Your humble narrator is recovering, thankfully, from a bit of an illness. Despite this, the Big Cat Country household is planning a Garage Sale this weekend. The best part about a Garage Sale, in my opinion, is digging through stuff you've forgotten about and finding a bit of gold amongst all the flotsam and jetsam.
In this case, I found a few pieces of Jaguars memorabilia from my more youthful days in Jacksonville. You see, my family held season tickets from 1995 to 1999, and you can't help but accumulate some cool Jaguars stuff just from going to the Stadium 10 times a year for 5 years (yeah, I include preseason games in that mix).
I thought you might enjoy a little walk down memory lane.
The first tidbit from Jaguars History comes from May 4th, 1995. My fathers business from time to time had him working with the occasional Jaguar after the team was awarded to Jacksonville. In this case, one recently drafted player impressed him so much during his encounter that he sent a note to the Jaguars front office. Tom Coughlin took the time to send a reply, seen below:
Pretty cool, huh?
The next bit of treasure is probably my favorite. Remember those silly things teams used to do in the 90's as part of their "crowd participation"? No, not the wave, we're talking about a Card Stunt. Yes, that specific card stunt. We still have all four "cards" used for the Inaugural Jaguars Game, way back in 1995:
The best part, clearly, is the overwhelming amount of directions required to explain how exactly the card must be held for the image to work.
I just realized that you can make out our seats in that card stunt picture I stumbled across. If you look at the letter "K" in the upper deck, find the line between the "C" and "K", there at the very top row between the two sections, top left corner of the "K" were our seats. Very top row. Nobody behind us could complain about standing the whole time because the only people behind us were the birds. We would sit on the top of our seats and lean against the concrete wall and enjoy the wide angle view of the game. You have to learn a whole lot about football strategy to get into the game from that height. Anyhow, to continue our trip down memory lane, here's that card stunt picture:
Finally, nothing says NFL Game like a real NFL Program. In this case we have the Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Houston Oilers, on September 3rd 1995. Our first regular season game. This program is fun because it not only has to introduce the team, but it's a practical high school yearbook for the entire front office and even has a handy guide to NFL terminology. And they said we wern't ready for an NFL team...
Anyhow, it's extra 1995 in that it has a fantastic hologram that my iphone camera could not capture i it's true glory:
There you go, a look back in time. Not quite as cool as the latest Jaguars rumors, but given that there's just SO little going on, it's nice to look back on the early years. Say what you will about us being a "young team", I enjoy knowing that I've been around for the entire history of the team.
What are your favorite memories?
Mine, without a doubt, has to be watching Atlanta Kicker Morten Anderson shank a kick in 1996 that sent us to the playoffs. The stillness followed by a roar as the crowd realized what happened was simply unreal.
-Chris