Well, it’s a snow day. What else have you got to do?
LOL! I was once banned (or maybe reprimanded, I forget which) for using this meme. 
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I’ll save you the trouble. He has Oklahoma ahead of Houston.
If you are concerned about whether your team is a blue blood or not, your team is not a blue blood
Nobody at Kansas or Kentucky is asking themselves this question
It’s also not something you can stat into existence.
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FIFY
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No Natty no blue blood a Natty has to be one of the requirements
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Well said. There are higher truths than mere reason and statistical “objectivity” can ascertain.
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I think in order to be a blue blood in basketball, you need to have at least 5 national championships.
UCLA
North Carolina
Duke
Kentucky
UConn
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I’d put UCONN up there with the Kings.
Gotta be blue.
This might be long because I think about this a lot… not just in basketball but across the whole athletics program and how it relates to who we are and our identity.
When I think of blue bloods, I think of the establishment. The nobility. The royals. To me, we should never aspire to be part of this group. We’re the outlaws, the disruptors, the Robinhoods and V for Vendetta’s, and we’re really good at it.
Houston isn’t just the anti-blue blood –we’re the blueprint for what college athletics should be, making the very concept of “blue blood” status obsolete. Because we’re here and participating at the highest level despite being so “different” and doing things our own way.
I picture two parallel paths in college athletics. The blue blood path is a carefully manicured garden, with high walls and exclusive access, where success is cultivated through privilege and tradition and resources. Then there’s our path – as a disruptive force, where excellence grows wild and free, and sometimes falls just as hard.
UH is the greatest experiment in college athletics history. Truly revolutionary if you think about it. A junior college founded 50-100 years after the blue bloods, deciding it wants to participate in the highest levels of competitive sport, doing it, doing it well, and changing the whole game… again and again and again.
While blue bloods built their programs on exclusivity and privilege, we built ours on accessibility and innovation. Dave Williams found golf champions on public courses. Guy V. Lewis recruited basketball players from inner city playground courts and across the ocean in Nigeria. Bill Yeoman saw football talent where others saw limitations. We figured it out. On and on and on…
Blue bloods operate on inherited prestige. We operate on earned achievement. We’ve never relied on the “because we’re us” argument that blue bloods fall back on. Every victory, every innovation, every breakthrough had to be earned. While blue bloods are perpetually looking backward, we have always looked forward. We don’t preserve traditions as much as we create new possibilities. From the Veer offense to Phi Slama Jama to Tellez revolutionary training methods, its always been innovation over tradition. Don’t like the way the table is set? Flip the table over by unleashing the Run & Shoot or taking a risk by hiring “untouchable” Kelvin Sampson (laughable now lol) on and on…
Blue blood programs exist in isolation from their communities, like castles on a hill. They other-ize people outside the castle. At Houston we integrated with our surroundings , drew strength from them, and give access to those that others wouldn’t - the Case Keenum’s of the world. The underdogs with something to prove. Blue bloods resist change to protect their advantages. We embrace it as an opportunity. We’re not just about maintaining status – we’re about constant evolution and improvement. It’s chaotic and tiring but it’s us.
To me, all of this makes Houston sort of an anti-blue blood regardless of how successful we become. UH is proof that there’s a better way to achieve athletic excellence. Just by being here and participating, we are suggesting that “blue blood” status is obsolete in modern athletics. If more prestige or tradition or status was required, we’d be Division 3. But its not… we’re consistently beating the establishment and they hate it. All they can do is point out false flaws like attendance or arena size etc. or their own last success.
With NIL and all the changes recently, we are better equipped than anyone to dominate. Traditional privilege will not help navigate NIL deals, transfer portals, and evolving fan engagement… the SEC is learning that the hard way in football. We’ve taken over college basketball for a 3rd time in our history, ironically with defense and rebounding instead of slam dunks and fast breaks this time. Constant evolution!
The Houston approach aligns perfectly with where college athletics is heading:
- Emphasis on innovation over tradition
- Focus on current achievement rather than historical success
- Embrace our city and anyone who wants to contribute
- Embrace technological and social change
- Offer something others can’t… the opportunity to be a disruptive force, the opportunity to be the “underdog” and the “hero”
We should continue to embrace the chaos and be the “rebels”, be the “good guys”, it’s our brand and our identity and we shouldn’t apologize for it. It’s got us this far and I truly believe this image will start to resonate with more and more people. When someone on Twitter tries to compare us to blue bloods, we should be offended… because we are something much better.
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In my book we are a elite program or blood blood or whatever description one chooses. Based on the historical talent we have put into the NBA along with historical impact. Game of the Century in the 8th Wonder of the World. It was unprecedented in it historical impact on the sport collegiate and professional it was shown by the record game attendance of 52k plus, a record that took decades before it was broken along with the mass television audience that watch the 2 best teams in the land , it showed basketball was viable spectator sport not only on the college level but professional level.
Producing three Basketball Hall of Famers which in itself is an incredible achievement that places UH in an elite group of schools. Only a handful of universities can claim such a distinction, and it highlights UH’s ability to develop transcendent talent. Here’s why this matters:
Elite Company:
UH joins schools like UCLA, North Carolina, and Kentucky in producing multiple Hall of Fame players. This puts UH in the conversation as one of the top basketball programs in history.
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i was about to skip until i got to paragraph 3…this is good stuff, completely agree
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Had to log in to like this post.
Blue blood status is about achievement, and a legacy of great players, but also about the position of the school/program within the history of the sport. A lot of you guys know more about UH history than I do, but… I think the importance of UH in the context of the history of the sport makes UH a “Blueblood”.
Simply put, the history of college basketball would have unfolded differently without UH.
Go Coogs
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don’t say he didn’t warn ya lol
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I know you’re basing this on 1 metric, but saying Kansas isn’t a blueblood and UConn more blue blood than Kansas is mind boggling
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So they are Judge Smails and we are Al Czervik
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Are we the first commuter school blue blood?
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Now, I know you’re a troll.