recruiting question

what is its geographical location, and why is it considered "golden?"

Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
Pink Floyd

I think it's the area that cover DFW, San Antonio/Austin, Houston, and everything inside those areas. I also remember West Texas once being called the little SWC.

I'll take a stab at it. I think it is the area encompassed by Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange in extreme southeast Texas. I would assume the "Golden" part was conjured up the the chambers of commerce to give more appeal. Lots of good football players have come from the area like Leland McLeroy, Chris Sanders, etc. RC was from Orange.

"I'd rather be a Texas Aggie"

Yes it is Orange, Beaumont, & Port Arthor. Don't know why it was termed Golden but it's been called that atleast as long as I have been around...almost 40 years.

Anyone remember the big "Triplex" campaign? That went over like a lead balloon.

I believe some lame actor tried to play General Patton in the Triplex Campaign.

I believe some lame actor tried to play General Patton in the Triplex Campaign.

Started my career with an oil company in Port Arthur after graduating from A&M..Golden Triangle is Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange and is the melting pot for the oil-chemical industry. Also home to many athletes and sports figures,ie. Jimmy Johnson is from Port Arthur and has a Blvd. named after him. Babe Didriksen Zaharias(golfer) is from Beaumont..Also many country-western singers, George Jones from Beaumont(actually Vidor), the "Big Bopper" from Beaumont, and the all famous Janis Joplin is from Port Arthur. It is a good area to recruit athletes. Remember Gary Hammond who played for SMU, he was from Port Arthur and there are many others.

Its called Golden because of the HUGE refining dollars that come from the area. Big refineries, lots of oil & gas......

other atheletes include - chris cole, gayron allen (OU's LB), kevin smith, steve wooster (TU's RB in 60's), and other baseball and basketball athletes.

Above two are correct! Also an AGGIE from Nederland was an Olympic gold medalist in the high jump, cira. 1952.

RC Slocum
Bum Phillips
Kevin smith
Chris Cole
Steve Wooster
Shane Mathews
Shane Dronnet
Beau Hale
Chuck McElroy (Cubs pitcher)
Leeland McElroy
Jay Canizaro
Bruce Aven
Roderick Robertson
Andre Robertson
Bubba Smith
Jeff Granger
Jimmy Johnson (was on campus having lunch with Gates)
The Wagunpack kickers from Nederland
some more I can't think of at the moment

There is a Golden Triangle Mall in Denton - maybe a lot of great recruits came from the Foley's there.

I lived in Beaumont for a year after graduating from LSU. I was familiar with the "Golden Triangle" because I am originally from Lake Charles. Believe me, there is nothing golden about that area. Like Lake Charles, it is highly industrialized and dominated by large petrochemical plants. In fact, Lamar University has a big one right across the street- not exactly a picturesque setting for a campus.

I will say that the people I met and worked with were very nice- I made some good friends there.

Side note: I was there when Chip Ambrees was the QB at West Brook. I knew the OC at WB at the time, and did my best to sell Chip on Baton Rouge. I always thought he might return to A&M- he was special.

I am not old enough to know, but my dad grew up in Beaumont and he told me all about it and he actually has one of these. In the 70's, cars in Beaumont had bumper stickers that said something like Beaumont was the NFL capitol of the world because they had a lot of players from the triangle that were in the league at that time.

I thought it was now renamed the Septic Triangle.

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In fact, Lamar University has a big one right across the street- not exactly a picturesque setting for a campus.

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No kidding. The smell (and noise) still haunts me. (I transferred to A&M from LU.)

BTW, Beaumont has a hockey team now. They play in some new arena they built south of town.

Hey...they Golden Gators rocked. We had several guys who went from there to the pros and were rookie of the year.

John Kruk
Benito Santiago
Ozzie Guien (how the hell do you spell that?)
Mark Parent

We also had the pleasure of watching Pete Incavilia's little brother. What fun that was!

Guillen

Don't forget the Alomar brothers (I think Sandy Jr. married a Beaumont girl) and Joey Cora.

Antonio59: Tracy Byrd is also from Beaumont.

