JJ over at CornNation sent out a Big XII Roundtable last week, but you know what...with all of the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I lost track of it. But, rather than just ignore it, I thought I'd at least throw my responses out there... better late than never, I suppose.
This roundtable was talking about traditions and giving and receiving of traditions, keeping with the holiday season.
You have to take one of your traditions and give it away to your main rival. Remember, you're giving it away, meaning that it's no longer yours after you give it.
Of course, the first question here is, who is Nebraska's rival? Traditionally, it was Oklahoma, though I would assume that Oklahoma considers Texas their rival. ABC would like it to be Colorado, but anymore you could make a case for just about anybody in the north.
And since we're dealing with a rival, it's usually something you don't want. So what are the worst Nebraska traditions? My choices would be 'Lil Red and the "Power of Red" banner. 'Lil Red is simply an embarassing mascot, and "Power of Red" is simply a stupid marketing slogan and the banner in the stand is waste of good plastic. Who should get them? Well, my first choice would be Colorado. I imagine that an inflatable mascot would go really complement Ralphie well, and since Colorado rarely sells out, the banner would help hide some of the empty seats.
You can take one of your traditions and give it to anyone else you might want to benefit, within the Big 12 or not.
Hmm... we've lost a lot of traditions in recent years, so I'm not sure we can claim some of them. But if we're not able to have them anymore, perhaps we can find a good home for them. And of the traditions we've lost that mean the most, the bowl streak was the most important and most valuable. I'd like to offer that one over to our friends over at Iowa State. They really could use a tradition like that, and if Iowa State becomes consistently good in football, they'll become Nebraska's natural rivalry.
What tradition would you most like to get from someone else as a gift?
I'm going to limit my scope to traditions I've experienced, so I'll exclude boating to games at Washington and Tennessee. (Plus, I'm not sure how many boats we can get on Salt Creek anyway...) The "Tomahawk Chop" from Florida State gave me nightmares after the 1990 Fiesta Bowl. Kansas' "Rock Chalk Jayhawk" is a simplistic chant, but can be similarly haunting as it builds. Kansas State's student section bopping to the Wabash Cannonball is one of the more unique traditions I've seen.
But my choice has to be Texas A&M's band. Between the pure volume they crank out and the precision marching, they make the biggest off-field wow I've seen.
2 comments:
"if Iowa State becomes consistently good in football, they'll become Nebraska's natural rivalry."
Most Iowa State fans see Nebraska as their second biggest rival after Iowa. In fact, some Iowa State fans in western Iowa even see the Huskers as a bigger rival than the Hawkeyes. Unfortunately the Clones have never been good enough to make the rivalry mutual.
Thanks for the compliment on the Wabash. Being from K-State, I feel that is the most important sporting tradition that we have. I have been at a couple K-State alumni weddings where the Wabash was played. (Mine being one of them ^_^)
I agree that 'Lil Red is a poor choice for a 2nd mascot, we feel for you in Manhattan when we see it running around our field.
A tradition that I least like from K-State luckily only lasted half a football season. It was the forced chant of "We Are K-State!" Which was used the same year as the movie 'We Are Marshal' came out. I don't think they meant for it to be like that, but it came off as distasteful. I don't even know if it was used during any of the Big XII games.
As for rivals, in the recent years K-Staters view Nebraska as their big football rivals, however with KU's rise to power I think we are focusing again on the importance of that in-state rivalry. After that there isn't a team that I think we are rivals with. We don't like Mizzu and Colorado, but that is because of the poor sportsmanship of their team, not because of any competitive nature on the field.
On the other hand we generally respect Texas A&M and Nebraska for their good play on the field and their good fans off the field.
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