I’m not surpised so many fans of both schools never actually attended the colleges they root for. I’d consider it amazing if one of them even made it past third grade.
The shocking case has set off a raging debate in this football-crazed region about the extreme passions behind a bitter rivalry. Some legal observers have even questioned whether this case could ever truly have an impartial jury.
“I’ve actually heard callers on talk radio say that this guy deserved what he got for wearing a Texas T-shirt into a bar in the middle of Sooner country,” said Irven Box, an attorney in this city 20 miles from Oklahoma’s campus in Norman.
According to police, 32-year-old Texas fan Brian Christopher Thomas walked into Henry Hudson’s Pub on June 17 wearing a Longhorns T-shirt and quickly became the focus of football “trash talk” from another regular, 53-year-old Oklahoma fan Allen Michael Beckett.
Thomas told police that when he decided to leave and went to the bar to pay his tab, Beckett grabbed him in the crotch, pulled him to the ground and wouldn’t let go, even as bar patrons tried to break it up. When the two men were separated, Thomas looked down and realized the extent of his injuries.
“He could see both of his testicles hanging on the outside of his body,” said Thomas’ attorney, Carl Hughes. “He was wearing a pair of white shorts, which made it that much worse.”
It took more than 60 stitches to close the wound, and police interviewed Thomas at a nearby hospital emergency room.