Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

[IronBuckI]

I think the word culture was used regarding both.

Then I agree with your disagreement.

Every fanbase is teeming with douchebags. I've found that Texas' fanbase has about the same ratio as Ohio State's fanbase.

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

And really, the reason I am including Texas A&M in this is to grease the politcal machine. While I am sure we can grab Texas by itself, but if we start thinking 14 teams, why not TAMU versus Nebraska or Missouri? It smooths over the Texas state government, it gives Texas a natural rival plus TAMU is pretty decent in most sports. (plus Texas now only needs to schedule Oklahoma as their one OOC rival versus having to schedule both)

Piney, I've thought about A&M too. I question their ability to offset transportation costs--however. Plus, A&M would simply be to appease UT otherwise adding them does absolutely nothing for us that Texas wouldn't plus some.

you let a&m in and you'll get grease in places you didn't expect to find grease.

the man knows what he is talking about. you almost have to live here to believe it.

the ags know they are out there. they have a saying--they have lots of sayings--that makes them feel ok about that. something like: from the outside you can't understand it, and from the inside you can't explain it.

from our angle, it's like having a funny uncle that the family puts up with but outsiders have a hard time understanding. you grow up knowing that things are just going to go kind of weird with that individual but it's hard to imagine him any other way.

believe me, you don't want to get involved.

I've seen from a distance enough of Aggie being Aggie. I want no part of a closer view.

 

[Woody1968]

Then I agree with your disagreement.

Every fanbase is teeming with douchebags. I've found that Texas' fanbase has about the same ratio as Ohio State's fanbase.

I did not mean to imply Texas or A&M have DB fans. That's not what I think at all. What I mean to say is that Texas is in the South, which is culturally different than the midwest, and that affects the way a team may fit into the conference.

 

[Woody1968]

And pretty good hoops and lacrosse teams! And usually a pretty good wrestling team . . . although perhaps not by the ridiculously high standards of the Big Ten.

Gotta pimp one of my other alma maters

And their athletic programs would only be stronger if freed from the Ivy League ban on athletic scholorships. Seriously, they are a Land Grant University, even though private, and they have a very powerful academic reputation for Graduate and Undergraduate programs and research, as well as being in a state immediately next to a Big 10 state. Plus there are a lot of Cornell alums in NY/NJ (Their Med School is actually in NYC). They also are kind of the odd man out in the Ivy League, so it might be possible to steal them away...

 

[IronBuckI]

I did not mean to imply Texas or A&M have DB fans. That's not what I think at all. What I mean to say is that Texas is in the South, which is culturally different than the midwest, and that affects the way a team may fit into the conference.

Ah, I see, says the blind man.

I guess my opnion on this is that Wisconsin and Minnesota might as well be Canadian. So why not add a southern team to the mix?

 

[Woody1968]

Ah, I see, says the blind man.

I guess my opnion on this is that Wisconsin and Minnesota might as well be Canadian. So why not add a southern team to the mix?

I would go with Iowa as the most different, culturally. All the other states in the conference are somewhat industrial. I drove through Iowa once...Nothing but farms that grow corn from the Nebraska border to the Illinois border, and Des Moines was the only town of note.

 

[DaveyBoy]

I would go with Iowa as the most different, culturally. All the other states in the conference are somewhat industrial. I drove through Iowa once...Nothing but farms that grow corn from the Nebraska border to the Illinois border, and Des Moines was the only town of note.

You really didn't capture the true flavor of Iowa. Cedar Rapids is it.....we call it the City of Five Smells. Depending upon the day you visit CR, you may smell the General Mills' plant producing Count Chocula, Cap'n Crunch, BooBerry, Strawberry Cap'n Crunch, or Plain Cheerios.

 

[MaxBuck]

I did not mean to imply Texas or A&M have DB fans. That's not what I think at all. What I mean to say is that Texas is in the South, which is culturally different than the midwest, and that affects the way a team may fit into the conference.

Texas is most certainly not in the South. Texas is in Texas.

Seriously.

 

[glenn]

wow. great questions and commentary.

a neighbor lady had a very serious heart attack several days ago, and i've been at the hospital with her husband and then by my son's inlaws place a while.

it will take me a while to get my head around all this, but i will and will offer some 50 cent opinions from my perspective.

great stuff.

oh,the lady? she's tough as a boot and is out of the coma and cracking jokes. i've had my xmas present.

 

[glenn]

Texas is most certainly not in the South. Texas is in Texas.

Seriously.

first this.

max is absolutely right. texas is much more a western state than a southern state. far east texas, especially bordering louisiana, may well be southern in nature, but way more than most of the state is not at all southern in nature. it's western.

that said, a lot of early texas was settled by southerners, but that's true all the way to california.

texas did get caught up in the confederacy--i have no clue how that happened--but a great many were opposed to it.

some years ago i worked a project in nashville and lived down near franklin, some twenty miles south. late in the war there was a battle in and around franklin, and many confederate dead were buried on the grounds of a nearby plantation next to the family graveyard.

the numbers were so great that mass graves were necessary. in true southern style the dead were partitioned by state and buried in separate mass graves along a path which led up the hill to the family site at the hilltop. each state had a stone marker telling the state name and how many dead were there. small rectangular stone stakes were pushed into the ground in a grid over the mass grave, and each stone stood for one person. sometimes a family which knew that a relative was buried somewhere in one of those big graves etched the initials of the deceased into the flat top of one of the stakes. often next to one of the initialed stakes stood a little flag. i assumed it had been left by a relative.

then at the larger stone, the state stone, there would be a little collection of flags. mementos left by persons from that state, i would assume.

going up the hill i passed one state on the left and another on the right all the way up, the states with the least dead first and the two with most dead up at the top, next to the family plots. texas and tennessee had the most dead.

of course, you know the little flags were the confederate battle flag, the 'stars and bars' until . . .


