David Carr joins the 'Red Wave of Texas'
By Tom Uribes
The stars have aligned literally for California State University, Fresno and the city of Houston in Texas, where former Bulldogs came into the spotlight after the signing of Fresno State student David Carr as the No. 1 NFL draft pick for the Houston Texans.
When the former Bulldog quarterback was picked in the first round in New York April 20 by the new Texans pro football
franchise - making him the highest professional sports draftee of a Fresno State athlete ever - he joined such Houston celebrities and Fresno State alum as Mayor Lee P. Brown and astronauts Rick Husband and Steve Nagel.
Along with South Texas Judge Edward Aparicio a diehard Bulldog fan who attends four to six football games a year and hosts his own Red Wave tailgate in Edinburg Carr is now in a select group of 2,900 other Texans who are alumni of Fresno State.
In Houston alone, the count is nearly 250, according to Fresno State's Alumni Association. David and his wife, Melody, and son Austin, moved to Houston just before the draft.
Among the Red Wave of Texas in Houston are a NASA astronaut, a NASA research pilot who was an astronaut (another former astronaut now lives in Florida), two oil industry officials and a University of Houston professor.
Astronaut Rick Husband, a 1990 grad with a master's in mechanical engineering who now resides in Houston, will be commanding the space shuttle Columbia when it blasts off from Pad 39B at Cape Canaveral in July.
For Mayor Brown and Judge Aparicio though, their state's new NFL team has special meaning with the signing of Carr.
"Houston is very excited about the Texans' inaugural season, with David Carr in the quarterback position," said Mayor Brown, who graduated from then-Fresno State College in 1960 with a degree in criminology. "The Texans should do well under his leadership."
Brown's interest is heightened further by the fact that he, like Carr, began his college education at Fresno State on a football scholarship.
"On a personal level, I am looking forward to welcoming David because we have something in common," Brown said. "I was pretty good at sacking quarterbacks. But, unlike David, few people remember my football career at Fresno State."
What is remembered is that Brown went on to become police chief in the cities of Houston, Atlanta and New York, then serve as a drug czar for President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1995.
In January 1998, he was inaugurated as the first African American mayor of Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city and the largest in Texas.
A native of Oklahoma, Brown lived in Sanger and Fowler after moving to California.
He has attributed much of his success to the valley rural life as well as his Fresno State education. His alma mater honored Brown by presenting him with its Distinguished Alum Award in 1983.
Judge Aparicio, who now resides in Edinburg in South Texas, is a former Houstonian who bleeds Bulldog red and is now looking to Texans blue.
He earned his law degree at the University of Houston in 1986 after graduating from Fresno State in 1984 with a degree in public administration. Aparicio worked in two Houston Law Firms as well as in Brownsville and Weslaco before opening his own firm, Aparicio & McLaren, in McAllen and Corpus Christi.
The native of the state of Washington who, like Brown, was the son of farmworkers, was elected in 1996 to the 92nd District Court of Hidalgo County (equivalent to a Superior Court in California) and is now presiding judge.
Aparicio annually returns to Fresno for two Bulldog games and travels to two "away" games, especially in Texas although last year he attended the victorious Wisconsin game that led to a No. 8 national-ranking for Fresno.
When he doesn't go to the Bulldog games, he hosts what he calls the "South Texas Red Wave Tailgate" on Bulldogs game days at his five-bedroom home in Edinburg, where one room is devoted to Fresno State souvenirs.
"Over the years I have had to take some guff from my buddies if the 'Dogs lost," Aparicio said. "But this past year we rode high and now with David coming to Texas, I want all my Texan friends to know the Fresno State Bulldogs are strong here in Texas."
Aparicio has backed his words with action: he has purchased season tickets to the Houston Texans games and feels many of the "Red Wave of Texas" will follow suit.
That kind of enthusiasm typifies many Red Wave fans, as evidenced through the 6,000-member Bulldog Foundation, one of the most successful collegiate athletics fund-raising organizations in the nation and whose fan support is truly nationwide.
Other Fresno State alumni in the Houston area include:
Back to University Journal, 05/20/02 Issue
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