College Football Is For Everyone

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I’m an Indian American.

I’m also a sports fan. A sports writer. A Rutgers graduate. Someone who has spent an absurd amount of time watching, talking about, and writing about American sports.

Someone who fell in love with this team as an “outsider” myself, not because of my skin color, but because I didn’t grow up rooting for this team. I didn’t know much about college sports, how big they were, or why Rutgers was worth rooting for at all, especially with their track record in the 2010s.

But when I was at this school and in the years to come, I was every bit a Rutgers fan, like anyone who supports the Scarlet Knights. It’s become part of my livelihood, and I relish the opportunity to watch and cover our sports teams, no matter what the struggles are right now.

Those things have never felt contradictory to me. The last thing I was thinking of Saturday was race. I just wanted to enjoy a great college football game. And sure, I’ll jump at every chance I get to root against Texas football.

That’s why seeing the reaction to a photo of South Asian students in the University of Texas student section after the Longhorns’ win over Ohio State bothered me.

Not just because the comments were blatantly xenophobic and racist, but because of what they suggested about who is actually allowed to belong in American sports culture. And that they were also factually incorrect.

Bo French, the Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner, looked at a picture of students celebrating in the Texas student section and decided that their appearance was evidence of a problem.

The students were cheering for Texas. They were participating in the student section. They were doing something as normal as it gets for a college student on a fall Saturday. And somehow, that became controversial. It overshadowed the aftermath of what was an incredible Longhorns comeback against the top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes, which absolutely should not have been the talking point.

I couldn’t help but think about our own university.

Rutgers has plenty of Indian students. It has international students. It has students whose families have been in New Jersey for generations. It has students who were born in the United States and students who weren’t.

Some go to football games. Some don’t. Some care deeply about Rutgers athletics. Some couldn’t tell you who our starting quarterback is.  Oh wait. We can’t either. They both suck.

And none of that is a problem.

I’ve seen students from all kinds of backgrounds at Rutgers games. They’re there for different reasons. Some grew up rooting for the program. Some became fans after arriving on campus. Some are there because their friends convinced them to go. Some go because it’s a social outing and a good time. That’s part of it too.

Nobody needs to justify why they’re there. From my accounts over the years, everyone has been made welcome.

If an Indian American student or any other student puts on Rutgers gear and walks into SHI Stadium, they’re a Rutgers fan. Heck, one of the top kickers in Scarlet Knights history is Indian American. Jai Patel set program records playing football for the Scarlet Knights.

If an international student does the same thing, they’re a college football fan.

If somebody has been going to games their entire life, they’re also a college football fan.

And if someone doesn’t want to go to the game at all, that’s fine too. Plenty of students, whether they’re a minority, a foreigner, or not, choose not to. That’s okay too.

That doesn’t mean they should be treated as others or ridiculed for not choosing to be American.

That’s another important thing: participation in attending sporting events and other American campus customs is not mandatory; they are welcomed with open arms.

However, when minorities and foreign students actively choose to participate in one of the greatest American university traditions, that cannot and should not be treated as an issue or problem. At all.

Many of These Students Are American Citizens, if Not Texans

Everyone can tell that Bo French’s statement was extremely racist and xenophobic. But logically, his argument falls apart in countless ways. That picture French referenced showed one small pocket of the stadium, where fans of all backgrounds watched their Longhorns defeat Ohio State in a thrilling comeback victory.

The University of Texas-Austin is a very diverse campus, and Asians represent roughly a quarter of its population, with Indians a significant portion of those (estimated at between ten and fifteen percent by some accounts. Indian Americans account for 1.8% of Texas’ state population, so they are overrepresented at the university, which is no coincidence due to their emphasis on strong academics and higher education.

In direct contradiction to French’s later claims that our institutions prioritize foreigners over Americans, approximately 88% to 90% of UT-Austin students are residents of the state of Texas, with the remaining being out-of-state and international students. Most of these in-state students (up to 75%) are top performers in their high school class, with the top five percent of each graduating class qualifying for automatic admission.

Several of these students in the picture that French tweeted about have spoken out about the hateful tweet, as well as their own experiences supporting Texas football. According to The Dallas Morning News, two of the students in particular, Dhairya Gupta and Rahul Kodali, are none other than American citizens.

Gupta moved to the United States when he was around five and became a citizen as a child, while Kodali was born in Syracuse, New York. But honestly, the specifics do not really matter. Kodali stated to the newspaper, “Whether or not we are immigrants, that doesn’t change anything. I’ve been an American my entire life.”

