When did you become a Horn Fan?

When I saw Tony DeGrate running off the field after a sack. He looked f-ing cool in the Tight Whites. I was probably 11 or 12.

Not sure who it was against. I was not really into college football at the time.
 
Great thread. My father had two players that made Royals squad as offensive linemen. I grew up around the game and as early as I can remember Texas was the program all coaches and players aspired to be part of. We moved to Mineral Wells when I was young, and I remember I couldn't understand why Rich Richie wasn't playing for the horns (perhaps the single best option quarterback in the history of Texas). As my brother and I grew up, everything we understood about sprang from our Dad's constant reiteration that UT was the best our state had to offer.

Also, in the little West Texas town I grew up in, there was this older than dirt cowboy who graduated from UT just prior to going oversees during WW1. He was the very embodiment of cowboy, spoke French and just made the whole idea of going to Texas that much cooler.
 
I became a Texas fan when I was accepted .... and my freshman year began in the fall of 1970. My HS boyfriend was a lifelong Texas fan.....and when he went off to Texas, I followed him. And we've been Texas fans ever since!!
 
UCLA at Texas, 1970.

I was 9 when Texas beat Arky in 1969. I remember listening to my dad yelling at the TV almost all game only to hear him cheer at the end. I thought it all silly. Then my dad took me to the 1970 UCLA game. Again, I listened to him yelling in frustration most of the game. But this time, I could see and watch it all.

With 19 seconds left in the game, many people had left the game. Texas was down 17-13. No time outs left. 3rd and forever. The winning streak appeared to be over.

Eddie Phillips goes back to pass. He launched one. Down the field, Cotton Speyer hauls it in and crosses the goal line. The stadium erupted. Everyone was screaming and hugging and jumping up and down.

I was Hooked. After that, I listened to every game on the radio (most games were not televised). I became an avid fan and, 8 years later, I became a Horn when I walked on the 40 acres as a student.

Hook Em Horns!
 
In October of 76 in Brackenridge Hospital. Both parents went to UT so it was pretty much genetic. I didn't even apply to any other school (well mostly because I was lazy as hell and other applications were too long and required too many essays)
 
I grew up in SA and I didn't follow college sports but did follow HS football when I was younger. HS football in SA is 100x bigger than it is in Austin. When I was in 5th or 6th grade, the Cash twins and Johnny Walker were basically setting records at SA Holmes. They went to I believe the semis before losing to likely the best team in TX HS football history (Houston Yates).

When all 3 of them committed to Texas, it made big local news. That was the day I became a UT fan. I wanted to follow them in college.

The rest is history.

I actually ran into the Cash twins at the Texas Exes party before the Texas/USC Rose Bowl game. I told one of the Cash twins this same story and he was very nice and flattered.
 
I would have to say 1956 Thanksgiving time. My late older brother enrolled at UT at that time after being encouraged by his counselor to go to UT. When he brought home a Texas T shirt for Thanksgiving that was it. I was a Horn fan for life. I was only 8 at the time but I kept up with UT scores. I remember one of my earliest disappointments was when Mississiippi beat us bad in that bowl game. I watched football in high school but wasn't into listening to the radio but would get scores from my parents. Another big disappointment was the TCU football game in 1961 but when I listened to the Texas vs Missippi Cotton Bowl Game in 1962 I was hooked (no pun intended) for life. Many an afternoon after that I either watched them on tv or would go to my backyard with my radio and some other UT kids who were fans like me and would listen to games. Very rarely was I disappointed. When it came time for me to go to college financial circumstances made it best for me to attend a nearby college so I can't claim to be a Horn but I can claim to be a Horn fan.

What was ironic in those early years in the mid fifities is that some Aggies lived across the street and were outstanding people but fortunately my late older brother saved me from that fate. Can you imagine me being an Aggie fan for over fiftiy years? Disgusting indeed.



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I was into NFL growing up. Freshman year on campus I went to a football game and caught Ricky destroying Rice. Fell in love.

If I hadn't gone to UT may have never have happened.
 
The '84 Auburn game in Austin. My Mom went to Auburn and I was junior in HS. I had no idea where I really wanted to go to college. I was just another defective kid from deep NE Texas.

