How/When Did You Become a Longhorn Fan?

My burnt orange obsession happened during the first Big XII championship. My buddy was a die hard Husker fan. He kept telling me that Texas was sorry and was going to get blown out, blah, blah, blah.........so I went to a local in sports store before kickoff and found a Longhorns stocking cap (was very surprised, since I was in the middle of Kansas). Cheered UT all the to 'Roll Left' and to a victory. That day I was over taken by the passion of college football and UT tradition. It didn't hurt that Priest & Ricky were in the backfield.
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Great fuckin' day.
 
Always been a fan, but never became as ravenous about Texas football as I am now until I became part of the team in undergrad, from Fall 01 - Spring 05.
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Thanksgiving 1974 at the Texas/A&M game when Texas went up 14-0 in less than one minute into the game. My dad was a huge fan and attended the University. We moved to Austin from west Texas in early Nov. 1974. It was very cold and we sat high in the upper deck. My sister, brother and mom left at the half but dad and I stayed for the entire beat down. I was 8 and hooked (however, I have pictures as early as 2 giving the hookem as it is family tradition in most pictures regardless of the setting.)

My dad and I still call each other after each game to discuss it. We have been to Columbus, South Bend and other venues and our passion has created 35 years of memories and bonding.

I never attended Texas but have been to well over 100 Texas games (football, baseball, basketball). I was invited to walk-on to play basketball but choose to play juco ball and at SFA on scholarship. I am not a T-shirt fan, bandwagon fan, just a loyal fan of the horns and THE University, even up here in Edmond, OK. Hookem
 
Born a Horn. My mom grew up near Austin and has been attending games since the early 40s. My dad started going to games in the 50s. Attended a game with my folks in November and told them I'm glad I was born into a Longhorn family.
 
PJohnson....loved your post.
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For me, I don't remember. My dad went to U of Florida. My mom went to Ole Miss. So it is not genetic. I am guessing it was my older step brother and step sister saving me from the brainwashing of my step father. Loved him and I miss him, as he has since passed away, but he was die hard aggy. Both step brother and sister went to UT and they steered me the right direction. The rest can not be repaid to them enough. Thanks to them, I cannot imagine life in anything other than Burnt Orange.
 
I grew up as a kid in the 60s in New Orleans. Dad graduated from Tulane and he took me to Tulane football games and Jesuit High School football games. Used to see Joe Theisman kick the Green Wave's but back in the day.

I was hooked on football at the age of 6, so that was 1968.

Just so happened to coincide with the Longhorns run of 30 straight wins. And the Longhorns were on tv a lot, as I recall, kicking butt with the WIshbone. Used to have the neighborhood kids and I draw up our own Wishbone plays at the football fields. Good times.

My parents said I used to watch the Longhorns play on tv (of course there were only 3 major networks back then) and I would tell them, "when I grow up I'm going to school at Texas". Dad got a transfer with Shell in 1974 and we moved to Houston. The rest was history. Transferred from junior college to UT in 1983 only to witness the gut-wrenching heartbreak against Georgia in the Cotton Bowl.

Live and die with the Longhorns. Now I got my wife and kids brainwashed and they're huge Longhorn fans!

"When Vince scored, we both wept like little babies, overcome with joy." <<< I did the same thing. I was so elated because I wasn't sure if I would ever get to witness the Longhorns winning a national championship that I could vividly remember, since I was so young when they last won the NC.
 
