Bill Little Articles part I

Bill Little articles For https://texassports.com–

• The Bridge,

• Pain Threshold,

• Larger than Life,

• Fathers Day,

• ‘S’ has more than one meaning,

• The Littlest Longhorn ,

• A toast to Willie Morris,

• Just for the fun of it,

• Remembering Emory and the Wishbone,

• Houston 2010,

• You can begin again,
  

              

 12.28.2011 | Football

 

Dec. 28, 2011

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

SAN DIEGO, CALIF. — Manny Diaz had said it, and the symbolism couldn’t have been more perfect. When you look from the Longhorns’ hotel in San Diego, toward the setting sun beyond where the Bay joins the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the cars seem like toys as they move back and forth across the bridge to Coronado Island.

“A bowl game,” he had said, “is a bridge. For the seniors, it is the final game of their college career, and it is the bridge to whatever comes next. For the players who will return, it is a bridge to next season.”

And there, in the distance stands the expansive bridge that takes people to the edge of the earth on the North American continent. Marines and sailors cross that bridge every day, some returning from war, and others headed to wars yet to be. Hopes and dreams span the distance over sailboats and warships that make their path on one of this country’s most important waterways.

All of that was relevant when the Longhorns’ defensive coordinator put Wednesday’s Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl game into perspective. The closing days of the bowl week had given the team a different look as the players and staff joined the California team for the annual Navy and Marine Corps luncheon aboard the USS Boxer. Following that, a number of the Longhorn players took advantage of an opportunity to visit the Navy Seal training facility on Coronado Island.

The Longhorn band and cheerleaders had arrived Monday, and were featured in a battle of the bands both at the Naval Base San Diego and a luncheon on Tuesday. The luncheon at the San Diego Convention Center was the last official activity for the team before it headed into pre-game mode with a walk-through at the stadium and meetings on Tuesday night.

In its own way, the luncheon was a perfect part of Manny’s bridge. The music from the Longhorn band, and a video that featured great moments from the season set the stage for emotion. In a season which carried the rebuilding theme of “brick by brick,” the highlights brought back all of the good things that happened in a season that, though it wasn’t what the players or the coaches wanted, did provide stepping stones and moments to remember.

Through the magic of video, Fozzy Whittaker was well again and returning kickoffs for 100 yards, and the defense was hammering opponents and returning interceptions for touchdowns. It is fitting that you never lose a highlight film, because they are parts of the bridge. There was Case McCoy, scrambling again for 25 yards to set up Justin Tucker‘s game winning field goal against Texas A&M, and David Ash was making runs and completing passes. Jaxon Shipley, Mike Davis, Malcolm Brown and Joe Bergeron were all healthy, and Blaine Irby and D. J. Grant were miracle men who had overcome injury to shine.

In the press conference before the luncheon, Mack Brown had talked about a game where the offense doesn’t turn the ball over and the defense gains turnovers, and where the kicking game is paramount. And there on the screen, Longhorn announcer Craig Way was offering a call for the ages as Justin Tucker kicked the winning field goal in history’s final meeting between rivals Texas and Texas A&M.

Blake Gideon, who will start his 52nd straight game Wednesday, and fellow defensive seniors Emmanuel Acho, Keenan Robinson and Kheeston Randall led one of the nation’s strongest defenses.

Mack Brown was there, along with players, laying bricks in a wall — the symbolism of the “brick by brick” theme.

As evening came on another perfect day in this City by the Sea, the players headed into their meetings. The sun eased into the ocean, and the bridge loomed as a distant sentinel where the bay meets the open waters.

And what you come to realize is that all season long, Texas had concentrated on “brick by brick” as if it were rebuilding a house, and in truth, that was its intention. But you can build different things with bricks. We have heard of brick buildings and brick roads, but maybe what this season is all about is building a bridge.

When the clock hits zero on Wednesday night, it will culminate a celebration of Holiday — a remembrance of family, a tribute to the ever-present symbol of America’s military here in this city, and the close of a season of reconstruction. And Manny Diaz will have nailed it. Life is, after all, about bridges, and tomorrows. The message of this trip has been about finding happiness, and of using what is given you to reach for something new and something greater.

