Chemistry professor Mauro Castro said his 5-year-old son was treated by football trainers after a hardened tortilla struck him in the nose at Javelina Stadium during a run with Porky’s Pack, the children who rush the field with Porky, the Javelinas mascot.
With the beginning of college football season last night, life is once again returning to something resembling normal. Well, that might be true…if you don’t live in Kingsville, TX, home of the Texas A&M-Kingsville Javelinas. I’ve been to Kingsville, and let’s fact it, y’all; if you live in Kingsville, throwing tortillas after a Javelina touchdown is about all you really have to look forward to. Now that the “fun weenies” have decided to rain on the parade, Javelina fans don’t even have that to look forward to.
Having lived on the Texas Gulf Coast for 10+ years, I can speak to the subject of tortillas with some authority. Tortillas, in their natural state, are soft, pliable, and not renowned for their aerodynamic qualities. The flip side is that they’re about as much of a threat as an Iraqi infantry platoon. Yes, you might get smacked in the head by a flying tortilla after the Javelinas score, but it defies reality to think that a flying tortilla is by definition a threat to one’s personal safety. And it’s not as if Javelina fans are the only ones tossing edible items after a touchdown. UCLA fans throw rice, and BYU fan throw Wonder Bread (which ought to be all kinds of find in a rain storm). Find a school whose fans throw Cobb salad, and you’ve got something resembling a balanced meal.
Look, the majority of TAMU-Kingsville’s students are Hispanic, so it makes sense that they’d throw tortillas. To see something inherently racist in this sort of celebratory gesture seems rather silly. If college students can’t have some good, clean fun, what’s the point? Besides, as I said before, it’s not as if there’s anything else to do in Kingsville.
BTW…in case you’re wondering, a Javelina is something you’ll never see, unless you find one flattened outside Kingsville on US Hwy. 77….
