Horns Down? No National Anthem for You

NCAA removes CWS anthem singer from Omaha ceremony after he flashed the "Horns Down" before a Texas game at the WCWS in Oklahoma City.

Zac Collier enjoys performing the Star Spangled Banner before sporting events.

He’s been the ceremonial singer for the national anthem at Texas Rangers games, Dallas Wings games, TCU games, Frisco Rough Riders games, Texas A&M games and more. In 2020, he turned in a virtual performance for the Houston Astros (it wasn’t used).

Collier’s most recent appearance singing the anthem, however, knocked him out of consideration for his next one.

Collier — a 27-year-old Texas A&M alumnus and school teacher living in Dallas and a devout Aggies fan — sang before an Oklahoma State-Texas softball game in Oklahoma City last week, and when he finished, he turned to OSU fans, held up the “Go Pokes” sign and then flashed the “Horns Down” sign.

Zac Collier / Screenshot via YouTube

Collier was scheduled to sing the anthem at the College World Series in Omaha this week, but the NCAA changed course and uninvited him.

Collier posted about it on his Facebook page this week, including a screenshot of an email from the NCAA.

“Due to the unsportsmanlike behavior shown after your performance at the Women’s College World Series, we need to go a different direction,” the NCAA wrote. “You are no longer scheduled to perform at Game 9 of the Men’s College World Series.”

In his post dated June 9, Collier wrote, “I will no longer be singing at the MCWS in Omaha due to my “Offensive Gestures” at the WCWS. I regret nothing. #HornsDown”

Collier’s Aggies play Oklahoma at 1 p.m. Friday in the opening game of the 2022 CWS. On the other side of the OU-A&M bracket are the Longhorns, who play Notre Dame at 6 p.m. Friday.

Jocelyn Alo, with a national championship trophy and the horns down :: BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN-USA TODAY NETWORK

An email inquiry into the nature of Collier’s unsportsmanlike behavior produced this response: “We have documented proof that he made offensive gestures and mockery of a participating team in the Women’s College World Series and we do not feel comfortable allowing him to perform.”

Collier told USA Today’s For the Win his gesture was standard and generic and not directed at anyone in particular.

“I didn’t say anything to the coaches,” he said. “I didn’t flip anybody off. I was very respectful. And I mean, I’m up there to do a job and to sing the national anthem and to sing it well, and to get the players and the coaches and the people in the stands pumped up. And I felt like I did that.”

For the Win reached out to the NCAA and received the following explanation:

“The performance of the national anthem during NCAA championship events is a solemn moment for reflection and mutual respect for all championship participants and fans in attendance,” the NCAA wrote in a statement. “Following his national anthem performance during the Women’s College World Series – during which the performer inappropriately supported one participating team, taunted the other team, and disrupted participating student-athletes and coaches by attempting to interact with them – he was asked not to perform during the Men’s College World Series.”

The controversy continues an ongoing narrative — started by former Texas football coach Mack Brown, perpetuated by former Horns coach Tom Herman and supported (sometimes reluctantly, it seemed), by the Big 12 Conference — that Texas fans are offended by the gesture.

In a 2019 one-on-one interview in his office on the UT campus, Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte was largely ambivalent about the Horns Down controversy.

“I think anytime that someone has to use the Longhorns signal down speaks more about them and not us,” Del Conte said. “Right? It is the University of Texas, right? So when you have that horns up, I get it. When I was working at TCU, I was like, ‘OK it's horns down; why is that? Why are we worried about what the University of Texas does?’ Right? It is that. I do believe that with the two rivals, Oklahoma and Texas, I fully get it. But when someone else starts doing it, really? It has nothing germane to you. It is germane to these two schools, and it should be. But when you got West Virginia or this other guy, they're doing it — I understand. I understand and I embrace it. What I don't embrace is that when it's come and just shoved in your face.”

Del Conte or anyone sensitive to the gesture should brace themselves as the Longhorns head off to the Southeastern Conference, where fan bases are not known for restraint or decorum.

“Every single team that plays Texas is going to be throwing the horns down,” Collier told FTW. “Every single team in the SEC is going to do that … just like everybody else around the country does it.

“When you play Texas, you throw the horns down.”