DFW Radio Bit Shows Why Texas Joining SEC Might Lead to Misunderstandings

Old hilarious 'Fun With Country Music' bit on The Ticket in Dallas shows general life in SEC stuff of fiction to Lone Star State sports fans

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – For those who have followed the personal stories that sometimes get sprinkled in among all the Razorback coverage on allHogs.com, it's no secret that I float back and forth between Dallas and Fayetteville. 

One of the benefits of that is getting to soak up local radio in each market. When life has demanded long periods of time in Dallas, I check in with the main sports radio station of the past 30 years, a station that has floated all over the radio dial known as "The Ticket." There have since been offshoot sports stations birthed by former Ticket hosts, but there's only one grandfather of modern sports radio in DFW. 

It's a station built upon fearlessness and recurring familiar bits conducted by a cast that remained largely the same for decades. Along the way, a bit popped up on the afternoon show, "The Hardline," called "Fun With Country Music." It rose out of necessity as a way to confront an era of country music that reared its head along the time acts like Florida-Georgia Line and Luke Bryan came to the forefront of the industry with a cookie cutter set of cords and what evolved into a highly formulaic way of writing lyrics. 

As the bit evolved, the guys doing it, led by co-host Corby Davidson, came up with the premise that somewhere in Nashville is an executive requiring all country music stars to have each item of a specific list of topics in their song as a recipe for making hits in the 2000s. The list included references to truck, girl, some form of water, a rural setting, some sort of critter, alcohol, a religious reference, farm equipment and America. The list expanded over time, but that was the core. 

What would then ensue about once every few months is that Corby would bring in the new hot country music song sent to him by fans of the show and it would go through the test. Among the artists featured was Arkansas native and 103.7 The Buzz morning host Justin Moore with his song "Backwoods," but the Ric Flair of country music when it came to this game was hands down Luke Bryan.

Bryan appeared more than anyone else on a bit that sporadically appeared over the course of seven years. He was the original inspiration for the bit as a whole, which is why his songs "My Kinda Night" and "Shake It" were the content for the first episode, which is where the original list was created. It's dangerous radio to listen to while trying to fight through Dallas traffic because it is so funny. Even nearly a decade after it originally aired, it still holds up.    

The biggest contention the guys on the show have is because of their life experience, they don't believe it's possible that Bryan spends time floating the Flint River, has never skinned a fish of any kind, and has never known one of the four tractors they believe still exists in the world. They also seemed amazed that a member of the show knew someone who ate squirrel. Not ate squirrel. Knew someone who said they had eaten it. When talking about Moore song, they claimed he has surely never seen a deer, which was especially hilarious once I learned later in life that he apparently lives somewhere south of Little Rock.

While it didn't take long to figure out that even though Texas tries to pretend to be part of the South, it culturally isn't, it was jarring when this first aired to realize how truly different the cultures are. Remember, this was only a couple of years after Texas A&M joined the Southeastern Conference.  

As the segment ended, I thought about how these guys thought the life I lived growing up in Warren, Arkansas was modern fiction. Fishing was a regular thing in my life. It, along with hunting and food canned in Mason jars from a garden shared by all of the extended family, was how the table was filled each winter when heavy rains and the occasional ice storm shut down the logging industry that had provided jobs so many people in Bradley County.

Those were my favorite memories growing up. Me and my dad getting up before the sun rose to grab bait, microwaved sausage biscuits, honey buns, Cokes and whatever assorted fishing supplies the day's target warranted at the local bait shop before driving for an hour or so in a truck that smelled of chainsaw oil to one of a handful of local fishing holes. 

The one spanking I remember was because after school one day, instead of staying home, I snuck off to the pond at the Wagnon Place nursing home to get a little fishing in before my parents got off work. Unfortunately for me, my dad came home early and found me at that pond. However, the licks were worth it. The fish were really biting that day. 

Fishing was so woven into the culture that a friend of mine from years of playing youth baseball took his wife to the Arkansas River for their honeymoon where they camped and fished for catfish while grounding their boat on one of the many sandbars under the moonlight. When it came time for me to get married, I found myself in need of a little extra cash, so I did the one thing that seemed most logical. I hosted a fishing tournament. It paid for the arch under which my wife and I stood and swore to love each other until our dying day.

As for the tractor, there were plenty around. However, I'm not sure I didn't know a single person who somewhere around age 14 didn't go to work in the local tomato fields alongside the migrant workers who came in each summer. Interaction with tractors was a necessary evil that came with the paycheck. 

The boys sprinted up and down the rows of tomatoes carrying empty 10-gallon buckets to drop off. Then we would pick up a pair of full buckets, extend arms away from the body a little so the buckets didn't tear up our shins and ankles, and hauled tail back to the tractor to place the buckets of tomatoes onto the trailer. Rinse, lather, repeated from first light until just before the sun went down. 

I developed a fast swing with the baseball bat and got to where I could throw a football really far, and attribute both partially to all that time logged between the tomato rows and that tractor. As for their contention that girls wouldn't like a night down by the river, there was a place called "The End of the World" that was way down a dirt road that turned into a four-wheeler trail that eventually ended along the banks of the Saline River that was packed with girls nearly every weekend, especially during the summer. I didn't drink, so I never had a reason to visit personally, but from the stories that came back from it, it definitely was their kinda of night. 

Something tells me that similar experiences can be had in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and even Kentucky. However, having worked with thousands of young men and women in Texas over the course of over two decades, I can say with certainty that nights fighting through mosquitoes to load the boat full of catfish or have segments of their lives dictated by the movements of a tractor is not a part of their life equation. It's as unreal to them as it was to the guys hosting afternoon drive. 

I will never regret growing up in Southeast Arkansas. We were light years closer to being in the poor house than the penthouse. However, throughout my life, I have worked with millionaires and even a few billionaires and their lives weren't nearly as rich as the life I led in that farm town. 

With Texas joining the SEC, one thing other fan bases need to understand is the Longhorns think they're southern also. They don't know any better and won't be able to relate to the lives of the schools that carried the SEC banner together since the early 1990s. 

It will create communication problems at times because they're coming from a different place that can't comprehend the life experiences of their fellow SEC mates. However, they have a deep love for sports and a burning desire to win. That's where the common ground lies. 

And just like I found humor in what they had to say about a culture that was my life experience, current SEC schools will also find it best to let that stuff slide and enjoy life. Don't be so serious and looking to get offended. 

This time next summer, Texas will be married into the family.  Enjoy them for what they bring to the table – a big check book and a skin thinner that those Aggies down in College Station. Both things those of us who grew up enjoying a little time in the backwoods on the river frying up a mess of catfish can truly appreciate.

Oh, guess I missed a religious reference and America. Happy Fourth of July and may God bless America. There. List complete.

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