The End of Tradition

There is no joy in the Big 12 tonight. Today, Texas A&M announced that the Aggies WILL be moving to the SEC in 2012. That announcement brought an end to 117 years of tradition. It is highly doubtful that the Aggies will be keeping their annual Thanksgiving meeting with the Texas Longhorns.

I know, you're all sitting there thinking, "Why do you care, beagle? Aren't you a Texas Tech fan?" Yes, I do follow Texas Tech football, but this is something that all football fans should care about. The college football arena has lost one of its traditional marquee games- those games that you watch even if you don't have anything riding on the outcome: Texas-OU; Ohio State-Michigan; Army-Navy; Grambling State- Southern. Those games are as much about the tradition as they are about football.

Sure, the Big 12 will fill the void left by A&M's departure, but the pageantry and spectacle that surrounds the Aggies coming to town will be forever lost. Who can forget the Friday after Thanksgiving 1999 when the Longhorn band stood on the floor of Kyle Field in College Station and paid tribute to the Aggie students who were killed when the bonfire collapsed? There wasn't a dry eye in the house. It still brings tears today:

College football will go on, but it has lost something that cannot be replaced.

We'll miss you, Miss Reveille. Thanks for the memories.

Childress v Busch WAS a Fair Fight

Now, before everyone gets their knickers in a twist, read on. I am not going to debate whether Kyle bumped Joey Coulter after the CWTS race, nor am I going to discuss the punishments handed down. What I am going to discuss is the media's perception that because Richard Childress is an owner and Kyle Busch is a "driver", it was somehow an unfair fight.

Notice that I put quotes around the word driver; I did that for a reason. Had RC come after Kyle following the Darlington Cup race or after a Nationwide race, then I would agree that there existed a disparity of status between the two. I might even agree if Kyle had been driving for another owner in the CWTS; however, this altercation came after a CWTS race in which Kyle was driving the #18, and on every entry list I've ever seen, no matter who was driving the #18, Kyle Busch is listed as the OWNER. That, as far as I'm concerned, places him on equal footing with Childress.

So let's stop looking at this as the big bad owner beating up on the lowly little driver. It wasn't. Instead it was a case of one business owner having a very public disagreement with another. Things like this happen all the time in the business world; they just don't get national press coverage.