AN INTERVIEW WITH TEXAS GOVERNOR RICK PERRY

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Governor Rick Perry has been chief executive of Texas since December of 2000.

Two important, very American-y things happen tonight: college football returns and Barack Obama lays out his plan for the country. Who better to chime in on the former than Governor of Texas, Mr. Rick Perry? His state is synonymous with football (although he makes a case for its greater range of sporty pursuits) As Chairman of the Republican Governors Association, he's also got the goods on the best athlete among GOP state execs. Side note:
when we called Perry and told him we used to live in Houston, his first comment was: "Why the heck you ever leave?" 'Nuff said.

The Magazine: How important is football, at all levels, to Texas' identity as a state?

Perry: People get confused about what Texas represents sometimes. Everyone always says oil and gas, that's what it is. It's a smaller part than in 1984; we've diversified. There's a 3.5 billion dollar Samsung plant in Austin now. Houston's the energy capital of the world, but according to CNBC, that industry only accounts for 15 percent of the total economy.

It's similar with sports. It's hard to pull out one sport and say that's the identity of our state. Don't get me wrong: Friday nights? High school football? College on Saturdays? It's huge in Texas. But we're not slackers when it comes to basketball, baseball, swimming; even soccer is becoming bigger. There are 72 sheets of ice in Dallas these days. That's stunning! Sports is a powerful tonic and it's major in Texas across the board. The state is an amazingly diverse industry in terms of sports. Now, college football is an economic driver on the sports side of our higher education world. They pay the bills.

What sports did you play growing up?

Everything they had. It wasn't because I was a great athlete; it was because the school was so small. My school had 13 graduates. I always tell people I graduated in the top 10.

My father still refers to the area I grew up in as The Big Empty; it was sixteen miles to the closest place that had a post office. I played six man football, basketball, and ran track in the quarter mile.

What lessons did you take from sports?

I still run a lot. The whole fitness thing is about to get bigger down here. It needs to. Kenneth Cooper is doing some work for us. He's a doctor in Dallas who is the guru of fitness in the state; he was Bush's choice to be Surgeon General originally but had to turn him down because he didn't want to walk away from Cooper Clinics in Dallas.

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"He's a little like Bobby Jindal."

Cooper just surveyed 2.6 million kids from grades 3 to 12 and found that they're in shockingly poor health. He's like T. Boone Pickens in a way; T.Boone spends his own money to help us out of the oil crisis, and Cooper spent two and a half million to do this survey. I think we knew what the results might be, but sometimes we need to get slapped upside the head in Texas, like Ross Perot would do. Man, we got some characters down here, don't we?

You went to Texas A&M and were a yell leader. Do you remain a fan, and what do you think of the program these days?

Bill Byrne is one of the great athletic directors in America. He's a great identifier of talent. Mike Sherman coming in for the football program - it's like being in politics. It's like Bobby Jindal is figuring out in Louisiana. Everyone views you as the golden-haired boy, but then you gotta start performing. Everyone has unreasonable expectations for Sherman right now. Overall, though, the Aggies are tops in the Big 12 in a lot of sports every year: recently we won swimming, soccer. I definitely follow 'em. (laughs)

That said, I greatly respect UT-Austin outta here. I love Mack Brown, Eddie Reese, Rick Barnes, Coach G, all of 'em. They have some great coaches over there.

What's one of the best stories you can tell us from an A&M football game during your time there?

We won the Southwestern Conference in '67 under Stallings. I arrived the following fall. I think in the next four years, we won a total of 14 games. My junior and senior year, I was down on the field a lot. I just remember us being outscored often. It was slim pickings in football.

One of my most memorable moments was us playing Baylor in basketball. Billy Bob Barnett got into a little fracas on the floor, and it escalated from a fracas to a melee (laughs). The director of the band, an old colonel, he just says to the band, "Strike up The Star Spangled Banner!" There's a substantial military committment for most Aggies. So, as soon as they strike up the song, all the guys are standing to attention. A few of 'em got sucker punched as a result, but hey, the fight was over.

You're chairman of the GOP Governors association. Who's the most athletic of the bunch?

Gary Johnson, the old governor of New Mexico, used to be a monster. He was an ultra marathoner. Haley Barbour might make a good linebacker, but he's not one of the fastest guys on the field. Bobby Jindal could be good. My instinct is that he's a good athlete. Jon Huntsman is cut pretty good. He's healthy and a pretty fit dude. Sonny Perdue? Uh, no. He's not one of the more fit ones. I'm pretty sure I could outrun him. Tim Pawlenty is pretty sleek. If we're talking heavy weights, though, I gotta put my man Arnold on there. He's not gonna be out there running, but he can lift some weights.

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