Oklahoma sports writer enjoys trip to El Paso this time around; calls El Paso suburb of Juarez

Berry Tramel would not have been considered an ambassador for El Paso in 2009.

In the lead up to that year’s Sun Bowl, Tramel, a sports writer for The Oklahoman, said El Paso was “not a great tourist destination.” He also said the city does not have great weather and there are not a lot of things to do.

“El Paso might be a fine place to live, but I’m in no hurry to return,” he wrote in 2009 as Oklahoma was getting ready to face Stanford in the Sun Bowl.

This time around, he was a bit more complimentary, even calling it a good trip.

“I enjoyed it. I hope to be back soon,” Tramel wrote in his blog Monday morning.

Tramel wrote about Marty Robbins’ ballad “El Paso” and how it might be one of the best ballads ever written and that it would make a great screenplay with just a few pieces of dialogue thrown in.

He said he has felt safe in El Paso but that looking over to Juarez, Mexico, he is reminded of the violence over there making it the murder capital, as he called it.

He also called El Paso a suburb of Juarez and said it’s strange to realize you’re only a few hundred yards from a place “where the U.S. constitution loses its punch.”

Maybe most perplexing, he called El Paso’s Mexican food OK and said the Mexican food in Oklahoma is better. Tramel liked the sopapillas at Leo’s Mexican restaurant and said he could eat 30 of them if he had gone to the restaurant on an empty stomach.

His colleague, Stephanie Kuzdym, the beat writer for the Sooners, posted several pictures and a couple of videos from the trip, saying she loved how the Sun Bowl is carved into the mountain.