Somehow Sean Adams and I ended up inside the seats of the Texas band.
Honestly, I can't even remember how it happened, other than we had seats separated from each other and as the second half of the national championship game between Texas and USC was set to begin, we both decided that it didn't matter where we sat, as long as we watched the game together.
Part of me wants to say that a member of the band was a member of Orangebloods and welcomed us into some open seats, but that might be making things up 14-plus years after the fact. What matters is that on the most important night in the modern era of the Texas football program, we had a chance to watch the second half together within a section of current (at the time) university students.
Outside of standing on the sideline, it felt like the closest thing to being involved in the game as one could feel. On a night when there were so many ebbs and flows within the game, being inside the band meant that you were inside the pulse of an entire fan base every time one of the ebbs and flows went a certain kind of way.
When it was over ... after the defense makes the stop ... after VY scores on 4th and 5 ... after the clock finally expired ... I witnessed something even more impactful than any play that occurred.
As the players walked over to the band and the school song started to play in their direction, emotion took control of the moment. I turned around to Sean to say something to him and I noticed that tears were in his eyes. Oh, he was smiling like his life depended on it, but something about the moment flat out got him.
At that exact moment, someone in the band (who wasn't playing their instrument) jumped into the arms of a friend and they screamed at each other in a way that suggested that they should have been sitting together for the duration of the second half like Sean and I had decided to do. Everywhere I turned was beautiful raw emotion. Some tears. Lots of smiles. Plenty of screams. Everyone united in one of the greatest moments of everyone's lives through the playing of one song.
The Eyes of Texas.
Black, white, brown, pink, green, male, female, gay, straight, religious, atheist ... together. The rest of the world didn't exist, except for all of the people back home that you wondered about, wishing they could share this moment. Honest to God, if we take away the moments in my life involving my wife and kids, it probably ranks as a top-five all-time life moment.
This boy from Waco, who grew up rooting against Texas as a Baylor fan until fate stepped in and switched his future, looked directly into the eyes of a former kid from Oakland, who had adopted The University of Texas as the home school he always wanted and never knew existed until he arrived in Austin to work as a grown-up in the real world. Both of us were bastard burnt orange children to some degree and yet the reality of neither of us having a degree from the school simply didn't matter in the moment.
It was just beautiful and I might live another 200 years and will never live it again, partly because Sean isn't with us anymore, which means I won't ever have that moment with HIM because it's an impossibility (I hated typing that sentence).
What it means is that when I think of Sean, I always think about this moment. When I think about the moment, I think of Sean. The thing that tied it all together was The Eyes of Texas.
The song is the ultimate connector to literally millions of people and it's the following truth that makes what's happening with the song a mixture of anger, depression, dismay ... did I mention anger?
For countless Longhorns, you simply cannot tell the story of their lives without including moments where the song was at the forefront of them, whether we're talking about a wedding reception or graduation or a trip to an out of town piano bar or to a funeral.
Full confession - I've been to multiple funerals where "The Eyes of Texas" is the final sound before a person says goodbye to his or her loved ones forever in the physical form. When you think it about it for a while, the weight of its importance is incredibly heavy.
All of this brings us to this moment in time when the song seems to hang in peril with the realization that its origins are less than ideal to say the least.
Now, before I go any further, let's acknowledge an elephant in the room, which is that I'm pretty much viewed as the resident snowflake liberal trouble-maker on the board. I've taken time to try and explain the player's feelings, in part because I acknowledge that I'm in no way, shape or fashion in a place where I can tell a black person how insulted they should feel about something born in a minstrel show. I've acknowledged the complexity of the issue countless times.
However, in acknowledging its complexity, I'm going to require everyone to use their brains a little and acknowledge the following ...
a. Meredes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagen (Hitler's dream car) all have ties to Nazi Germany.
b. Hugo Boss literally designed shirts for the Nazis because he was an actual Nazi.
c. Old Disney movies are historically filled with racist imagery and stereotypes.
d. U.S.A. Today's parent company (E.W. Scripps and Gannett) was linked to the slave trade.
e. Aetna and New York Life Insurance insured the lives of slaves and reimbursed slave owners when their slaves died.
f. Henry Ford was a leading anti-Semite. Same with Coco Chanel.
g. Adidas, Nike, Gap, Urban Outfitters and Victoria's Secret all still use products made in sweatshops and with child labor.
I could go on and on and on and on and on, but if you need more examples, let google be your friend. The list of companies and institutions with non-ideal backgrounds is longer than America's history itself. Yet, Mercedes found a way to get over its Nazi ties. Disney is still Disney. Nike literally outfits the Texas football program.
As an American people, we universally forgive in the name of the Ford Expedition that I personally drive or the movie that I play on the Disney Channel for my kids or the newspaper that I buy when I'm in an airport (but only when I'm in an airport).
Every single one of us, including the young men and women that attend The University of Texas, make little concessions all the time when it comes to our moral compasses and when/where we decide to use them.
For some reason, this has become a line in the sand moment, but I have to ask why?
