, we're going to do the press conferences we're going to do. And it has really turned out to be something, some stuff that Jacob probably doesn't feel super comfortable and I don't care, I'm going to say it. And then there's some stuff that I'm like, well, and Jacob's like, no, say it. Put your chest on it, put your name on it. So it's been really good.
Jakob Rodriguez (13:09):
We have really good strengths and weaknesses. I feel like you can tell it the most when we interview a coach or a player. It's like, wow, these guys are really approaching this from opposite angles. Jacob has a FOIA and Andrew's talking about movies. That's right.
Kelly Damphousse (13:22):
What's your favorite meal or whatever.
Jakob Rodriguez (13:22):
Yeah, yeah. I mean. Favorite meal? Hold on a second, what are we doing here?
(13:26):
That's my favorite. Whenever I get lost, that's where I go to, favorite movie, favorite meal? The last meal. What's your last dinner going to be? To me it's like whatever takes the longest to cook. I don't know what that is but I guess.
(13:41):
Andrew's I guess is Joey Herbert's pizza at Gumby.
Kelly Damphousse (13:43):
Are you allowed, are they paying for that?
Jakob Rodriguez (13:46):
Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. Free shout out. No, free shouts. Sorry. Yeah, put the windows...
Kelly Damphousse (13:53):
I will tell you that pizza is really good though. So walk us through the process of how the podcast works. So you guys, you plan things out for a couple days or you say, "Hey Thursday, let's get rolling."
Jakob Rodriguez (14:03):
Well now it's kind of like its own ecosystem that it's built up. We got a lot of questions from people that roll in. We'll chime in on Twitter spaces and stuff. So it's kind of all naturally fed at this point. But at the very beginning I would start a sticky note. I'm obsessed with sticky notes. They're all over my house. I look like an insane person with flow charts and I'm following the data.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Yeah, that's funny.
Jakob Rodriguez (14:22):
But everything important usually gets a sticky for the week. And so there's basically one for squaring around every week that I have topics. And if we're trying to get a guest, I have that stuff associated with it.
Andrew Zimmel (14:33):
And like I said, I just show up and talk because that's the thing.
Jakob Rodriguez (14:36):
He's game ready.
Andrew Zimmel (14:36):
I'm game ready. I'm always stay ready so you don't have to get ready. So whatever Jake throws, I'm here for it.
Kelly Damphousse (14:41):
Do you prefer to have a guest or you guys just riffing back and forth?
Jakob Rodriguez (14:43):
We did nine weeks of guests recently. We just now stopped it.
Andrew Zimmel (14:48):
And honestly, it's what the audience wants. Sometimes the audience is like a little less of you, more of a guest. We want Kelly Damphousse on, we want Don on, we want... And then sometimes they're like, you know what? Too many guests we want to hear from you guys.
Jakob Rodriguez (15:01):
Yeah, sometimes we'll just put a rerun of the Rugrats or Nickelodeon show. That's funny. All right, that's our episode for the week. That's our episode.
Kelly Damphousse (15:08):
So you spend some time networking and trying to find the people who'd be on the pod. And then how much research do you do if you have a guest or do you just like, let's go in there and start.
Jakob Rodriguez (15:20):
It kind of depends. Yeah, we have really good relationships with a lot of the coaches now obviously dating back to some of our time. I feel like Andrew is really tight with Coach Ricky Woodard and Coach Z. I'm really close with Coach Terrence Johnson. Come on the show. And coach Troudy. So those are kind of our bread and butter. We don't really have to do a lot of prep for those. But football is so all consuming. I feel like all of our effort and mental energy is dedicated to a lot of those shows. We got to get this right. Otherwise some dude online is going to tell us we were wrong about this game in 1997.
Andrew Zimmel (15:53):
That's the toughest part. I think if you ask us what the toughest, it's the fact that our football memory of Texas State starts in like 2015.
Kelly Damphousse (16:00):
Yeah, that's right.
