Thread: Wow! Go Texas Tech!

No, not bitter BB - as I have said a few times – I was teasing.

No we did not really have a true rival since any rival of A&M was really a friend of ours. Our true rivals were those colleges that mostly had a military alignment or the academies. TT has a significant military contribution in the early 50's but not as much as A&M which was modeled more after VMI. So we never really worried much about you guys. A&M on the other hand was a respected foe since they were much like us but then whimped out and went coed (decades before we did) and offered traditional non-military civilian degree programs as well. Like the academies we wore full high collar tunics, and formal military dress daily and had military instructors (Virginia Militia) and professional military instruction from regular army, navy, marine, airforce and even some special ops. for summer assignments. It was an amazing culture and the true rivalries go back over 100 years. In fact the current intercollegiate football tradition was started due to VMI & West Point hosting the first ever ad-hoc football competition in the 1930's (I believe it was in that time frame). Then it took of by word of mouth and then the whole college football thing was born. At any rate it was one of those places you wanted to be from rather than to be at because it was "hell" while you were there. There was definitely abuse and hazing but this was all part of the experience. Back when I was attending most classes lost a full 2/3's of the original matriculating class by graduation. People just dropped out or failed out because it was so extreme and demanding mentally and physically. There was also the honor system which was unique and required you to constantly turn yourself in for minor infractions or remind your roommates to do the same or face a special court inquiry. Serious infractions resulted in full honor dismissals at 2-3 AM in the morning and a formal reading of charges in front of the entire corps. A guilty person was literally "drummed out" with an eerie cadence that required us all to get out of bed and witness the event (which pissed us off because we needed every minute of the 6 hrs if allotted sleep to keep our energy levels up). The corps literally turned their back on the disgraced individuals and they would be led away – never to be seen again under full military escort and stripped of their uniform. Such had their names permanently removed from all records as if they never existed and their names were never spoken again. You would think it was not exactly a place that a lot of people these days would go to or make it in. But funny enough attendance is up very high at max levels now since people are looking for a greater challenge over the traditional state systems. They also did not believe in any grade curve. If the whole class failed due to a hard-ass instructor – the whole class failed and your grades were toast. No petitions, no whining just suck it up and get better.

Anyway I digress and did not mean to hijack this thread. If interested in more info just PM me and I’ll tell you more.

-OD

austinite, you forgot to mention citadel.

But for the record VMI & Citadel are much different than what you are saying in your generalization. These two schools live eat and breath military,adedemics, discipline, honor/responsibility and physical conditioning 24 hrs a day. West Point, Anapolis and the Air Force academy essentially sold out about 25 years ago to certain political pressures and are more like the thing you are talking about - large universities with large wussized ROTC programs and watered down standards.

VMI & Citadel are probably the only 2 remaining institutions with any surviving lineage to the more elite "old school" combined standards in academic, physical, military and honor/character based education in this country.

What country is UofT in Mexico? :smile:
-OD