If I can acknowledge the existence of the song's beginnings and the wretched visual that is generated when it's discussed, then why can't they acknowledge the millions of people that have turned the song into something much more significant than a joke aimed at a school president?
Doesn't that history matter, too?
I'm all for these kids fighting the good fights ... all of them. I just don't view this situation as fighting the good fight as much as it’s applying misplaced pressure for sport. I don't believe these kids have been swayed by their college professors. Hell no, I give them way more credit than that. They haven't been hypnotized. Instead, these are frustrated young men and women that want to fight back ... against anything they can get their hands on. The Eyes has been sucked into the fray, perhaps even deservedly so.
Let's be clear - the history deserves to be discussed.
Yet, there's a difference between having a discussion and trying to render something so personal to so many as completely useless moving forward. There are people rolling over in their graves right now and not all of them were racist. Hell, there are people headed to their graves that are rolling over in them before they are even in them.
The students at The University of Texas, not just the football players, need to ask themselves a question of importance.
Is the mostly obscure history of the song more important than all of the good that the song has lived inside of over the last 100 years? Does a little bit of hate outweigh a hell of a lot of love? Are millions of past and future memories rendered completely moot because of one?
At the end of the day, if this is something a student can't get behind, why are they at The University of Texas?
Just go. You can't go inside any of the historic buildings without some sort of racist stink on them, so why give them the decency of acknowledgement when you won't do it for something others are begging you with their heart and souls to give the same consideration?
Understand, I don't want any of these kids to leave, but I don't want them to be unhappy, either. However, I also don't want to tell others that their own happiness is being cancelled out by young people that haven't lived long enough to know how precious the memories associated with this thing with an unfortunate origin truly are.
If love, acceptance and equality are the end goal, then it's time to get together and find a better answer because what's currently happening isn't it.
No. 2 - Calling out the grown-ups at Bellmont ...
Shame on the Texas administration for dropping the ball on this in such an embarrassing way.
I'm going to do two things ... I'm going to tell you what happened and then I'm going to tell you what needs to happen
Let's start with what happened.
The players caught the athletic department as a whole completely off-guard with their initial set of demands listed in the released statement that they put out, especially Tom Herman and Chris Del Conte, and every reaction that both men took afterwards was designed with the hope that this would apparently disappear into thin air once the season started.
Understand that this whole thing started with the threat of not playing the season being in full play before that threat was walked off the table. So, "The Eyes" became a huge political piece of the puzzle because it was the only real leverage the players had to force some change and from a third-party perspective, I totally understand it.
The players entered "negotiations" with literally one card in play.
Therefore, it boggles my mind that the university somehow came out of a meeting of the minds, offered a ton of ideas and proposals, yet somehow came away from the proceedings without asking if all of the effort was going to accomplish the two damn things that mattered most - are you going to play and are you going to recognize the school song?
That's literally the only thing from their perspective they NEEDED to find out.
Can you imagine calling your ex-wife and asking for a personal item AFTER the divorce?
"Hey, thanks for wishing me happy birthday last week. I know we had lawyers get together and we signed a settlement three years ago, but I was thinking I want your car," said no one ever (other than a few crazy ex-spouses).
Can you imagine making a fantasy football trade and agreeing to deal your best player without having an idea of what you're receiving?
"Sure, you can have Alvin Kamara. We'll figure out what I get at some point," said no one that has any ambition.
This isn't rocket science.
Here's how the conversation should have done in July:
Chris Del Conte: "Guys, we're going to make a multimillion-dollar investment from the athletic department revenue, among other things, to programs that work to recruit, attract, retain and support black students, and it will expand UT's presence and outreach in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and elsewhere. It's going to be pretty exciting."
Player Leader: "That sounds awesome."
Chris Del Conte: "I know we have a lot of work to do, but this is a huge step forward in making good on our promises. We'd like to know from the players that you'll make the same good faith investment into us by taking the school song issue off the table and joining us in trying to rebuild this bridge of our tradition."
At this point, the player leader or leaders could have agreed and conditions to keep the agreement on both sides could have been made. Unless he said the following.
Player Leader: "We're actually not going to stand for the Eyes or give in.”
At that point, Del Conte should have said.
"Well, there's no deal. If you want to be the known as the players that brought change to the campus, the city and communities around the state, you have to give a little. Negotiations don't work if only one side of the table gives something."
You can't release the press release announcing all of the changes without
knowing. Instead, Del Conte met with player leadership and merely hoped that when the meeting ended, none of the players went to Twitter to set him on fire. Getting out of July without burn marks was apparently the goal because we somehow got to September without anyone in the Texas administration actually having an answer for what would happen when the games began.
Frankly, I can make a case that Del Conte's handling of this situation and the Mickey Mouse attention to details that are so poor that even his head football coach is blushing upon inspection is a fireable offense, especially when coupled with the lingering stink from the needless extension he gave out when he was frightened that he might have to get into a bidding war with himself.
The moment called for a true leader and not someone that would wait until the end of the first week in October to outline what his expectations were for HIS OWN COACHES!!!!!!!