I became a Horn fan in 1956 at the age of 8. I had some great neighbors who were Aggies and their father was on their 1949 MNC team and few the first B29s in WW2 and one of his sons a good friend of mine was to give his life serving his country in Viet Nam. But in 1956 I was exposed to the Aggie culture by people I admired and still do. But fortunately my older brother had a councelor who was a UT graduate and talked my brother into going there. I remember we left him at a dorm one Sunday in Austin. I was a fan then but for several years I didn't listen or watch the games but I would ask my parents the final scores. One of my saddest days was when Mississippi beat us 39 to 7 in 1958. My first interest in broadcasts was when we beat Mississippi in the Cotton Bowl in 1962 12 - 7. I was hooked (pun intened) into football and have listened or watched every game since then. My older sister went to UT as well as my brother in law who had a football scholarship but unfortunately knee injuries ended his career early. When it came time to go to college unfortunately our financial situation had changed and it was just financially necessary for me to go to a smaller division 2 school located where we lived and I had to give up my lifetime dream of living in Austin going to UT and the games. But I was still a fan and stayed so for all the years.
I consider myself a Horn fan but not a Horn out of respect for those that did attend the University. Many on the web site have encouraged me to consider myself a Horn and it is appreciated but it is hard for me to consider myself worthy.
Still it is great to have been a Horn fan these past 53 years.

Fortunate indeed that there was a counselor that talked my late older brother to be a Horn. If not I might have been an Aggie fan. Most disgusting indeed. I am so fortunate to be a Horn fan if not a Horn.



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I became a Horn fan in 1963, at age nine, during MNC season #1. Beating #1 ranked OU got me hooked. My earliest specific memory was listening to Kern Tipps describe Duke Carlisle's game-saving interception of Don Trull's pass to Lawrence Elkins against Baylor. I was listening on a transistor radio.
 
I lived in Australia and had never set foot in the U.S. when I became a Longhorn fan. My oldest brother moved to Austin to get his MBA and from that point on I was a Horn, even if I didn't know the first thing about football or much else that went on in Texas. Two years later, when I was in third grade, we moved to Houston and slowly but surely I learned everything there was to know about the university. Despite my first two of my first three experiences of Texas football being a loss to Baylor in Waco and a loss to Rice in Houston, my loyalty didn't change. I didn't have a chance to go to a game at DKR until my senior year of high school...fortunately it was a good one, as I got to see Ricky run over the Aggies and set the record. Texas was the only school I applied to that year and I finally became a true Longhorn nine months later.
 
I grew up in Nebraska and was a die-hard Husker fan like everyone else there. I moved to Austin for a new job in the early eighties. During my first 15 years in Texas, I continued to support my beloved Huskers and really could care less about the Horns. I cheered for NU against UT in the '96 Big 12 CCG., and I recall being razzed at work after that game.

My metamorphosis occurred in 1998. My wife and I thought it would be fun to go to the games at DKR, so we purchased season tickets. We were lucky because tickets back then were readily available. My wife works at UT so we were able to get pretty good seats in the faculty/staff section on the east side.

I believe it is very difficult to sit in a stadium several times a year and watch the local team play and not become a supporter of the team. It's all about having a sense connection to the team, and attending the games fosters this feeling. After only one season, I became hooked on the Horns and my fondness for the Huskers slowly but surely waned. In addition, my career path went off in a different direction about 10 years ago, and I began working at UT on a part-time basis.

Every four years, the Huskers play UT in Austin so, inevitably, I'll get together with a couple of old buddies from Nebraska who have come down here for the game. In the past, I have felt uncomfortable about flaunting my Horns love to avid Husker fans so I tried my best to appear neutral and uncommitted. As we all know, especially after the most recent CCG, NU fans are rather serious about football. After the 31-7 game in '03, a friend asked me why I did not seem upset about the game. I told him that I was crying inside.

I traveled to Omaha last August and met up with an old buddy who I had not seen in 25 years. I believe that he had heard rumors through the grapevine about my conversion to the Horns. He asked me point-blank which team I root for when NU plays UT. Almost reflexively, I flashed the Hook'em sign. No use hiding anymore -- I 'm hooked and proud of it.
 
1962 - My family moved to Austin after my Dad finished his career in the Army. He was not from Texas but he had been stationed in San Antonio and Ft. Hood so he had an idea of what Central Texas was like. Of all the places in the country, he chose Austin and we have been Longhorns ever since.

