WILL HOLIDAY BE A GOOD OMEN FOR TOMORROW'S GAME

Many agree Texas Tech needs all the good karma it can dredge up to have a shot at beating Texas this weekend in Austin.

Since it just so happens that Saturday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, Tech coach Mike Leach will take it as some sort of sign. After all, what sports figure outside of Pittsburgh seems more pirate-obsessed than Leach?

“I think that definitely has the potential to be a good omen for us,” Leach said, tongue in cheek. “So really, I think on behalf of our program, we feel very confident as a result of that.”

International Talk Like a Pirate Day, though not an official holiday, has brought some fame the way of its creators, a couple of Oregon residents named John Baur and Mark Summers. They nicknamed themselves “Ol’ Chumbucket” and “Cap’n Slappy,” fired up an extensive, humorous Web site and wrote books about pirates.

That was sometime after they hatched the idea innocently enough in 1995 while playing racquetball.

As they described it on their Web site, TalkLikeAPirate.com:

“Anyway, whoever let out the first ‘Arrr!’ started something. One thing led to another. ‘That be a fine cannonade,’ one said, to be followed by ‘Now watch as I fire a broadside straight into your yardarm!’ and other such helpful phrases.

“By the time our hour on the court was over,” Baur and Summers went on, “we realized that lapsing into pirate lingo had made the game more fun and the time pass more quickly. We decided then and there that what the world really needed was a new national holiday, ‘Talk Like A Pirate Day.’ ”

What began as a small annual celebration among friends in 1995 was elevated in awareness in 2002 when Baur and Summers pitched it to nationally syndicated humorist Dave Barry as column material. Barry obliged, giving the day some publicity, and now the movement has taken on a life of its own. Its founders have done the Web site, radio and TV appearances, an e-mail newsletter and books, such as “Pirattitude: Unleashing Your Inner Pirate.”

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Story courtesy of www.redraiders.com