Weird West Texas: Why do Texas Tech fans toss tortillas during games? – LubbockOnline.com
A flour tortilla flew onto the court during the 2019 NCAA Mens’ Basketball Championship, briefly pausing the game and puzzling at least half the crowd inside the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis — and presumably, the majority of the national TV audience.
The longtime tradition of Texas Tech — that originated sometime between the late 1980s and early 1990s — prompted national news coverage everywhere from Yahoo News to Time Magazine and USA Today, who just wanted to get to the bottom of it. None seemed capable of singling it down to one simple answer.
Now, nearly four years later, the origin of the tortilla toss is still up in the air.
But before I go further, let me introduce myself: I’m Brandi D. Addison, the regional agriculture and natural resources reporter for the USA TODAY network in West Texas, and this is our newest series, “Weird West Texas.”
Each week, we will explore some of the most odd, eccentric and just plain weird things in our region — from the state’s northernmost town of Booker down into the Big Country, westward to the Permian Basin and all the way into the Rolling Plains.
This week, we’re exploring the origin of Texas Tech’s tortilla toss.
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Archivists, historians and even lifelong super fans have tossed around several stories to accompany Tech’s tortilla tradition. For the most part, we were able to narrow the standoff down to two lasting theories.
The less-exciting version states the original tradition emerged in 1989 when students would remove the lids from their fountain sodas and throw them onto the field, according to Viva the Matadors, a Red Raider fan site. Quickly after, fans’ drinks were no longer supplied with lids, so instead, they tossed tortillas.
The better version — in my opinion — is linked to the rivalry against the Texas A&M Aggies (which makes sense when paired with the Will Rogers and Soapsuds tale). Legend has it that an ESPN announcer, before a Tech-A&M football game in 1992, said Lubbock had “nothing but Texas Tech football and a tortilla factory.” Consequently, fans brought tortillas to the game and tossed them at kickoff — and the tradition lived on.
Either way, the tradition seems to have sprung from a lighthearted beginning.
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Perhaps one of the most controversial traditions at Texas Tech, even the university website doesn’t provide much help during research. Certainly not the worst tradition of all college fanbases, the tortilla toss has long been frowned upon by the NCAA (and possibly Tech, though measures haven’t been strictly enforced in recent years).
In 2018, Tech’s Daily Toreador student newspaper asked students and faculty their position on a ban of tortilla-tossing. An archivist with the university said then that it’s controversial because most students love it, but it’s not an official university tradition, and she believes it reflects bad sportsmanship. The student sources were mostly supportive and defended their rights to toss tortillas, asserting that the contraband tortillas have never seriously injured anyone on the field, including Tech’s beloved horses.
Though this claim has not yet been refuted or proven incorrect, that doesn’t necessarily mean the tradition is completely harmless. In more than one event, officials have had to halt a game because an abundance of tortilla remnants posed a threat to athletes — and in most cases, Tech received a penalty after the NCAA established a “tortilla penalty” rule in 2001.
It never really stopped fans from sneaking in tortillas in the most creative ways possible, but still, students created a petition in 2018 addressed to former U.S. President Donald Trump, NCAA, Tech President Lawrence Schovanec and Tech Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt.
More than 7,500 supporters signed the petition, which incorrectly labeled the preliminary ban as “xenophobic” before sharing an inaccurate origin of the tradition: “(It) dates back to the beginning of time and the founding of the Matadors, who used to only eat tortillas. We throw them on the field to symbolize feeding the matadors, to power our team to glory.”
That tale, as well as other fictional stories that have prompted many to question if the tradition has racist roots against Latino communities, lingers on.
While it remains uncertain exactly how the tortilla toss tradition got started, it appears many Red Raider fans embrace it simply for fun and games.
Brandi D. Addison is the Agriculture and Natural Resources Reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. She also compiles the weekly “ICYMI” column — rounding up the biggest news from the week prior each Monday — and the biweekly “In Ag. and Eco,” which explores news about agriculture and environment from around the U.S. Find her on Twitter @BrandiDAddison.
If you’re curious about one of the many oddities or quirks in our region, submit your question via email to BAddison@gannett.com with “Weird West Texas” in the subject line or via text at 806.496.4073 .
