I have been meaning to write about this for a long, long, time.

I love music.

I love raw, rockin’, upbeat, tempo driven music.

My musical tastes can vary, but I won’t get into what they are because this DI diatribe really isn’t about a need to know about what I like and what I don’t like when it comes to my musical tastes. It has to do with game day experience, and our institution’s image on game day.

Something that has been going on for the past 10 -12 years at football games, and to a lesser extent at basketball games is the fact that someone, to whom I have no idea who they are or why they do it, plays the music at The Hawk VERY loudly. Too loudly. Also, they play a playlist full of disgusting music. Not in style, but in words, and finally, they play music that is far more frequent than it needs to be and makes the game experience downright irritating. I will take these points one by one.

1. Volume-Whoever is in control of the volume of the music needs to turn it down. It is way too loud. If I want to get my ears blown out, i’ll go to the next major concert at AT&T Stadium or whatever local town is having a music fest. When you park almost a mile away from the stadium and can hear the lyrics of whatever song LOUD AND CLEAR…..the music is too loud. Now, me personally, I can take it. You know who can’t though? Most of the people sitting in the reserved sections. Many of them have hearing that is sensitive and they are there to watch football, not attend a concert. When you are my age and younger, you don’t often think about the effect that sound has on other people, but when people 3-4 blocks away in town can hear the music loud and clear, that MIGHT be an indication the music is a little too loud. Music does enhance the game day experience, but like all things in life, it has to be kept within reason. Keep it down, and remember the fans that are paying the season tickets. Make the game enjoyable to everyone. The music can be played to where it can be heard but won’t make people want to use ear plugs at a football game, unless it is the crowd noise when our football team can sell out the stadium again.
2. Frequency-This one is just straight up annoying, and something that happened at the last football game of the 2024 season. In the middle of the game against Incarnate Word, a referee suddenly threw a flag, stopped the game, got on his microphone, and said; “East Texas game operations, please turn off the music during game play.” That’s right, whoever controls the music kept found it necessary to blast some song in between every play, and in this new era of hurry up offenses, it is not like the older days when teams huddled up and took 30-35 seconds off of a 40 second play clock. Most teams go at a quick pace with quick temp so in those 30-35 seconds, a good offensive team can run anywhere from 2-4 plays. Someone trying to play disc jockey in the press box is not conducive to letting fans enjoy the action and it obviously drew the ire of the officials, and thankfully so. Perhaps the best piece of catharsis regarding this is that when the official turned off his microphone, everyone in section D, which is where I have my season tickets, yelled back and the ref “thank you, we hate it too!” The first and only time I have heard of hometown fans thanking a ref for stopping a game and chastising someone with their team.
3. Inappropriate nature-Now, this is probably where I will get the strongest support and biggest blowback. 95% of the music played during warm ups and during the game is straight from the gutter. I remember walking to the game about an hour before kickoff and a song that I had never heard before, but the lyrics stuck in my head. In one line it used profanity, referenced drug use, violence, and used a horrible name for a woman. I wish I could tell you that was the execption, but it is pretty much the rule. Most of the music that is played aside from it being too loud and played too often, it also extremely inappropriate that is laced with profanity, reference to using drugs, violence, names that are of a very sexist nature, among other things. I asked someone who works in the pressbox “Who on earth plays this stuff for thousands of fans and thinks it is ok?” The answer I got was that someone in the press box just plugs their personal playlist into the music and lets it rip. That is a horrible answer and an even more horrible truth. Yes, I know most of the music played is hip hop, but don’t think for a second that other genres are off the hook. A few years ago, I believe during the David Bailiff era, at the end of the third quarter during a day game, some country song was played that talked about a guy getting a girl drunk, pouring beer over her, and getting her in the back of his 4×4 pickup truck and you can just guess as to what the song was implying as to what the guy singing was trying to make happen. That is totally inappropriate and makes our institution look very bad. Same deal with music like thrasher metal and death metal, which thankfully the stadium has never played. Now, when I say from the gutter, I am not talking Thunderstruck by AC/DC (which can get too loud on a PA) or Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones, nor am I talking about most things by Merle Haggard or Willie Nelson (except his pot smoking songs), or any of the great stuff that came out of Motown in the 1960’s like The Jackson 5’s ABC or Stevie Wonder’s Superstitious and the iconic R&B and Hip Hop of the 80’s and 90’s that was fun to listen to but was absent profanity and references to sex and violence.

Now I know what a few might be thinking; “Let me guess, you just want to hand out Church hymnals and we can all sing Amazing Grace!” That will be the reaction of some people who read and that’s fine, but actually, that rationale is the most utterly ridiculous reaction one can have. I love music during the game days, but here are some thoughts to chew on. First of all, if we are a campus where people are to be and feel “safe” put yourself in the shoes of a parent who brings their kids to the games but for 4 hours has to cover their ears when the music is playing to to shield them from the lyrics. Or what about the women who are having to listen to songs that insult and degrade them with horrible words not suited for any situation? Or maybe you have people who have been the victim of violence and drug use have to listen to songs that glorify that kind of behavior? Again, this is ANY genre that can produce this stuff; whether it be rock, hip hop, country, or german polka, I know, I have heard all them produce bad stuff (execpt german polka). Also, put yourself in the shoes of the crowd that has to maybe wear hearing aids and has compromised hearing abilities but cannot enjoy the game because the music is so loud and with all the noise already going on with a public address announcer trying to call the game and people trying to catch up and have a conversation with the people they came to the game with. I have been to dozens of stadiums in this state and in other states, and we have an issue, and I hope the athletic department does something about it, because it has been an issue going back over a decade now.

Finally, it is about pride. We need to be as attractive an institution as possible with this move to Division I and the hope to increase enrollment. Schools that have pride don’t trust someone with a playlist that is literally from the gutter and tell them to blast it as loud as it they can. I am also on the plus side of this issue. I have been asked for almost 2 years to write about this so something can be done to fix it by literally dozens of people. We need to do better and show class in everything we do, from game day operations, to the teams we put on the field, behavior of fans, and everything in between.

Here is an idea. We have the best band in the Southland Conference and one of the best in the entire state. Let them play some cool tunes, both from days gone by and also some that are recent. No need to worry about lyrics, or excessive sound, or creating a negative image of the school. The Pride Marching Band is there for a reason. Let’s rip the cable out of the press box and give it to them to entertain us (mostly), and for those who say “well, the players like the music”, that is not the mark of a program or university that has necessary structure if things are done by popular vote of students. I was 22 before and I get it, but even college kids sometimes need to be told no.

Let me be very clear about one more thing. I couldn’t care less about what is on your Ipod or who is on your Spotify playlist. I have some songs that blow my ears out and also talk about subjects that are hard to talk about, but you would never expect to have me play them at a football game or any public event with mixed company (typically meaning children). One of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands pays homage to two generational rock and roll artists, one that was murdered on stage by a crazed fan and the other that took his life with a heroin overdose and a firearm. While it does not glorify either one and actually laments what happened to them, I would not be caught dead playing that song at a football game no matter how much it might rock, because you have kids in the stands and others that might find it unsettling. I love Johnny Cash, but wouldn’t dream of playing Cocaine Blues because some little girl, innocent and unknowing of so many wrong things might ask on the ride back home; “Mommy, Daddy, what is cocaine?” That is not a conversation I wish to start with a 5 or 6 year old, especially when there is so much other good music out there that can be played, and be played at a sensible volume.

Let’s do better for all fans and for the game day experience.

Let’s be better for the public and for ourselves.

P.S….. YMCA was a big hit when it was played during the Incarnate Word game.

Just saying…….