On the day he was launched as Texas’ soccer coach, Steve Sarkisian dived into the controversy that swamped his predecessor, Tom Herman, promising that not solely would his gamers sing the college tune after video games, they’d do it “proudly.”
Six months earlier than his first sport, Sark is about to name his first audible.
He’s additionally about to be schooled on the politics of Texas soccer.
God assist him.
Seems his gamers gained’t must sing “The Eyes of Texas” in any case. Jay Hartzell, college president, says so, based mostly on suggestions from a 58-page report compiled after months of analysis by a committee made up of college, alumni, college students and apparently few, if any, of the offended donors scared up in a current Texas Tribune story.
Amongst different issues, the committee was charged with figuring out whether or not the college tune was rooted in racist undertones typically and, particularly, if it debuted in blackface at a 1903 Austin minstrel present.
The decision: “Likely, sure.”
Although the committee discovered “no racist intent” in lyrics or supply, the blackface origin is “a painful actuality,” the report states, and the committee is “pained and uncomfortable with this side of its historical past.” However not so uncomfortable that it really helpful eradicating it as the college tune. For one factor, the committee had no such possibility at its disposal. Hartzell dominated final summer season that “The Eyes” would stay. Should you thought committee members would have felt like they’d had the rug pulled out from below them earlier than they began, assume once more.
Wealthy Reddick, affiliate dean for fairness, neighborhood engagement and outreach for the college’s school of schooling, stated having to resolve whether or not to maintain the college tune would have been a “deal-breaker” for many of the committee members.
Had the proof been egregious sufficient, Hartzell stated, he may need “revisited” his place. He didn’t sound convincing, although. The interim tag on his title might have simply been eliminated in September, however he’s been on campus for 20 years and earned his doctorate at Texas. He is aware of the lay of the land, which helps when in retreat.
Sarkisian will be taught this lesson, too, after falling into an early entice. Had he talked to Herman first, he may need averted it altogether.
Herman failed at Texas for a variety of causes, notably his incapacity to win a Huge 12 title and restore the Longhorns to their lengthy misplaced glory. However don’t underestimate the impact of “The Eyes.” Ever since Texas gamers protested the homicide of George Floyd final spring and Herman yielded to their requests to sit down out the college tune, the feelings of highly effective alumni and donors had simmered. They boiled over final fall on the sight of Sam Ehlinger on the ground of the Cotton Bowl, singing “The Eyes” all by his lonesome.
Had the Longhorns crushed OU, it may need been a distinct story. Nevertheless it grew to become a flashpoint and the start of Herman’s finish.
We all know this due to the tone of Sarkisian’s response in January when requested at his introductory information convention if his gamers would sing the college tune. Why react so emphatically to such a seemingly innocuous query? As a result of somebody highly effective instructed you to take action, that’s why.
Sarkisian in all probability figured he’d handled the state of affairs Herman mishandled, and that was that. Little did he know. Confront a difficulty at Texas, and it blows up in your face.
Over the past 40-plus years, I’ve coated loads of school sports activities in Texas. No different athletic program on this state makes as many headlines which have so little to do with athletics. Critics prefer to say it’s the character of a faculty based mostly in Austin, and that’s a part of it. However the crux of it’s, it’s an enormous college with an enormous alumni base, and all people thinks she or he is in cost.
Of all Texas’ soccer coaches since Darrell Royal, solely Mack Brown was geared up to deal with the whole lot required of a coach outdoors precise soccer. Sarkisian might have been a head coach at USC and Washington, however he solely thought he knew what he was stepping into.
As a result of right here’s the underside line: Regardless of how onerous the committee tried to inform a narrative of how “The Eyes” grew from a doubtful lark to a “reverential hymn” and even a tune of protest, some athletes will resent that it’s nonetheless the college tune. In the meantime, loads of hardliners might be livid that gamers gained’t be required to face and sing the college tune as custom dictates.
Mainly, aside from a colourful 58-page historical past, we’re proper again the place we began.
“Opinions will nonetheless differ,” Hartzell stated, attempting to place a cheerful face on it, “and that’s OK.”
You’d prefer to assume so, however that’s not the world we stay in anymore. Perhaps it by no means was. It wasn’t and isn’t at Texas. Good luck with that, Sark.
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