Burnt Orange Bittersweet

A week has passed since the University of Texas Longhorns planted their flag atop the national championship hill, and the unrelenting burnt-orange fan fires continue burning.
T-shirts, sweatshirts and other UT items are flying off store shelves and being worn everywhere, to the gym, to church, to Chuck E. Cheese. The championship-starved Longhorn fans finally have their long-awaited feast, and they are making the most of it. I have a Montana friend who, in an e-mail, begged for last Thursday's copy of the Beaumont Enterprise, just so he'd have as many pieces of rah-rah UT victory stuff as possible. I obliged.
A week ago, I sat in an orange shirt next to my orange-sweatshirt-wearing wife, who got her master's degree from UT. She doesn't give a frog's fart about football at any level, but not even she could resist getting caught up in what turned out to be one of the best college football games ever, with the underdog Longhorns emerging triumphant over the USC Trojans.
I rooted for the Longhorns, too, and it wasn't easy.
Every night when I pull into my driveway after work, I park my maroon car beneath the tattered, faded, weather-beaten maroon flag that is mounted to a fence, which I'd paint maroon, too, if I could get away with it. In the winter, I walk into the house, take off my work clothes and put on my comfy maroon sweatshirt. On Saturdays, I secretly root for the Longhorns to lose a game and their shot at a national championship.
I must admit that this 1986 Texas A&M University graduate had a tough time deciding for whom to root leading up to last Wednesday's big game, but my loyalties quickly solidified at kickoff: My heart was behind the Longhorns.
This came despite years of A&M losses - some of them embarrassing - to the Longhorns. This costs me $20 and a meal. The $20 goes to my sister, a University of Texas graduate, and the meal to my wife. It is an annual standing bet, and there's nothing I can do about it.
Nevertheless, at least when it comes to a national championship of a Texas team vs. the outside, Aggies will root for their intrastate rivals.
This photo, which made the e-mail rounds last week, nicely sums up Aggie sentiment:

I'm not sure of the photo's source, but it speaks volumes about how Texans stick together.

After the tragic Bonfire collapse Nov. 18, 1999, killed 12 students and injured 27 others, the two schools united. Instead of the usual Texas Hex rally preceding the game, for example, the Longhorns joined with the Aggies for a candlelight vigil honoring the fallen. The Aggies beat the Longhorns that year but have been losing ever since.

Should tragedy befall the Longhorns, Aggies likewise would be there to help heal the wounds, despite the schools' differences, from longtime gridiron rivalry to their political philosophies, with the Aggies, in general, being polite conservative and Longhorns, in general, leaning more toward commie freako hippie pinko weirdo liberal. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

I'm proud of the Longhorns and their championship accomplishment. After years of stellar recruiting classes that managed to find a way to throw a wrench into their goal of being No. 1, they finally got it right.

I'll give them their moment, for now, but once the next season starts ...