For those of you who haven’t seen Shawshank Redemption, it is a movie about  a man named Andy Dufresne who is wrongly convicted of killing his wife and spends decades in prison while carefully planning his escape. Dufresne is played by Tim Robbins and Dufresne’s best friend is Ellis Boyd Redding “Red”, played by Morgan Freeman.

There’s a part in the movie where it is the night of Dufresne’s escape and the only way that he can escape is through a sewage tunnel that kicks out in a river outside of the prison. To even get to that tunnel, Dufresne has methodically dug a hole in his cell for decades, only hidden by a poster of some hussy. On the perfect night, the night of a storm, Dufresne has to climb through the hole from his cell and then bust a hole in the pipe to crawl through the sewage.

500 yards, nearly half a mile to get to freedom.

Why are we talking about Andy Dufresne? Because I, and maybe some of you, feel a bit like Andy. Waiting for decades and what seems like futile little steps hoping they all amount to something. And then carefully planning your escape, crawling through the muck in what seemed like an end would never be there.

Red: [narrating] In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I remember thinking it would take a man six hundred years to tunnel through the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than twenty. Oh, Andy loved geology. I imagine it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, million years of mountain building there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes really, pressure, and time. That, and a big goddamn poster. Like I said, in prison a man will do most anything to keep his mind occupied. Turns out Andy’s favorite hobby was totin’ his wall out into the exercise yard, a handful at a time. I guess after Tommy was killed, Andy decided he’d been here just about long enough. Andy did like he was told, buffed those shoes to a high mirror shine. The guards simply didn’t notice. Neither did I… I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a mans shoes? Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can’t even imagine, or maybe I just don’t want to. Five hundred yards… that’s the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.

This year has happened so quickly, but to get here has seemed like ages. I remember all of the turmoil and all of the arguing and all of the hate for the program or people in the program and the disagreement between our own fans, at times, seemed like too much. I contributed to that anger and disagreement. My hands aren’t clean. There were days that I just didn’t even want to open my laptop, but I could never let things go. My own hubris or love for doing this, I’m not completely sure why I kept showing up. I always wanted to be here, through thick or thin, I never wanted to leave.

After the game on Saturday I felt a bit like Andy Dufresne standing at the end of the sewage tunnel, in the rain, after decades of waking up every morning and being part of a community that found a footing when Mike Leach was the head coach, then he was terminated, and then there was anger and disappointment, some of which I know and believe that some of you still hold onto today. And there’s no fault in that, you’re okay to still hold onto those things, I’m not here to police that. But through all of that, through Tuberville, then Kingsbury, and Matt Wells, we have made it. We’ve gone through multiple iterations of what’s now Staking The Plains and through it all, there was some kind of hope that things would end differently, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.

And it’s always been about hope. The prospect of one day being in the position that we, as Texas Tech fans, sit today. But hope and expectation and dreaming can be dangerous because of what always seemed like the inevitable would let us down. But, as Andy said, hope is maybe the best of things, believing when logic tells you otherwise.

Andy Dufresne: [in a letter to Red] Dear Red. If you’re reading this, you’ve gotten out. And if you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town, don’t you?
Red: Zihuatanejo.
Andy Dufresne: I could use a good man to help me get my project on wheels. I’ll keep an eye out for you and the chessboard ready. Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well. Your friend. Andy.

We’ve been chipping away at the wall, collecting the deposits, showing up when logic said that you shouldn’t for the past two decades of being here. Pat yourselves on the back because you have made it. It’s okay to smile. You’ve made it to Zihuatanejo. Now let’s build the boat.