Andrew Zimmel (16:01):
So we got a decade, but there's some fans who listen to the podcast who start back in '80, '81, and they saw national championships and they saw FCS title games and stuff. And it's like, okay, I appreciate that, we respect the history, we bring Colton McWilliams on all the time to talk about the history, but we didn't see it. So we don't really know.
Jakob Rodriguez (16:17):
Yeah, it almost doesn't matter. You didn't see it happen before you. And now college football, I mean you can attest to this is completely night and day different. So it's like what does this new era mean versus what did everything before mean? But Texas State won two national titles, so I'll always bring that up.
Kelly Damphousse (16:33):
And I think people forget about that when we were working our way towards a bowl game this past season. I think I heard people say, well they've never qualified for a bowl before. And I had to remind people we've qualified twice for a bowl. But the Sunbelt was a different conference back then. We all had two bowl and we got hosed on getting selected. But think about this, play this game. In your mind, what happens if we go to two bowl games in those first two years? How does that change things with our fans and with it's different timeline recruiting? Yeah, it is a different timeline. It's like an alternate universe. What happens if that happens?
Andrew Zimmel (17:06):
I would like to think that we don't go another 10 years without a bowl bid. I'd like to think that's the reality that we would live in.
Kelly Damphousse (17:14):
Although, sometimes I love movie arcs, right? So you got your valleys and then the peaks are so much better because the valley, I just wish the valley hadn't been so deep and so long, but last year, we only went eight and five. We lost five games and some of the players actually had five games. That's terrible. We lost five games.
Jakob Rodriguez (17:32):
Yeah, Cole Wilson.
Kelly Damphousse (17:33):
Yeah, exactly. But even going eight and five just felt like, I felt almost like we won a national championship.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Oh God, yes...
Kelly Damphousse (17:42):
The sky was bluer, the grass was greener the next day.
Jakob Rodriguez (17:46):
It was.
Kelly Damphousse (17:46):
It's unbelievable.
Jakob Rodriguez (17:46):
I literally heard Creedence Clearwater Revival in the background. I was like, oh my, when you guys were jumping in the river and stuff. That's all I heard in the background. And that's why last year and there were so many special moments from last year, it was also the first year of our podcast. So I got to get a lot of that on tape and it was just really cool to be a part of that media circle again and get to see the team do what we always thought they really could achieve at Texas State.
Andrew Zimmel (18:13):
And you talk about these lows, lemme tell you those lows, there was times where my parents were like, you need to take a step back. This isn't life. And it felt life and death cause every week, it was like, I'm living and dying by this team. So when you win eight games, that's eight times I lived last year. You know what I mean? Which is great.
Kelly Damphousse (18:29):
You only died five.
Andrew Zimmel (18:30):
I only died five.
Kelly Damphousse (18:31):
Which is like Dungeons and Dragons, right? You see?
Andrew Zimmel (18:33):
Yeah, no. Well that's half the amount of times I died two years ago, three years ago. So I love it.
Kelly Damphousse (18:38):
I talk about this a lot because I get to hang around with student athletes. I travel with them a lot and I'm always struck by how quickly they recover from a loss on Sunday. They're just back at it and they've got classes to go to and they got to move on to the next game. Fans on the other hand, they're still dying about a game we lost three weeks ago. And so am I because I'm a fan, right? Or a year ago, can you believe we lost that game?
Andrew Zimmel (19:01):
Arkansas State?
Kelly Damphousse (19:02):
Yeah. Don't bring that up again because that was a brutal trip for me. But fans do live and die on this thing and student athletes care, but they literally have to move on. You got to get ready for that next shot. And that's actually what I love about being a fan because it matters so much. And the thing that you fear the most as a president is not people being angry, but it's apathy.
(19:26):
And I said this a couple times last year when we lost a couple of games. I said, how great does it feel to have fans now complaining that we should have won that game, when in the past they said, well of course we knew we're going to lose that game.
Andrew Zimmel (19:36):
Or they weren't even at the game.
