shane - i am sorry to hear about that. i never met your father on this site, but he sounds like a fine man.
I know you probably don't remember, but it was in reply to one of your dad's posts back on the old GoBig12 board that I finally quit lurking and made my first post on the internet re: Texas football. My thoughts were pretty weak and not very well written, but you responded that you had lurked for a while too before posting, and told me to have fun. I had no idea until yesterday that you were related to the author of that origional thread, but I have never forgotten that. My heart really goes out to you and your family on this Christmas, and I hope that they are raising a pint to your Dad in that crazy saloon in Phoenix he always referenced in his stories. God bless you and your family and rest in peace PHX horn. -The Terrific Family
I still remember your Dad's posts from back in the day. I got into many a good natured argument with him...God bless you and yours, and on this day, i agree with a previous poster, only one thing is inorder:
God bless you and yours. You are a brave man to take time out and post here. I lost my grandmother two years ago and it was the worst thing I have ever gone through. No words can help you, but just stay strong.
Julie and I have been thinking about you. If you need anything done here in SL, just let us know. There will never, ever be another PhxHorn. Other than that, my thoughts right now are best summed up by one of his favorite words: f**k. Hook'em.
I also never met your father but i do hope that you ge through this tough time. it really makes me appreciate my father and our relationship ( and at times, lack thereof).
This could not be a true PhxHorn post without a ridiculously long opening paragraph, rambling on about, as you say, women of low moral fiber and methods of analyzing data. But long-windedness seems to be an inherited trait, and you do justice to your dad. I remember his posts from the gobig12 boards, though i rarely posted there. I found them when I was studying abroad in Germany and was quite homesick. His posts stuck out in particular. Always objective, always insightful, always long. But when they were over, I was always wishing there would be more. I only met Neil once, the same time I met you. At bennigans after the 2002 A&M game. He said he hoped to see just one more MNC before he passed away, and I wish he had. For some reason, that statement stuck, I still see him holding his drink, puffing his cigarette, and hoping VY would go bugshit and beat OU in 2003. I am sorry it didnt happen for him. Take care, Shane. I am sure we will be seeing one another again some day. I have a hard time with occasional realizations of my parents' mortality. Some day, I know I will be accepting farewells from their friends as you are now. I am sad Neil is gone, but I am glad he lived long enough for me to know him. Merry Christmas, Neil. And you, too, Shane.
PhxHorn & SLX I never had the opportunity to meet my favorite poster and that shall go down as a major loss on my final record. In the old days, there were honest to goodness real football posts which flavored the UT sites. PhxHorn was responsible for many of them. They stayed on point and opinions were backed with solid takes mainly because of the respect of our resident wordsmith, PhxHorn. Nobody ever tried to piss against the wind on a PhxHorn post, nobody. My first exchange with Phx was a reply I made to one of his laugh out loud posts about UT football. I casually threw out a Kern Tipps expression from the fifties to enhance my reply and cautiously awaited to see if he would butcher me, or worse yet, not even respond. Phx answered pretty quickly with a barrage of Mr. Microphone's favorite tools of his trade. I knew then we saw many of the same pictures from behind our collective eyes. Phx will never know how often I searched for just a morsel of comment from him in football posts. Thats okay, I know. Everybody remembers certain Phx escapades and has probably shared Phxisms with others not in the Uuker seats. As a football coach, I often asked our DB's if shoulder pads were optional while watching them attempt tackles on Friday nights. When one of our OL whiffed on a blocking assignment, I ventured that a dancing bear drill might make them look better than merely falling on their asses. Fishing resorts being perusued in the pressbox-I frequently blistered assistant coaches that seemed more worried about the fried chicken being on time than whether they went unbalanced or trapped a particular play. It was a genuine pleasure to converse with Phx. At the end of a hard day there was nothing better than finding a post delievered by the master himself on one of the boards. You just knew-your eyes lit up and your anticipation stirred up a great feeling-you were going to be entertained by the best and you just knew it. Thats respect in its finest form. Thats PhxHorn.
Thanks, SLX - that's a wonderful post and a well-earned, appropriate tribute to your father. Apart from his straightforward wisdom, his patience with the rest of us, the remarkable clarity of both his thinking and his writing, and his rich sense of humor, my favorite aspect of sharing thoughts with PhxHorn was his capacity to swim upstream against the otherwise ephemeral nature of the normal internet discussions. With Phx, the thread was still there tomorrow. When you responded on a PhxHorn thread, you got -- if you made the slightest effort to earn it -- a courteous and thoughtful response from Phx in return, even if the insights you had attempted to express were, shall we say, less than dazzling. Here was a man who was kind to those who were just learning the game. A PhxHorn discussion was like having a real artist paint while you watched, and then he would let you throw some paint on the canvas and, even if you didn't get the picture (or were messing it up), he would work with you to help get things in perspective until you started to think that maybe you actually helped him with that Sistine Chapel job. My favorite times with Phx on the Board were near the end of those long threads. There were times when we would go on discussing issues (like whether or not it was material that the fullback was a cipher in our offense) back and forth at the bottom of a thread because, frankly, at that point we probably were the only two people left in the universe who cared. Those were great times, and Phx would tell us now that we'll see them again here in this forum -- if we (and the folks in charge of the UT football program) just face up honestly to the things that the Horns need to do to operate at the optimum level on the field. It's there if we go for it. And that reflects, perhaps, the appealing admixture of realism and hope that Phx shared with the rest of us here. My guess is that right now Phx is upstairs working overtime to encourage the football gods to give the Horns a nod that will help us come all the way back. As usual, he's doing his part -- now the rest of us just need to do ours. Hook 'em.
