I spent my summers on our family farm in East Texas. We have a family cemetery. My father is a tough old man who thinks sardines are a good lunch and drinking bottled water is worse than driving a foreign made truck. So, you might think I grew up around football, but the truth is I grew up overseas where my father was a deep sea driller.

The point is, I don't know football. When I met Justin Blalock and Brett Valdez they were two young 300+ lbs football players who played for UT. They are big, but I grew up around a lot of roughnecks that wore the same size shoes. If you don't recognize Justin and Brett from UT Football, apparently Justin is making a name for himself as a potential NFL Draft Offensive Lineman.

Who I know are two guys - best friends and teammates for the last five years. One from Brownwood, Texas, (Brett) who has sacrificed hunting and fishing since 10th grade because football season and hunting season do not co-exist for the athletes. The other, from Plano, Texas, (Justin) had never touched a gun until he walked into my garage one evening and asked to watch me clean a rifle.

The following series of pictures and video are from the first time Justin Blalock shot a gun - EVER. We were at a ranch codenamed the ABC Ranch near Encinal, Texas. The first video was posted in the Outdoor Video Library of the Forum. If you want to watch that and then come back to the story, CLICK HERE TO WATCH JUSTIN'S FIRST TRIGGER PULL. Don't forget to come back and watch the video below.

Not only did we have a great time watching Justin shoot guns, we got to see deer, turkey, and hogs. Yes, I had to take the picture of that cow. I wanted to shoot it out of pity.

Brett had his father come down from Brownwood for the night. In that photo of Brett and his father (Danny), please look carefully right behind them and in the distance you will see a tower blind at 200 yards. Mr. Valdez hadn't shot a gun since his son quit hunting because he was busy supporting Brett's football dreams. With an old 30-06, old bullets, and an old scope, Mr. Valdez dropped a nice little pig with one shot. Nothing like the adult supervision showing the youngsters how it is done.

Of course, we had to make time to take photos with the kids and the ranch foreman and his wife. Good times all around.

Thank you Kevin Embree and Hub Bechtol for coming along with us and making this trip one more great memory.

PS: I couldn't convince Justin or Brett to wear Hunter's Orange, they thought I was trying to make fun of UT Burnt Orange. You try to argue with 650 lbs.

PPS: The kid walked up with a desert tortoise of some type. Someone said it was an endangered species. We carefully had the young man put the animal back where he found it and in the process kicked up a couple of Indian arrowheads.

Images and Files: View all 33 photos / videos here.