Horns Down? No National Anthem for You

Zac Collier enjoys performing the Star Spangled Banner earlier than sporting occasions.

He’s been the ceremonial singer for the nationwide anthem at Texas Rangers video games, Dallas Wings video games, TCU video games, Frisco Tough Riders video games, Texas A&M video games and extra. In 2020, he turned in a digital efficiency for the Houston Astros (it wasn’t used).

Collier’s most up-to-date look singing the anthem, nonetheless, knocked him out of consideration for his subsequent one.

Collier — a 27-year-old Texas A&M alumnus and faculty trainer dwelling in Dallas and a religious Aggies fan — sang earlier than an Oklahoma State-Texas softball sport in Oklahoma Metropolis final week, and when he completed, he turned to OSU followers, held up the “Go Pokes” signal after which flashed the “Horns Down” signal.

Collier was scheduled to sing the anthem on the School World Collection in Omaha this week, however the NCAA modified course and uninvited him.

Collier posted about it on his Fb web page this week, together with a screenshot of an e-mail from the NCAA.

“Because of the unsportsmanlike conduct proven after your efficiency on the Girls’s School World Collection, we have to go a unique route,” the NCAA wrote. “You might be not scheduled to carry out at Recreation 9 of the Males’s School World Collection.”

In his put up dated June 9, Collier wrote, “I’ll not be singing on the MCWS in Omaha as a result of my “Offensive Gestures” on the WCWS. I remorse nothing. #HornsDown”

Collier’s Aggies play Oklahoma at 1 p.m. Friday within the opening sport of the 2022 CWS. On the opposite aspect of the OU-A&M bracket are the Longhorns, who play Notre Dame at 6 p.m. Friday.

An e-mail inquiry into the character of Collier’s unsportsmanlike conduct produced this response: “Now we have documented proof that he made offensive gestures and mockery of a collaborating crew within the Girls’s School World Collection and we don’t really feel snug permitting him to carry out.”

Collier informed USA Right this moment’s For the Win his gesture was customary and generic and never directed at anybody particularly.

“I didn’t say something to the coaches,” he mentioned. “I didn’t flip anyone off. I used to be very respectful. And I imply, I’m up there to do a job and to sing the nationwide anthem and to sing it properly, and to get the gamers and the coaches and the folks within the stands pumped up. And I felt like I did that.”

For the Win reached out to the NCAA and acquired the next clarification:

“The efficiency of the nationwide anthem throughout NCAA championship occasions is a solemn second for reflection and mutual respect for all championship individuals and followers in attendance,” the NCAA wrote in a press release. “Following his nationwide anthem efficiency throughout the Girls’s School World Collection – throughout which the performer inappropriately supported one collaborating crew, taunted the opposite crew, and disrupted collaborating student-athletes and coaches by making an attempt to work together with them – he was requested to not carry out throughout the Males’s School World Collection.”

The controversy continues an ongoing narrative — began by former Texas soccer coach Mack Brown, perpetuated by former Horns coach Tom Herman and supported (typically reluctantly, it appeared), by the Massive 12 Convention — that Texas followers are offended by the gesture.

In a 2019 one-on-one interview in his workplace on the UT campus, Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte was largely ambivalent concerning the Horns Down controversy.

“I feel anytime that somebody has to make use of the Longhorns sign down speaks extra about them and never us,” Del Conte mentioned. “Proper? It’s the College of Texas, proper? So when you’ve gotten that horns up, I get it. After I was working at TCU, I used to be like, ‘OK it is horns down; why is that? Why are we nervous about what the College of Texas does?’ Proper? It’s that. I do consider that with the 2 rivals, Oklahoma and Texas, I absolutely get it. However when another person begins doing it, actually? It has nothing germane to you. It’s germane to those two colleges, and it ought to be. However once you acquired West Virginia or this different man, they’re doing it — I perceive. I perceive and I embrace it. What I do not embrace is that when it is come and simply shoved in your face.”

Del Conte or anybody delicate to the gesture ought to brace themselves because the Longhorns head off to the Southeastern Convention, the place fan bases usually are not identified for restraint or decorum.

“Each single crew that performs Texas goes to be throwing the horns down,” Collier informed FTW. “Each single crew within the SEC goes to do this … identical to everyone else across the nation does it.

“If you play Texas, you throw the horns down.”