Welcome to Bevo’s Fake Nuts, our weekly column on the Texas Longhorns.
I mean, yeah, Chris Beard. If you only get your University of Texas news from the Nuts: First, thank you, good decision. Second, the situation with Chris Beard is this. Lot of rumors going around, that article has everything I know, I tried committing a bunch of victimless crimes so I could get booked in there with him and get a statement but the officers kept telling me I was too white for them to arrest me.
Volleyball! On the rise. Very fun game. There’s a school of thought out there which says it’ll soon be the third big-money college sport, and if that happens…quite the litmus test for Texas.
The question about Texas’s tendency to lose games they were expected to win at inopportune times and in inopportune ways in both football and men’s basketball is…well, there are a lot of questions. But one is whether this is some institutional problem with the University of Texas, and/or with the city of Austin. The most common theory is some combination of, “These kids get told they’re the best so they get big heads and take their foot off the gas,” and, “These kids are having too much fun.” The fact this all really happened in the wake of the Vince Young era, over a time period when Austin’s transition from college-town to city-with-a-college hit its apex and sensibilities among affluent suburbanites shifted away from spending hobby time berating amateurs between the ages of 18 and 22, reinforces the theory. It is very easy to believe that after their upset didn’t-get-blown-out against Alabama, Texas football players lost focus. It is similarly easy to believe that after getting up close to the top ranking in the country and beating Gonzaga in a packed house, Texas men’s basketball players lost focus. So, the question for volleyball is this: Is Texas going to use its resources and status as a top-eight program in the sport to build a dynasty as more eyes turn towards the court? Or is Texas volleyball going to go the way of the other big-money sports?
To be fair, Texas fans already pay attention to volleyball. At least on campus. Texas volleyball draws raucous, packed crowds, and the Gregory Gymnasium’s historic look, coupled with this, makes some call it the best college volleyball environment in the country. Middle school girls from the suburbs want autographs from Texas volleyball players. Volleyball is very much on par with baseball here, and baseball’s as big at Texas as you’ll find outside a few select schools that either don’t have much class going on or don’t have much going on in other sports. To also be fair, Texas volleyball might already be doing too much of the losing thing. Regional finals 16 of 17 years and only one title? Pressure’s on, Longhorns. The Nuts expect a lot this weekend.
