Nobody is going to win this thing, which is a shame, because the entire issue is built on make-believe.
If the Texas athletic department loses donations over “The Eyes of Texas,” and if the players lose the support of fans who like them more as an idea than as actual people, and if a highly paid coach or administrator loses his job as part of a mess that refuses to go away, it won’t be because any of this ever should have been controversial in the first place.
It’ll be because people are finally forced to acknowledge that what they pretend to like about college football isn’t real.
Maybe their romantic notion of the sport did exist in the actual world once, a long time ago, before many donors even were born. Maybe there was a time when teams really did play for school pride, when the fans and players really were connected by a shared college experience, and when all of the pageantry wasn’t just window dressing for a billion-dollar business.
But come on. We’re all adults here.
We can be honest about the real reason why so many fans are upset that most Longhorns football players have stopped staying on the field after games to sing the school song. They say it’s because the youngsters are stomping all over a tradition. But if the players don’t feel any ownership of that tradition — and worse yet, if they feel resentful of it — then isn’t the whole thing a lie?
Look, nobody is denying the power or the poignancy of a bunch of people from different backgrounds singing “The Eyes” together. In my life I’ve heard it at weddings, at funerals, at the Rose Bowl, on Bourbon Street, and in the grandstands at Wrigley Field, and it’s often been a sight and sound to behold. But that’s because it meant something to the people singing it.
So what, then, is the point of making it mandatory? Is it to perpetuate the fantasy that the megadonors in the suites and the alumni behind the bench and the players on the field all love the school in the same way, for the same reasons? That’s just not the case.
UT quarterback Sam Ehlinger flashed the “Hook ’em Horns” as a toddler, but most players didn’t. Like at almost every major program in America, most players had to be recruited, and they made their decisions based on a coaching staff or an offensive system or a chance at NFL development or the appeal of nice facilities and national TV exposure.
And yes, sometimes the campus aesthetic, the business school or the history of the program might play a part.
But as a rule, college football players don’t get the typical student experience. They practice together, they live together, they eat at athletic dining halls, and at many places they’re funneled into the same classes together. And that was even before a pandemic sent the majority of classes online and provided an even bigger gulf between the football facility and the university itself.
It’s no wonder, then, that there might be a disconnect. It’s no wonder that, on a UT campus where only 5.5 percent of this fall’s undergraduates are Black (a record high, by the way), the members of a majority-Black locker room might have less desire than their fellow students to take part in a tradition the university officially acknowledges began at a minstrel show.
And even if “The Eyes of Texas” is not explicitly racist itself, why should standing for it be required of every athlete? Not every chemistry major sings it. There almost assuredly are students in the UT history department who’ve never been to a game and don’t know a single word of it. It’s not a prerequisite for attendance.
To be clear, the whole thing has indeed been mishandled. Over the summer, players thought they had a deal in which they weren’t required to take part in the song, but athletic director Chris Del Conte now says they’re expected to participate. If coach Tom Herman had won a little more, he’d have more credibility with alumni to get them to listen to the players’ side, or more credibility with the players to get them to meet the alumni halfway, for his sake.
As it stands, he’s got a tough sell in both directions.
But the thing is, it shouldn’t be this way. This didn’t need to be a controversy at all.
Nobody is stopping those who revere “The Eyes of Texas” from singing their hearts out every time it’s played. Nobody is asking them to love their school or their history or their football team any less.
But it’s time for them to love it for what it is.
And not for what they pretend it to be.
"need" - Google News
October 16, 2020 at 09:17AM
https://ift.tt/3k4jvp0
Finger: ‘Eyes of Texas’ just need to see the truth - Houston Chronicle
"need" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3c23wne
https://ift.tt/2YsHiXz
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Finger: ‘Eyes of Texas’ just need to see the truth - Houston Chronicle"
Post a Comment