. . . you got to the top. on the left--tennessee--they were the stars and bars, and on the right--texas--they were the lone star flag.

that tells you what you need to know about that.

 

[Woody1968]

Texas is most certainly not in the South. Texas is in Texas.

Seriously.

Tell that to Ernie Davis.

 

[Mike80]

Tell that to Ernie Davis.

There are racist assholes in Oregon too, does that make it the south as well?

Texas isn't anymore in the south as Virginia is in the Canadian Maritimes.....

 

[Woody1968]

There are racist assholes in Oregon too, does that make it the south as well?

Texas isn't anymore in the south as Virginia is in the Canadian Maritimes.....

It isn't about racism. Texas is most definately a southern state, in fact, it was one of the most southern states in the union until north easterners and midwesterners started settling there in the late 70s. Even then, most of them were met with "Yankee, go home," and were harrassed by the police departments in Houston and other east texas towns where they went to look for work after many of the steel and other industrial plants closed up here.

 

[glenn]

ernie davis. what a sad story. wouldn't it have great if he had gotten to play alongside brown? i'm not sure their opponents would have been that crazy about it. that is such an ugly disease. why can't they crack the really ugly ones?

i was through elmira last year and stopped off there to take some pictures in that cemetery. besides davis, mark twain and his wife's family are there. hal roach. beautiful place, and i got some nice shots. i submitted a very nice one of davis' headstone to find-a-grave, and even though submittals were closed for his grave at that time with only one pretty poor pic (shot by the owner of the website-ernie's headstone isn't warped!) a lady there added mine to the site. i had quite a number of pics on that site from around the country, but when i alerted them in a way they couldn't ignore that they had some famous graves in texas in the wrong cemetery--in a cheesy nearby cemetery owned by a funeral home--i was suddenly no longer a member and everything i had put in was gone, including davis' pic. i had to wonder if that shot of davis' grave was a factor in that guy's anger. guess i'll never know.


racist assholes. for the past 20 years or so i have lived various places all over the country for extended periods, a couple of places approaching 2 years. i've worked assignments in seattle, savannah, wichita 3 times, long island 3 times, twice in nashville, fort worth, oshkosh, and windsor locks, ct twice and shelton, ct some 4 or 5 times.

the most racist people i encountered were not in georgia or tennessee or texas. they were in kansas and connecticut. connecticut was mild, but kansas the first time was vicious. nothing physical. just talk, but really ugly. in the workplace where people couldn't walk away from it. some guy complained about it and they sent him out to the factory. second time i worked there (same company) the r.a.'s were there but they whispered among themselves. i never did hear what shut them up.

50 years ago it wasn't common to hear a racist blurt out some stupid remark in my part of texas but it happened occasionally. probably the most common thing you would hear back then was something considered inappropriate today but was uttered in innocence and with no malice intended. i knew a few people back then who had ugly attitudes towards people they didn't know, but they were pretty rare, and they knew even then to shut up about that in public. about the only thing i ever heard that approached meanness was an occasional joke that would imply some failing on the part of a black person.

i hadn't heard anything like that in many years when i went to a party in the fort worth area. an old guy who lives across the street from us grew up in oklahoma, and his attitudes are still well in place. i never really heard anything much from him until that party. he was pretty well oiled and just had to tell me this joke. a few words in i could tell what the deal was and i tried to divert him. no, no, he wanted to tell his joke. i tried again to derail it and he came back to it again. now, this guy is a friend of mine, but the last time he started into the joke i blasted him. hard. told him i had no interest in listening to something like that. he swayed a little bit and blinked a couple of times. then, without telling the joke he blurted out the punch line and seemed satisfied.

now, i tell you where the ugly jokes were. connecticut. and not southerners working for a connecticut company. yeesh.

only racist joke i heard in the south was out on tybee island in coastal georgia. i was sitting at a bar, looking out over the beach at the atlantic when a guy at the bar told a moderately ugly joke. the room went quiet and i stirred my drink quietly. nobody laughed, and after a moment some guy walking past him paused and said he didn't think the joke was very funny.

times have changed. i think integration put a stop to a lot of that stuff. kids who grew up with good friends of several races just don't think that way anymore. there are a few boneheads now and then but they know that if they are smart they will keep it to themselves.

i remember when i was in austin there was a lebanese butcher downtown and his store was next door to a clothing store owned by a fellow who was jewish. my brother knew them and said they were good friends. austin is a town of many influences. most of texas is not like that, but austin reminds me of long island. even a texan can find acceptance in new york.

 

[glenn]

most southern state? used to be florida with texas close. now the most southern state is hawaii by a bunch.