And honestly, even if every one of those students were international students from India as opposed to US citizens or Texas residents, as French clearly thinks, that still would not change my argument that his statement was reprehensible. College football is for everyone, and if those students attend the University of Texas and root for the Longhorns, they have the right to be there just as much as anyone else attending the game.

French has made no shortage of racist and offensive comments towards all sorts of minority groups, to nobody’s surprise, and it is worth noting that he has received financial donations from not only Texas boosters, but also schools from around the state.

But enough about that deplorable man, who actively took the spotlight away from the incredible feats on the football field and pointed it at Indian American kids who committed the crime of watching college football.

If watching an American sport at an American university and cheering on your school and state is not American enough, then frankly, I don’t know what is. Immigrants and children of immigrants are told they need to assimilate into American culture, and here these kids are, wearing burnt orange, cowboy hats, and throwing hook-ems into the air, and they are being told they don’t belong.

The only person here who doesn’t belong in college football or state office is Bo French.

This Goes Beyond Just One Hateful Comment

And that brings me to another part of what makes a sports community worth belonging to: how we treat everyone who participates and works in it.

The recent situation involving Texas quarterback Arch Manning and an AI-generated video is a good example.

The video depicted a fictionalized scenario in which Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian slapped Holly Rowe, an ESPN sideline reporter who, in real-life, was supposed to interview him after the game. Manning mentioned it and laughed at it upon being asked a question about what TikTok edits he had seen after the game. Some people viewed it as a joke, and many male reporters laughed as well.

Others, including women working in sports media, understandably saw something different. For women who already have to navigate disrespect and hostility in a male-dominated sports environment, imagery that makes light of violence toward a female reporter, or just a woman in general, can land very differently than it might for someone watching it as a harmless joke.

I don’t think the lesson is that Manning is a bad person and that he intended harm, nor do I think the video necessarily reflected an intention to promote violence against women.

The lesson is that women in sports deserve to be treated with respect, and that impact matters even when harmful intent wasn’t there.

And Manning’s response matters, too. He apologized, both publicly on his Instagram story and privately to Rowe, which she graciously accepted. He took responsibility and listened to the criticism rather than simply dismissing it, even when many fans argued he had nothing to apologize for. That doesn’t erase the discomfort that was initially caused. But accountability doesn’t have to mean that one mistake defines someone forever.

You can acknowledge that something was wrong without deciding that the person who made the mistake is incapable of doing better. I don’t demand perfection. I ask we all take accountability and respect one another.

That’s the kind of sports culture I want to be part of.

A culture where women and minorities can watch, report, broadcast, coach, play, analyze, and otherwise participate without having to accept disrespect as the price of admission.

And a culture where, when someone gets something wrong, we expect accountability — but also leave room for people to learn from it.

One More Thing: We Can All Do Better

There’s one other part of this that I think is worth mentioning as a sports journalist.

We in the media have a responsibility to be better in how we cover sports and to cover issues as we see them.

College athletes are college students. They’re going to make mistakes. They’re going to say dumb things. They’re going to have awkward moments. They’re going to learn.

We can hold them accountable without turning their mistakes into entertainment.

And that applies to everybody. If we’re serious about wanting more women, minorities, and people from different backgrounds to feel welcome in sports, then we have to create a sports culture where they actually are welcome.

That’s part of why these Texas situations bothered me so much. College sports are for everyone. The student section is for everyone. The press box is for everyone. The media covering these sports should reflect that, too.

I didn’t need to write this because I’m Indian American. I didn’t need a personal connection to decide that something was wrong.

If something is wrong, I’ll say it’s wrong. That’s my responsibility as a sports journalist, or a journalist, period.

Being Indian American just means this particular issue hit a little closer to home.

We Lost Sight of an Incredible Football Game

So for all those Texas students in the stands that day, Indian American and otherwise, you didn’t do anything wrong. You belonged there. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

You went to a football game. You cheered for your school. You were part of the community.

That’s what college football is supposed to be.

Now, as a Rutgers fan, I have two separate complaints about that Saturday.

Ohio State: You blew a 20-point lead. What are we doing here? You deserve to be ranked sixth in the AP poll; I don’t care how much talent your team has when they can’t execute for four quarters.

Texas: Congratulations on the comeback. I still don’t like you.

And that’s okay, too. Rivalry, disagreement, and trash talk are part of sports. Exclusion isn’t.

So to the Longhorns: enjoy the win. Enjoy the top ranking in college football. You deserve it.

Just don’t put the horns up in Big Ten country.

Horns down. 🤘⬇️

And Ohio State will never fail to lose big games.

That’s a Ryan Day tradition.

To support me and my work, please follow @arnavsarkar1000 on X!

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