Texas athletes want school song dropped because of racist connotation
College football teams around the nation could take the field this fall in different circumstances.
For instance, Iowa State has said it will play home games with only 50% of the stands filled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Longhorns may not hear the school song “Eyes of Texas,” but that has nothing to do with the coronavirus. A group of athletes asked that the song be replaced “with a new song without racist undertones.”
“The recent events across the country regarding racial injustice have brought to light the systemic racism that has always been prevalent in our country as well as the racism that has historically plagued our campus,” the athletes said in a letter that was shared on Twitter.
The New York Times reported “The Eyes of Texas” can be traced back to Confederate general Robert E. Lee and was performed at minstrel shows more than a hundred years ago.
“I am always willing to have meaningful conversations regarding any concerns our student-athletes have,” Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte said in a statement, per ESPN. “We will do the same in this situation and look forward to having those discussions.”
Longhorns receiver Brennan Eagles was among the players who tweeted the statement. Earlier this month, Eagles wrote on Twitter that he was “not going to play another snap knowing what’s going on in our society due to color and the system being broken. Let’s look at the bigger picture.”
Other requests made by the players include:
- Renaming a number of campus buildings
- More diversity in the athletic Hall of Fame and a permanent black athletic history exhibit
- A 0.5% donation from the athletic department’s annual earnings to black organizations and Black Lives Matter movements
- Renaming some part of the stadium after Julius Whittier, the first black Longhorns football player
Other players who tweeted the letter include MiKenna Robinson, who is on the Longhorns’ track team, basketball player Jase Febres and Texas cornerback Josh Thompson.
“I agree with it 100 percent, everything that they said,” Charles Omenihu, a former Longhorns player who is with the Houston Texans, told CBS Austin. “The song is extremely racist, very distasteful to a black student, not just a black student athlete, a black student period that goes to the university.”