We got to experience the best of DKR. I remember paying $1 for knotholes seat in the wooden bleachers at the south end zone. If we didn't have the dollar, we would sneak in and wonder around the stadium. We were in Horn Heaven!

Nobis, the Koy's, Gilbert, Peschel, Street, Akins, Earl, and on and on.....

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I guess I wasn't really aware of football or colleges until the leadup to the UT-Navy Cotton Bowl following the 63 season, when I was in 3rd grade. We were an Army family, so there was considerable conversation between my parents dissing Navy and clearly they were whole hog for Texas. And so Texas won, and it began to settle in my pea brain that this was the right way of the world. The next year I actively followed UT via the Sunday a.m. Fort Worth Star Telegram, and eventually they made it to the Orange Bowl (or was that the next year?) against Namath and Bama. Our TV was out so I got to watch the game across the street with the preacher's kid and his dad. A great game, no doubt. From then on I was rabid.

Funny, I never really seriously thought about attending UT. Kids were just not so into college admissions in that day. As white trash, I figured UT was just not the place for me - too good for me(and certainly not Baylor or TCU, or aggy for other obvious reasons). But, good fortune brought me to the college of engineering, hallelujah.
 
I was a little kid so I don't know the exact year. But I would watch Bill Boy Bryant play for the Longhorns and then I always pretended to be him when all of us kids in the neighbor would play tackle football in the yard. There was no video games back then so backyard football is all we did.
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Through college, I liked Texas, but I was mainly an Ole Miss fan (anybody else remember the "Archie who?" game in which Ole Miss slaughtered Tennessee?). Then, my first year in graduate school at UT (1970) I took a date who had never been to a college game to see us play UCLA in the game where we completed a pass in the closing minutes to come from behind and win the game. She was so overcome with emotion that I got lucky later that night, and I've been a dedicated Texas fan ever since.
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So to sum up so far, becoming a Longhorn fan in addition to joy, has brought families closer together, new friends, and at least in one case, sex (although I wouldn't be surprised if that repeated itself amongst several on this board on January 4, 2006).

I like it.
 
During the 2002 College Football Season when I started watching College Football (I was in the 8th Grade.).

Growing up I always rooted for the Local Pro Sports Teams. Since I was born, raised and still live in the Dallas/Fort-Worth Metroplex, I always rooted for Cowboys, Mavs, Rangers and Stars.

In '02 I started watching College Football and since SMU, TCU and UNT are in Non-BCS Conferences and because of that are irrelevant.& inferior, I jumped on the bandwagon of the most popular, prestige, well known, and Top Team in the state..... The Texas Longhorns.

And ever since than, I've been a huge fan of UT Football & Men's BB and to a lesser degree Baseball, Women's BB & other UT Sports.
 
1986. Growing up I was a bigger HS football fan than college. Very few college games were on tv but I would go to a ton of HS football games in person. I grew up in the Judson ISD until I was in JR high and my parents moved to NEISD. But I was a huge Judson fan growing up. We would go to most of the home games as my Dad taught in Judson ISD as well.

When the Cash twins and Johnny Walker committed to play at UT in 1986, that was a big news item in SA. I asked my Dad what that meant and he told me and I wanted to keep following them. Granted these guys played at Holmes and I had only seen them play once if memory serves but that was my new college team.

But even still, very few games were on tv. I think I got the bug in 1990 with the Shock the Nation Tour but to be honest these were the salad days of A&M football and A&M was more popular in HS than UT. In fact, most of my friends from HS went to A&M. I was one of a few who went to UT.

But the real start was when the Cash twins and Johnny Walker committed to UT.
 
I don't know.

I was born and raised in Austin and always remember being a crazed fan even as a little kid. I still have my size 5/6 sweater showing that the horns were no.1 in 1970. I was a fan looong before I got my education at the school. Being a grad just made it more official and made me that much more crazier. There was a time when some of my in laws (who now tailgate and go to games because it's popular) thought I was nuts 15 and 20 years ago for missing family outings because I was in the car listening to the game. It's not just a team to root for--it is who you ARE.
 
