How far we've come

I've known Greg Propes for for at least 25 years, so it's very cool to see him get a few minutes of fame from the Chronicle based on a picture he took back in December 2013:

Greg Propes, via the Houston Chronicle

Greg Propes arrived inside Hofheinz Pavilion just as the starting lineups were being announced for a non-conference game against Alcorn State in 2013.

“My jaw dropped,” Propes said. “Even by the poor standards that had been set at UH, my jaw dropped when I saw literally nobody there. It blew my mind.”

Propes took photos of Hofheinz from different angles, each showing completely empty sections of red seats for an early December game in coach James Dickey’s final season.

Once again, the photos surfaced on social media this week, showing just how far the University of Houston men’s basketball program has come since the arrival of coach Kelvin Sampson a year later.

That night, Propes posted the photos on the fan website CoogFans.com. He counted 43 fans sitting in the section behind the scorer’s table. He counted 15 students. The announced attendance for UH’s 31-point win was 2,833.

“I’m embarrassed to be here. I’m embarrassed for the players. I’m embarrassed,” Propes wrote on the website’s message board.

UH message boards were referring to Hofheinz as "the Tomb" at the time, because people simply weren't going to the games. It didn't matter that the game Greg attended was on a Monday night during finals week against an uninteresting opponent; the Coogs could have been playing North Carolina on Saturday and the crowd probably wouldn't have been much larger. The program was simply not relevant nationally nor of interest to local sports fans, UH alums included. About six weeks after Greg took this picture, I wrote:

I freely admit that I'm part of the problem; I rarely attend UH basketball games these days because, well, the games just aren't much fun for me anymore. Sure, I should be a good alumnus and support my school's hoops program through thick and thin. But when the team plays one of the weakest non-conference schedules in the nation but still only manages an 8-5 record, when the program has made exactly one NCAA Tournament appearance in the last twenty-two years, when the head coach is an aging retread who was coaching middle school girl's basketball when he was hired, when attending Cougar basketball games feels less like entertainment and more like a chore... Well, I guess I've just reached "that point of apathy" that [former Houston Press writer John] Royal writes about. There was a time when I really cared about UH basketball. Now I couldn't even tell you when the next home game is.

After the 2013-14 season was over, the University of Houston fired James Dickey (who never should have been hired to begin with), and tapped Kelvin Sampson to lead the program out of the abyss.  

Today, things are completely different. The Coogs play in front of packed crowds at the renovated Fertitta Center. The program won the Big XII conference for the second year in a row. The team is heading to their seventh Final Four in program history this weekend. UH basketball is no longer merely relevant; it is one of the nation's best. 

It's amazing to see just how much things have changed in a dozen years.

“Kelvin Sampson is a miracle worker,” Propes said. “What has happened to UH — and I don’t use the word lightly — is a miracle what happened here.”

Monarch population rebounds

This story is a month old at this point, but these days I'll share any good news I can get:

In encouraging news, the eastern monarch butterfly population nearly doubled in 2025, according to a new report announced in Mexico. The population wintering in central Mexico's forests occupied 4.42 acres, up from 2.22 acres during the previous winter. While monarchs occupied nearly twice as much forest habitat as last year, populations remain far below the long-term average.

The survey, Forest Area Occupied by Monarch Butterflies Colonies in Mexico During the 2024-2025 Hibernation Season is conducted annually by WWF-Mexico and Mexico's National Commission of Protected Natural Areas in collaboration with local communities, and it serves as an important indicator of the butterfly's overall population health. 

“We recognize the key role of local communities, as well as the support of the government of Mexico in conserving the forest and providing this iconic species with the opportunity to thrive,” said Jorge Rickards, director general of WWF Mexico. "It’s now time to turn this year’s increase into a lasting trend with an all-hands approach where governments, landowners, conservationists, and citizens continue to safeguard critical habitats along the monarch’s North American migratory route.”

Scientists attribute much of this year’s population growth to better weather conditions in 2024—with less severe drought than in previous years—along the butterflies' migration route from the United States and Canada to Mexico.

