Why Your University Sucks: University Of Texas

Dan Regester10 years ago

Many people are students at the University of Texas. But many, many more people are NOT students at the University of Texas. This column is for those in the latter group.

Your school:

University of Texas. Horns up!

The eyes of Texas were not upon this overeager Obama-masked student. Can’t be bringing a foam sword to a bus fight, kid. You lose that battle ten times out of ten. This must be how ESPN feels every day after dropping $300,000,000 on the Longhorn Network and looking at the ratings four years in. Yes, UT students, alumni, and impassioned t-shirt fans, your time has come. Not that any of you will pay any mind to it. You’re most likely too busy stroking yourselves off to 2005 Rose Bowl highlights.

Your undergraduate population:

40,000 of the most pretentious, delusional people you’ll ever meet. Vince Young is not walking through that door any time soon, guys. Well, actually, he might. He doesn’t really have anything else going on at the moment other than serving up a mediocre steak and banking on his name for the rest of his life.

Apparently UT doesn’t do homecoming, because according to a former intern of ours, every game is homecoming. Just let that marinate in your brain for a few seconds.

Your mascot:

Bevo. Rest his soul. Doctors say Bevo went out peacefully in his sleep after succumbing to Bovine Leukemia, but we know better than that. Don’t feed me that docile creature nonsense. Bevo had a drug problem. No longhorn is that naturally relaxed at all times. Staring down an under .500 season, it was apparent that the Texas mascot was spiraling deeper and deeper into depression. Some thought an unexpected Oklahoma win could save this troubled cow from his own demise, but it was too little too late and he ultimately paid the price for his addiction.

Your spirit song:

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
All the livelong day.

Ah, cute. It’s sung to the tone of “I’ve Been Working On The Railroad.” That was a fire jam when I was five. Let’s see where this goes.

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
You cannot get away.

That wasn’t the turn I was expecting. Kind of uncomfortable now actually.

Do not think you can escape them
At night or early in the morn —

Oh, God! That got dark, real fast.

The Eyes of Texas are upon you
Til Gabriel blows his horn.

That’s rape, Gabriel. At the very least it’s public indecency. Get your filthy eyes off me.

Your campus:

That lovely area in the video at the top of this column is known as “The Drag” and it’s a staple of the beautiful western side of the University of Texas campus. The name really captures its shanty town like ambience, and students are treated to a workout hurdling over the homeless corpses that litter the sidewalks if they so choose to walk back from the bars on 6th Street. On occasion, the exercise can become more challenging if a hobo becomes startled. Nothing caps off the night quite like getting shanked by a cracked out vagabond and his trusty tetanus riddled rod.

If you’re looking for something more serene, head over to the turtle pond across from the UT Tower — the very spot where fourteen people were gruesomely gunned down by a psychotic, heavily trained sniper fifty years ago.

Your tradition:

Rolling out a 500-pound, radioactively contaminated drum for halftime performances with the band. Seriously. This behemoth goes by the name of Big Bertha and it was just sitting under the bleachers at the University of Chicago during the Manhattan Project. You know, where we developed a fucking nuke. Some genius from UT decided to purchase this thing for a dollar in 1955.

“It’ll be fine. Just have the freshmen hose it down or something.”

I’m not even joking. That’s probably how it went down because it wasn’t until 1980 that a Kappa Kappa Psi pledge class scraped off and decontaminated the damn thing of decades of toxic paint. Come for the “Public Ivy” education, leave with Acute Radiation Syndrome.

Your athletics:

With such a massive fan base, the football experience leaves much to be desired. Forget the garbage product on the field now, it’s still light years ahead of the entire game day atmosphere. Fans get there in the second quarter and leave in the third. Stand up and cheer too loud and some crinkly ball sack will demand you quiet down. Tailgating around anywhere remotely close to the stadium is virtually impossible, and most of it is done on West Campus, which, we’ve already established, requires you to go through Hooverville slums — ideally without contracting hepatitis.

Are Texas fans even aware they have a basketball program? I get that they just dropped some serious cash for Shaka Smart, but could the average UT student locate the Frank Erwin Center on a map?

Only two and half months until baseball season.

Why you might not suck:

Bar scene with 6th and Rainey, your Greek system, your baseball team, and the least important factor in everyone’s collegiate decision: the actual education.

Notable alumni:

Walter Cronkite, Jeb Bush, Roger Clemens, McConaughey, Owen Wilson, and Jon Hamm before he set a pledge on fire. Jordan Spieth and Michael Dell were there for all of five minutes, too. Oh, and this guy.

Of course that’s how Wes Anderson claps.

From the horse’s mouth:

Kyle

In February 2013 Texas AD Deloss Dodds reassured Texas faithful upset with their sinking football program that, “Our bad years are not that bad. Take a school like Missouri. Our bad years are better than their good years. But we’ve created a standard.” Since that quote Texas has not had a better year than Missouri in football.

Justin

I’m glad we decided to hire a defensive minded coach in a conference that requires you to score 50. I’m not even sure Charlie Strong could name all 11 offensive positions.

Gary

There’s only like three campus bars. If you go out you’re expected to go to “Cain & Abel’s” or fucking downtown. If it isn’t Thursday, downtown is full of disgusting cretins.

Steve

Austin, as a town, is by far the most overrated “hip” spot in the country. You can pretend it’s full of culture but it has, at best, 10 blocks of culture and then the rest of it is just shitty old Texas. There is no campus burger spot. Sure, “Dirty Martin’s” is a fan-favorite but the food there is made of cardboard.

Tom

We act like being an alumnus of UT is the same as being from an old money oil family. For all our power, influence and money, we can’t recruit a football team, much less a quarterback, to save our fucking lives.

Harry

UT has a ridiculous top-ten percent rule. 4.0 GPA students with high SAT scores from high-achieving high schools can’t get in if they place 41st out of a graduating class of 409. But some moron from Linden, Texas can get in with test scores half as high as long as they actually finish in the top-ten percent of their shitty, science-denying high school.

Alex

I look at photos of all the other cool college campuses I got into with beautiful grassy quads and I look at UT’s campus and shudder. We maybe have an acre of grass total on the whole campus.

Want to be part of the next school review? Just email me at dan@totalfratmove.com and give me ample evidence of why your school sucks: personal anecdotes, tribulations with the administration, etc. I’ll throw any good material into the post and give you proper credit. Next up: Arizona State