cBurnt Orange

The Official Burnt Orange - Pantone 159

Today I’m going to rant about how much I hate the color “burnt orange.”

Burnt Orange was chosen for the official color of UT Austin in 1967. Before that, UT colors were just orange and white. The beginning of this atrocity can be contributed to Darrell Royal, the “winningest football coach in UT Longhorn history.” Apparently, the original bright orange football jerseys tended to fade to light yellow when washed in hot water, so Darrell changed the color to burnt orange. There are a lot of variations to the color – from tan to scorched, but the real actual official color is “Pantone 159.”

I’ve heard a lot of people complain about the color, and frankly, there’s gotta be a reason why no other major college has it as their official color. Clemson University, Virginia Tech, and Auburn University are the only other colleges that use it, according to Wikipedia.

I guess that could be a good aspect, since it makes us so “special” – but do we really want to be associated with such an ugly color?

You know you're in Austin when you see something like this. - photo by Eric Schulz

This awful color might be the reason why Austin isn’t known for being the most fashionable place in the world. No matter how fashionable other people are, the people wearing burnt orange (and Austin is infested with them) blind you from seeing anything else but them.

And scarily enough, from being surrounded by it so much, it makes you lose your perspective and makes you think ‘oh, it’s actually not too bad, really.’
I actually have bought my first burnt orange sweatshirt this year, and my boyfriend’s first reaction was “Oh my God, you’ve finally been brainwashed!!” and I realized with horror what had happened.
Five years. Five years in Austin and I’ve lost my sense of color. I have to get out of here soon, before I turn into one of those crazy Texas-Exes that can’t own a single thing that is not burnt orange.