MandaloreLink

This is the way...

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@DarrienStarling @210RaisedMe You literally prefaced it with I don't want to overreact... you yourself even knew you were being negative too soon 🙄

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@theJJPerez @UTSAinsiders His post game with ticket760 was great too, you can tell hes excited and having fun... great to see

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@TFCCSU You all would die from the noise at dkr or kyle field... weak ass team 😆😆

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@theJJPerez @UTSAEquipment Literally got the 2nd to last one before they sold out at the campus store in Sec 118... sad they sold out but glad that they're a hit

[the Sports ON Tap @thesportsontap]

UTSA unveiled its Hispanic Heritage helmet this week, and it is not a logo swap.

There are four things on it.

The colors of Fiesta.

Fiesta started in 1891, when a congressman's wife proposed that San Antonio hold a flower parade in memory of the men who died at the Alamo and at San Jacinto. It is still put on by the Battle of Flowers Association, the only all women, all volunteer group in the country that produces a parade like it. It runs eleven days now and it shuts the city down.

A ribbon down the middle that looks like it came out of a cascarón.

If you did not grow up around this, a cascarón is a hollowed out eggshell painted bright, filled with paper confetti, sealed with tissue, and cracked over somebody's head. It is a blessing. Good luck and affection. The tradition traveled from Europe to Mexico, where perfumed powder got swapped for confetti, and it landed in San Antonio for good. Fiesta has a Cascarones Committee, known around town as the Egg Ladies, and they make tens of thousands of them every year by hand.

Silhouettes of the Alamo on each side of that ribbon.

And on the other side of the helmet, in script, San Antonio.

Receiver David Amador II wore it for the reveal. Offensive lineman Ben Rios modeled the shirt, which reads Los Correcaminos in cursive.

Here is why none of this is decoration.

San Antonio is one of the ten largest cities in America, and it is a majority Hispanic city, and until 2011 it did not have a Division I college football program of its own. Not a small one. None.

UTSA hired Larry Coker in 2009 to build one. Coker had won a national championship at Miami in 2001. He took a job with no players, no facility and no schedule, and spent two and a half years building before anybody played a down.

September 3, 2011. First game in school history, against Northeastern State.

UTSA won 31-3. And 56,743 people came.

That is the largest crowd that has ever watched a Division I FCS startup program play a game. Not that season. Ever. They averaged 35,521 at home that year and broke a record South Florida had held since 1997.

A team that had existed for one afternoon was outdrawing programs that had been playing for a century.

So on Saturday at 11 a.m. in the Alamodome, against Colorado State, UTSA is not borrowing the city's culture for a themed night.

The city built the program first. The helmet is just finally saying it out loud.

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@nypost Its always them.

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@MeserveRic67130 Great, because its our hispanic heritage game and its gonna be very much a thing... you'll feel at home lol

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@Nino_Merica This puto, guero wannabe definitely flies an israeli flag and doesn't see the hypocrisy

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@TFCCSU This dude definitely shouted 'fuck the mormons' at last week's game... PLEASE yell some kind of BS like that in the Alamodome

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@UTSAFTBL @American_Conf @UTSAAthletics @UTSA @Coker0903 @UNISWAG Print them out for everyone and everywhere!

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@covie_93 Is that one guy with long hair transitioning?

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@TFCCSU @UTSAFTBL

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@UTSAFTBL @OCIEnergy @UTSAAthletics @CoachTraylor We lost, no doubt. But UTSA fan woke up feeling way better about their team than ut fan did, and that's a win in my book #BirdsUp

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@UTSAFTBL @OCIEnergy @UTSAAthletics @CoachTraylor Great fight, especially the defense... onward and upward!!!

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@TexasLonghorns @TexasFootball Overrated ass team, bailed by the refs... admit it or not, your fanbase is very worried after this shitty performance

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@AlamoAudible To be fair, these refs are dogshit

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@UTBarstool Getting saved by the refs all night... you all are fucking overrated

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@ksatnews They're gonna poison the water and the air... and we're allowing it to happen

[MandaloreLink @MandaloreLink]

@realDonaldTrump Shut up, pedo