(06-01-2020 12:25 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote: (06-01-2020 09:36 AM)LUSportsFan Wrote: Traveling to and from Beaumont is not too bad. It's easier to get to than a lot of places. You would have your choice of three airports fiying commercial (four, if for some reason, you wanted to use Lake Charles Regional airport). For commercial scheduled air, the university is a 10 minute drive from the regional airport with daily flights to and from DFW. For more flexibility, the drive to and from the two big Houston airports is about 1 hour 20 minutes on very good highways. Not bad! For comparison, it took me from 45 minutes to 1 hour to get to the Houston airports when I lived in west Houston. For charters, the regional airport can handle planes the size of the old 727's and planes like Southwest Airlines flies (737's).
For Tarleton State, the drive to and from Beaumont is an hour less than it is to Edinburg, TX (UTRGV) and the same as to Canyon, TX (West Texas A&M).
If someone was looking for something to do for the weekend, there are several things once you are there. There is good food. The area is close enough to Louisiana, that there are a lot of really good Cajan Cuisine restaurants. It is close enough to the Gulf, there are several very good seafood restaurants. If you like casinos, they are across the state line about 25-30 miles away. If you like deep sea fishing, that is about 30 minutes to the south. If you like big lake fishing, Lake Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend Reservoir are about 1 hour away. If you like canoeing, there are outfitters that can take you on trips on the wild part of the Neches River and the local bayous. If you like cultural stuff and history, especially about the oil industriy, there are several museums downtown including a very good energy museum. Spindletop-Glady City Boomtown Museum is on Lamar's campus. If you like touring old homes, there are several in town. My favorite is the McFaddin-Ward House. If you like nature, the Big Thicket National Preserve is just north of Beaumont. There are miles of trails through pristine heavy forested areas with a wide range of plant growth. There is a really nice botanical garden, Shangri-La Gardens, and more really nice touring homes in Orange, about 25 miles away. If you like the big city, Houston is a little over an hour away. Minute Maid Park (Houston Astros) is just over an hour away. NRG Stadium (Houston Texans) is 1 hour 30 minutes away. BBVA Compass Stadium (Houston Dynamos) is a little over an hour away. You're out of luck if you like mountains, but there are plenty of those in the WAC. Other than that, there's nothing to do once you get there. :-)
I know the Golden Triangle well and I know Orange very well. I have actually been to Shangri-La Gardens. It is really nice. My sister graduated from Lamar and my parents retired in the Golden Triangle. I have traveled down there hundreds of times. There is some great high school football down there and some good fishing. Other than that, it is really boring in the Golden Triangle. It is a nice place to raise a family, but most kids in high school want to graduate and get out the heck out of there.
If you fly into either Houston airport, you still have to travel another 90 miles by vehicle or take a puddle jumper to Jack Brooks Regional Airport. It is hot and humid in the Golden Triangle and the air quality sucks. The good high school football talent in the Golden Triangle ends up at an SEC or Big 12 school. Lamar really blew it when they dropped football and they let their basketball program slide after the Tubbs/Foster eras. I hope they can get it together in the future, but from a travel perspective they are a better fit for the SLC.
The "puddle jumper" out of Jack Brooks Regional Airport is either a Embraer 135 44 seat or Embraer 140 50 seat full jet. It's part of American Airlines (technically Envoy wholly owned by American Airlines) commuter fleet flown in the eastern part of the US. The flight is to DFW. Flight duration is 1 hour 11 minutes. It's not a bad plane. At least I liked it. I flew on similar planes on longer flights on business trips several times out of Bush Intercontinental; Houston's big airport.
As far as the area, I agree about the humidity. It's rough. Spring and Fall aren't bad, though. I also agree that it could be boring if you let it, but that could be said about any place. It wasn't bad being able to water ski there from early March to mid-October. It wasn't bad being able to hop in the boat and run for miles and not see the same thing. It was nice to head north on the river and go through miles of undeveloped river and bayous, or turn south and run down the ship channel on to the Gulf or Intracoastal canal.
There were things I found to do, just like I am finding things in my new home town like playing with my new snow-blower this past winter.
I left the Beaumont area over 30 years ago because I was transferred, first to Lafayette, LA and then to Houston. I'm now in a state with mountains and low humidity so that the wife and I could be with our daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, but I liked the Gulf Coast in spite of the humidity. I don't miss the hurricanes, though. I'm at 5,000 ft now so we may have some beachfront property eventually with global climate change.
I may be the exception, but I've always found something to like every place I've lived from Beaumont to southern Georgia to Sacramento to Oklahoma City to Beaumont to Lafayette to Houston and now in Colorado.
I agree about Lamar making bad moves and bad coaching hires after Pat Foster left. It was a lot more fun when Cardinal Stadium and the Montagne Center were packed. The basketball team is recovering from the Pat Knight debacle, but still has a way to go. Both men and women's teams fell off last year with men at 17-15. The previous three years were 19 wins, 19 wins, and 20 wins respectively; nothing like Tubbs/Foster years with consecutive NCAA and NIT tournament appearances, but a whole lot better than Pat Knight's horrible 4-26 season. Football had a disappointing year last season after an FCS playoff run the previous season. Two missed field goals kept the team from going farther. Hopefully the new coach, former San Diego State Offensive Coordinator Blane Morgan, can get the team in the right direction if COVID19 will cooperate. The facilities are there.
Quote:Arent the SLC much much closer and basically all drivable? Seems silly to exchange that for a western fcs league because lets be real, WAC FBS is highly unlikely, as hard is that is for some on here to accept.
I agree that the Southland Conference is a better place for the Cardinals if the choice would be changing or staying for only a lateral move. The only ways I could see a move from the SLC is if the WAC brought back FBS sponsorship or if the Southland Conference self-destructed.
I like the schools in the WAC. There's some good basketball in the league. It would be great to see the WAC rebuild a good football league as well.