Labor Day Classic: It's more than just a game For PVAMU and TSU

Photo: The Texas Southern University marching band makes its entrance Friday night at TSU's campus during a battle of the bands with Prairie View A&M University.


For Prairie View and TSU students and alumni, this weekend is 'a big family reunion'

By LESLIE CASIMIR, Houston Chronicle

Today, Texas Southern University's Tigers will face Prairie View A&M University's Panthers in the Labor Day Classic football showdown at Reliant Stadium.

But that's beside the point. The game is just a traditional excuse for a weekend-long fete for TSU and Prairie View students, past and present, to descend on this city for a marathon of partying and primping, barbecuing and boasting.

"African-Americans in this city take pride in celebrating this event," said Kae Shakir, 32, a 1999 TSU graduate. "This is a big family reunion."

Women have been packing the beauty salons this week to get their hair and nails done for what many call a mini-fashion week — where old outfits at the flurry of parties, including the big game, will just not do. Men are buying the ribs and briskets for elaborate tailgate parties the day of the kickoff. No hotdogs, please.

"Women are getting facials done, manicures, pedicures, waxing, they're getting highlights, colors — they're going all out," said Johari Mills, owner of Flower Child Hair Salon on Westheimer Boulevard, who got her bachelor's degree from TSU in 2004 and a master's degree from Prairie View this year. "This is the last weekend to mark the summer and everybody is really trying to look their best."

Clearly conflicted, Mills insists she will be rooting for the hometown team.

"TSU is in my heart," said Mills, who on Thursday was rolling red curlers into Dia Tisdel's mane. Her 26-year-old customer graduated from TSU in 2003.

"I want to look fly," said Tisdel, who estimated that she'll spend around $200 for this Labor Day ritual, which is in its 23rd year. "This is like a treat — I'm going to be out and about."

The Labor Day Classic isn't all about looks, however. It's a big family reunion for two of Texas' historically black universities that are steeped in rich history and heaps of pride.

Historically black colleges and universities, largely concentrated in the South, were founded during Reconstruction. Some came about before the civil rights movement, when mainstream universities barred African-Americans from attending those institutions. There are 105 historically black colleges in the nation, and the rivalries between the schools are intense — but in an affectionate sibling sort of way, most say.

What makes this weekend huge in Houston can be found in the numbers: About 40,000 TSU grads remain in the city and about 22,000 Prairie View grads live here as well, according to both school's alumni associations.

"If you went to Texas Southern, your brother or sister went to Texas Southern, or they went to Prairie View," explained Chris Le Blanc, 35, president of TSU's National Alumni Association. "And so some families are torn down the middle."


Former Oakland Raiders running back Clem Daniels, 70, a Prairie View graduate of 1959, put it another way:

"I have distant cousins who went to TSU, and we forgave them for doing that because everybody can't go to Prairie View," said Daniels, who heads Prairie View's national alumni association. "We get the cream of the crop and the others have to go to school somewhere."

The rhetoric doesn't stop there. It extends to music and dancing as well.

On Friday night, the universities' famous marching bands and black fraternities and sororities duked it out on TSU's campus, taking part in a show-stopping competition of chanting and stomping.

At the same time, a black-tie dinner was taking place at the Sheraton Suites in the Galleria area.
Hundreds of students and alumni waited in line Friday evening to watch the battle of the bands at TSU's Health and Physical Education Arena.

Slade trial in background
China Scrogging, 20, a TSU junior, was decked out in skinny blue jeans, red pumps and a T-shirt that read, "Long Live Me."

"It rarely happens that the schools and students come together and have a good time," Scrogging, a marketing major from Denver, said as she waited in line.

Labor Day Classic attendees also have something else on their minds besides partying. TSU's former president, Priscilla Slade, is on trial for allegedly spending university money for her own benefit. Revelers don't want the ongoing criminal case to reflect on the students — future, past and present.

"Dr. Slade was, of course, our president and we acknowledge that, but it is time to move forward and go about the business of being productive," said Le Blanc, who graduated from TSU in 1996 and is a senior accountant. "We're moving forward."