Anyway, my parents went with some friends and my Mom insisted I go. I sat in the student section with a couple of girls from my HS where freshman at UT.

I remember the game well, and the stadium, and the parties and everything that went with it. I remember walking out of the stadium after the game thinking "This would be a tits place to go to college...".

I began focusing on going to UT after that and never looked back.
 
Fall of 1994 when I stepped foot on campus. I grew up in North Carolina, purely basketball country, and transferred from North Carolina State after my sophomore year. It was a new experience living in a place where college football is so huge, and even though I arrived in the middle of the Mackovic era of mediocrity I was hooked on the Horns. My two-year old daughter is already immersed in her Longhorn education.
 
10/14/89

I was going to high school in Michigan and my parents were moving to Texas as soon as I graduated. One of my fathers employees was a bleed burnt orange hornfan and they hatched a plan to get me to go to Texas rather then Michigan State.
They flew me to Dallas for Texas/OU as my first introduction to The University.
I was just sitting in the stands when suddenly everyone around me stood up, raised thier hands in the air and started to sing.
I wanted to be a part of that. I didn't even apply to any other schools.
 
Fall of 86, still in HS, just accepted to The University, bunch of my HS buddies were going to am, we went to the bonfire. Once I saw what a bunch of losers they were, my blood started to turn Orange. As a freshman the following fall, we got spanked by OU, my orange blood started running deep, a couple years of huge disappointment then "Shock the Nation"! College Football season has revolved around the Texas Longhorns ever since. It was a gradual build as I grew up Notre Dame and Arizona State fans.
 
Well I don't remember watching UT games on TV as a kid down in the Valley. My elementary school mascot was The Longhorns and we even had the same logo as UT. I might have watched a couple of games in Highschool. I remember liking (God forgive me I was young and dumb) aTm in Highschool. In 1995 I moved to Austin, That is when I saw the light and I became, at last, a Longhorn fan.
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I'm a third-generation Longhorn, so I guess you could say I've been a lifelong Hornfan.

My love for UT was really solidified at my first Longhorn football game (the '04 North Texas game: Texas 65, UNT 0).
 
I am in the process of becoming a fan. That sounds kinda dumb so I'll explain. I'll be starting school at UT this fall. I knew several months back when I signed up for this account that UT was were I wanted to end up. I am a tranfer from ACC. I grew up in Arkansas and always cheered for the Razorbacks. Part of being a Razorback fan is to hate the Longhorns, so I grew up with that too. It really is kind of silly when you think about it. The schools rarely play but they (Arkansas) still think of UT as their main rival. I attended orientation yesterday so UT is feeling more and more real to me and surprisingly it already feels like my school. I guess the game between UT and Arkansas will be my test this fall where my loyalties really are.

Question for anyone else who became a UT fan when they started school after cheering for another university previously. (Anyone else fit in that category?) How long did it take you to really identify with UT and lose any previous ties to other schools?
 
Growing up in West Texas in the early '60s, not a lot of college fb on tv, but we did have the Humble Oil and Refining Co. (Exxon) Saturday SWC Game of the Week on the radio. Listening to the great Kern Tips announcing a game was a near-religious experience (a fumbled handoff was "There's a malfunction at the junction"; when a scramble for the fumble ensued it was "Button...button...who's got the button?"; a sack: "The quarterback had to peel it and eat it."; a WR catching a low throw was "Picking 'em off the daisies"; a PAT "turned sixes into sevens"; and "the Longhorns are moving right to left as you view your radio dial."

Tips announced a lot of Horn games, but I was hooked in jr high on Longhorn football during the 1963 NC season with his calls of Tommy Nobis, Scott Appleton, Tommy Ford, and especially my chilhood hero Duke Carlile (I thought he had the coolest name).

My mom was a fan of Bobby Layne, so between her and Kern Tips, I learned it the right way.

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1976..first game -> the hook em horns, the band, the stadium, even the 30-0 loss to Houston
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didn't matter - I was 'hooked' @ 11yrs old. Especially getting to run on to the field after the game throw the football
 
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