And there is no better way to do that than to build a bridge — for yourself, and for those who will follow.

 

 

 

 

11.20.2011 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Pain threshold

             

         

         

Nov. 20, 2011

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

How can something that feels so good…hurt so bad?

That question is the essence of sport, and it has never been more manifested than Saturday night in Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Everything was in place for a “feel good” kind of night. The weather was great, the crowd of over 100,000 was as involved and as vocal as any in recent UT history. The team played with heart, courage and passion. Only problem was, the wrong guys won.

There were heroic moments: beginning with a defense that limited Kansas State to only 121 yards, including only four yards rushing for their prolific quarterback, Collin Klein. Senior tight end Blaine Irby, in his final game in the stadium, caught a 36-yard touchdown pass from Case McCoy, who had come off the bench and turned in a valiant effort in trying to save the victory. Kicker Justin Tucker, who did not miss a placement kick in six home games in DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium this season, kicked field goals of 48 and 26 yards. Senior fullback Cody Johnson stepped in at running back and broke a 55-yard run to set up a field goal that put the Longhorns in a position to win the game late.

The defensive effort went beyond being called “amazing.” In 2010, coordinator Manny Diaz had done the best job of throttling everybody’s player of the year – Auburn’s Cam Newton, when Diaz was at Mississippi State. In shutting down Kansas State using some of those same principles, Texas held Kansas State to negative yards on four of 13 possessions. On six others, the Wildcats netted 13, 2, 3, 7, 1 and 4 yards.

Klein was sacked five times, and Texas posted 16 tackles for a loss, including five by end Jackson Jeffcoat. Seniors Emmanuel Acho, Blake Gideon, Keenan Robinson and Kheeston Randall played with unparalleled fervor. For the game, Texas had 310 yards total offense to just 121 for Kansas State, 191 yards rushing to 38 for the visitors, and threw for 119 yards compared with 83 for K-State. Texas averaged gaining 4.2 yards on 74 plays, K-State just 2.2 on 56 plays.

Turnovers were costly; penalties were both critical and controversial – the latter evident by a chorus of boos which rained down on the officiating crew from the three minute mark of the second quarter through much of the third period. The crowd came early to honor the seniors, wore orange, stayed until it was over, and yelled mightily throughout, especially for the seniors and their injured spiritual leader, Fozzy Whitaker.

The two injured freshman running backs – Malcolm Brown and Joe Bergeron – saw limited action. With their injuries (turf toe and hamstring pull), plus the loss of Whittaker to a knee injury suffered in the Missouri game, the power running game which had manifested itself with over 400 yards rushing against Kansas and Texas Tech was a shell of its former self.

That left it to the two young quarterbacks, David Ash and McCoy, to try to generate some offense. A couple of Ash interceptions resulted in short fields for two of Kansas State’s scores, as the Wildcats scored on a field goal drive of 13 yards and a touchdown drive of 37.

In the second half, McCoy took the Longhorns on a touchdown drive of 81 yards that ended with the pass to Irby, and a 78 yard drive that closed with Tucker’s second field goal of the game and cut the score to the final of 17-13. The `Horns also drove 30 yards from their 20 to midfield before running out of time as the game ended.

So much to cheer about; so much to cry about; and so much more to do.

The loss put Texas’ record at 6-4, with road games remaining at Texas A&M on Thanksgiving night and at Baylor on December 3. Texas is bowl eligible, and representatives from the Cotton, the Alamo, the Insight.com, and the Holiday Bowl attended the game. The move of the Baylor game from its scheduled place early in the season to December 3 was done to accommodate league television commitments after the Big 12 dropped its championship game which had been played on that date. The Longhorns and the Bears will play in Waco at 2:30 p. m., while Oklahoma will travel to Oklahoma State for an evening kick that same day.