You know how all of this happened? Chris Del Conte let it happen. He literally thought it was ok to never seek clarification from the players about their intentions, never told his coaches what he wanted until last week and generally let this spin out of control under his watch.
Period.
No. 3 - What has to happen next ...
Del Conte needs to meet with Texas athletics leadership this week and not come out of the room until the situation is resolved in a way that preserves the school song.
While he's doing that, new Texas president Jay Hartzell needs to meet with leadership from the band, cheerleaders and other key organizational groups affiliated with the school, and not come out until the same thing is accomplished.
If Del Conte has to give a little, so be it. If Hartzell has to do the same, I don't give a damn.
Solve the problem now. It's not show friends, it's show business. Their jobs are to get this resolved in a way that everyone can view as a win.
If they can't pull that off, it means they failed at the most important task they'll ever be given in their jobs. Simple as that.
Time to get this done.
p.s. - When you go to the negotiation table this time, don't forget to ask for something.
No. 4 - What I'm hearing about Herman ...
A few really important notes.
a. The situation with the school song has decision-makers on DEFCON 1. I don't know yet what's going to happen, but I was told by one senior official that Saturday was a tipping point. A tipping point to what? That was not outlined.
b. Herman is more in trouble for this situation with the school song than actually losing the game. The sight of Sam Ehlinger by himself after the game was monumental.
c. The buyout to Herman is still really expensive and all the problematic issues in front of buying him out still exist.
d. If Texas really wanted Urban Meyer, he'll be there for the taking at an incredible cost. One person I spoke with on Sunday believed Texas would have to make Meyer the highest-paid coach in the country.
"Dabo makes 9 (million per year) and Urban will want 10," the source texted me. "We've never wanted to pay more than what we're already paying Tom."
No. 5 - To be completely clear ...
If Tom Herman isn't coaching at Texas in 2021, this will be as much of a reason as actually losing.
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No. 6 - One last thing for the Texas football players to think about ...
If the players are unwilling to give a little on the school song issue, maybe they can explain why they'd still want to commit so much of themselves to create an NFL career when the league is guilty of far worse things with regards to awful racial connotations and you don't have to go back 100 years to find them.
You can't stand by your fans and show the same kind of respect you'd show if the PA system played another nation's national anthem, but you can accept the NFL's blood money?
Oh, and one more thing to keep in mind.
Leaving before or in the middle of the song is actually a tactic that no one protesting the national anthem has taken because as pissed off as people are about players kneeling during the song, walking out of the stadium while it's played would be viewed as an entirely new form of potential insult for those that feel insulted.
Come on, fellas. Read the room for goodness sakes.
No. 7 – BUY or SELL …
(Sell) You're asking me to give this place benefit of the doubt in areas it has not proven it deserves to receive the benefit of the doubt in.
(Buy) Lowest moment in program history in my estimation.
(Sell) But, if you add all the messages that Anwar, Jason and Dustin received? Maybe.
(Buy) Ironically, it might need this.
(Buy) The bread for the first half of this decade is already in the oven.
(Buy) Yeah.
(Buy) Yeah.
(Buy) Yeah.
(Buy) Yeah.
(Buy) Yeah.
(Buy/Sell/Sell) I expect to hear from a lot of players in the next two weeks before the next home game. Mack's new FSU beast to conquer is called Clemson and I'm not sure UNC is ready for that. I'd argue that the all-night chats lose their appeal when they happen all the time, but this weekend was definitely a reminder we need to do more.
No. 8 - Scattershooting on the world of sports ...
... Jimbo Fisher stopped stealing money this weekend from Texas A&M. Is he about to steal LJ Johnson next week? Looking that way ...
... OU beat Texas in a game that saw its starting quarterback get benched? Good grief. That happened.
... Is Iowa State the favorite in the Big 12? Or Kansas State? Or Oklahoma State?
... It kind of feels like Travis Etienne doesn't get nearly the pub that he deserves.
... Gif of the Year?
... Don't even ask me about the Dak injury or the Dallas game. I need time to sort through my feelings.
... Congrats, Texans fans.
... LeBron James is at No.4. What an all-time great.
... The Rays/Astros series has my attention.
... Go Dodgers.
... Rafa. Freaking. Nadal. I almost can't wrap my head around him winning 13 French Open titles and 20 overall. As far as I'm concerned, he's the GOAT.
... I watched more MLS when it was in the bubble by a mile than I do when it's not. Just a random thought.
No. 9 - The List: Top 10 Eddie Van Halen Solos ...
One of the all-time greats left us this week when Eddie Van Halen died at the age of 65.
It goes without saying that he's one of the giants of modern music. Rather than focus on my favorite Van Halen songs, I thought I'd rank my top 10 Eddie Van Halen solos.
Enjoy.
10. Atomic Punk
9. Poundcake
8. Mean Street
7. Girl Gone Bad
6. I'm The One
5. So This Is Love?
4. Everybody Wants Some
3. Hot For Teacher
2. Eruption
1. Beat It
No.10 - And finally...
A section needs to be devoted to our new goddess queen. Your Orangebloods subscription is forever comped when you want to claim it.