Kelly Damphousse (19:37):
Yeah, or they weren't even, not even.... did we play this weekend. That kind of thing.
Andrew Zimmel (19:40):
Which that was, and again, this is a credit to you. This is a credit to the athletic administration. That was the biggest change to me that when we were in school, it was not like this. It was not like the live and die. It felt like I'd come into class on Monday after a tough loss and I still have puffy eyes from crying, but everybody else is kind of like, why are you this upset?
Jakob Rodriguez (20:01):
It's like a culture flip happening almost within the last two years I feel on campus.
Kelly Damphousse (20:05):
Well, we worked really hard the first year to get students to come, but then the season went south really quick. And so we had great attendance, first couple of games and then just kind of went down. We had some weather problems as well. As season goes on, you have a rainy day or whatever. But then last year we actually started building momentum in the student section. The student section is important for a couple of reasons. First alumni are looking at it and you hear the alumni complaining, well there's no students in the student section or whatever.
(20:30):
But when they see that there, it kind of energizes the alumni and the fan base that are not students. And then the other thing is, that's the TV view. And so I don't know if you watched, I watch every game after the game, so I go back and watch it on tv. Sometimes I watch two or three times. And so after the Arizona State game, which we just, we ...
Jakob Rodriguez (20:51):
Right there, four possessions to seal it.
Kelly Damphousse (20:53):
Could have done it, right? And so I go back and watch it. I'm super depressed and I'm sad, but I'm glad that we had a good crowd. But I saw the announcers talking about the student section and the students stayed the whole time. We had 9,000 students in the student section. It just looked great. And I watched other games. I watched a game last night and that's a four zero team playing on a Tuesday night admittedly. But we're on a Thursday night, but that stadium wasn't nearly full there and we were packed and it wasn't sold out, but it was pretty close to it. And we have a Tuesday night game coming up against Louisiana and I think we're going to...yeah, must see TV the only game in town on a Tuesday night.
Andrew Zimmel (21:30):
Well it's also a super important game too. It's not two teams that are middling...
Kelly Damphousse (21:35):
Never beat them, right?
Andrew Zimmel (21:36):
Well...
Kelly Damphousse (21:36):
I dunno about the history. I won't get my history right, but never beat them.
Andrew Zimmel (21:39):
I don't think so. And then this is also a chance for the Sunbelt West.
Kelly Damphousse (21:42):
That's right. It's super important. It is so funny. Before the Arizona State game, I was talking, this is the most important game ever because Thursday night, ESPN, and it was important in so many ways that fans got to come out so we can showcase the university, but also we need to be successful.
(21:57):
And we came up short, but actually we look good coming up short. We got a lot of good publicity. A million people watch the game. So then the next game became super important and said, okay, this is the most important game with all the realignment stuff going on. That's the most important game then. So we lose two games in a row there and then we're going to Troy, which we've never won in Troy before. That becomes the most important game ever. Isn't it great to be at a university where every game now is magnified.
Andrew Zimmel (22:26):
But that is college sports too, that every single game matters. And they told us with realignment, oh, it's not going to matter as much. Did it matter? Does it matter to me?
Kelly Damphousse (22:34):
I'm watching Liberty last night. You know why I'm watching Liberty last night? I can't even tell you what town Liberty is in, right? I have no idea. But you know why I'm watching it because they're 4.0 and I want them to lose so we have a chance to move up. I'm still holding out hope that we'll be the highest ranked conference champion at the end of the season. Could happen, right? It could happen, but it only happens if Liberty loses and Boise State loses another game.
Andrew Zimmel (22:55):
We'll we're against you Boise State.
Kelly Damphousse (22:56):
Yeah, that's right. But that's what I love about college football because I'm watching Detroit Lions versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That doesn't matter to me. I'm a Cowboys fan. The Cowboys are either going to get in, they're not going to get in. I'm not going to lose sleep over the Cowboys losing, but I will lose sleep and I have lost sleep over college football.
Andrew Zimmel (23:13):
Welcome to the club.
