Texas Tech QB Responds to Arizona Pitcher Dragging Lubbock

After BJ Symons made the sports headlines two weeks ago for defending Lubbock, another Texas Tech quarterback is getting in on the action. Nic Shimonek has responded to Arizona Pitcher JC Cloney's thoughts on Lubbock in a succinct tweet.

If you hadn't seen the comments from the Arizona ace, they were not incredibly inflammatory. In fact, when I initially heard them, I took them as a compliment.

Let's take a look at a few sentences from the Cloney interview:

"Their fans are pretty rowdy." That's totally true. It's a point of fact that Texas Tech fans are rowdy. You can hear the heckling on TV. If you've never been to a Texas Tech baseball game when it's sold out, you're missing an experience. Just remember to keep your hand on your gun. Never trust anyone... and now that song is stuck in your head.

The next line of the quote is a matter of perception. "Things were said that should never be said." As a heckling aficionado myself, if you aren't close to the line, you aren't doing it right. Most of the opposing players would probably agree that a line has been crossed, while fans of the home team think nothing of it.

The bottom line is that if JC Cloney is still thinking about things said by the Tech Hecklers months after their first game in Lubbock when he didn't even pitch, then the hecklers are already a step ahead.

The final statement of Cloney's, the one Shimonek responded to, is the most inflammatory of the bunch: "It's Lubbock, there's not much to do there." True Lubbockites will know there is plenty to do in Lubbock if you know you're way around. But compared to Tucson, Arizona, where the University of Arizona is located, it isn't exactly a hot spot.

Tucson has a population of a million people. It's two hours away from Phoenix that has a million and a half people and four professional sports franchises.

So there's probably more to do in or around Tucson, especially if your base of knowledge about Lubbock is a 24-hour stopover where most of your time was spent in a hotel and a baseball stadium.

Just to get back to Shimonek's response for a second, it's nice to see athletes who have come from elsewhere in the country come into Lubbock and fall in love with the city. It's also cool to see athlete crossover within the Texas Tech athletics programs. Patrick Mahomes, as the QB1, was seen rushing basketball courts and tweeting out support of the Texas Tech baseball squad.

Shimonek, the likely QB1 for 2017, is following suit, being a leader on the football team and supporting the other sports at Texas Tech and the community of Lubbock.