With the victory, Kansas State actually thrust itself into position to secure a tie for the league title, pending the results of the OU-OSU game. The Wildcats have two league losses to Oklahoma (8-2) and Oklahoma State (10-1), and are 9-2 with a season ending game with Iowa State in Manhattan on December 3.

The job the Longhorn defense did drew praise from Wildcats’ coach Bill Snyder.

“They just beat the tar out of us,” he said. “Texas is a tremendously talented defensive team, and they played extremely well. They created problems for us in terms of some of the things they did and the blitzes they ran. So it was a combination of them playing very well and scheming us very well, and us not scheming them very well or playing very well.”

Mack Brown is particularly fond of a quote from Will Rogers, which says, “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today,” and never has that been more true. Starting with the 7 p.m. kickoff Saturday night against Kansas State, the Longhorns will play two games in five days, and follow that on December 3 with another. So there is no time to reflect or absorb. The team will begin preparing for Texas A&M on Sunday, and hit the practice field immediately.

In time, the good things that happened in Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Senior Night, 2011, will last. The loss, painful in the moment, will give way to memories of a special place, a special night, and remembrances of teammates, family and friends.

That is, after all, the mantra of this team. It has always been about each other, and about trying to rebuild something extraordinary. When it is all said and done, it will not be a single play or a number on a scoreboard that will hang like pictures in the hallways of the mind. It will be an ever-changing montage that is a mosaic, blending the best of times and the worst of times, the hardest of moments with the exhilarating, because that is the only way we can understand the realities and the emotions of life. In the end, it will be the whole, and not the part of life that will matter.

 

 

 

 

9.14.2006 | Texas Athletics

Larger than life: Commentary by Bill Little

         

Gov. Ann Richards

Barbara Jordan

President George W. Bush, Coach Mack Brown, and 2005 National Championship Texas Longhorns

It was a conversation on a Southwest Airlines flight, and at the time, I had no idea who the silver-haired lady in seat next to me was. Turns out she was the newly elected State Treasurer named Ann Richards, and I was simply the Sports Information Director at The University of Texas.

In the 30 minutes from Dallas to Austin, we talked about little Texas home towns, places like Bug Tussle and Winters, and the conversation got around to college athletics. She didn’t offer an opinion about draw plays or zone defenses, but she did allow as to how she thought coaching was one of the toughest jobs that existed.

When the television screen flashed that Ann Richards had died, it brought back a flood of memories, not only of her, but of others who walked as giants in the political arena, and yet took time to show interest in college athletics.

Lyndon Johnson would be the first. The former President followed Texas football closely after he left the White House, and became great friends with Darrell Royal.

"I’m not a football fan," Johnson once said, "but I am a fan of people, and Darrell Royal is the rarest of people."

Barbara Jordan, the late U. S. Congresswoman, was teaching in the LBJ School of Public Affairs when she became involved in Texas women’s basketball. In her wheelchair, she sat by Jody Conradt’s bench. For her, Jody was her Darrell.

Ann Richards was there, too. And when her good friend Bud Shrake suggested it, they began taking in the men’s games as well. Press row at the men’s games was a little tighter because of media coverage, but I kidded Bud that I would credential him as one of the nation’s great sports writers, and he could bring his friend, the Governor, along.

They were sitting at press row the night the ground troops went in during Desert Storm. I remember walking around the court at the Erwin Center to tell the Governor of the State of Texas.

She looked up, flashed those steel blue eyes with a look of shock and at the same time resolve, and said, "we need to pray for them."

But while Bud’s sports writing background drew him to want to see Dexter Cambridge and the Longhorn men, Ann’s heart was clearly at courtside for the women’s games, right beside Barbara and Jody’s bench.

It was a perfect amalgamation of the times. Women’s sports were opening doors for little girls everywhere, and Ann Richards, whether you agreed with her politics or not, was showing women everywhere that there was no "glass ceiling" on dreams. If Jody Conradt’s Lady Longhorns could win all the games and a National Championship, and Ann could flash Texas across national and state politics and win election as the governor of one of the most powerful states in the Union, they were sharing a new and exciting world for women.

