By BUD KENNEDY
bud@star-telegram.com
If I loved the Texas Tech Red Raiders, I’d be mad.
And not just because Coach Mike Leach blamed a loss on the players’ "fat little girlfriends."
If I loved the North Texas Mean Green or the UT-Arlington Mavericks, I’d be furious, too — mad enough to go vote now for Proposition 4.
A political e-mail making the rounds basically calls Tech, UNT and UT-Arlington stupid.
Just when voters have a chance to invest an extra $25 million in those and four other universities, bashers are arguing that their students just aren’t worth as much as the geniuses in Austin or College Station.
Tech, UNT and UT-Arlington have "mediocre scores at best" and don’t deserve the Proposition 4 money, according to Ronald Trowbridge of Conroe, a retired Michigan university official and author of a commentary distributed by religious and anti-tax conservatives.
UNT student President Dakota Carter, 21, a political science major from Shamrock, is smart enough to read the commentary very clearly.
"They’re calling us stupid," he said by phone Thursday from campus.
"They’re saying we’re not worth the money. I don’t take very kindly to that."
Proposition 4 would offer more money to Tech, UNT and UT-Arlington, plus the University of Houston and University of Texas campuses in El Paso, Richardson and San Antonio.
Right now, the average freshman SAT score at Tech, UNT and UT-Arlington is about 1100.
Trowbridge basically asks why we should spend money on such dim bulbs.
"Why," he wrote, "are we worried about brain drain?"
UT-Arlington’s student president is communications major Kent Long, 21, of Gorman.
"People go to UT for the opportunities," he said.
"Why not offer opportunity at more schools?"
UNT alumni Director Derrick Morgan, a graduate of Texas Tech, is more worried about helping Tech and UNT win this election than about football victories.
"In a state the size of Texas, we ought to be worried that we’re so far behind in research universities," he said.
Proposition 4 would shift a now-dormant endowment fund to offer research grants to the seven universities. It doesn’t cost us more in taxes, although Trowbridge predicts that the campuses will ask for even more money.
Trowbridge, an English scholar and formerly a controversial vice president at archconservative, private Hillsdale College in Michigan, wrote the commentary for the Austin-based anti-tax lobbying group Empower Texans.
He said his "brain drain" comment was "not a slur — it’s just an accurate reporting of the facts."
His response to students:
"Your academic scores aren’t very good," he said. "So why do you deserve extra money?"
Vote today or Tuesday.
This is a game Tech, UNT and UT-Arlington need to win.
Bud Kennedy’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 817-390-7538 Twitter @budkennedy
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