Foots Prints

Today is the worst day of every year. I despise New Year’s Eve. It is a nothing day. Why the hell do we need to celebrate the changing of a calendar?
I’m not going to wake up next to a beautiful woman, I’m not going to wake up with millions in my bank account, I’m not going to wake up 50 grams, much less 50 kilograms, lighter. My life will be the same on the first day of 2026 as it is on the last day of 2025, the same as it was going from 2024 to 2025…and 2004 to 2005…and 1984 to 1985, and will be going from 2026 to 2027 and 2036 to 2037 (hopefully).
IMHO, only complete idiots and losers with no other reason to celebrate other than the inane changing of a calendar, party on New Year’s Eve. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are spending a quiet evening in one of their mansions (Kansas City, Philadelphia, Hollywood–I don’t care), not whooping it up in KC’s Power & Light district or at a swanky Las Vegas casino. Their rich and famous friends and adversaries are doing the same.
I do my best to make sure I am not out past sunset on 31 December. Today I succeeded spectacularly, picking up takeout from Buffalo Wild Wings and retiring to my room at the Sheraton West Des Moines at 1500 (3 p.m. for the clueless fools who have no idea what 24-hour time is).

Today happens to be the 30th anniversary of my latest New Year’s Eve, one I don’t want to repeat.
On the evening of 31 December 1995, the 61st edition of the Sugar Bowl was contested inside the Louisiana Superdome (now Caesar’s Superdome) between Virginia Tech and Texas. The bowl was forced to move to 31 December due to it being part of the Bowl Coalition, a trio of bowls, along with the Fiesta and Orange, ostensibly designed to determine a “true” national champion of the highest level of college football.
I was asked by Joe Scheuermann, who has handled Sugar Bowl media relations for over 40 years, to serve as the booth statistician for Mutual Radio’s broadcast. I worked with Tony Roberts, the longtime voice of Notre Dame on Mutual, and Rick Walker, who blocked for John Riggins during the Redskins’ Super Bowl seasons of 1982 (won vs. Miami) and 1983 (lost to the Raiders).
The Hokies fell behind 10-0, but scored 28 unanswered points to win going away. The game set the stage for Tech, led by alum Frank Beamer, to become a national powerhouse later in the 1990s and well into the 2000s (the Hokies returned to the Sugar Bowl after winning the Atlantic Coast Conference championship in 2004 and almost upended Auburn, which won 16-13 to complete a 13-0 season).
The Longhorns bounced back to win the first Big 12 championship in 1996, but in 1997, Texas cratered to 4-7 (including a grotesque 66-3 loss at home vs. UCLA), leading to the firing of coach John Mackovic was fired. Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds hired Mack Brown away from North Carolina (which hired Brown away from Tulane in December 1987) to return the Longhorns to the past glory they experienced under Darrell Royal (consensus national championships in 1963 and 1969, plus a split title in 1970). It took a little longer than those on the Forty Acres would have liked, but Brown paid off Dodds’ bet in full on the night of 4 January 2006 in Pasadena.

The game ended shortly before 2200. I waited 45 minutes after that for the traffic to thin before I made my way from the press box to the parking garage below. It took two minutes to exit the garage and reach Poydras Street after I got to my car, a 1989 Chevy Cavalier.
The real dread began when I turned right from Poydras onto Claiborne Avenue, the artery which would carry me into St. Bernard Parish and my home in Arabi, its westernmost community.
New Orleans is a horrible place to be out late at night on 355 or 356 days of the year. It is exponentially worse on nights there are Mardi Gras parades in the city (especially starting with the Saturday before Mardi Gras through Fat Tuesday) and New Year’s Eve.
The fastest route from many places in Orleans Parish to St. Bernard traverses Claiborne Avenue, the main thoroughfare in the city’s Ninth Ward.
Since the 1970s, every block along Claiborne from Poydras to St. Bernard has been the scene of numerous murders, not to mention thousands of rapes, assaults, carjackings and other calamities.
The mid-1990s in New Orleans was one of the city’s worst eras.
The city was spared the wrath of Mother Nature through the 1990s, but in 1994, the city became the murder capital of the United States, recording 421 homicides.
The worst of those occurred on my 18th birthday (13 October 1994), when NOPD officer Len Davis ordered two hit men to murder Kim Groves, who witnessed Davis and a fellow officer pistol whip a 17-year old boy whom they mistook for a suspect in the shooting of another officer.
Davis was tipped off by another officer and ordered neighborhood drug kingpin Paul Hardy to murder Groves, which he did.
Nothing had improved by the last day of 1995.
The game ended shortly before 2200. I waited 45 minutes after that for the traffic to thin before I made my way from the press box to the parking garage below. It took two minutes to exit the garage and reach Poydras Street after I got to my car, a 1989 Chevy Cavalier.
The real dread began when I turned right from Poydras onto Claiborne Avenue, the artery which would carry me into St. Bernard Parish and my home in Arabi, its westernmost community.
New Orleans is a horrible place to be out late at night on 355 or 356 days of the year. It is exponentially worse on nights there are Mardi Gras parades in the city (especially starting with the Saturday before Mardi Gras through Fat Tuesday) and New Year’s Eve.
The fastest route from many places in Orleans Parish to St. Bernard traverses Claiborne Avenue, the main thoroughfare in the city’s Ninth Ward.
Since the 1970s, every block along Claiborne from Poydras to St. Bernard has been the scene of numerous murders, not to mention thousands of rapes, assaults, carjackings and other calamities.
The mid-1990s in New Orleans was one of the city’s worst eras.
The city was spared the wrath of Mother Nature through the 1990s, but in 1994, the city became the murder capital of the United States, recording 421 homicides.
The worst of those occurred on my 18th birthday (13 October 1994), when NOPD officer Len Davis ordered two hit men to murder Kim Groves, who witnessed Davis and a fellow officer pistol whip a 17-year old boy whom they mistook for a suspect in the shooting of another officer.
Davis was tipped off by another officer and ordered neighborhood drug kingpin Paul Hardy to murder Groves, which he did.
Nothing had improved by the last day of 1995.
I was so petrified of the Ninth Ward that there was a period of almost two years where I refused to drive on Claiborne at night. I took the long way back to St. Bernard, taking Interstate 10 all the way to the city’s eastern fringes. I exited onto Interstate 510 to return to Chalmette, and from there, I took Judge Perez Drive–the same roadway (Louisiana Highway 39) as Claiborne–to return home.
I got over my fear around the time I graduated high school, mostly to save gas. I still dreaded going through the Ninth Ward.
I seriously considered taking the long way back to Arabi after the Sugar Bowl, but I figured it would be better to get the hell off the road.
I sweated profusely as I made my way east on Claiborne. I prayed the lights would be green when I reached them. I considered running red lights, but I didn’t.
I had another good reason to be scared driving in New Orleans in the last hours of a year.
A terrible tradition of my native city is to celebrate the new year by firing guns into the air. And these weren’t BB guns or guns with rubber bullets. These were real bullets. KILLER BULLETS.
On 31 December 1994, one of those bullets claimed the life of 32-year old Amy Silberman, a proud Bostonian ringing in 1995 in the French Quarter.
The first quarter of the Cotton Bowl is over. I plan on turning out the lights when the CFP quarterfinal between Miami (not Parseghian’s alma mater) and Ohio State ends. I have no desire to see 2026 begin.