By Eric Lear
Sports Editor
Every morning I do what most people do. I hit the snooze button on my alarm about five times, shower, brush my teeth, eat breakfast, and put a shirt on. A few weeks ago I did just that, and the shirt I put on happened to be a purple shirt that said “Winona State.” I didn’t think anything of it, but many of my classmates did. I had over 10 comments in regards to my shirt on campus that morning and one via text message before noon.
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I consider myself very involved in the Saint Mary’s University community, and most of my involvement has something to do with the world of sports. One former SMU student even referred to me as “Mr. Cardinal” due to my involvement on campus and near endless, yet unsuccessful, efforts to have him stay in Cardinal Country.
I sometimes wear shirts of other colleges and no one said much, except for the occasional Duke fan I run into. However, chances are that when you see me, I am sporting some sort of SMU apparel. I may just have more SMU shirts than the campus bookstore. As a matter of fact, since I strolled onto campus a shade over three years ago, I have accumulated enough SMU shirts and sweatshirts to wear a different SMU top everyday for over two months. Shocking and somewhat pathetic, yes I know.
I was initially frustrated by the constant grief given to me that day. I argued that WSU is not our rival, but just another school in this college town. Historically, it has been rare for us to give the Division II school across the street much athletic competition. One SMU senior put it very well by saying that SMU only competes with WSU for “real estate.” Please don’t get me wrong, I would absolutely love for us to beat the pants off the “purple people-eaters,” on Nov. 17, for obvious personal affiliations. Nothing would please me more then to put a blemish on their record and put that sour taste back in their mouths from when their record-setting winning streak came to an end in the National Championship last season.
The more grief I got, the happier I actually became. You would be hard pressed to find someone who wants to see SMU succeed at sports more than “Mr. Cardinal” himself, and here I am wearing a shirt of our cross-town foes? I now see what upset those who confronted me, and I like it. I have criticized SMU students in the past for lacking pride in being a Cardinal and I was quite pleased to see such a response.
Some of you might know that I do some TV work at HBC Channel 25 broadcasting WSU basketball games, which is how I got the infamous purple shirt in the first place. I often wear my SMU gear when I broadcast at WSU and I love the grief I get for rocking the SMU red on the purple side of town. It is a matter of pride, and you guys have proven me wrong and showed me that you have a great deal of pride in being Cardinals. So if you see someone on campus, as one SMU coach put it, “wearing the wrong shade of red,” go ahead and give them a hard time and instill your Cardinal pride in them.
Let’s take it to the Warriors this year and make them our competitors no matter what sport it may be, and let’s paint this town the right shade of red.
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