Mixed Emotions

Mixed emotions are when your daughter comes home from the prom with a copy of the Gideon Bible. Or, apparently, when your two alma maters play football.

The anticipation of watching the Texas State Bobcats take on the University of Texas Longhorns has been building for months. As a graduate of both of these fine institutions, it was natural for people to ask me which team’s colors I was going to wear to the game.

Those people don’t know me that well.

I am proud of my UT education. The university granted me a graduate degree in business, a two-year vacation from real work, lifelong friends, and entrée to a successful professional career. It also gave me an opportunity to legitimately claim the Longhorns as my own whenever it suits me. It is a thrill to watch a contender for a national championship play in my backyard. As a good alumnus, UT has some of my money, but it doesn’t have my heart.

That belongs to Texas State.

I walked onto campus 42 years ago as a 17-year-old freshman and began the longest committed relationship of my life. I am a Bobcat through and through. Texas State changed my life, and I have been working to repay that debt for decades. One of my closest friends was killed my senior year, and we established a memorial scholarship in the wake of his passing. What began as an effort to remember a friend became one of the threads that kept pulling me back to San Marcos. The responsibility to return to campus each spring to announce the recipient kept me engaged in campus life.

More than four decades later, I think I have played every role I could possibly play on campus except maybe starting pitcher on the baseball team. In addition to teaching leadership for the past seventeen years and serving in numerous governance roles, we started the Stelos Alliance to award dozens of scholarships and fund student groups.

What team am I rooting for? Come on.

Texas State named me a Distinguished Alumnus last October. Showing up in burnt orange nine months later seems like a quick way to get the award rescinded.

And once the game kicked off, any supposed mixed emotions or divided loyalties completely disappeared. I was a pure partisan while the clock was ticking.

The final score doesn’t tell the story particularly well. Texas State did plenty that made me optimistic about the season ahead. There is no shame in losing to a Top 5 team, especially when you make them work for it.

Afterward, I could once again appreciate both schools. I was proud of Texas State and happy for Texas.

But for those four quarters?

Not a mixed emotion in sight.

Let’s do it again next year.