Why play Texas

John F. Kennedy, at an address at Rice University, when talking about the space program made the following statement:

But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

 

The context, of course, is that whenever Rice University played the University of Texas in football they got the crap kicked out of them because the students at Rice are more familiar with protractors and quadratic equations than footballs.  The meaning, though, is that even though they know it's would be an uphill fight every time the two teams met on the gridiron they still showed up and still played.

 

Why climb Mount Everest?  Because it's there.

Why run a marathon?

 

Because it's hard.  If it were easy everybody would do it.  If it were easy it wouldn't be worth it.  Why run a marathon?  Why does Rice play Texas?

 

Texas beat Rice (again) this year 51-10.