Depends on the school. Texas Southern is kind of known for their marching band. It’s not at the level of Grambling or Southern, but they’re up there. I went to Texas A&M, which has a pretty distinctive band, and the students love it, but other schools often make fun of it. My favorite band to watch, though, when I was in college was Rice’s MOB (Marching Owl Band). They were irreverent. They also didn’t march, in spite of their name. One year, shortly after one of A&M’s collie mascots had died, the MOB did a formation on the field that looked like a dog pissing on a fire hydrant or something. I don’t fully remember. But it pissed off the home A&M crowd, who took it as making fun of Reveille (the mascot), and the MOB had to hide out after the game because some idiots in the crowd wanted to start a riot over it.
Oh yeah, but the reality is that it’s far more common (especially here in the south), the band is most certainly not a well-respected institution, compared to sports programs. Things are very different in HBCUs too, of course.
For sure. It should be, though. I have a lot of problems with my alma mater, but they do at least respect their marching band as much as the sports programs. Well…not financially, of course. But there were many times when I was a student there that the stands emptied after halftime, but they never emptied before halftime, because people wanted to see that band. Unfortunately, it wasn’t because of the musicianship as much as the marching, but still…
The marching band refused to yield.
Sho’, you right.
At my alma mater, the football team and the men’s* basketball team were only mediocre at best, while the marching band was straight fire.
* The women’s basketball team was quite good.
That was violent. Nobody seems to be taking that the slightest bit seriously. Why?
You are correct, screaming with clenched fists at a tuba sousaphone player doing what he was there to do (play tuba sousaphone) is violence. People aren’t taking it too seriously because the tuba sousaphone player dealt with the asshole.
Yeah, this is one of the times where I feel a clear cultural disconnect. Not only the setting is alien to me (marching bands, football games), but also the casual violence being displayed by both parties, and the fact that one party is cheered on here (what happened to the eggshell skull rule?)
Hey now, @FGD135. While I appreciate your adherence to accuracy in your edits, the sousaphone is just a marching tuba. And John Philip Sousa gets enough accolades as it is. I like the word tuba. It’s fun. Speaking as a practitioner in the low brass family (baritone, not euphonium, because I like the term)
Again, I have to agree. The prospect of a person living their entire life with constant apprehension from white violence may lead to the condition of a fatal heart attack in the face of such aggressive behavior. In such a case, the recipient of such violence (the sousaphone 
player) would be entirely defensible in a fight or flight reaction, punching the asshole, whose fists clenched, was screaming in the sousaphone ( 
) player’s face.
ETA: Tuba tuba
Tuba:
Sousaphone:
It’s like comparing an upright piano to a grand piano, similar in sound, but different in shape.
Also, I know a few sousaphone players, and they’re lovely people, but I wouldn’t fuck with them. You can’t walk around carrying something that big, without being hench.
Don’t fuck with the low brass.
Good call:
He never had a chance.
Yeah I went to a Texas school that is actually more known for its band than its football team.
Literally the band is better respected.
It actually kind of depends I guess but I have to give credit for TX schools and fans here at least respecting musicians a little in the football scene.
In the US there is no eggshell skull rule I think. I’m not certain but I associate that concept only with UK. Maybe state to state it varies. In Texas, where this happened, it is unheard of by most people.
Secondly a lot of people here are viewing this as a form of self-defense on the part of the tuba player. That concept is deeply ingrained in the US. And Texas is famous for maybe taking that to an extreme even by US standards.
Lastly people in the US can also more likely pick up on the racial implications, which can be spun in a sharply racist way which people here are probably quick to move away from. Remember there is a race-baiting angle in the US where sometimes a person can be executed for not taking abuse so people likely affirm the rights of aggrieved people standing up for themselves even if it comes to blows here for reasons like this. This means some people in the US are likely to see this as confirming racist beliefs, while a lot of people, particularly on the BBS, will see this and strongly sympathize with the guy being provoked.
I can see how the context wouldn’t be clear to people outside these social groups.
The strange people of Texas are not so unlike the Europeans after all… Hell, some of them are direct descendants. But for good fortune…
I don’t understand how the eggshell skull rule is even relevant to this story, unless there’s another meaning that I’m not aware of. The one I’m familiar with is the principle from tort law that you take plaintiffs as you find them. In other words, if you cause someone injury, and their injuries are made worse because of something you had nothing to do with (like an eggshell skull) you are still responsible for their damages. You aren’t let off the hook just because they had some preexisting condition that made their injuries worse. And we absolutely have that in the US. But again, I don’t get how that applies here. Is there some other meaning?
I strongly sympathized with him on the first punch.
When he didn’t wait to see what that punch did and kept punching until the shouty (ahem) gentleman moved / staggered away, it was pretty clear that this wasn’t the tuba / sousaphone player’s first fight, and he had been on the business end of violence before.
Then my sympathies were even stronger.
Indeed.
