Banner photo from Hyde Park Photography - hpp

The road to fandom is exhausting and wonderful, with highs, lows, joy, and crying all on display during a season.

The Longhorn family unit begins at the Marriage

ECHOING MARRIAGE VOWS, “REAL” FANS PLEDGE, PERHAPS UNWITTINGLY AT THE OUTSET, TO STAND BY THEIR TEAM IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH.

Unlike many marriages, Longhorn fans and their relationship with UT rarely end in divorce. Loyalty is the crucial ingredient for life as Longhorn fans vow single-minded devotion.

MOST OF THE YOUNG FANS START THEIR JOURNEY TO THE LONGHORN NATION ON THE SHOULDERS OF FAMILIES AND SPORTS HEROES.

The three photos below capture defining moments of young boys’ blood turning burnt orange.

The two images below are iconic and symbolic of where Longhorn fan loyalty begins- in our youth. The boy on Bill Atessis's shoulder is Longhorn Karl Hanner’s son Tiger Hanner. Tiger says, “FYI—I’m the kid sitting on Bill’s shoulders. The photo was taken in the final moments of Texas’ 1970 win over Arkansas.” The other photo is of Tiger with his mom and dad holding a replica of Chris Gilberts helmet #25.

In the photo below, there is no way that this young boy’s family photo could be anything but the Captain of the 1908 Longhorn football team.

NFL pro and Longhorn football player Aaron Williams said as a adolence, he was invited into the Texas Locker room and met Roy Williams, Cedric Benson, Vince Young, and many others. He was hooked on Horns with memories savored in indelible ink.

Longhorn fans are emotional risk-takers

Many important factors bond individuals to the Longhorn nation, but the family unit is the primary building block. In our youth, a sense of identity is absorbed from family ties. Teaching a 3-year-old how to say Hook’em with a hand gesture pays lifetime dividends. Sprinkle in the right amount of attendance at Longhorn sporting events, reciting Longhorn folklore, myths, and legends, and the child will sprout Horns.

Who cares if the stories told by family members depict the players as god-like instead of earthly mortals? The end justifies the means when building a Longhorn fan from the ground up.

Exhibiting Bizarre Behavior before, during, and after a Longhorn sporting event is the key to Longhorn fandom.

A sports fan’s passion leads to a hard-wired defense mechanism that denies defeat. Loyal fans always find a million reasons they lost, but no fans admit the other team was better.

Real Longhorn fans exhibit highly abnormal behaviors before, during, and after a Longhorn game incorporating personal rituals into game-day events. True Longhorn fans display no inhibitions after a vital Longhorn score shedding tears of joy while hugging, kissing, and high-fiving people they don't know.

Horn fans and players come in all shapes and sizes, all “nestled” together to form the Longhorn Nation.

It is in the sports arena that fans and players merge as one.

If you reach adulthood without a family instilled Horn education, the road to Longhorn fandom is much more difficult. First, you must learn Longhorn chants, songs, sports history, traditions, culture, and heritage that separates you from the faux and/or fair-weather Longhorn fans.

You can't simply walk into DKR, Moody, Disch-Falk, Jamail Swimming Center, or  Mike A. Myers Stadium and be ordained a Longhorn fan. You have to earn the right to the title “Longhorn fan” and enter the arena as a player.   Longhorn sports arenas are sacred facilities -holy grounds that enshrine special moments in Longhorn sports history. The stadiums are the battlegrounds where fans and players merge into one burnt-orange spirit to celebrate the past, cheer the present, and empower the future.      

HORNS 🤘 up! Eyes 👀 UP!

THE ENDURANCE OF KINDNESS

by Larry Carlson

Hero worship is loosely defined as excessive admiration for someone.

Most of us, as kids, had heroes in sports or music or movies.  Or all of those.

Nothing wrong with it.  

But how many of us got to break through that sometimes impenetrable wall between the worshiper and the hero?  Some of us got autographs requested through mail, hopefully actually signed by the source of adulation.  A fortunate few flat out smashed down the fourth wall and made real, person-to-hero contact.

One of my terrific great nephews, Elliot, just savored a Longhorn baseball season to remember  -- following, very closely, UT's Big XII champions.  His dad, Wade, one of my two nephews who have always been more like my little brothers, had for the second straight spring, purchased season tickets for wife, Cathryne, teenaged daughter Lucia, Elliot and himself.  They sat down low in very shallow right field, the better for

Elliot to keep watch over his heroes, especially during their pre-game rituals.

I like to think that fandom/hero worship runs in the blood.  Daddy passed it to me, I passed it to Chad and Wade via toddler Longhorn gear and "Hook 'em" schooling, and now they've both passed it on to their respective sons, Jones and Elliot.  I'll give Jones a pass for having attended TCU this year as a freshman.

I mean, he brought those Frogs some luck.  National runner-up in football and College World Series along with a killer tennis team.  But I'm about to tell you of Elliot's "excellent adventure" with UT baseball of '23.

