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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Contact: Tom Uribes

April 29, 2002

(559) 278-5366 or 261-6189

NOTE: The following release was first issued April 29 and is being re-issued for today’s media availability at City Hall as California State University, Fresno brings its Bulldogs football team to play Rice University on Saturday, (Sept. 28). About 50 boosters accompanied the team and some will be at City Hall to meet fellow Fresno State alumnus, Houston Mayor Lee Brown. They are joined by five  of the 2,000-plus alumni now residing in Texas, Dr. J. Michael Ortiz, Fresno State’s provost and vice president of academic affairs, and Dr. Peter Smit, vice president of advancement.

The ‘Red Wave of Texas’ …

NFL No. 1 draft pick David Carr joins fellow Fresno State alum and Houston Mayor Brown, nearly 250 other Bulldog Houstonians

HOUSTON, TEXAS — Houston Mayor Lee P. Brown and South Texas Judge Edward Aparicio have something in common with a select group of 2,900 other Texans: they are alumni of California State University, Fresno and last weekend they welcomed a new fellow alum into the Lone Star State — David Carr.

With the new Houston Texans pro franchise selecting the former Bulldog quarterback as its No. 1 NFL draft pick in the first round in New York April 20  — making him the highest professional sports draftee of a Fresno State athlete ever — Fresno State’s list of alumni in Texas has grown.

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 two weeks ago.

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.

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 – both small, rural San Joaquin Valley towns near Fresno 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:

• Lt. Col. Rick Douglas Husband, USAF – NASA Astronaut (M.S., Mechanical Engineering – 1990);

•  Col. Steven R. Nagel, former astronaut who is now a research pilot for NASA (M.S., Mechanical Engineering - 1978);

• Dr. John W. Hansen, associate dean of the College of Technology at University of Houston  (B.A., Industrial Arts, 1983; M.A., Industrial Arts -1984);

• Steve Catanich, computer consultant for Baker Energy in Houston and former engineer for City of Houston (B.S., Industrial Engineering – 1983);

• Bill R. Snyder, project manager for ChevronTexaco Pipeline Co (B.S., Mechanical Engineering – 1985).

• Denise Davis, client relationship manager, Mercer Human Resources Consulting (B.S. Business – Dec. 1991).

• Russell Hoopes, consultant, Hydrocarbon Signature Analysis (B.S., Geology – 1965)

• Elsie Lam, branch manager, Compass Bank (B.S., Business Administration – 1977)

• John Fong, manager Waterburger Restaurant (B.S., Business – 1976).

NOTE TO EDITORS: To make contact with these Fresno State alumni in Houston or find out about others, contact Tom Uribes, public information specialist, at (559) 278-5366 or 278-2795.

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