(11-17-2014 09:01 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  It's is a part of us. From the time you enter college at ECU you learn the tradition and you're washed in it until it becomes a ritual.

This is passed on from generation to generation with each holding the next to a higher standard.

I can attest that it is for sure a part of my family. 3 generations and 6 graduates since 1956. I am not alone. There are a ton of families similar to mine. My daughter was accepted at Duke,UNC,NCSU and Wake. She was an excellent student and I made her apply everywhere. I would have paid reluctantly for her to go to any of these schools...but.. She never really gave any of these schools a second thought. I was very proud of her decision to follow her parents and grandparents to ECU.

One of the things no one has mentioned is that ECU graduates have a GIANT chip on our shoulders. We are entrenched in a state dominated by the 2 schools in Raleigh and Chapel Hell. Both of these institutions have gone out of their way for DECADES to portray ECU as the "red headed stepchild"...especially UNC. Both schools have looked down their noses at us and it has caused much of our passion for our Alma Mater. We have had to fight tooth and nail for everything we get from the Legislature that for decades was controlled by UNC lawyers. That has made many of us fiercely protective of our University and that has spilled over into following ECU athletics...especially Football.