HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE FAN FROM GRADUATE

Living in the Panhandle where, let's face it, football is king and no one likes the local teams, it's important to be armed with the ability to differentiate between purely a fan and then those who actually graduated from their institution of higher learning of choice. In Texas, the University of Texas is often the default choice for collegiate sports. I mean, dudes that didn't even graduate from high school are throwing horns like wassup now and, as many of you have heard me complain about before, you can't just pick a college to root for. There's two ways to become a fan of a specific college or university. You can root for a college/university if you attend, have attended or work for that institution of higher learning. You can also root for a university if you are from the same municipality that shares the university. Now, while I went to Texas Tech, if I did not, I could still be a fan because I was born and raised in Lubbock. However, I cannot root for, say, SMU. I am only permitted to root for Texas Tech or LCU (Lubbock Christian). Now, if I'm from Lubbock but had attended, say, Arizona State, I could root for three teams: ASU, TTU and LCU, but only those three. If your city or town does not have a college or has a college with no sports, you can root for the closest college geographically. And moving to a town does not necessarily qualify you for fandom. That's where it gets especially fuzzy so we'll leave that for another lesson.

If you were born and raised in the Yellow but did not attend college, since AC does not have a sports program, you are permitted to root for only West Texas A&M in Canyon. Yeah, sure, it seems cruel, but someone's gotta root for Division II schools. They'd probably have a helluva football program by now if everyone in the Yellow backed them and came out to the games, contributed to the booster programs. You wanna root for University of Texas, you should've studied in high school. The man in the above, yes, with the beads and sombrero, likely did not graduate from University of Texas. In fact, his obsession with the school is likely to be so intense that he might often forget that it is, after all, a school firstly and a great football program secondly. The fandom reaches almost feverish levels. The combination of that man's stupid hat, Mardi Gras beads (no telling how he got those...likely he was dumb enough to buy them and you hope he did and didn't lose any clothing to get them), his knockoff Oakleys and that corny goatee, suggests that he didn't take a single year of college.

There's a number of consumer products targeted at those experience frenzied fandom (and not all too coincidentally those who also shop at Home Depot and watch Nascar). We'll just use University of Texas again as an example for no particular reason. Now, we know this to be a hammer, but for the diehard fan (not graduate, mind you), you can have it drenched in your favorite university's colors and logoing. Not saying that if you graduated from University of Texas, you're not likely to use one of these, but I'll say this: if your a University of Texas football fan in the Panhandle, you're probably more likely to have one of these in your toolbox. Or on your mantle.
If you have anything that inflates in your home that has University of Texas logoing, I would say it's especially likely that you're just a fan. It's one of those frivolent purchases that most graduates wouldn't spend their money on. Either because it's a moronic investment of cash and/or their busy paying off student loans.
Also in the department where you'd find inflatable items or Nerf are the foamy fingers. I've never noticed a college graduate using these at games. Scan the student section at any televised football game and look for the foamy finger. These are the types of purchases that not only scream high school dropout, but they also denote individuals who have drinking problems. Such binging leads to purchasing foamy fingers and then passing out. They can also lead to playing carney games when the fair comes to town. Hell, such binging leads to going to the fair. Also, notice the goatee. I see a theme.
The below are the cars of individuals with some decent expendable income, but not a lot of brains unfortunately. What drives someone to such levels of idiocy, I'm unsure.
Seriously. I mean, really...seriously? While we're on automobiles, anyone that subscribes to the catty and childish inverting of a rivals decal is certainly not a graduate. See also PEEING CALVIN DECALS. See also BACK WINDOW ALL-OVER DECALS.My Texas Tech Red Raiders go up against #2 UT this weekend in Austin. I don't think we have a trailer's chance in a windstorm, but gotta watch anyway. It really is much like going up against a tornado, you protect yourself, don't do anything stupid, minimize injuries and pray for the best. It's possible we could win this, but I'm not going to even try and calculate those odds. UT's just as solid as they were last year, we're less our star quarterback and wide receiver and we're in Austin this time. Worst of all, UT's got revenge on their mind.

Holla.