In our series SEC Connections, we take a look at coincidences, partnerships and parallels between The University of Texas at Austin and our sister schools in the Southeastern Conference. This week, a school that needs no introduction, Texas A&M University.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Where to start with this one? Isaac and Esau. William and Harry. Venus and Serena. Sibling rivalries can get intense. But at the end of the day, there\u2019s no denying we\u2019re family.<\/p>\n
Texas and Texas A&M are more than siblings; they\u2019re basically conjoined twins who were separated at birth by Texas politicians in the late 19th century, and despite their cultural differences, they have never been far apart.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Did you know that before UT settled on its school colors, one scheme under consideration was orange and maroon?<\/p>\n
And even after 13 years in different conferences, the tribal memory of generations has reasserted itself, and the good-natured mutual disdain is back like nothing ever happened. No other university, not even the despised OU, is mentioned by name in the official lyrics of UT\u2019s fight song: \u201cAnd it\u2019s goodbye to A&M.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Aggie War Hymn reciprocates by including \u201cGood-bye to texas university \/ So long to the orange and the white.\u201d Written in 1918 while its composer sat in a trench in France, its original title was actually \u201cGoodbye to Texas University.\u201d Aggies link arms and legs and sway left to right to \u201csaw varsity\u2019s horns off.\u201d And on it goes.<\/p>\n
Other rivalries may ebb and flow for both universities, but these lyrics tells us who the top rival \u2014 the eternal rival \u2014 is and ever will be.<\/p>\n
Love knows no boundaries, and when lovers unite in marriage across taboo lines, like a Montague and a Capulet, suddenly there are \u201chouses divided\u201d on game day. But battle lines can be generational too. Married alums of one school regularly have children who rebel and attend the other: When the offspring of a Longhorn couple aspires to be a veterinarian, little can be done.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the high school-aged children of friends announce their decision to turn to the dark side and head east, or west, depending on your allegiance, we respond in measured tones: \u201cWell \u2026 it\u2019s a good school \u2026 for some things,\u201d a grudging, understated acknowledgement of the truth that both schools are great at most everything. When a photo on social media shows that these children or godchildren have arrived in Fish Camp or at Camp Texas and donned the rival colors, we politely \u201clike\u201d the photo, but we do not \u201clove\u201d it. We all have our limits.<\/p>\n
But of course there is more to our proximity than just sports and ribbing. There has been collaboration in countless areas, and support in times of sorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In our series SEC Connections, we take a look at coincidences, partnerships and parallels between The University of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1086,3618,447,33030,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-62861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-campus","tag-college-of-natural-sciences","tag-community","tag-school-of-nursing","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}