SOFT: The College World Series Is Not Letting A Guy Sing The National Anthem Because He Did Horns Down While Singing At The Women's World Series
[ESPN] - A national anthem singer says his performance at the Men's College World Series has been canceled because he made the Horns Down gesture before a Women's College World Series semifinal between Texas and Oklahoma State.
Zach Collier, a 27-year-old U.S. history teacher in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and a Texas A&M alumnus, posted this week on Facebook that his performance was nixed.
Collier told ESPN on Tuesday that he's been singing the anthem at sporting events for the past 10 years, including at several Texas A&M sporting events when he still lived in College Station, along with Houston Astros and Texas Rangers games. He said he understood why someone might take offense to the gesture during an anthem performance.
An NCAA spokesman confirmed Tuesday that Collier's appearance was canceled after the incident.
I tend to avoid the whole society is soft thing because it's often screamed about dumb things. But this? This is confirmed soft. This might be the softest shit I've ever seen. Calling horns down an OFFENSIVE gesture is fucking insane. It's sports! It's what everyone in the world does to Texas because frankly they deserve it. You have a simple hand gesture like that all your rivals are going to run with the opposite to mock you. It's funny, it plays and it should be used more in college sports.
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Sorry for all the offensive gifs there, but I had to get my point across. Not letting a guy sing a National Anthem over this is just soft. That's the only way I can describe it. It's 2022, can we stop pretending like everyone has to be neutral in sports? Or do we still have to do the thing where we pretend reporters, anchors, national anthem singers and everyone else don't cheer for a specific school? We all know it, why it's not universally accepted is beyond me.
As for disrupting players and coaches? Here's what Collier had to say:
Collier said the extent of his interaction with any of the players was saying hello to an Oklahoma State player standing next to him at home plate, speaking for a mutual friend, and that the player said hello in return. He did say a Texas assistant mentioned to "keep those Horns up," but that he laughed and walked off afterward.
Yeah that's the right response by a Texas assistant! I promise you no player or coach gives a shit if someone does Horns Down. They are used to it. Hell, good chance they aren't even completely paying attention to the national anthem. They are looking around, looking down, focusing on getting ready for, you know, the game.
Now to focus on the email for a second. Does my man go by Big Daddy? I can't stop laughing while wondering what's going on here. I really hope it's like BigDaddy69420@hotmail.com. Nothing would make me laugh more than knowing the NCAA and College World Series had to send a serious email to something like that. Even better is seeing the response from 'Big Daddy' in your email inbox.
Good news is Zach Collier aka Big Daddy has the perfect reaction to all of this:
"You know, if I'm going to do the Horns Down, I'm going to do the Horns Down," he said. "I don't think anybody's going to stop me from doing it."
Hell yeah Zach. Don't ever stop doing Horns Down.
Here's the full video of the Women's World Series: