re: Aggie Robert Neyland is surely yelling for the Ags

Deliver who freedom? Other tennesseeans? There were a lot of settlers from Alabama and Kentucky as well. Virginia and Georgia too.

Like I said, Crockett, Houston, et al were so desperate to leave the ramshackle Tennessee Valley that they were willing to fight a whole Mexican army to do it. They literally picked living in Mexico over living in Tennessee.

Why would they do that?

I love Tennessee and like tennesseans but still hope we kick your butt saturday

You makingvthe trip?

And get me onto your board dangit!

quote:

---

2 of the greatest coaches in SEC history left College Station for greener pastures.

---

But when are y'all finally going to turn that damned pasture into a real football field so players will stop getting injured stepping into the gopher holes?

quote:

---

Meh, Tennessee is and always will be the daddy of everything Texas.

---

That is true, at the sesquicentennial celebration of the battle at the Alamo in 1986 the governor of Tennessee was an honored guest.

Walt

UT '81

quote:

---

Yet, so many more fled Tennessee than the other way around. Davy Crockett was willing to die in a run down mission outside a Tejano village a thousand miles from civilization if it meant he didn't have to spend one more night in Tennessee.

---

You are just saying that. It is nonsense.

A Tale of Two Movies.

The John Wayne Alamo movie was almost total fiction.

In the 1960 "Wayneamo" movie far from Houston telling Travis - "I need you to buy me some time," Houston told Travis to NOT become engaged with the Mexicans at San Antonio.

The president of Texas also gave Travis instructions; they conflicted with what Houston told him. That is mitigation for Travis. He couldn't believe the Mexicans would actually attack. In the "Wayneamo" the final attack place in broad daylight. The 2005 movie properly has the attack starting well before dawn.

About 30 of the 180 Alamo defenders had ties to Tennessee.

In the 2005 Alamo movie, they accurately portray Crockett as saying, "The fighting is over, right?" when he arrived not with 20+ Tennesseans (as in Wayne's movie) but only 5 or six.

Texas was seen as this great land of opportunity in the 1830's. Large tracts of land were available for free or almost free. However Anglos who came to Texas had to become baptized as Catholics and had to forego bring their slaves, as slavery was not allowed in Mexican Texas.

Crockett became a big cultural icon in the 1950's as the Civil Rights movement gained momentum. One of his big causes was equal rights for the Native Americans.

This did not sit well with white Americans of the day and it ran Crockett the congressman afoul of fellow Tennessean President Andrew Jackson. In Tennessee, not having Jackson in your court means no more seat in Congress. Cockett famously told his constituents - "You can go to Hell, and I will go to Texas."

When the De La Pena manuscript came to prominence back in the 1980's a big Alamo scholar said: Americans who came to Texas wanted "to live profitably, not die gloriously."

So there was inducement to many people to go to Texas. It had nothing to do with the appeal of the two states.

When Texas defeated the Mexicans and took on nationhood, the first thing they did was institute black slavery.

This belies the often heard idea that the Alamo Texans died for freedom -- they actually died for slavery.

Texas famously took up with the So-called Confederacy, causing President Lincoln to say:

"A part of the present national debt was contracted to pay the old debts of Texas. Is it just that she shall leave and pay no part of this herself?"

Texas is no great shakes and never has been.

Walt

UT '81

And before someone says that Tennessee also threw in with the Slave Power, Tennessee rejected secession in a February 1861 referendum.

A second vote in June, it has now been shown, had the votes queered by Governor Harris to show support for secession.

Fifty one thousand Tennesseans fought fought for Union, progress and freedom under the old Flag.

And more Tennesseans died at Andersonville prison than from any other state.

In fact - President Lincoln used to implore his generals, "We must help our friends in Knoxville."

Walt

UT '81

quote:

---

Fun fact: Neyland retired to Louisiana and passed away in New Orleana

---

Fun fact. When General Neyland passed he was still AD at Tennessee.

"He remained as athletic director at the university until his death in New Orleans in March 1962." -wiki

This General Neyland envy is pathetic.

It is hard to not notice that he was a student at TAMU.

What sticks out right away? HE LEFT.

Walt

UT '81

It was all different back then. For instance, Then Captain Neyland stayed 9 years at UT as military professor and football coach. Then he went for one year to the Canal Zone on active duty, then back to UT.

We had at our Marine Corps Ball as guest of honor one year General Austin Shofner. He was in the first group of Americans to escape from the Japanese. He was quite a character. After they escaped the Japanese, they took up with some head hunters. He was an All American at Tennessee, graduating in 1937. He took Army ROTC but was commissioned into the Marine Corps.



It was really cool to talk to him about Cavite, Bataan and Corregidor; names that you only see now in books.

My point again is that General Neyland could have stayed at TAMU and received a commission, but HE LEFT.

Walt

UT '81