Roar of the Tiger

This theme for this blog entry is dangerously close to that of the last one, but it's the best I could do at the moment at the end of that long drive around what's called writer's bloc.

However, it's one that is very near and dear to my heart, if no one else's. A few years ago I felt the need and inner urging to come up with something that would identify our teams as they walked out of the locker room -- most notably, football and basketball. The simple phrase "here come the Tigers" doesn't work anymore. People loved to get jazzed up for stuff -- I think the correct term used today is "krunk," whatever that means.

I came up with our now-famous Tiger Roar. That's that loud, roaring sound you hear in Ornelas Stadium when the football team starts the trek from the locker room to the field. It's also what you hear sometimes in Ornelas Gym just before the Tigers take the court.

There's a story behind the Tiger Roar. It's actually not that bad now, but the first one I came across was downright and borderline annoying. Even those of you who may be big fans of the Roar have to admit it wasn't the most appealing sound you'll ever hear. It sounded like one of those dinosaur noises you'd hear in "Jurassic Park," or like our tiger on the other end was in the process of dying, maybe.

I'd had enough of that roar after about three or four years. And quite frankly, the only feedback I got back from it was very comical. I had the feeling we were turning into a circus rather than an athletic event.

So I decided in my own wisdom to get rid of the Roar. Everyone hated it, it sounded nothing like a Tiger (it actually was though, really -- I'd downloaded it off the Internet after doing a simple search for "tiger roar"), and I was embarrassed by it. The only one who really liked it was our men's basketball coach, Bert West. But if you know Bert at all, none of that would surprise you. Bert will be a blog all by himself once basketball season starts; and I did appreciate his support for the original Tiger Roar. But trust me, the Roar stunk.

The Roar had its first official off day at a Tiger event during the 2006 football home opener. The CD player in the press box was broken, so all our pregame music had to be played on my laptop that day. The laptop was connected to the sound system courtesy of our trusty sound man at ETBU, the pride of Hallsville Bobcat Stadium, Mr. Johnny Vinson. The only problem was, Johnny and the laptop were at the other end of the pressbox from where I would be sitting and keeping game stats. And, the laptop also had my stat program. So I had to keep the laptop down there right up until the teams came out, play whatever intro sounds were needed, then unhook my computer and race back down the hallway to the media room where I would then have to hook it up again and get ready for kickoff.

So again, that was another reason why I decided to get rid of the Tiger Roar. No one even noticed it, anyway, right?

Wrong. The first drive of the game hadn't been completed that day when I got a call from our Athletic Director, Kent Reeves. He had gotten a message from Dr. Riley, our president, wanting to know why the Tiger Roar wasn't played. I told Kent I didn't have a copy of it because, basically, I hadn't planned to use it anymore. It was a joke. An embarrassing, sickening sound.

Needless to say, Dr. Riley likes the Tiger Roar. Several other people came up to me after that game and asked where our Roar had gone. It had become a tradition at ETBU, apparently, without me realizing it. I just wanted to play something that resembled a Tiger, not a dying whale.

I had a newfound desire to find a Roar suited for ETBU. The next home game, the new version was unveiled -- and I have to say it sounds much, much more like a vicious Tiger than anything I'd found before. The clip is only about 12 seconds long, but I've looped it into about 90 seconds worth of Tiger growling, roaring and snorting. It's a Tiger calling for his team, and it is here to stay.

It gets us "krunk," as they say.