From what I understand, that whole new complex is awesome. A new arena, softball fields, ampitheatre, fairgrounds- SE Texas really stepped up.

Speaking of Tracy Byrd- My hospital sponsored his golf tournament that year ('96) and I got to play with John Michael Montgomery because someone in his group bailed out- my "brush with greatness." Nice guy with good stories of groupies!

Oh...if you want to get into music we have Janis Joplin, Mark Chestnutt, Tracy, Clay Walker, George Jones...

And one of those alnio dudes...Winters?

[This message has been edited by CTP93 (edited 11/18/2003 10:46a).]

Funk legend Larry Graham was born in Beaumont.

Beaumont/Port Arthur/Orange should be called something besides "golden"...... the proper adjective escapes me right now, but it would be the exact opposite.......

My family is from the Port Neches/Groves area and the area has been called the Golden Triangle for as long as I can remember. Probably a Chamber of Commerce slogan.

Called the "Golden Triange" for the same reason you call a fat man "Slim" or a short man "Stretch".

Maybe I'm crazy but Dustin Long is from PNG High School. Led that team to playoffs when he was there in the option oriented attack.

Denton's Golden Triangle Mall is name that because Dallas/Ft Worth/Denton is sometimes refered to as the Golden Triangle ... it shoulds like end part of the state defines their own

Lived there from '70 to '75. Thought "golden" was a jokester's reference to the color of the sky. Personally, I thought the sky was more of a chartreuse color due to the emissions from the petro-chem plants. Last time I was there I noticed that they have cleaned up the air some since I lived there.

Gig'em...
abat51...

I didn't name Dustin because he is current, and I thought we were doing a historical look type thing regarding the "Golden Triplex". That was the thing in the 80's they tried to change it to I believe.

I am from Orange, and we used to have a big sign (maybe still do) that said "Orange...Your last taste of Texas." Someone painted "Spit it out!" on there and I thought that was hilarious.

My cousins who went to HS in Beaumont still refer to it as "Boremont". Not sure why.

"I'd rather be a Texas Aggie"

Terrence Kitchens, the kicker several years ago, was from Lumberton. He was a nice guy.

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From what I understand, that whole new complex is awesome. A new arena, softball fields, ampitheatre, fairgrounds- SE Texas really stepped up.

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It is nice, especially the new Ford Arena for hockey, but causing lots of trouble with taxes and debts because the people that campaigned to get it built basically lied. Also the ampitheatre is losing lots of money because lots of the acts either don't sell out or cancel because of lack of sales. The Golden Triangle has had a history of not supporting things(i.e. Lamar football) and thats why the arena football team and the hockey team probably won't last too long(like the Beaumont Bullfrogs didn't)

They got tired of being called the Cancer Triangle.

The LU football fiasco was the administration's fault. They wanted a big-time Div. I-A program or nothing...they refused to settle for what they had.

Ray Alborn had them on the way back up when the program was dropped. Sad.

Couple of corretions: 1) Dustin Long did attend PN-G and graduated in the spring of 2000. He was the starting QB and Shortstop. His dad is still the offensive coordiantor there and his senior year they lost to Stephenville in the 4A State Championsip game at the Astrodome. The baseball team played for the state championship where he was the SS. They lost to Corpus Christi Calallen (I believe.) The football offense was balanced among passing and running..literally. If you were to look at the stats that year they had the EXACT same yards running as passing. Not what I would call a "option" offense since he threw for a lot of yards that year. 2)Keith Waguespack was a kikcer from PN-G who played a backup role to Venatoulis (sp) in the early 90's or thereabouts...think he's a doctor now? 3)Clay Walker will say he's from Beaumont, but he's from Vidor; same as Tracy Byrd. Chestnutt is from Beaumont but picked up country music b/c his 'rock' band wasn't going over real well. 4)Jimmy Johnson and Janis Joplin were classmates at Port Arthur Thomas Jefferson and I believed they graduated in '62 or '61. 5) James Brown (former t.u. QB is from Beaumont West Brook class of '92). 6) Jason Tyner and Chip Ambrees are WB grads also. Ambrees holds all kind of offensive hitting records at WB...broke all of Tyner's.