Improvements have also been made in protecting the overwintering forests in Mexico from threats such as illegal logging. Here's this year's graph from monarchwatch.org:

monarchwatch.org

One season does not a trend make, and as the graph above shows, the migrating monarch butterfly population is tis just a fraction of what it's historically been. But given last year's particularly grim report, this is good. Monarchs are resilient - how many other species can double their population in the span of a single year? - but they still need our help:

Monarchs still face several threats. For example, climatic variations in the monarch’s breeding areas in Canada and the United States can impact the abundance of milkweed, the only plant in which the butterflies lay their eggs, and from which monarch caterpillars feed. Land-use changes in the United States, combined with the widespread use of herbicides and insecticides, have also contributed to the loss of milkweed and other nectar plants adult monarchs need to feed from. And while high levels of illegal logging in the monarch butterfly reserve have been halted, forest degradation in the overwintering sites in Mexico could be a threat if left unchecked.

Remember, folks: 80% of our agricultural production depends on pollinating insects such as monarchs, and other pollinators are having population crises of their own. Protecting the monarch isn't just good for them; it's good for us.

So plant that milkweed.

2025 Houston Cougar football schedule released

Last week, the University of Houston's 2025 football campaign was officially released. Here's what it looks like:*

    Thu Aug 28    Stephen F. Austin
    Sat Sep 06      at Rice
    Fri Sep 12      Colorado
    Sat Sep 20      (off)
    Sat Sep 27      at Oregon State
    Sat Oct 04      Texas Tech
    Sat Oct 11      at Oklahoma State
    Sat Oct 18      Arizona
    Sat Oct 25      at Arizona State
    Sat Nov 01     West Virginia
    Fri Nov 07     at Central Florida
    Sat Nov 15     (off)
    Sat Nov 22     TCU
    Sat Nov 29     at Baylor

At first glance, this looks somewhat easier than last season's schedule. It features seven games in the City of Houston (as opposed to six in 2024), an FCS opponent to start the season (as opposed to a good UNLV team to begin 2024), six opponents who played in bowl games last season (as opposed to eight) and two opponents who ended the season ranked (as opposed to four). 

That being said, this is still a difficult schedule, with seven opponents coming off winning seasons in 2024 and games in all four time zones (including lengthy trips to Corvallis, Oregon; Tempe, Arizona [where they face last year's Big 12 champion, Arizona State]; and Orlando, Florida). Needless to say, if the Cougars do not make tremendous improvement from 2024, especially on offense, they will be looking at a third consecutive losing year. 

Of interest is that there are no back-to-back home or road games on this schedule; every home game is followed by a road game and vice versa. Apparently this is the first time in the 80-year history of the UH football program that this has happened. The Thursday, August 28 opener against Stephen F. Austin is also the earliest season opener in program history. 

Every team on this schedule is a school the Cougars have played previously, although in some cases it's been awhile: Houston last played Stephen F. Austin in 1948, Oregon State in 1970, Colorado in 1971, and Arizona State in 1990 (in Tokyo!).

I wasn't able to make any road trips last season, but I'm thinking that late September Oregon State game might be a good travel opportunity. I've never been to the Pacific Northwest.

* Updated (4/3/2025) to indicate Colorado and Central Florida games being moved to Friday.

It's the Gulf of Mexico, stupid

After assuming the presidency for the second time last week, one of Donald Trump's first acts was to sign an Executive Order changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America." His order also reverts the name of the Alaskan mountain Denali to its former name of Mount McKinley.

Like everything else that Donald Trump does, this is stupid and performative. The Gulf of Mexico is an international body of water - the United States' jurisdiction over it extends only twelve miles beyond its coastline - and has been known as such for centuries:

The Gulf of Mexico has had its name for about 400 years. In his book, The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, published in 1589, English geographer Richard Hakluyt calls the water body “Gulfe of Mexico”. In Mexico, the gulf is also called by its Spanish name, El Golfo de Mexico.

Trump can rename the Gulf of Mexico for his domestic audience, but the rest of the world does not have to go with that name change, since there are no international laws that decide what a common maritime space or a disputed territory is called universally.