According to my profile, I registered here on 6/17/2000. I'm not sure what my first post was, but I'm pretty certain it was loaded with words, stats, and very little analytical ability. I was inspired by a post I'd read by your father--I think a years of experience analysis of our team--and although I knew I couldn't put it out like he could, I hoped he'd help me find the grains of truth and value in the piles of crap I threw into the internet. Your dad, who responded quickly to the data, shaped the thread into something worth discussing, and earned my gratitude for life. One of my earliest posts here involved my belief that Mack and co tried to recruit only "good kids who would graduate," and you helped me run off on a tangential discussion of Shane Dronett's character traits, and whether he'd be turned away from this staff. I remember being afraid I'd offended you, and when you made it clear I hadn't, that you sincerely enjoyed the discussion, I thought how lucky I was to have found this site, and to have such great guys as Phx, SL X, and Horndfl to discuss with and learn from. The three of you, and over time several other great people on this site, helped me to feel anchored to Texas while my wife and I spent six years in Connecticut, and the past six months in Indiana. It meant more to me than I can express, and I will remain a fan of your dad's forever. Thanks for the post, Shane.
SL...I always enjoyed your dad's comments. I wish I would have been able to know him personally. I now understand where you get your facility with language. Hang in there........
The "Adios" post, his distaste for the holiday season, data points, women of questionable moral fiber, the discovery that there really are people out there just like us, the hefty bag, defensive poetry, traffic light syncronization, the hassle of gameday... I remember it all, and I too recall feeling affirmaton from PhxHorn replies beginning 5 years ago. I really enjoyed getting to know Neil over the last 2 years, and I'm glad to have had the opportunity. Now, you need to get your sorry *** up to Austin next year. We'll keep an eye out for you.
Neil was a curmudgeon. A stylish and brilliant curmudgeon, but a curmudgeon nonetheless. Spring practice was as much that Neil would be coming to town as it was about watching sweaty, young men in their prime. In fact, an evening of good wine whilst both weeping as the lovely temptress of the Four Seasons bar crooned out ballads from Les Miserable is far more appealing to me than an afternoon in the hot Texas sun watching Tim Nunez's Tai Chi 101. I know that Neil respected me. He saw me through some of the darkest days of my life, and he never once was sympathetic. I loved him for that. I got myself into that situation and should have known better, and he let me know it. There were times when he and Robert were the only ones that I could talk to about that mess. He never once failed to give me good advice and make me laugh telling me what a moron I had been. I know Neil Kidwell loved me. He once wore a tshirt because he thought it would please me. A greater sacrifice I could never have asked or expected. I can only hope that he knows how much I loved and respected him.
Am mostly a lurker, PhxHorn is one of several usernames that I automatically click on just because I know the post will have substance. He will be sorely missed in my little world.
As I said in another post, PhxHorn was the only poster whose words I ever felt compelled to share with my wife. She could give a hoot that the game of football even exists, but she appreciates a good turn of phrase, and was delighted whenever I showed her a PhxHorn post.
PhxHorn was both the most wonderful and most frightening poster I remember first encountering in my earliest days on the old 360 Board in 1998. The most wonderful because his were always the posts that I would most anticipate on a daily basis, the erudite old fart. And the most frightening because of the trepidation I would oftentimes feel as I attempted to respond to his musings, all the while dreading that I might say something with which he would disagree, and knowing full well that he would be correct and I would be wrong. God, I'm going to miss him. I've spent the last two nights awakening several times with Neil Kidwell on my mind. I suspect more of the same tonight. I consider Neil one of my dearest friends even though we were only together, and briefly at that, a few times each year during football season or at the spring games. Most of our exchanges were via the internet thru emails and various bulletin boards, and an occassional phone call. But we knew each other very well. He's truly an icon of mine in every sense of the word. He was the best that any of us Longhorns had to offer to the somewhat strange, somewhat vicarious, somewhat awful, and somewhat truly wonderful world of sports bulletin boards. I will miss him tremendously and remember him always. Thanks for doing this, Shane. beowulf (Allan Spence)
Like many others, I was a lurker long before getting the courage to post. And like others, it was Neil's posts that eventually pulled me into trying to contribute. He was the consumate writer: poetic, sometimes profane (with great wit), all the while possessing the ability to be concise while straying every few paragraphs for some comic or sardonic digression that seemed to fit into the point he was making. I am saddened by his loss, and even more so for those here who did not have the chance to know him face-to-face. Because after meeting Neil, you could read his posts with a face and a voice put to them, and it seemed to add flavor to the already flavorfull threads. I count among my blessings the times I was able to make that personal connnection. That is one of the great ironies of the faceless, nameless internet world that these boards exist in. I have had the chance to meet and spend time with some truly special individuals, when our paths might never have crossed had it not been for computers. Neil was the best. My deepest sympathies to you Shane, and to your family.
