Eddie Vaughan, Shelf life of accomplishments, New beginnings, Steve Ross
| IMPORTANT!!! The TLSN Board has successfully transferred most of the data for The History of Longhorn Sports from Squarespace to WordPress. Squarespace limits users to 400 categories, and we had reached that capacity, hindering the growth of The History of Longhorn Sports. WordPress offers the expanded capabilities that TLSN needs. Many individuals, including All-American and TLSN Board member Ben Adams, supported Ricky Williams’s journey to winning the Heisman Trophy. Over the past six months, TLSN has been transferring photos and content from Squarespace to WordPress. This has been a challenging project, but Ben accepted the technical challenge and has completed the first phase of the conversion. As anticipated, the data migration from Squarespace to WordPress has not gone flawlessly. The logistical part of the transition will likely take Ben and me at least another month to finalize. Nevertheless, the new TLSN website is now available to view. The TLSN WordPress site contains information gathered from eight years of research into all media formats related to Longhorn sports. It is both informative and educational, featuring a compassionate component. The Texas Legacy Support Network (TLSN) documents the “Eyes of Texas” narratives of individuals who have contributed to the development of the Longhorn brand. Our technical guru TLSN board member and Longhorn All-American Ben Adams says, “We’re thrilled to announce that TLSN has upgraded our website texaslsn.org to deliver a more user-friendly, visually appealing, and functional experience. This upgrade will bring enhanced features, smoother navigation, and a refreshed design that better highlights our mission. With WordPress, we’ll have more flexibility to keep the site dynamic and up-to-date, ensuring our community can easily find key information and resources. With so much valuable content, we recommend using the search feature to quickly explore topics of interest. Visit our new website at texaslsn.org.“ Explore the new website; it’s free for your enjoyment. Remember to utilize the search engine to locate the information you wish to explore or click on the subject section highlighted in orange at the top of the WordPress page to find your desired topic. Please be patient as we correct many of the errors caused by the data migration to WordPress. If you find a glaring error, please feel free to contact Billydale1@gmail.com. ———- Eddie Vaughn passed away on 10/12/2024. Gene Powell, Eddie’s Longhorn roommate and former Chairman of the Board of Regents for the U.T. system, shares his story. If any of you would like to add to Eddie’s memory page, please email Billydale1@gmail.com and your comments will be posted. Billy, I am writing to share with you that we have lost another member of the 1964 Freshman Class of Longhorn Scholarship Football Players. Eddie would absolutely demand that no one make a fuss over his passing, but I cannot let this great guy and fellow Longhorn leave us without informing his former teammates about it. We both played sports for our respective teams in the Rio Grande Valley but never played a game against one another. Eddie was offered a four-year scholarship by Coach Royal early in the spring of 1964 and accepted the offer. Eddie heard that I had also received an offer from Coach Royal. So, even though we did not know each other, Eddie called me, introduced himself, and told me that he had accepted the scholarship letter from UT Austin and wanted to encourage me to accept my offer. That phone call was the beginning of a very long friendship and did influence my decision on where to attend college. Eddie and I were members of the first freshman class following the 1963 National Championship season. As such we got to know many of the outstanding athletes on that great team and we also were assigned the chore of scrimmaging against them on a regular basis .  1966 team photo: To the right of Diron Talbert, the tallest players on the third row, are Jim Helms of San Benito, Freddy Edwards of Donna, and Gene Powell of Weslaco. Directly behind Freddy Edwards is Eddie Vaughan of Brownsville. Eddie and I roomed together at Moore-Hill Hall for three years, where Eddie endured my early morning study habits, and I put up with his tough, cantankerous personality to become really close friends. Between our junior and senior years Eddie attended US Marine basic training at Quantico, Virgina. And upon graduation Eddie was commissioned as a Lieutenant and shipped out to Viet Nam. Eddie was not in Viet Nam long when an underwater explosive device with a malfunctioning short fuse blew up in his right hand. He lost a significant portion of his hand but the surgeons at the US Navy Hospital in San Diego were able to save and restore a portion of his hand. Eddie spent a year at that hospital undergoing medical treatment. He became so bored that he took flying lessons and learned to fly while he was in treatment as an outpatient of the Naval Hospital. During his four years at UT Eddie made numerous friends on the football team and was greatly respected by all that knew him. He was a solid citizen and solid teammate. Eddie was always respectful, polite and ready to stand up for his friends. He was a man of few words but when he gave you his word you could take it to the bank. Thanks, Gene  Gene Powell at work as Chairman ———- HOW LONG IS THE SHELF LIFE OF A LONGHORN SPORTS ACCOMPLISHMENT? Photos at the 50th anniversary Reunion of the 1969 National Champions in football took place during the Kansas game in 2019.  In 2019, the 1969 Longhorn football team celebrated the 50th anniversary of the National Championship at the Kansas game. While I did not attend the event, I was there in spirit, with emotions reflective of a 70-year-old man trying to remain relevant in a youth-based society. As my 69, 70, and 71-year-old teammates stepped onto the field at DKR stadium to celebrate their accomplishments,   I asked myself a theoretical question. If the same situation occurred when I was a young man in 1969, would I be impressed with the 1919 Longhorns winning a national championship 50 years ago?I answered this theoretical question but have chosen not to share my answer.  For 30+ years, I told the story of the 1969 and 1970 national championship teams to anyone who would listen. I no longer do so. With a sense of humor intended, in 1999, I realized for the first time that my stories were ancient history to many/most Longhorn fans. My sports shelf life was over. Fans had moved on from being impressed with my stories to being impressed that I was still alive and healthy .  James Street (deceased), Jim Bertelsen (deceased), Billy Dale, Steve Worster (deceased), Ted Koy ———- STEVE ROSS RESPONDS TO SHELF-LIFE COMMENT BY BILLY DALE  Interesting topic, Billy, one that I have pondered over the years. College football has spent most of its lifetime as a regional sport. You can be a college football fan, but the history and memories that drive alumni and fans back to the stands year after year are regionally based.My first experience at a Longhorn game was as a 7-year-old sitting in the knot-hole section of the north end zone with my older brother, watching DKR’s first Texas team play Tulane. Parts of that experience are still as fresh as if they happened yesterday: the night air, the lights, and the cool uniforms on both sides. I can still see the Tulane helmets with a flashy wave on them.  Pardon the pun, but I was hooked. My answer to your question is this: What separates the elite (Texas, Alabama, USC, Michigan, Ohio State, OU, and a few others) is the history and the championships. They produced generations of dedicated fans who passed that dedication down to future generations. That “regional” dedication is fading, at least a little bit, IMO. Television, or more exactly, the money that follows TV. College Football is in danger of turning into the NFL 2.0. When the “Game of the Century” was played in Fayetteville, half of the nation (50 million people) tuned in. There were only 3 networks, and you could only appear on TV 2 or 3 times a season. It was an event. Now, every game is televised. The money is astounding. The UT Athletic Department’s yearly revenue would make it one of the largest businesses in Austin. With money comes expectation. “Giving the old College Try” doesn’t matter that much anymore. It’s “Just Win Baby.” At least, that’s what it looks like to this old man. Anyway, my answer would be that you would value the contribution of the championship team 50 years later because it helped to build the heritage and history that make the program so attractive to many casual fans today. Steve Ross has been a Longhorn fan since childhood and, for the last 40 years, professionally as part of the media. Years ago, Steve wrote an article for Barking Carnival about the 1970 UCLA game with such accurate detail I thought he played in the game. His writing is in the link below. Steve Ross 1970 UCLA game football – Texas Legacy Support Network |
