Let the Indoctrination Begin

Now that Michael's verbal and reasoning skills are getting up to speed, it's time for us to start indoctrinating him to like the things that we like. Sure, we'll take care of the stuff like reading books, enjoying healthy/locally grown/in-season food, and exercising. Yada, yada, yada. The important thing will be securing his allegiance to our sports teams of choice, the Texas Longhorns and the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Clearly we have excellent taste in football teams, as these two programs are near the top of the heap every year. With awesome tradition, great looking uniforms, and fantastic fan support, Michael is very fortunate that we are choosing these teams for him. Even better, our rivals, Auburn, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M, make such juicy targets that the jokes practically write themselves.

Methods of indoctrination:
Passive exposure:
We will provide Michael with a huge supply of licensed logo clothing from each of the schools. He started out in tiny burnt orange onesies and I'm sure he'll be wearing some sort of Longhorn backpack when he heads off to kindergarten in a few years.

We will take him to each of the college campuses and show him how awesome they are. He will be posed for photographs in front of famous campus landmarks to set the ole nostalgia hooks and create a historic connection to the school. I will be sure to emphasize that walking through the Auburn or A&M campuses would involve dodging smelly cows and trying to avoid their leavings. "If you go to A&M, you have to wear overalls to class every day. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

Mikey's nursery features an Alabama pennant and a gigantic Bevo mascot growth chart poster. The idea is that the constant exposure to these images will create a permanent imprint on his malleable little proto-brain.

Active Support:
We watch Alabama and Texas games together, and role model excellent cheering for our teams. Mikey will begin to associate Longhorn touchdowns or Alabama sacks with outbursts of family joy and a sense of loving well-being. We will teach him to signal and yell "touchdown!", and he will be praised effusively for doing so. Some of my earliest and best memories of time with my dear sweet dad are during early 80's Bama games. I remember his maniacal screaming and hooting. "HE'S GOT THE BALL..WOOOOOOO!", etc. I hope Mikey will have his own fond memories of watching Texas and Bama games with Shannon and me. Here's hoping he can block out the naughty words and the periodic offensive coordinator rage that can bubble up.

We are also working on cheers and slogans. "Michael, what does the elephant say?" "Rooollllllllll Tide-dah," he sometimes replies. "Michael, what does Bevo say?" "Bevo's drinking the milk!," replies Michael. The above-mentioned Bevo poster in his room was sponsored by a Dairy company, and Bevo is indeed enjoying a fine glass of milk in the photograph. It's not perfect, but we'll take it.

Overall, we are confident that this strategy will result in a well-adjusted young man who has his college football rooting interests in good working order.