I became a Longhorn fan while living in Oklahoma of all things.

I grew up in SoCal as a Trojans fan (and I still root for them), but my family moved to TX when I was 14 - late 80's. I ended up in Oklahoma a few years later where everyone wanted to talk trash when they found out I was "from Texas." No way was I going to listen to someone from Oklahoma talk trash about Texas. Are you kidding me? What does Oklahoma have to be proud of?

Somehow, I was converted in the process. Coudn't give you the date of my conversion, but it was around 92/93.

It really pissed off my dad and brothers when I rooted for UT in 05.
 
Started when I was 10 in 1995 and my dad took me to my first UT football game. I'd already been a Cowboys fan for a couple of years but had never gone to a game before. By the end of my second game, when Phil Dawson kicked a 50 yard FG into a serious wind to beat Virginia, I was totally hooked. I found myself jumping up out of my seat and both of my hands forming the Hook 'em Horns, as was true for pretty much everyone else around me.

I never even applied to any other school, which was actually probably a dumb idea but thankfully it worked out alright.

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My mother had this 59 pontiac with the huge hood. It was almost orange. My HS buddy was a freshman at UT and he got this great idea to have his artist friend tempra paint this huge longhorn head on the hood of the Pontiac. Somehow he got my mother to agree and it turned out great. Off to Austin. We drove around campus and on the drag all afternoon and after the game (it was a big game) we got tons of cheers driving up and down the drag honking and screaming. Boy did I get hooked. Oh I think it was 1961 Tech game.
 
My story may really freak some of y'all out, but I have a bit of a problem telling my Hornfans bretheren too much about my personal life, so I guess this post will only solidify myslef as one of the strangest posters on here.

My grandfather graduated from Texas at the age of 19 in 1927, so it is in my family. He actually met my grandmother at West End in Dallas during the '27 game, she was an OU student.

So I go to Texas because I like rock and roll and Austin is great for that. 1991. I didn't follow sports very much at all.

My boyfriend in 1994 turned on the TV one morning and saw Texas playing Pitt and asked me if it was cool if we went to go and meet some of his friends whom he knew would be wathcing the game. I was for it, we had just started dating and I wanted to meet his buddies.

I get over there and they are the nicest folks... Total queens though: they were ultra nelly and were all cheerleaders at their high schools. I noticed that they were polite as all get out to me, but they definitely had one eye on the TV.

Now I swear this is no lie. Texas scores on a big run or something and they absolutely freak the F out. They all run out into the front yard and start doing high kicks, herkies (sp) and toe touches. I thought it was one of the funniest things I'd seen.

This is where it gets downright hillarious... They all file into the back bedroom and each do a big bump of coke. We win the game and my throat was numb.

At that moment I realized that I was going to become a huge Texas fan.




I know the mods might not like some of the content of this post, but please understand it is a story that must be told. In December of 96' I led my graduation ceremony in the singing of the Eyes of Texas and later that day we beat Nebraska for the Innagural Big 12 CC. Greatest day of my life, and I owe much of it to those queeny dudes that taught me how to really enjoy a Texas game.
 
Grew up in Ohio with Texas parents... as I grew up, married into a family of buckeyes, and realized the level of a$$hole I'd have to be to be a buckeye, I came to love UT... And now, so does my former-buckeye wife. Hook em!
 
First of all Dad was a UT grad from 1948, but it jelled when I was 10 years old: Texas 28 vs. Navy 6 - 1/1/1964
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I'll be honest, I really didn't give a **** about Texas football, or any other Longhorn sport for that matter, until Major took over in the second quarter of the 2001 Big 12 Champ game my freshman year. Then I went to my first game in person the next year. And then my junior year, we start a simple tailgate with a few friends so we have a place to drink before the game. And a couple years later, we've got 100+ people, satellite TV, RV, shirts, business cards, and beer and food sponsorships.

Next stop: RV'ing it out to Cali. Funny how these things evolve.
 
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