Which brings me back to Elliot, my Longhorn-loving great nephew.  Not only did he perform well in a rousing spring season for his baseball team, the Cardinals (shortstop, catcher and pitcher are his favorite positions), he attended more than thirty Texas home games at the Disch.   Always busy cheering the players during warm-ups, he yelled their names and then savored fist bumps and high fives from a classy bunch of Longhorns only a decade removed from their own days of admiring baseball standouts from the stands.

Fist bumps aren't all Elliot collected.  He harvested more than forty (!) foul balls, giving a few away to other kids in the stands.  But he kept thirty-eight.  Most of 'em are now signed. He got batting gloves from one of his favorites, catcher Rylan Galvan, and Preston Hoffart.

"He (Hoffart) warms up the pitchers in the bullpen," Elliot explains to me.  An extra thrill for the second grader was to receive an unsolicited batting glove from Kam Constantine.  The backup first baseman brought the prize out from the dugout and jogged over to present it to the kid he'd seen and exchanged greetings with so many times.

Wade puffed up with pride when he recalled that he and Elliot encountered right fielder Dylan Campbell's folks at Mi Madre's on Manor Road, where Longhorn fans were taking a break during a staggered double header against San Jose State.  "Your son is so cute and he's such a gentleman," Mrs. Campbell told Wade. 

I asked Elliot to name his favorite UT players.  Instantly, he reeled off a roll call:  "Charlie Hurley, Porter Brown, Tanner Witt, Dylan Campbell, Lucas Gordon, Rylan Galvan..."

"He likes 'em all," Wade smiled, adding that Elliot has as many favorites among the backups as he does with the starters.  

Why?  Because they have all been amused, maybe amazed, at the fervor and faithfulness of this fan who just turned eight in late April.  Wade and Elliot ventured to Fort Worth and Waco for road games, and Longhorn baseball players were pleased to see the blond kid in his Texas jersey and cap, perched again near where the Horns warmed up.  "You made it up here, Elliot," Wade recalled several players addressing the young fan by name.  He was also sometimes called, "Little E" by Hurley, the 6-8 Californian who closed out the championship clinching game with co-champ West Virginia.

I asked my great nephew what it was about Hurley that earned him the exalted top rung as favorite player.

"He's always kind to me," Elliot said, sounding like a little adult.  "He's a good dude," he added, sounding more like the teenager he is not.  

After Texas fell flat in the Big XII tournament, they limped home to Austin and soon found they would have to head west to face Stanford in a super regional.  Before they traveled, the Steers tuned up for the fresh opportunity and Elliot convinced his Dad to take him to Disch-Falk so he could await the players exiting to the parking lot, post-practice.  "Little E" rejoiced as the players trickled out to their trucks, one or two at a time.  High fives, hellos, fist bumps and some more autographs, for the umpteenth time.

At last, Charlie Hurley, Elliot's favorite, emerged.  He chatted with the kid for a few seconds, then told him to hold on for a few minutes.  The transfer from Southern Cal retreated into the catacombs of Disch-Falk.

When he returned, he handed Elliot the absolute prize souvenir of '23 or a lifetime.  It was one of Hurley's shoes.  Size 14, with cleats.  I was treated to a Facetime chat with show and tell from father and son after that one.

Like legions of Longhorn baseball fans, I watched all three games of the Stanford super regional.

As we all know now, it ended in shattered dreams from a Twilight Zone episode.  Twilight.  Really.

A ball lost in the gloaming, a season gone in darkness.  A reminder that baseball can be very cruel.

Wade called me later, telling me that both Elliot and Lucia cried.  "I almost joined 'em," he continued, in a futile effort to smile.

Ten days later, Wade could put it all in perspective.  "I'll never forget this season," he said, reminded of the sheer glee his family regularly felt from the baseball action and interaction with players who appreciated their fans.  "I don't think Elliot will ever forget it, either."  For now, he'll have to do without his in-game dining ritual.  "I have sweet tea, a hot dog, sometimes popcorn, and then Skittles," Elliot testifies.

Sounds like the four major food groups for a baseball-loving kid.

Elliot can recite OPS stats and knew every jersey number on the squad.  His sister, Lucia, 14, hit me with a truckload of "inside baseball" UT stats when I saw her at another family get-together last month.

Her Dad informed me that she was more than crestfallen when shortstop Mitchell Daly, the object of one of Lucia's crushes, entered the postseason portal and transferred to Kentucky.

But youth sprouts optimism and the wisdom that can accompany it.  When I asked Elliot what he's looking forward to this summer, the answer was quick and easy.  "Longhorn baseball camp in July," he beamed.

Said Wade: "He already can't wait till the Alumni Game."  Well, mid-winter will be here before you know it.

This whole baseball chapter reminded me that there's nothing like Father/Son/Family appreciation of sports.  Bonds are formed that can never be diminished.  And the thoughtfulness of players who wisely understand that they are, indeed, held as role models by youngsters, goes a long, long way to indelibly etch memories.

Fans Express their loyalty to the Longhorn brand.