Kelly Damphousse (23:14):
Yeah, exactly. Alright, so there's a great chat with you guys, but we're going to take a little bit of break here. We'll be right back after this break.
Andrew Zimmel (23:20):
Well welcome back to the current podcast. We're here with the Squarin' Around guys from the podcast. Thank you Jacob and Andrew for being here. Let's shift gears now and talk about Homecoming, which is coming up pretty quick. You know Homecoming is different for students and for alumni, but maybe, do you have any memories of your homecoming experience? Jacob, you got a great memory I think, right?
Jakob Rodriguez (23:40):
Yeah. I was nominated to the homecoming court my senior year with my good friend Emily Hall, who is a PR major over here. She didn't end up making the final court though. Neither did I didn't. I think I was third runner up or second runner up, whatever you call it. But that was a really cool experience just to be on the field at halftime for something unrelated to anything I've ever done. Really?
Kelly Damphousse (24:01):
Did you have to buy a suit for it?
Jakob Rodriguez (24:03):
No, I had one all already. And then I got fitted up, got some nice boots. Yeah but went to all the homecoming events and that was really cool. I have the sash still. I should frame it.
Kelly Damphousse (24:14):
Do you have pictures from any homecoming experiences that you had Andrew?
Andrew Zimmel (24:17):
See I was a journalist. I was always locked in the press box.
Kelly Damphousse (24:20):
There's got to be a picture. You doing something right?
Andrew Zimmel (24:22):
Maybe...
Kelly Damphousse (24:22):
Thinking, asking a question at a press conference or something.
Jakob Rodriguez (24:25):
You would've been a great soapbox derby. I'm looking at these photos over here.
Andrew Zimmel (24:28):
We were talking about traditions and stuff. You put me in a soapbox derby, I'm doing it.
Jakob Rodriguez (24:32):
Down hill fast ...
Andrew Zimmel (24:33):
Come on, oh yeah.
Kelly Damphousse (24:34):
Now, I will tell you, I'm only talking about myself, but we did a promo last year about soapbox derby and then it got canceled because of the rain.
(24:42):
But I thought lemme just get inside one of those and do a photo op. I could not fit inside of it. It was super small. I was so embarrassed. I was like, oh, lemme just get inside. I went, oh, this is not happening. So I got a picture of me standing beside it. So those look kind of scary though.
Jakob Rodriguez (24:54):
Oh yeah. Some of them are a little dicey, well they work on 'em like two weeks out of the whole year. So you know.
Kelly Damphousse (25:03):
I think it's our longest running homecoming tradition is the soapbox derby.
Andrew Zimmel (25:06):
So you're telling me if I go get some jumbo soapbox, you would do it with me?
Kelly Damphousse (25:09):
I would do it with you in a heartbeat. We need an alumni soapbox thing. What about as an alumnus? Do you have a memory of homecoming?
Andrew Zimmel (25:18):
We have good ones and we have bad ones.
Kelly Damphousse (25:19):
Okay.
Jakob Rodriguez (25:21):
I'm glad you're taking the lead on this.
Andrew Zimmel (25:22):
But I'll say this, that for Homecoming, every year for Texas State is super special for us because we talked about coming to Texas State, but even coming up here today to record this podcast with you guys, it just makes me feel great. Every time you come back to Texas State, even when we drive by the stadium, there's just a little bit of me, that like a little spark relights. I'm excited to be back in San Marco. I talked to Jacob. I said that I'm splitting my time between Austin and San Antonio so much, I might want to move back just because of how the memories I have here.
Jakob Rodriguez (25:52):
Yeah, anytime I drive down 35, I just put on the Randy Rogers Band, immediately just filled with emotion just like, oh my God. So every Saturday now has become its own mini homecoming for me. But I remember my first time back in San Antonio for my real job at KENS Five. I remember coming back for a homecoming just with all my buddies from college and that was so nostalgia. We were back in 2016 or 2020 again. It encapsulated a memory pretty much.
