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Fans Launch Creativity to Show Support for Rockets |
| By
Cynthia Nowak |
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Oct 9, 2003 |
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| Posing for a photo before a game were, from left, Bruce Hoyt and his father, Roger Hoyt, who built the UT Rocket; Don Hurt, who painted the creation; and Dave Duncan, who housed the project. Bruce's wife, Janet, was standing behind the UT Rocket. |
Some Rocket fans paint their faces blue and gold. The really committed ones decorate their cars with UT flags and streamers. Father and son Roger and Bruce Hoyt went further; they built an 18-foot UT Rocket, a tribute on wheels that’s authentic down to the last fin and pin-striping. “We used the logo on Bruce’s Rocket hat as our blueprint,” 63-year-old Roger said, pointing to his son’s cap.
The Hoyts are longtime UT tailgaters — Roger has been a season ticket-holder for 25 years — who became inspired after one game. Roger initially recalled the process this way: “A couple of beers and we said, ‘Hey, let’s make a rocket.’”
With some prodding, he admitted that a spirit of friendly competition was also at play. “What really started this was when we saw the engineering people come by with a rocket on their Homecoming float. The rocket was a carpet tube with a cone on the end, and paper fins. We said, ‘Hey, we can build something better than that!’”
Whatever the impetus, the project took off almost as dramatically as its high-flying namesake. “Once we got started, it kind of got out of hand. There are 4,000 rivets in there,” Roger said. Indeed — and with 18-gauge steel around a core of galvanized tubing, that’s 1,000 pounds of substance. The weighty rocket is permanently welded onto a boat trailer and comes equipped with a hydraulic lift that raises and lowers its load. Their friend, Don Hurt, provided the paint job.
The big debut was planned for UT’s first home game. The builders wanted to surprise Football Coach Tom Amstutz, so the assistant coaches were let in on the secret and provided parking passes for the first game. The public reaction was everything the builders hoped: “People went crazy,” Roger said. When a story appeared on the Toledo Blade’s Web site, Roger’s old skipper from the Sea Scouts saw it and hopped on a plane from Florida to be at the next home game. “He showed up at our tailgate and said, ‘Hi, remember me?’” recalled the former sea dog.
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| When he wasn't working on the UT Rocket, Bruce Hoyt was busy working on his house, including renovating the dining room to give it an Italian look. |
The 18-month project represents only one part of a larger story, however — as a drive past Bruce’s Toledo home will make apparent. At the same time the team was building the rocket, Bruce was converting his house’s carport into a new kitchen. The old kitchen became a replica ’50s diner. The dining room received an Italianate makeover, and a sun porch with a bay window was added to the front of the house.
But it’s in the great room where Bruce’s skills have their most dramatic manifestation. His wife, Janet, took up the story: “I showed him a picture in Architectural Digest and told him that I wanted to build this room. At first he laughed, but then he got interested. That’s what started it.”
“It,” at least as far as the great room, is inspired by a room in the Breakers, the famous Newport, R.I., summer residence of the Vanderbilt family. Bruce (with the assistance of Janet, Roger and others) designed and built the rococo fantasia of gilded plaster, smiling putti and marbled flooring. Two crystal chandeliers dominate the room. On closer examination, the crystal is actually plastic beading, the marble was painstakingly recreated via hand-cut vinyl tiles, and the gilt isn’t the 24-karat gold variety specified by the Vanderbilts. The effect, however, is stunning — especially when Janet says that Bruce isn’t a carpenter by profession.
“We never had a lot of money,” she said. “I work at Home Depot and Bruce is a dock worker for Roadway, but we have talents and a need to use them.” They met each other after their first marriages broke up. “We were always both really artistic, and we recognized that in each other. As far as the house, we didn’t do all this for the money, to make more if we ever sell — Bruce just likes to do extreme artistic things, to show what he can do. There’s not a house in this town he couldn’t build,” she said with understandable pride.
Bruce’s plans for the future include an enclosed pool and an indoor theater, but the fate of the UT Rocket is of more immediate concern. “We need a heated garage to store it for the winter,” Roger said. “We think Savage Hall would be a good place.”
In the same deadpan tone, Bruce added, “We’ll just build a big trophy case for the hall to keep it in.”
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