Ann’s passing, coming just days after the fifth anniversary of 9/11, also brings a memory of George W. Bush, the man who followed her in the Governor’s Mansion on Colorado Street. He, too, sat courtside at Longhorn basketball games, dressed in a casual jacket, looking exceedingly human.

Mack Brown and the Longhorn football team saw that same man in February, when as President, Bush invited the National Champions to the White House. There, the leader of the free world took time away from a troubled planet to spend over an hour visiting with kids…just as he had time after time in the Longhorn weight room when he was Governor.

What we saw with President Bush in Washington, and what matters so as we reflect on the lives of President Johnson, Congresswoman Jordan and Governor Richards, is that the titles do not overshadow the person.

It is easy in life to turn people into "things," and forget that inside the shell of a teacher, a coach, or a politician, is a real person, who feels the burden of the office, the gravity of the decisions, and the responsibility of the office they chose to accept.

They served our country and our state because they thought they could make a difference, a difference in the lives of people. Agree with them or not, that’s why they served. Bush’s favorite painting, which hangs in the Oval Office, is entitled "A Charge to Keep," from the old church song, "A Charge to Keep I Have."

Sport was important to them because it offers its participants a chance to excel, to rise above, and to matter.

That will be my abiding memory of Ann Richards. Her support of kids, her love of people, and her faith in the human spirit.

 

 

 

 

06.21.2009 | Baseball

Bill Little commentary: Father’s Day

         

              

June 21, 2009

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

OMAHA, Neb. — The day started early for the nice lady who operates the table full of Texas Longhorns gear in the atrium of the Doubletree Suites Hotel in Omaha. And on Father’s Day, 2009, she offered a handy option for presents and memories of what has been a special trip to America’s Midlands.

The NCAA Men’s College World Series polo shirts went first, and players and others made sure they were “Dad size” as they surveyed the merchandise.

“Then,” she said, ” I had a couple of dads who came down and were buying things. I said ‘Hey, this is Father’s Day, folks should be buying for you.'”

To which they replied, “It’s what I do.”

It was a simple answer to a question that represents an enduring commitment, and it is no better manifested than here in Omaha, where little boy dreams become lifetime achievements. Sunday was “count down” day in Omaha as the city prepared for the most anticipated Championship Series since the College World Series adopted the format in 2006. Here was Texas, the No. 1 seed in the tournament, matched against LSU, the nation’s No. 1 ranked team and the tourney’s third seed.

With only two years remaining in Rosenblatt Stadium before the old ball park gives way to an impressive new stadium in downtown Omaha, natives and visitors know that every moment may be the last great hurrah for the stadium on the hill which has meant so much to college baseball for the last 50 years. And now, they have their dream match between the teams, and the fans, representing the best of college baseball for the last 20 years.

Despite the fact that Augie Garrido‘s 1995 Cal Fullerton team may have been the best of the decade, LSU clearly was the team of the 1990s in Omaha. Texas, with its six appearances including four championship games in the first decade of the 21st century, has been the team of the 2000s. For Garrido, the numbers are astounding. His teams have won National Championships in four different decades (three at Cal Fullerton in 1979, 1984 and 1995 and two with Texas in 2002 and 2005). He has taken teams to Omaha 13 times, and eight times his teams have played in the championship game, including five champions and one which is pending.

All of that was reviewed on Sunday morning in a press conference involving the two teams at Rosenblatt, and both squads were able to get in full practices on their Field of Dreams. The Longhorns were loose, still reflecting on the moments from Friday night when two home runs in the ninth inning brought them to this time and this place. But Sunday was more than just a day filled with press conferences and practices, it was a time for family, and once again, Garrido planned well.

The team spent the afternoon at a gathering with their families at an Omaha home that allowed time for kids and dads and moms and all of the family that is part of Texas Baseball to celebrate, enjoy and anticipate. All of this had started in 2002, when Longhorn outfielder Kalani Napoleon’s dad roasted a pig in the style of his native Hawaii, and the families gathered at a local park to take part. In 2005, Garrido had taken the offer of a couple of houses on a small lake for the gathering.