Kelly Damphousse (26:22):
It's interesting, I always talk to high school seniors that are thinking about going to college and they say, well, I'm afraid about leaving my hometown and leaving all my friends behind. And I always say, you are probably going to find your best friend when you go to college and probably the best man in your wedding. There you go. Fist bump. There you go. Maid of honor in your wedding, someone your kids will call Uncle Andrew and so on because there's something that happens at college that's different from high school because you're now independent, but everyone's a little nervous about even the people are pretending that they got all figured out. And so there's something that happens where people, we got to, I got to find a friend. And then when you find a friend, they're like, you grasp onto that person and then that becomes your best friend. Really quickly.
Andrew Zimmel (27:03):
I can tell you for me, we talked about...
Kelly Damphousse (27:05):
Tacos aside, right? Tacos aside.
Jakob Rodriguez (27:07):
One day we'll split that difference. Maybe...
Andrew Zimmel (27:09):
When you go to high school you make friends who are just in your homeroom with you. It's just proximity. When you come to college, you get to pick your friends and for Jacob atleast, and I'll speak on our friendship, I was so driven in this is what I want to do in media. This is my goal, this is what I'm going to do. So when I met Jacob and I had somebody, a kindred spirit in that he wants what I want, we want to move in the same direction. And then I found Sonia and our other friend Figgy and everybody who wants to do this, it's not easy. We make it look easy on the podcast. It's not easy. So find somebody like him who wanted what I wanted just as bad. That's why our friendship is so strong.
Jakob Rodriguez (27:47):
And this is how I got the most lucky. I've had so many of my best friends were in my Bobcat preview class at Texas State. So that's where I met my buddy Tristan and Danny. Danny lived in my dorm at Jackson Hall, shout out. And then I met Andrew with all the SJMC stuff. So that's really everything just kind of coalesced for me and came into this really nice place for me.
Kelly Damphousse (28:12):
I loved hearing your stories about why you came to Texas State, but now reflecting back as an alumnus, what are some things you would say, I need to tell someone about Texas State because of this or that? Maybe what's going on now or something, the experience you had when you were a student here.
Andrew Zimmel (28:29):
Do you want to start or do you want me?
Kelly Damphousse (28:29):
No, you go ahead buddy.
Andrew Zimmel (28:30):
Opportunity. Texas State gives you an opportunity that no other institution I think in the state gives you. Hands-on experience. We talked a little bit beforehand about internships and how many bobcats are still in media in the area and it's because you go to your internship and you outwork everybody else. Texas State gives you that opportunity. The opportunities here are second to none.
Kelly Damphousse (28:50):
I hear from employers all the time about if I have a choice, I'll pick a bobcat because there's something different about those people that they have grit and resilience and a lot of 'em are first generation students who are PELL eligible and they're like scrambling to get on first base. I always use the analogy that there some people are born on third base and think they hit a triple and our kids are bunting to get on first and trying to steal second base. And that drive determination just to get to college and to get through college really sets 'em up to do well in whatever field of work they get up into.
Andrew Zimmel (29:22):
And I look at our distinguished alumni all the time and I go through and I go like, okay, what did this person do?
Jakob Rodriguez (29:28):
And why is Andrew not on the list?
Andrew Zimmel (29:31):
But I want to be there. But that's the thing. I look at that and I go, I want to, and we always joke about the foreheads on the Mount Rushmore. I want to be next to George Strait and LBJ on the Texas State alumni in Mount Rushmore. It could, but you got to work to get there.
Jakob Rodriguez (29:45):
Yeah, for me it's really just about pride and tradition. As corny as that sounds. I mentioned both my parents went here. It's so special to me. My brother now teaches here in the world languages department, and so now my little sister wants to come here so there's...
Andrew Zimmel (30:01):
Keeping it in the family.
Jakob Rodriguez (30:01):
This is like the Harvard of the river for my family.
Kelly Damphousse (30:05):
The Harvard of the river. Everyone wants to compare themselves like the Harvard of the plains. I never heard Harvard of the river. I love that. Harvard on the river.
