The Eyes of Texas Problem

This topic bringing out posters I've never seen in the actual UT thread.

 

That's because they feel strongly about the snowflakes trying to change the school song.

 

Was is a problem today? Did anyone kneel for the anthem?

I don't pay attention to silly songs at silly events, so let me know if I should be upset.

 

Then have a discussion about it?

The actual ties to racism of this song seem...tenuous. The song itself isn't racist at all.. A discussion seems appropriate. Have the discussion and see where things end up

 

Apparently the entire team was out there after the game.

Maybe a naive thought but think the “problem” was compounded by back to back heartbreaking losses. And that goes for both sides.

 

They were told they had to be by the athletic director. Many simply stood there and kept their hands behind their backs. This is not a problem that's going away - certainly not by an administration that just tells the kids they have to stand there. We saw what the band chose - the school doesn't have scholarships to threaten them with.

 

And Herman straight up contradicted him saying it’s completely up to the players. I agree that this problem isn’t going away but honestly think it’s a reflection of the state of the football program. The team is likely out there had we beat OU and think the band was following the football team’s lead somewhat afterwards.

This is purely my opinion and understand I maybe oversimplifying it. But winning helps a lot and is probably the closest cure-all we can get.

 

I agree winning helps a lot - in the short-term. But these are players that are concerned with / fighting for racial justice. Their focus on the song may be weird, but that's the underlying cause driving it and they were angry before the season (ie, before the losing started). Winning just papers over that if people stop complaining - but those issues are still very real and raw, not just with players but across society. Winning seems like a temporary bandaid to let people pretend the underlying issues have gone away.

 

Really is something, huh? Who knows if they went to UT; they still have opinions and they will be heard!

I thought Mike Finger in the Express News had a good take on this saga: the disconnect between boosters and players is indicative of dissonance between boosters' nostalgia and school pride and the players' present day reality. In the world of modern NCAA athletics, the players are the main cog in a machine that generates $144.5M in annual revenue despite a decade of mediocrity. Their relationship with the school is much more transactional than what older boosters had decades ago; in exchange for playing the sport that generates that money, they get national exposure, NFL draft potential, access to top-tier facilities and, in some cases, scholarships for educations that may or may not be seen as incidental. For sports like basketball (and recruits like Kevin Durant, Myles Turner, etc.), this transactional relationship lasts for less than one calendar year. Everyone involved knows the deal.

"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...

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."​

The current disconnect comes from boosters who cut huge checks for those facilities and have a deep sense of school pride that isn't shared by the athletes. Boosters fondly remember an era where student athletes were just that: students at their school who represented them during games. However, in an era of outrageous revenues and pro dreams, the relationship between top athlete and school is a mile wide and an inch deep. I'm honestly shocked when I see Kevin Durant proudly representing UT: he spent less than one full year on campus and, to my knowledge, never finished his degree. For every Sam Ehlinger who dreams of playing for the Longhorns since childhood, you have dozens of guys who followed their friends to campus, were promised things by coaches and boosters and saw the 40 Acres as simply the next step on a path to professional sports.

To say nothing of the merits of their complaints, I think the players deserve to be heard. Our #1-ranked volleyball team is addressing the song in different ways during the season. Does it make me uncomfortable that I've suddenly been asked to reconsider singing something I've sung at the top of my lungs before? Yes and, if I'm honest, I still don't think that the players are on-base with this complaint. But, I'm thinking through things and trying to see why a group of people who I respect are telling me that they feel differently. The boosters don't seem to want to do that and are adding fuel to the fire.

Who knows: maybe if Keaontay doesn't fumble on the goal line against TCU and if we pull it out against OU this whole thing doesn't erupt. But the image of Sam, Longhorn since birth, standing alone on the Cotton Bowl field while the rest of the team ran to the locker room encapsulated what a lot of people feel is wrong about the program and what a lot of them don't understand about modern college sports.

 

Right and to be fair, the University put out a comprehensive plan that the players were seemingly happy with. Unless I missed something, don't think any player has come out and said anything negative since. There does seem to be a disconnect with exactly how "The Eyes" was to be handled. CDC stated that the players would still need to be there, whether they sing or not is up to them. This was confirmed by other coaches as well. Herman however has maintained that it is completely up to the players.

With regards to winning, think it helps on both sides. For the players, you can see that even a win over a very bad Baylor team had them happy, standing for The Eyes, dancing in the locker room, etc...I am assuming more meaningful wins would further that although that is something we simply cannot rely unfortunately. But think the same goes for the alumni/donors, who I assume are the biggest proponents of keeping with tradition. I think a healthy and successful football program would help ease their minds with any changes.

 

At any rate, the song does SOUND LIKE HELL

 

Cut the scholarships, if the players dont want to follow what the adminstration wants the get in players that will. It's really that simple. There are things way more important than winning football games.

There's not an Eyes of Texas problem as the OP states. There's a Snowflake problem at UT and you aren't going to win with a bunch of sowflakes anyways (Losing as we speak) time to move on from these types of guys.

 

I dunno, it's been a long ten years.

 

Yee, cut em, send em over.

 

Steps to building a successful college football team:

1. Cut scholarships to five-star recruits in order to placate a politically-vocal group that may not have even attended your school
2. Load up on coaches' sons, gym rats and real first-one-in, last-one-out kind of of guys.
3. Tell recruits that you will cut them if they get out of line and upset group number 1. This goes over really well with them and their families.
4. ????
5. Profit

 

Over to where?

I'm on board

 

The dog worshipers

 

And yet, singing a random song doesn't seem like one of them.

 

Tradition is very important

A random song,

LOL