All am going to say is that Steve Sarkisian stepped on it the first time he opened his mouth regarding that song. He rekindled that fire. Football players play the game , not rich donors. He is done, won’t last more two years at UT.
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I’d be a little more sympathetic to this take if not for the fact that so many alums took this as an opportunity to go “mask off,” so to speak. I think reasonable people can disagree on whether the song needs to go, or to be changed, or whatever. But, as the reddit thread put it, half those emails were a drink away from a “heated gamer moment.”
Texas will do what Texas has done from the beginning of time.
“We will pay you and your family twice what anyone else is paying you but you are going to stand and sing the song”
“Done, I may not be woke but I ain’t broke”
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Everyone has a price - Pablo
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It doesn’t have to be with a verse to the freakin song, but if you remember the players demands in the open letter in early summer, there wasn’t an ask to change the song, it was more about supporting inclusiveness to providing funding to Black Lives Matter type of organization, but not even specifically BLM itself. The players asked for a lot, but it appeared even the players believed the song would be around for the long run. There was plenty in my eyes to negotiate a “win/win” middle ground while also keeping the song around for the long run. There was plenty to work with in my mind. It just appears the players side has died down a lot (pubically), the student and the band side is still buzzing, and the alumni side remains hot with the money related alums making the most noise.
The players did ask to replace the song and in the meantime to not require them to sing the song. They offered the middle ground (to not make them sing the song). Herman seeing that as an easy W said sure. Donors lost their mind that he acquiesced to that and got them a coach who said at his intro presser that "we’re gonna sing the song and sing it “PROUDLY”. Also, doesn’t help that Ehlinger undercut his own teammates.
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I would have to go back and look at the original letter of demands from early June. But that came from one or a couple of players with some endorsing via Twitter. I remember walking away from reading that letter thinking to myself there was a lot to work with here and to sit down and negotiate some level of happy ending. Doing away with “The Eyes” was definitely not going to work across the alumni base. Just checking out the reactions on their sports sites that was pretty strong with strong reactions.
Herman, the coaching staff, and the players lost that round of not standing for and supporting the song. Sam grew up Longhorn and with him losing his dad early with a heart attack and all those growing up memories and going to LH games as a family with his dad, I think Sam’s statement to his teammates were understood by the masses of players.
Right now the alums are winning. All in the administration are strongly behind the song including the new football coach. The players have dropped off their demands. The band and some student orgs have some forces against the song. The song has an original racist founding history (no doubt), but there is nothing in the song that is racist.
If I were to bet, I think the song lives. The key question is whether UT addresses the real issues they have and whether it is done constructively. They won’t get to a constructive conclusion if they all remain in their camps of being for or against the song.
Don’t sing the damn song, don’t accept the the scholarship, go to another school (hopefully UH).
The power brokers behind UT are as significant as any in the United States. You aren’t going to back those guys down and if you try you will lose. We learned that lesson.
Tell them to go to hell you are going to U of H.
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Due –
My mom was a teacher at Lamar from the late 60’s until she retired in 87. I obviously went to Lamar, graduating in 77. My older daughter also went there, graduating in 2012. She was editor of the yearbook her senior year and heard rumblings that the principal (I think his name was McSwain) wanted to change the name. I don’t know if it was his original “idea” (he was a very dim bulb) or if some other virtue signaling dimwit put a bug in his ear. A couple of years later, it happened. During my daughter’s three years at Lamar, we witnessed academic standards and accountability tumble, drug use and petty crime run rampant, and even minor violence inside the school. At one point, she turned a corner to find the on-site policeman pepper spraying kids who were fighting in the halls. She got a whiff, which was a pretty eye opening experience for a 17 year old. Rather than address these fundamental issues, the principal and school board chose to place their focus on a name. Regretfully, I felt compelled to place my second daughter at Memorial HS where she received an outstanding education.
Thanks for enduring my diatribe – I remain very connected to my Lamar Redskin friends and former faculty (including my 96 year old mom), the excellent education we received, and the legacy that flourished until the past 10 years or so. Shame on those who have willingly destroyed it in the name of identity politics.
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A&M only admitted girls in the 70s bc it would help football per their president.
