Look backward to move forward
03/01/2021 BY BILLY DALE
I have ignored the negative comments on Facebook surrounding Coach Herman’s tenure. It is not worth the time to enter the Facebook fray and share my observations when I know I will be hammered by words from someone I don’t know.
Instead, I choose to share Longhorn sports history, hoping we can look backward to move forward with lessons learned years ago. If we don’t remember the lessons learned, we will never have an elite football program again.
This historical story starts in the worse year in the history of Longhorn football. The 1956 Longhorn record was 1-9. On this 1956 team was a young man named Jim Bob Moffitt. Jim had a front-row seat on the dynamics of a losing team of 1956 to the winning team of 1957 (Royal’s first year as Texas coach). After graduating from Texas, he took these lessons learned and founded Freeport-McMoRan, one of the world’s largest natural resources companies. He used some of his wealth to support the UT Athletic Department. Jim says, “You can’t win with controversy, whether it’s corporate America or athletics.” Controversy “breeds defeat. Unity breeds success.” In the 1950s, “we lost that chemistry, that unity, and that led to our demise.” Everyone has to rally around: we have to support the program.”
In 1957 Royal, the administration, and fans built a winning program. In 2020 fans, the administration, and Coaches have not done so well. Like it or not, in 2020, Longhorn fans are now the heart and soul of the decision-making process at Texas, with the administration listening to the fans and the coach praying for a supportive fan base. What happened to Mack Brown and Coach Strong occurred to Herman.
Fans have morphed from analyzing the game to determining when to fire the coach and who to hire. The Longhorn fan base is now the recruiting staff at Texas, and when this recruiting staff discusses hiring and firing, it hurts Texas recruiting and helps our competitors.
Fans as part of the Longhorn recruiting staff making derogatory comments reach deep inside the homes of impressionable high school athletes and their parents. By making mean-spirited remarks, Longhorn fans give competing universities and high school athletes ammunition to eliminate Texas from their wish list of universities. If the recruiting staff does not get their act together, I don’t ever see Texas as an elite football program again. As Jim said, controversy breeds defeat. Unity breeds success. Horns up! Billy Dale https://texaslsn.org
