Texas Tech Football Notebook: Bowman to Michigan; Improvements Off the Field

This is going to be the only off-day for me in terms of game-content so we’ll open with a non-football football notebook. As an aside, the Houston Baptist series thread has been updated with links to all of the box scores and recaps, and I’ve embedded highlights and the post-game pressers.

I know that the baseball team will host Texas Southern on Tuesday and Wednesday before heading off to Houston for the Shriners Hospitals for Children College Classic, where they will face Texas State, Sam Houston, and Texas A&M – Corpus Christi. Given that basketball is going to have me pretty busy, I’ll cover the weekend series, but won’t have time to address the mid-week series. I would bet $1 that Keith will have you covered if you need a baseball itch to scratch over at Red Raider Dugout.

There is certainly some football content to discuss, the news of yesterday was that former Texas Tech quarterback Alan Bowman announced that he would be transferring to Michigan.

I am happy that Bowman has found a home and Michigan is a terrific school. That’s a full stop.

I do think that Texas Tech upgraded in terms of talent with the transfer of Tyler Shough from Oregon. I think that Shough fits Texas Tech’s offense with Sonny Cumbie on board more so than Cumbie. Maybe Bowman will have significant success, but I think that Bowman’s time at Texas Tech had come to an end and the coaching staff tried as much as possible.

In addition to the football activities that the team is undertaking during the offseason, the team is trying to accomplish things off the field as well. Rachel Baribeau is a motivational speaker who spoke to the team last week. I have had a difficult time pining down what Baribeau actually speaks to the team about, other than what’s in the video.

Baribeau talks quite a bit about being kings and this from her site explains some of that:

Presented in an encouraging and supportive environment, Rachel speaks about the power to change the narrative and to find purpose in life.

In 55 minutes, Rachel covers themes such as leadership, mental health, self-care, domestic violence prevention, social justice and interpersonal relationships. Everyone is challenged to live a life of Purpose, Passion and Platform.

I think the idea of being kings and queens, I think, relates to the idea that you are not a passenger, but a king or queen of your own kingdom and you have control over how you are treated in the world as well as how you treat other people.

Based on watching the video, there’s a significant discussion about how this relates to the treatment of women, which is a good thing that the staff is trying to address, not that this is necessarily a problem, but the alternative of not addressing this issue is not an option and I think that speakers like this is incredibly important. It’s good that the players and coaches are getting this training and hopefully it helps them as human beings.

Yesterday marked the end of Black History Month and a handful of programs have done some really cool things. To highlight a non-football program, the Lady Raiders have had a player or staff member teach about a historical African American and that’s been a fun thing to watch on Twitter. This is an example of one.

In any event, this is head coach Matt Wells, secondary coach Derek Jones, and wide receivers coach Joel Filani, discussing Black History Month.

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