This past Friday evening, I was half-watching Day 2 of the NFL Draft like millions of other people across the country.
But as the sun started fading, my attention span became weary. I was trying to play the dual role of Alvord softball photographer and draft “expert,” snapping photos while checking my livestream of the draft in between pitches.
The shoddy internet in Era let me know I should pick one or the other, so I bowed out of spot evaluating 21-year-olds that I had never heard of prior to that day and focused on the Lady Bulldogs.
The softball game got out of hand, and the long week was wearing on me, so I called it a night in the sixth inning and started the jog back to Wise County.
The Miami Dolphins’ seventh round pick, Quinn Ewers, celebrated his draft party in Chico last week.
Then I received a jarring text from one of my high school buddies as I was headed home.
“Quinn Ewers is in Chico,” the message said, attached with a screenshot of the now-infamous scene of the former Longhorn quarterback surrounded by taxidermied deer, moose and what appeared to be a literal dinosaur.
It was the dream house of any proper Wise County man.
I pulled over on Farm Road 51, hoping the good Lord himself would spare me from a traffic accident while I fired off some tweets and Facebook posts about the critically-acclaimed northwest quadrant of Wise County and its newest visitor.
I risked life and limb on the shoulder of a shaky stretch of road in an attempt to go viral, only to receive 17 likes.
But simply spreading the good news of Quinn Ewers’ stop in Chico to the people of Wise County was not enough.
Did he stop by Chico Mart for Fish Friday? Did he do a private workout at Dragon Field? I had to know.
Like the Caped Crusader looks over Gotham, I imagined a dragon-shaped signal in the Chico sky as I took on the task of finding out why the No. 1 prospect in the Class of 2021 was near my home turf.
I Googled every possible phrase adjacent to “Quinn Ewers Chico, TX” and was left empty handed. I used some investigative journalism tricks I’ve picked up during my time at the paper, but those efforts were fruitless, too.
My hopes were dashed, but only for a moment. I was going to take this search party straight to the source.
“Hey man, I hate to beat you down with this, but I figured I’d take a shot,” I said to Ewers via Twitter direct message at midnight. “How’d your family come across this area and what attracted y’all to it?”
I sprinkled in a few words about the impact he had by lodging in Chico for his draft party to butter him up. But still, no answer from Ewers as of Tuesday afternoon.
I’ve been lucky enough to have a few brushes with fame through internet DM’s. For whatever it’s worth, one of the reasons I pursued a writing career is because of a message famous sports podcaster PFT Commenter sent to me back in 2022.
So be it delusion or confidence, I knew I would get to the bottom of the Ewers-Chico connection.
At 2:20 p.m. on Tuesday, I sent an email to Ron Slavin, Ewers’ agent. Other than waiting around for the Dolphins’ seventh-rounder to reply to me, Slavin was truly my last hope.
Why would a literal NFL agent reply to the assistant editor of a community newspaper mere DAYS after the draft?
Eleven minutes later, I didn’t have to ask that question anymore.
“Brendan – Quinn has a family friend with a lake house there,” said Slavin in his email. “Glad we could get Chico some publicity.”
After parading around this email reply that was less than 20 words, I came to the sobering realization that this was public knowledge in the northwestern reaches of Wise County. For a split second, I really believed there was an opportunity for me to storm into Chico like Paul Revere’s midnight ride and announce my discovery.
Unfortunately for my ego, there’s no personal gain for me sharing this extremely trivial information about the City of Chico. At best, it’s a random fact I can keep in my back pocket for when conversations at a bar begin to go dull, or to “wow” a very (and I mean very) hypothetical date.
But no matter how this tiny blip in Wise County’s history is remembered, I default to the sentiments of Mr. Slavin.
Glad we could get Chico some publicity.
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