It was Rice’s opening game of the College World Series on Sunday, but it was so much more to Tracy Kuhlman.

She made the trip from Houston as a tribute to her grandfather, who died just a few weeks before his beloved Owls competed in Omaha. It was a trip the two planned to make together before George “Poppie” Thomen — Rice, class of 1941 — passed away May 28 at age 89.

“It’s such an honor to be sitting here today,” Tracy said. “My grandfather would have gotten such a kick out of this.”

George wasn’t at the game, but his spirit certainly was. His Rice baseball cap was in the team dugout in hopes of bringing the team good luck.

Complete story

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 11:24 am and is filed under 2008 CWS, Conference USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.