The practical effect of this name change is minimal - most people I know, myself included, just call it "the Gulf" - but the idea that the 600,000-square-mile Gulf of Mexico's name can be summarily changed for the sake of political aggrandizement or "owning the libs" or whatever is mind-numbingly stupid. 

Aside from the fact that it needlessly causes confusion (especially given that the word "America" appears in the name of both of the Western Hemisphere's continents) and is wasteful (think of all the money the federal government is going to have to spend re-printing maps and updating geographic databases), it creates an unnecessary, even if minor, disruption to the lives and habits of the millions of people who live along the Gulf of Mexico and have always known it as such.

Other countries will not recognize Trump's new name for the Gulf. A lot of Americans themselves won't, either: a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll indicated that 70% of Americans oppose renaming the body of water. The Associated Press will continue to refer to it as the "Gulf of Mexico" as well. 

One place where you will see the new name is on Google Maps; the company is caving to Trump's decree and will begin using the new name in their maps platforms. That decision is generating backlash here and abroad; it is unclear if other mapping platforms like Apple or Mapquest will make the name change as well. 

I will continue to refer to it as the Gulf of Mexico.

If you're looking for alternatives to Google Maps, here are some apps to consider. Texas Monthly offers some other possible names for the Gulf.

Snow Day!

Here are some obligatory photos of last Tuesday's winter weather event. 

We got about three inches of snow in my part of Midtown, which is as much accumulation as I've seen from a single snowfall in my 50-plus years of living in Houston. Other parts of town got even more.

On one hand, I find freshly-fallen snow to be very visually appealing and am loathe to step in it or disturb it in any way. On the other hand, few things are as pleasant as the sound of snow scrunching under one's shoe. (I also recognize I might not have the same feelings about snow if I lived someplace where it was commonplace; I have a lot of acquaintances from places up north who can't wait for the winter to end and the snow to disappear.)

Between the lack of traffic noise and the snow's sound-absorbent properties, it was eerily quiet as I walked around the streets of my neighborhood.

There were a handful of motorists who decided to ignore the warnings and drive in the slushy streets, but I certainly wasn't one of them. I normally work from home on Tuesdays to begin with, so not being able to travel to the office posed no disruption to me. 

At least a few people in my neighborhood made snowmen or snow angels, and a younger version of myself would have probably done the same. At my age, however, I was content just to walk around and take in the sights. The snow was a very beautiful treat, and one that probably won't occur again here for awhile. 

Expanded College Football Playoff Thoughts

The first edition of the 12-team College Football Playoff is in the books, with Ohio State's victory over Notre Dame last Monday bringing the 2024 college football season to a close. I have some thoughts.

Ohio State is legit. I've read grumblings on message boards that the Buckeyes should not have been national champions because they didn't win their conference (so what? Neither did Georgia in 2021 or Alabama in 2017) or because they lost to archival Michigan (so what? They're called rivalry games for a reason). In order to make it through the playoffs and win the title, Ohio State had to beat the #9, #4, #3 and #2-ranked teams in the final AP top 25. If you can pull off that feat, you deserve to be champions. 

It was too long. The playoff began on Friday, December 20; the championship was held a full month later, on Monday, January 20. This is well after the traditional bowl season (which used to reach its climax on New Year's Day) ends and a not-insignificant number of sports fans have moved on to the NFL playoffs or basketball. That may be why the 22.1 million viewers who watched last Monday's title game was less than the 25 million people who watch the 2024 CFP Championship game. Certainly the expanded CFP was not helped by the fact that it ran concurrently with - and had to be scheduled around - the NFL playoffs. But you can't help but wonder if viewer burnout was a factor as well. 

Ideally, the playoff should be shortened. But it won't be easy.

Four teams was too small, but is 12 teams too large? I'm not philosophically opposed to a 12-team playoff - the more teams, the merrier, right? - although I've always argued that eight teams is probably the right number. Given the way the four lowest-seeded teams - Indiana, Tennessee, SMU and Clemson - all got drilled in the first round, you can definitely make the argument that twelve teams is too many. An eight-team playoff would also shave a week off the schedule, at least partially addressing the length issue mentioned above.

