FanPost

Dial it Back Boys and Girls

Admittedly, I spend too much time reading these blogs while occasionally trying to express something salient. Unfortunately, I am becoming more and more disheartened the more I read. Not disheartened regarding Mack Brown and the status of his tenure (well, maybe a little), but disheartened as it pertains to the constant negativity, ignorance and contempt spewed by many, if not most, of the bloggers on this and other UT-centric sites. One site whose name I won’t mention, Carking Barnival, is actually linked to the Austin American Statesman and is so bad that if a reader questions a lame, ignorant, contemptuous or humorless comment posted by one of the regulars he/she gets booted off. HaHa, talk about morally and ethically challenged mods. Apparently censorship is their friend.

But back to my rant…so many of us accuse other fan bases of everything negative under the sun, yet we Longhorn bloggers, for the most part, are as bad as any other fan base I’ve seen. The personal, mean-spirited, clueless, and classless manner in which Mack Brown, other coaches, ballers, Bill Powers and nearly everything Longhorn is often attacked, is embarrassing to those of us who have spent a long time supporting our university, in good and bad times. There can be no doubt that Mack, et al. have worked hard and with their very best intentions to provide to the university an athletic program second to none. That bloggers (because they can) personally disparage such people with ferocity and anger simply because won/loss records are not up to expectations speaks volumes about their intelligence, education, and upbringing although that certainly doesn’t deter them.

My daughter has told me more than once, “Posters in chat rooms are mostly stupid.” Unfortunately, she was right and I was wrong, since I naively believed that most UT alumni might fall outside of that unfortunate truth.

Yes, I am disheartened and long for the days when we all worked together for everyone’s benefit, when we could talk without yelling, compliment rather than berate, and support our neighbors, communities, and institutions without the need to express the incessant anger and vitriol that seems all too common today. Fellow alumni, dial it back a bit and remember that those you disparage so easily and with such ferocity are not your enemies. On the contrary, they are working as hard as they can toward the very same goal that you and every other Longhorn want – and they do it with class, dignity and respect.

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