I want to start this by saying I hope any Texans who swore to stop reading after that last post will break their vow to read this, where I (hopefully) make up for it by extolling the virtues of one of its native sons.  

The incomparable, impetuous, impassioned, irrational, impulsive and slightly insane (man I love alliteration!) Drew Tate. 

The understatement of the year: he’s a bit emotional 

The second understatement of the year: he’s important to the Hawks 

I swear on all I hold dear to me that he will give me a heart attack one day- maybe even before he gives himself one.  He’s just so damned excitable!  He should care, he should get pissed when things go wrong and enjoy it when things go right.  And then forget about it!  He needs to control himself, while letting go of past, then he’ll control the ball better and make better decisions. 

He’s not dumb, by any means.  He grew up with football on the brain.  He grew up in Texas for fuck’s sake.  Texas is football.  So don’t tell me he doesn’t know pressure, or what happens when you don’t forget what happened last time. 

He is, by far, the most valuable player on the team.  On any team in fact.  Without him, we are lost.  He leads us; his emotion drives us to greater and greater heights, just to drop us to the ground, like last year.  He’s our greatest strength and our Achilles’ Heal.  It’s a lot of pressure, maybe that’s why he’s so damned fragile. 

Sure, I get emotional about football.  I scream for blood at the TV, I rant about steroids, I rave about great plays, I probably invest a little too much of myself into this stuff. 

But I don’t call the plays, I don’t read defenses and I sure as hell do not throw the damn ball!  Drew Tate does and so, I will say, as I have said since his sophomore year- “if he’d just settle down for two freaking minutes and listen to his instincts he’d be awesome” 

-and what does he do?  All hope is lost in the sunny land of Florida, at the 2005 Capitol One Bowl.  The LSU Tigers (reining champs) have our Hawks by the balls and Drew Tate, the most miserable man in town finally gives up, settles down, listens to his instincts and throws an unbelievable pass.  A game winning pass.  The Hawks have conquered the once and forgotten tigers.  All is good in the world. 

My heart stopped for a full minute.  I have a beautiful framed picture of the moment.  We can have the glory again- Tate can have that glory again. 

This Saturday, at 7:00PM Central Standard Time we have our chance. 

Chandler, Schlicher, Young, Sims, Shada- Tate  

These young men have the power, in the awesome force of their talent, drive and the greatest coach in college football- to overcome the odds and beat the EVIL Ohio State Buckeyes. 

I have a dream ladies and gents- oh do I have a dream.  The dejected face of Troy Smith, the tears of Antonio Pittman…. oh it is sweet. 

Has everyone heard about the tragic misuse of field trips in Texas?  They actually let 5th graders view ancient works of smut!  Nude people!  In an Art museum!  I am appalled! Disgusted!  Distraught!
 Um, no.
Disgust doesn’t even come close to my steaming pile of righteous indignation.  Ms. McGee should sue the shit out of the Fisher school system.  Interfering with her right to do her job, censorship, hypocrisy, being stupid,  I don’t know, we should create laws just so she can sue them some more.
Click to read the whole story. 
Teaching children that the human body is shameful, dirty or bad is perpetuating the terrible rash of low self esteem, body dysphoria and obsessive guilt that pervades this country.  I’m not going to tell a person how to raise their children, but to create such a nervous, hysterical environment in the public schools is a crime.
Not the least of the issues that this brings up is sexism.  Girls’ breasts are ‘bad’, but boys should have strong sculpted pecs and show them off at the beach or truck pulls.  Looking a male without a shirt is just fine, but anyone who looks at a topless woman is always sexual and just a little ‘wrong.’  And god forbid a woman takes her top off, what a slut. 
The moral of this story?  Texas is again showing the world that is Americans are backwards, insane, oversensitive and completely stupid.  I wish the rest of the country was beacon of logic and civility to prove this one sad exception wrong, but  we have TWICE elected the epitome of everything wrong with this country, so I don’t see much hope for proving Texas wrong. 
I’m with the Dixie Chicks- this incident, along with so, so many others- makes me ashamed to be an American in this day and age. 
 
(And yes, I realize that this tirade against Texas is hypocritical- one school board and one(or two) citizens in the public eye should not be representative of the state, nor its population, as a whole.  Just like Texas shouldn’t represent America as a whole.  BUT- between the current administration and various entertainment industries such as sports, music, TV, and a hundred other things, Texas is portrayed everywhere as an example of Real America (Wild West, Sports are everything, Cowboys, ‘We don’t need no book learnin,’, etc.) , and I don’t like what that says about our country.  That’s all I’m saying.)