There comes a time when a person needs to stand up and be the champion of their school. Joel Rivera is that person for UH.
Rivera has always been a true Cougar, and ever since his freshman year it has bothered him that so many students wear other schools’ athletic apparel around the University.
You may have seen Rivera around campus; he is the man convincing traitors to trade in their red and black, burnt orange and maroon for Cougar red. Rivera stands behind his school and believes all UH students should be just as excited as he is to be a Cougar.
But Rivera is doing more than just passing out T-shirts, screaming his support at UH sporting events and wearing red on Fridays; he formed the group known around campus as Coog Patrol.
The organization is attempting to help give the attitude of University students a facelift and instill some type of desire in them to be a Cougar. The Coog Patrol has a Facebook fan page with more than 500 fans featuring pictures depicting wayward cougars turning in their shirts and hats for UH threads.
Rivera also plans to introduce an idea he is calling the “Cougarlympics.” In theory, the event would bring all UH student organizations together to compete against each other in a wide arrange of different games. After covering the cost of hosting the games, Rivera would donate any additional money to the Special Olympics, something every student could be proud of.
Rivera is also teaming up with the Student Video Network to make a series of commercials in which he will play a man on the street asking traitors why they are turning their backs on UH.
It is sad to see that so many students at this University would rather support programs other than their own. Throwing on a Longhorns jersey doesn’t change the fact that you go to UH; have a little pride in your school.
It doesn’t make much sense to pay one college thousands of dollars each year and then turn around and give another school props by buying its apparel.
We all want our school to become a flagship academic institution, but what are we willing to do to help?
It is time for all of us to get behind our school; after all, don’t we ask the University to get behind us?
Harold Arnold is a business senior and may be reached at [email protected]
Props to Joel Rivera. (Even Academy has UH apparel now so let’s push the Ags and the Horns to the back of the rack.) Go, Coogs!
I am extremely proud of you Joel, way to go… I do believe you go above and beyond for the students of UH to be more proud of their University….If you continue what you are doing, we will get to a point where more students will want to come to our University…Let us all be proud of where we are and Join Joel in showing our pride….
GO COOGS!!!
Joel is a true Cougar – this description covers only a small amount of what he does for UH. In addition, this is a wonderful column. I think it should be reprinted every semester and also introduced at Orientations!
Go Coogs!
I remember Dr. Simon Bott giving us the talk about school pride (and how lame it was to see people wearing other school colors on campus) during my freshman chemistry class back in 2004 and it stuck with me. Even during my orientation, the orientation team set aside time to have a small segment where they pulled people who showed up to orientation wearing other school colors and got them on stage and put them on the spot (even some poor kid wearing a michael jordan north carolina shirt wasn’t spared). I remember my entire freshman year seeing different articles regarding the issue in the Daily Cougar. I even remember eating lunch at the satellite and hearing some fraternity guys yell “hey nice hoodie” sarcastically to some guy sitting in front of me wearing a UT hoodie. It was a great time. The following years I didn’t notice as much of that spirit as I noticed everyone getting UT hoodies from steve and barry’s for Christmas and actually wearing them. I’ve since graduated and I think it’s great they’re bringing this message back. It’s a revival that shouldn’t have ever needed to be revived, hopefully this time around it stays and stays.