That being said, Ohio State was seeded #8. In an eight-team playoff, they probably would not have even made it in because the ACC champ, Clemson, would have been assured a spot instead. So maybe more is better...

The first round home games were awesome. The atmospheres in all of South Bend, Columbus, Happy Valley and Austin were electric and encompassed everything that is good about college football. You almost wish that the four teams that got first-round byes - Boise State, Arizona State, Oregon and Georgia - could have held a playoff game in their home stadiums as well.

The seeding probably needs to be adjusted. Speaking of the aforementioned four teams that got first-round byes: they all lost in the second round (although Arizona State's scrappy battle with Texas in the Peach Bowl will go down as an all-time classic). The reason they got first-round byes was not because they were the best four teams in the playoff, but because they won their conference championships. It certainly makes sense that the teams that win their conferences be rewarded with better playoff seeds, but given that the five conference champions went 0-5 in the playoff, the argument can be made that teams should be seeded based on their overall strength (like the NCAA does for the basketball tournament).

Certainly there are still some tweaks that need to be made to the format, but overall I think the first "real" playoff went well. As a college football fan, I'm just glad that we've finally reached this point. I've lived through the old system of regional bowls and "who should be number one" controversies, the conference commissioners and bowl executives who fought tooth-and-nail to preserve their fiefdoms, the half-assed attempts to determine a "true" college football champion through the goofy Bowl Alliance and the cynically corrupt Bowl Championship Series, and the four-team playoff (which, while a step forward, was still unsatisfactory). At a time where so much is changing in college football, the twelve-team playoff is definitely a change for the better.

CNN's Kyle Feldscher, NBC's Nicole Auerbach, and CBS's Chip Patterson share what they think worked and didn't work from the 12-team playoff format. 

On to the offseason. 

A suggested corporate resolution for 2025

 Shamelessly stolen from a friend’s Facebook page:

Seriously: it’s annoying, over-hyped and it doesn’t work right. So stop cramming it down our throats.

I'm especially looking at you, Google.

UH Cougar football: 2024 attendance and season recap

The University of Houston's football program averaged 27,423 fans per game this season, which represents a drop of almost 8,600 fans/game from last season. However last season's attendance was heavily influenced by the Texas game (and ticket brokers and Longhorn fans who may have bought season tickets just to secure a seat at said game), so the 2022 season may be a fairer comparison. In that case, the Cougars averaged 2,630 more fans/game than two years ago. Here's the graph:

The bad news is that this puts Houston dead last in the Big XII. The better news is that attendance has the potential to be better next year, with in-state rivals such as TCU and Texas Tech coming to town, along with the hype machine that is Deion Sanders and his Colorado Buffaloes. But, as the above graph has always shown, the one thing that really helps attendance is winning. 

The Cougars, of course, did not win in 2024; they ended the season with a 4-8 record, identical to last year's campaign and one win better than my preseason prediction. It was understood that 2024 would likely be a rough year, as the program was in transition under a new coaching regime, and the previous coaching staff's indifference to recruiting had left some big holes in terms of talent. 

While there were some encouraging moments to the season (avenging last year's loss to Rice, beating preseason conference favorite Utah and a ranked Kansas State team at home, upsetting TCU on the road), the program was overall very inconsistent. 

The offense sputtered all season long, failed to score a touchdown in four games, and put up some of the worst stats in program history. Head coach Willie Fritz was forced to dismiss his offensive coordinator, Kevin Barbay, before the season even ended. Slade Nagle, who was previously Fritz's OC at Tulane and was an assistant at LSU this past season, now takes over on the offensive side of the ball.

The defense, on the other hand, excelled. Unfortunately for the Cougars, that meant that defensive coordinator Shiel Wood was poached by a program with deeper pockets at season's end. Fritz has since hired Austin Armstrong, who spent this past season as Florida, as Houston's new DC.

Fritz is already busily working on upgrading the program's talent for the 2025 season, bringing in a decent recruiting class during the early signing period and using the transfer portal to address some critical needs for next year, including a quarterback:

Former Texas A&M quarterback Conner Weigman is set to transfer to Houston for the 2025 season, he announced Wednesday night on social media.