That’s the message told to incoming recruits and so they will stand and sing the Eyes proudly.
So now UT is getting rid of its so called troublemakers and getting players that will do what they tell them to do.
UHCoog -
While a student at Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar High School, I learned this bit of actual history. In fact, my mother was a history and government teacher at Lamar, back when knowledge was a thing.
While Lamar was a hero at the Battle of San Jacinto, after the revolution he left military service and entered politics where he followed Sam Houston as the second president of the Republic of Texas. In that capacity, he didn’t actually lead raids, he ordered them – punitive raids against the Comanche and their allies who were murdering, raping, mutilating, torturing, and kidnapping into slavery (see Cynthia Ann Parker) across the frontier, “at the cost of 17 lives for every mile that the frontier advanced” [Lone Star, A History of Texas and the Texans, T.R. Fehrenbach ISBN: 0020321708]. Those vastly outnumbered, underarmed, and rarely paid brave men he sent out formed the genesis of the Texas Rangers. Unfortunately, he also ordered raids against the otherwise peaceful Cherokees in East Texas. This remains a significant injustice and stain on his legacy.
Lamar drove development of Texas’ public school system and has been called “the Father of Texas Education” since he developed a way to pay for it using public lands devoted to school development. I guess that he could be called “the Father of the PUF”, but in reality, that occurred long after his term (and probably after he passed away).
In actuality, Texas (first as an independent country and later as a state) doesn’t exist without Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar’s strong leadership.
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I look in the mirror every morning and see a Redskin. Works out just fine.
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I went to Bellaire, so we’re programmed to dislike each other 
So did my wife! I jokingly tell everyone that I “married down”, but in reality I definitely married UP. Great school then and now. Now about that 34 year Lamar football winning streak 
I had a choice about where to send my older daughter to HS, Bellaire or Lamar. My heart overruled my head - a decision that I’ve regretted for years.
Funny story about Lamar / Bellaire - my freshman year in HS, I ran around with a bunch of older guys who decided to “borrow” all of the district school’s fiberglass mascots. We successfully stole them from Lee, Sharpstown, Madison, Westbury, etc. The only one we couldn’t get (and we were very good) was the Cardinal. It was kept in the Bellaire City Jail. Dirty pool if you ask me. The principal had a good idea about who was behind these “crimes” and threatened us with fire and brimstone. What he didn’t know was that we had hidden them (laying down) on the roof of the school. On the day of the Lee pep rally, we dangled theirs in front of the auditorium (in front of the Texas map you can see from Westheimer) in the wee hours of the morning. Of course, when they went onto the roof to retrieve it, they found the rest of the mascots. Hopefully the statute of limitations has run out.
When did you graduate?
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Haha that sounds like fun times! Yeah, they always housed him at the police station, although I think they recently started keeping it at the school, so it might be fair game these days lol. I graduated in 2005. Yeah, y’all owned us in football. We used to always get y’all in baseball but y’all caught up in that too. I think basketball is really where they thrive these days. I wonder if the birdkeepers ever managed to steal “Big Red”?
I was one of the equivalents of the Bird Keepers. They tried mightily to get Big Red, including throwing used tires at our truck on 610 in an attempt to stop us. Fortunately no one got hurt (my advise to parents about boys: Flash freeze them at 13, thaw them at 30. In my case, 50). They were unsuccessful when I was there and I’m not aware that anyone ever stole him. Alas, he was destroyed in a suspicious fire about the time my daughter was at Lamar. I’ve heard that Little Red (a tabletop size replica) still exists, but no one knows where.
Re: baseball - my wife was a bat girl at Bellaire. Apparently it was a big deal.
Are they really getting rid of the players that raised some hell about the song?
I believe Herman would still be coach today if he wasn’t perceived as losing the locker room and allowing his players to skip out on “The Eyes”. Kiss of death perception right there.
The big cigars saw this as faux outrage and players looking to be offended so they could show the world they were in charge and were as cool as Kaepernick. You had a coach who has no real character who thought it would be cool to look like the “woke” coach. He ended up looking as ridiculous as he did when he was tearing down the locker room dressed as one of the village people.
The Big Cigars said no, not on my watch. Out went the coach and the players were told to respect the traditions or leave.
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