New book tells the redemption story of Bram Kohlhausen and TCU football’s 2015 season
Jim Reeves liked the idea of writing a redemption story.
He couldn’t find a better subject than revisiting TCU football’s 2015 season that ended in the most unlikely fashion — with backup quarterback Bram Kohlhausen orchestrating a 31-point comeback victory over Oregon in the Alamo Bowl.
The game itself became an instant classic. Kohlhausen went from being a little-known backup to a celebrity, just a couple days after then-TCU star quarterback Trevone Boykin saw his terrific college career end in abrupt fashion by getting into a bar fight and a couple months after Kohlhausen’s father Bill died after a bout with cancer. And TCU continued its run of national prominence under Gary Patterson.
“Writing the book appealed to me not only because of the extraordinary game, but Bram’s story,” said Reeves, a former Star-Telegram columnist and writer who covered the local sports scene for more than four decades.
“You’re left wondering what might’ve been if Bram didn’t squander some other opportunities away.”
The book, “Remember the Alamo Bowl: Bram Kohlhausen’s Epic TCU Comeback,” recently released its eEdition with hard copies scheduled for release Aug. 1.
For TCU fans, it’ll be a walk down memory lane of one of the program’s most thrilling football victories with an unlikely star. It’s an easy, 140-page read that delves into Kohlhausen’s upbringing in Houston, his struggles early in his college career at the University of Houston and ultimately his improbable rise to stardom.
Kohlhausen doesn’t shy away from any subject matter, detailing his penchant for partying throughout college.
As he described his junior year at TCU in 2014, “My junior year at TCU was pretty tame when it came to drugs but the alcohol never stopped flowing. Following our Sunday practice, knowing we didn’t practice Mondays, we would go get pizza, then go straight to the strip club in Fort Worth, spending way too much money every week. We literally went every single week. We partied harder on Sundays than we did on Saturdays.”
Kohlhausen went on to say that then-TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte told the football program early on that season the school would “crack down on drug testing … so that year a lot of people resorted to drinking.”
Not much changed in that regard during the 2015 season, including as TCU prepared for its bowl game against Oregon in San Antonio. Every night, Kohlhausen said, the team partied.
Things escalated one night at Pat O’Brien’s, a popular bar along San Antonio’s famed River Walk. Boykin was involved in a confrontation and hit a police officer, leading to his arrest and suspension from the game.
The book details an incident a couple hours beforehand at the same bar in which Kohlhausen could’ve preceded Boykin on the suspended list. But Kohlhausen removed himself from the situation and found himself starting the Alamo Bowl a couple of nights later.
The game itself is covered from every aspect by Reeves. From getting insights from the players and the coaches on the field to the radio booth with TCU play-by-play man Brian Estridge to the press box with former Star-Telegram beat writer Carlos Mendez and columnist Gil LeBreton, it’s hard to envision a more in-depth description of the game.
A telling scene unfolded as TCU exited the locker rooms at halftime, trailing 31-0. Oregon players were in the tunnel laughing and joking around when Patterson turned to his team and said, “You listen to that? They think you’re a joke. Are you going to come back and be what we say we are?”
The Frogs did in epic fashion, rallying for a triple-overtime victory. But the story is more about the people who made that moment possible, starting with Kohlhausen. He had a magical second half and overtime, throwing for four touchdowns and running in the winner in the third overtime.
“The game itself is a great story,” Reeves said. “Then you take everything around Bram — his excessive partying, his dad dying and the Boykin stuff — it just added up to a really good, if not great, redemption story.”
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