Andrew Zimmel (30:13):
Harvard of the Hill Country.
Kelly Damphousse (30:13):
Harvard of the Hill Country. I love that you guys give me all kinds of great ideas here. I'm going to write this up all down. Thank you guys for being here and sharing a little bit about your experiences and sharing about the podcast you got going, but mostly about your relationship, which I think is something that's really special about Texas State that I'm starting to discover too. When I talk to our alumni who are coming back and they're talking about, I had this friend in Jackson Hall or whatever who was a suitemate, and then next thing I know we're in the class together and then now we're here. We're 40 years later, still friends going to football games together. And I really do think that athletics brings people back to campus for a reason. It's a reason we do homecoming around a football game because there's something to do when you come here, but I just feel like ...
Jakob Rodriguez (30:55):
Always something to do.
Kelly Damphousse (30:55):
Yeah, there is something to do. Sure. Around tailgate, right?
Jakob Rodriguez (31:00):
Little squaring around.
Kelly Damphousse (31:00):
Yeah, squaring around. I love that phrase. I'm going to use that now. Let's go squaring around a little bit. But thank you guys for representing us so well because people can look at a university and think about it, it's the buildings or it's the faculty and whatever, but it's really the alumni that are the vision or the window to the university. We talk about athletics being the window of the university as well, but our alumni reflect so much what the university is because you're the product that we helped to create. You guys brought a lot of stuff with you, but we molded you along the way and you're different, I hope, than when you came. And we always talk about this being a life-changing experience. I hope that you guys kind of feel like your lives were changed by being here. Absolutely.
Andrew Zimmel (31:43):
On the podcast or just the Texas State?
Kelly Damphousse (31:44):
Yeah, both of them. Yeah, both of them. Thank you guys for representing us so well, for creating that network. And I love your podcast and we'll come back and maybe talk about realignment sometime.
Jakob Rodriguez (31:54):
Deep tease, Kelly.
Kelly Damphousse (31:55):
Deep tease Yeah. We'll go deep for sure. Alright, and now it's time for my favorite part of the podcast. And that is the final question. The final question. These are actually coming from students online. I have not seen these and I don't have my glasses, so I'll do the best I can. So the first one says, look how far away I have to hold it. What is your favorite part of Texas State Homecoming leading up to the game? Frankly, it's the anticipation of homecoming, knowing that a lot of our alumni are coming back. We have the Distinguished Alumni Gala where we recognize distinguished alumni who come back. But I love parades and we kind of got away from parades here, so we're coming back and doing a bit of parade. So we'll see how that goes this year. But I have to say one of my favorite traditions, actually the longest tradition at Homecoming at Texas State, which is the soapbox derby.
(32:41):
We actually got rained out last year, so we couldn't do it. But it's a lot of fun seeing our students gathering around and seeing our student leaders racing those soapbox cars down the ramp and down the street and see how that all turns out. I'm always a little nervous because it's high anxiety, a lot of speed and not a lot of padding there. They're all wearing helmets of course. But that's a lot of fun for me as well. So next question, if you could switch positions with anyone at Texas State for a month, who or what position would it be? I always want to be police officer and so I would definitely become a police officer for a month, not the chief. I want to... that job's too hard, but I would like to be one of the police officers in our mounted patrol because I want to be a Royal Canadian mountain police officer.
(33:24):
I think it'd be cool to be riding those horses around at special events. Those horses, by the way, have been a real attraction for young people who want to go up there. And some of them have never seen a horse that big before or even seen a horse live before. But it's been a really good way to connect with community members and connect with our students as well. So I would like to be a mounted patrol officer at Texas State University. How cool would that be? Alright, thanks for sending those questions in and I look forward to seeing more of those in our future podcasts. Alright, state's up.
Andrew Zimmel (33:58):
This podcast is a production of the Division of Marketing and Communication at Texas State University. Podcasts appearing on the Texas State Podcast network represent the views of the host and guest and not of Texas State University.