I turned 24 in January and was born and raised in a town nobody's ever heard of in New Mexico called Artesia. It's right in between a couple of towns a lot of people have heard of, though - Carlsbad (home of Carlsbad Caverns National Park) and Roswell (home of E.T.).
I've shamefully only been a true Buckeye fan for about four years or so. I've worshipped football all my life, though, thanks to a long and storied Artesia High School Bulldog football tradition (23 state championships since 1953 and the most successful HS football program in N.M. history). This is one of those small towns that's on a par with Texas' Odessa Permian (of "Friday Night Lights" fame) and other similar places.
I graduated from AHS in 1998 and spent a little over a year attending college in Texas (Q: Why is it always windy in New Mexico? A: Because Texas sucks and Arizona blows. Ba-dum-ping.) before I took the suggestion of some friends' relatives and moved very briefly to Ohio. That's when I basically got into the Buckeyes, even though my mother was actually an
OSU football fan when she was a kid back in the 60's, so I'd always been aware of the team.
Anyway, now I'm back in Nuevo Mexico, eating chiles, sucking down margaritas and wondering why the seasons never seem to change. I'm not planning on staying here forever, but I've got a gig right now as a sports editor at a regional newspaper that keeps me amused on Fall Friday nights, so who knows. And to be honest, who cares. Time for another margarita.
