Being a Saddle Tramp

I know many of our listeners know what a Saddle Tramp is and they probably have some idea of what we do, but I believe they may not quite grasp the amount of work that we do. So I’m writing this blog to give you a small taste of what we do in a standard week; more specifically, my own schedule with Saddle Tramps.

Our schedule changes depending on the sport. For example, during football season we focus almost entirely on the festivities necessary to host a home football game, but during the Spring semester our work becomes much more diverse and probably not what you may expect.

I’ll start with Tuesday. This last Tuesday, as with every Tuesday, we had our weekly Tramp meeting. During these meetings we hear from guest speakers, vote on matters, go over our schedule for the week, and sign up for worksheets which we use to divide up the work load. This week we had 6 Texas Tech Student Government Association representatives come and speak to us, regarding the up-coming SGA elections and our involvement in the University. After their speeches we moved on to our business and signing up for our events and, all in all, the meeting lasted about an hour and a half. Not bad right? Well we’re not done yet. Immediately following the meeting we met in the Administration Building on campus to roll pink and white streamers for the Lady Raider Game versus Baylor. We need to roll about 300 streamers (each much be measured to the appropriate length) of each color (600 total) for a streamer drop. This typically takes 10-15 Tramps about 15 hours of rolling to accomplish. We split up the work load over a 3 day period doing 5 hour shifts. We did this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night from 7 till midnight.

That’s all Tramps had till Friday. Friday is when the schedule became slightly busy. Friday night we had The Opening Game for the Red Raider Baseball team and we also had the set-up for the streamer drop the following day. The set-up for the streamer drop entail taping one end of each roll of the streamer to a ledge on the rafters in the United Spirit Arena and then placing them all in separate bags so we can release all streamers in a uniform way.  It takes about an hour and a half to get all the streamers set-up. While some Tramps were setting up the streamers, a majority of us were at the baseball game.  Many of you may not know what we do at baseball games, but the Tramps bring “Bangin’ Bertha” (the big bell) and our shotguns and we use those at the games.

Those were the only events we had for Friday, but on Saturday things became…. hectic. Starting at 9 a.m. we had events and they ran throughout the day till about 9:30 pm. At 9 a.m. we started helping the Tech track and field teams host a high school event that had over 1400 athletes compete. We helped herd the kids, rake the sand of the long and triple jumps, measured for many events, adjusted the height for the pole vault, set up hurdles for the runs and much more. We had 15 Tramps helping with this meet and they stayed there and helped till the meet was over, which wasn’t until that night around 9 p.m. After the meet we had the streamer drop and the Lady Raider game against Baylor. We normally don’t go to Women athletic events as Tramps, but there were extenuating circumstances, as we had the streamer drop and we were asked to attend by the Athletic Department. We did the streamer drop and cheered on the Lady Raiders to victory in their game (which was a hell of a game and congratulations to the Ladies on a big win) and cleaned up the streamers afterwards. After the Ladies game we had a doubleheader in baseball that afternoon and evening. And, as always, the Tramps were there to cheer on the Raiders to victory. We didn’t finish our day till that night around 9:30.

That was all we had for Saturday, and Sunday we had a nice easy day. All we had Sunday was a single baseball game to attend, and it was a beautiful day and a great game and win by Tech.

With so many events we had to coordinate “who would be where” and “who would do what and for how long until more Tramps could be there” and that coordination takes a lot of extra time and effort from our leaders in this organization. I would like to ask everyone to remember that these Tramps who do all this are full-time students at Tech and a great majority of us have jobs on the side.

This blog isn’t a plea for praise or attention by the public. I know people have varying opinions of Saddle Tramps and all I’m trying to do with this blog is give everyone a bit of information and an idea of what we do for this University and this community on a weekly basis. Sure, I was exhausted this weekend, but I’m proud to be a part of this organization and its long history at Texas Tech University, and I look forward to doing just as much, or more, this week and every other week while I’m a Tramp.

Guns Up and Wreck ‘Em Tech!