Weigman, who began each of the past two seasons as Texas A&M's starter, entered the transfer portal Monday. Houston was the clear favorite to land the Cypress, Texas, native, who was ESPN's top pocket passer and No. 27 overall recruit in the 2022 class.

"I'm coming home. Time to go to Work H-Town," Weigman wrote on X.

The Cougars are also bringing in fresh talent for the offensive line. Unfortunately, the portal giveth and the portal taketh away.

Needless to say, the program has a busy offseason ahead of it. And while it's way too early to make predictions about the 2025 season, the rebuilding process under Willie Fritz is well underway and I'm cautiously hopeful that we'll see improvement on the field in 2025.

RIP Janis Scott

A local legend is gone.

Janis Scott, a fixture of community meetings and public lectures who was lovingly called “the bus lady” by four generations of Houstonians, died Monday. She was 73.

A nearly lifetime bus rider — there was a time in the 80s when she bought a car but ditched driving after a few years — Scott was one of the most passionate advocates for Metropolitan Transit Authority service, specifically frequent buses crisscrossing oft-neglected communities.

"Janis was one of many riders who kept us accountable for providing good service,” former Metro board member Christof Spieler said. “But she stood out for the thoughtfulness of her comments, the way she stepped back to consider the needs of all the other riders as well, her caring for the bus operators who took her around Houston, and her love of the city and its transit system. She will be missed."

Beyond the bus Scott was a “lifelong learner” who “regularly attended public events with speakers from around the country,” said her friend, Oni Blair.

I knew Janis through my work, as she participated in transit-related workgroups and attended subcommittee meetings I was involved in. I'd oftentimes spend time chatting with her after meetings and listening to her stories. Even during the pandemic, when our transit subcommittee meetings were held virtually, she would call in to listen and then call me directly afterwards to share her thoughts on the discussions that had just transpired.

I would also occasionally see her at METRO Board meetings, where she was a fixture.

“Metro is a lifeline for many of us — it’s a mandate and a civil right,” Scott wrote in an essay for the Kinder institute for Urban Research at Rice University. “If you do not have a car, public transit gives you access to many opportunities, including jobs, medical appointments, education and what I call life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! Transit justice is a form of freedom, where sidewalks and curb cuts are fundamental provisions, especially for people with mobility challenges. It is crucial that the built environment is up to code.”

Scott was very willing to tell officials when bus service was being denied, or how they could improve it and make it affordable for riders. Always polite but never demure, Scott tussled with elected and appointed officials for what she believed, becoming a trusted voice along the way.

“Janis was a Metro treasure,” former transit board chairman Gilbert Garcia said. “She knew more about Houston transit than most Metro employees.  When I became chairman, I would meet with her regularly to hear how we were really doing.  I will miss her infectious laugh.”

At a time when the current mayoral administration (and by extension, its appointees on the METRO Board of Directors) seems hell-bent on ignoring local voters' wishes regarding improvements and expansions to local transit service, strong voices such as hers advocating for better public transportation are needed more than ever. Her passing is a tremendous loss, and I will miss her.

Janis was a 1974 graduate of Rice University and was one of that school's first black graduates. She continued to be involved in campus activities her entire life, and in 2016 received the school's award for outstanding achievement in civic and community service.

Bluesky

I've joined the migration! I'm @indotav.bsky.social on that platform, in case anybody is interested. When I do post (and re-post) there, it will mostly be about transportation, urbanism, politics and sports (kinda like here). I'll post links there to articles I've written here as well.

In the month-and-a-half I've been on Bluesky, I've already gained more (actual) followers than I ever accumulated on Twitter (I will never refer to it as "X"). The conversations in the comments are much less noxious (i.e., no "blue check" trolls spewing hate and misinformation), and I've yet to be followed by a single porn bot. It really is a breath of fresh air when compared to Twitter's increasingly-toxic ecosystem, and I'm not enriching Elon fucking Musk every time I use it, either.

I'm not leaving Twitter yet - there are still a lot of people and entities I follow there that have not made the jump to Bluesky yet - but as the platform continues to gain members I'm hoping that in the coming months I can make the switch entirely.