re: A&M fans (regarding Texas)

"Hell, I wonder how many posters on this board even attended the university that they are supporting."
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I will cop to the fact that despite being a rabid and diehard Mizzou supporter before, during, and after my college experience, I am actually a (gasp) Vanderbilt grad. So yeah, while in some instances people attend and graduate from a school and become fans in the process, the college decisions people make due to academics do not always correlate to where their heart lies on the college sports scene. I grew up in Columbia, Missouri literally a few blocks away from the football stadium, came from a family full of Mizzou grads (my grandad was instrumental in the establishment of the medical school at Mizzou) and never missed a home game and followed the Tigers on the road to countless venues.

When I got accepted to Vanderbilt and had the opportunity to go there, I had to take it because academically it was just far and away better both in quality and reputation than my hometown university and that decision has opened many doors for me jobwise since. But I never stopped being a Mizzou fan first, foremost and basically only while at Vandy and I'm not going to stop now either even though in the SEC East. Sure I would wish Vandy well and attend games while there, but let's face it Vandy has historically done a HORRIBLE job of selling its athletic program and if anything has usually prided itself on NOT being a place that is focused on athletics. Frankly that was part of what made it a more comfortable decision for me to go there - if Vandy as an institution didn't care enough to even have an athletic department, why should I feel bad about continuining to pledge my fan allegiance to my hometown university instead? And I knew several kids there who came from states in SEC country like Alabama and Georgia and such that similarly maintained their allegiance to their home state universities of choice when it came to SEC sports.

So I don't think a place being one's alma mater has to be the end all, be all of college sports fandom. For me, Mizzou is my family, bloodlines, my home, literally my backyard, and hence a truly powerful emotional connection. Vandy was an academic and career decision, and it advertises itself to prospective students as such. I'm sure there are kids who grow up in the West End in the shadow of the Vandy campus who have a true emotional connection to the 'Dores. Good for them. I don't. And unlike Texas A&M, which does a great job of indoctrinating new students with the school's athletic traditions and doing various things to make them feel a part of the family, Vandy frankly never really tried to get my fandom. So they don't have it.