Austin Journalist Seemingly Wanted Longhorns’ Bus to Run Over Texas Tech Fans
Monday night, the Texas Longhorns showed up at the United Supermarkets Arena for a shootaround. Normally, that wouldn't be a big deal, but with Raiderville in attendance the opposing bus rolling in made for a couple of tense moments.
First, when the team walked into the arena there was some light taunting from about 50 feet away. The Texas players kept their heads down and mostly ignored the Texas Tech fans while police officers stood around making sure things didn't go awry.
After the shootaround, Texas Tech fans surrounded the lane where the bus pulled in and showered more NSFW chants ("F*** UT") down on Chris Beard and his new team. Not the chant I would have led, but harmless for the most part. They're just words, right?
After the crowd amassed and the players returned to the bus, a few Texas players stuck their necks out and waved to the crowd in wonderment as if they'd never seen so many fans in one place before.
As the bus backed out of the parking lot, some Texas Tech fans took the opportunity to talk directly to Coach Beard, who was in the front seat of the bus. An important note here is that the bus is parked in a place where it seems like the plan was always to back out. Texas Tech fans weren't in the way of the bus pulling forward.
Here's a look from inside the bus as radio announcer Craig Way apologizes for any robust language from Texas Tech students outside the bus, while a voice can be heard from inside the bus yells something to the effect of, "run their asses over." You can't make this up. Watch:
It might not have been a player who yelled it inside the bus; we'll never know. But we do know with 100-percent certainty that Austin American-Statesman journalist Cedric Golden later tweeted how nice it was of the bus driver to put it in reverse because "he had options."
One of the "options" being insinuated is to drive forward and just run over Texas Tech students for chanting dirty words...right? Here's Golden's tweet:
I mean, a group of colleagues that want people to stay classy surely wouldn't be calling for a bus to run over a group of people.
And they surely wouldn't be calling an entire group of people trash over this. Oh, wait.
I'd miss the mark here if I didn't add that Coach Mark Adams wants everyone to act responsibly tonight at the game.
I'm not saying that either fanbase is in the right here, but the Austin media getting on their high horse like Texas Tech and Lubbock are the bottom of the barrel from the ivory tower in Austin is just so played out at this point. The Austin American-Statesman having two journos tweeting both "stay classy" and suggesting the UT bus driver should run over fans because they said mean things is a microcosm of the hypocrisy that goes on every time these two teams play.
Texas Tech fans get passionate about the rivalry, while Texas gets passionate about how much of a rivalry it isn't. One Longhorns fan went as far as trying to co-opt Texas Tech fans' passion as a positive for Texas because the Longhorns brand is so compelling that it packs arenas.
That might be true in football in the football program over the last decade, but Raiderville is packed because of Chris Beard, so don't feel too special. The extreme UT hate is a by-product of Beard leaving Lubbock for Austin.
Plenty of fans also pointed out how if Texas packed arenas around the country, why can't they pack their own?
Texas Tech fans are understandably angry about Chris Beard and how he left Texas Tech. I hope those people can express their frustrations tonight and get it all out of their systems so we can focus on the Red Raiders for the remainder of the season instead of the circus surrounding Chris Beard's return to his alma mater.