UT Arlington Doesn’t Want Your Sympathy

Reader and journalist Kleph, a proud alum of UT Arlington, chimes in on his team’s likely whuppin’ at the hands of Memphis tonight. Take it away, sir.
On behalf of my fellow University of Texas Arlington backer, you can take your poor-little-commuter-school pity and shove it. That sixteenth seed is pretty much all the vindication we ever wanted or even need.
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Because the fact is, UTA doesn’t give a rat’s left butt cheek about athletics. Lots of schools can a football coach after a 4-6-1 season; in 1985 UTA killed the whole program. Think about the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would cause at your school.
And when it comes to basketball nobody has home-court advantage like UTA. That’s because Texas Hall is actually the school’s theater. The court is on the stage and most of the spectators – a whopping 4,200 of ‘em when they sell out – sit on one side to view the action.
Yeah, even Barbara Bush gave us crap for being a commuter school after we were kind enough to invite her to give a commencement address. And for good reason: it’s a fact. The campus is an island adrift in a sea of parking lots.
But what it really means is we are a working class school and damn proud of it. Blame the demographics. The average student is actually a middle-aged female who is returning to school to get her degree. Out of the rest of us who attended at the period of our lives primed for enduring tribal loyalty there were other factors to consider.
No. we don’t expect to put on a Cinderella-team run or have a magical upset of Memphis (although that would be the most awesome thing in the history of awesome if it happened). The fact we are at the dance at all is a big middle finger to all your hallowed programs who feel it’s your right to show up and be fawned over every March. Screw that.
We don’t care and we still made it. It’s our damn tournament -- we’re just letting you play in it.
Kleph works as an adventurous freelance journalist, which shows that someone who went to UTA can indeed have a life much cooler than yours. You may find his work at Kleph.com.↵