If the Rockets once again crash and burn, then the ever-resilient city rests its hopes and dreams on the team’s new coach, Mike D’Antoni.

If a reasonable-seeming Donald Trump woos the country’s Hispanic community—including Houston attorney Jacob Monty—but, less than two weeks later, trots out his old everyone-must-go-back rhetoric, then a disgusted Monty resigns from the candidate’s National Hispanic Advisory Council.

If Ted Cruz’s presidential run fails, then Heidi Cruz rejoins Goldman Sachs’s Houston office after taking leave to help her husband campaign. 

If Houston’s Ensemble Theatre, one of the leading African-American companies in the U.S., turns 40, then the city salutes Eileen J. Morris, celebrating her own, 10-year anniversary as artistic director.

If new eatery Pi Pizza, under the helm of chef Anthony Calleo and backer Lee Ellis, bans guns and, on Facebook, tells an open-carry activist to “FO,” then the gun community loses its collective mind, flooding Pi’s Facebook and Yelp pages with negative reviews. 

If bioengineer Rebecca Richards-Kortum dedicates her life’s work to improving the health of newborns and fighting malaria in developing countries, among other amazing things. Then she becomes the first Rice faculty member (and Houston woman) to win a $625,000 MacArthur genius grant.