The irony of Omaha is that there is a contrast between the young and the old when it comes to baseball during this time of year. At the same hotel where the Longhorns are staying, youngsters who are part of all-star teams from Little League to teenage leagues have come to Omaha to participate in their own tournaments. More than a thousand kids will pass through Omaha over the several weeks that span the CWS, playing for their own championships. That, of course, produces memories for Longhorn players who have been here, and to places like Grand Junction, Colo., for tournaments when they were kids.

All of that leads us back to the lady at the table, and to Father’s Day.

Baseball, perhaps more than any sport, is a game of father and son. In the poignant scene from Augie’s friend Kevin Costner’s “Field of Dreams,” the climactic moment of the movie isn’t a home run or a grand finale — it is that scene when a ghost and his son play a game of catch, recapturing a time that is gone, but not forgotten.

Grown men have cried over that scene. Sons wishing they could do that one more time with their dad, and dads yearning for one last moment with kids who have long since grown and gone away.

For the dads of college players like the Longhorns, days like Sunday are part of a countdown to a time that will soon be gone. Omaha has been unique in that way. For all the years, families accompany their sons to this place, at this time, and then they are gone. Yet the characters may change, but the scene remains the same.

At the press conference Sunday morning, Longhorns Chance Ruffin and Cameron Rupp articulated what this experience has been all about.

“If you lose this series,” the question came, “will you feel that all of this was for nothing?”

Both players answered in the same way.

“The memories here will last a lifetime. You can never forget what has happened here. Sure, we want to win, but if we don’t, we will use this as motivation to come back,” they said.

Michael Torres wants it to be different, for as a senior, it is his last chance for the trophy which was tantalizingly displayed at the press conference.

There are special moments that teams experience, a bond which can never be forgotten. And yet in the multi-colored stands of Rosenblatt Stadium on Sunday, dads and moms and families took time to peek in at the Longhorns’ last practice of this 2009 season. The days of Monday, Tuesday and possibly Wednesday, will be filled with games.

But when Travis Tucker hit the last pitch just over the left field wall and celebrated as if he had just clubbed a game winner, the Longhorns had fun, one more time. In the stands, dads remembered. The anticipation of the series most likely will not give them cause to reflect on that practice until another time or another place.

In that moment, it was part of a mosaic that has been a part of the fabric of the American family. It is the mom who gets the little girls ready for the dance recitals, and the dads who pack the gear for the next game, in the next place.

It is about family, and most of all, it is about heart. About a time that will live forever, caught between the mind and the soul, where dreams and hopes never really go away.

Happy Father’s Day.

 

 

 

 

08.30.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: ‘S’ has more than one meaning

              

       

Aug. 30, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

The players and the coaches have had a well-publicized difference of opinion on what the letter “S” in the team theme of RISE should represent. The players, wishing to return to prominence on the national college football landscape, wanted it to stand for “swagger.” The coaches said you have to earn the right to swagger, and it more fittingly should stand for “sacrifice.”

Both fit, but perhaps another choice could be “solidarity.”

Webster tells us that solidarity means a union rising from common responsibilities and interests, or a community of feelings and purposes.

So let’s take these one at a time.

When the Longhorns convened for their first team meeting this week, the coaches and staff announced to the team that two junior walk-on players had been awarded one year scholarships. Under NCAA rules, universities are allowed to maintain in a single year no more than 85 scholarship players. Traditionally, when through attrition Texas has been under that ceiling, the coaches and staff have at times deemed particularly deserving walk-on players eligible for a one-year scholarship.

And Sunday night, they dipped right into their theme of sacrifice to grant full scholarship to two players whose backgrounds are as different and diverse as one could ever imagine — holder/receiver Cade McCrary and deep snapper Nate Boyer.

That night, even through their humility, both had every right to walk proudly with a little swagger.

Cade McCrary was a little boy in the first grade when his dad joined the coaching staff of Mack Brown at Texas in 1998. He grew up dreaming of being a Longhorn, and even after his dad, Hardee, left the staff and moved over to the Longhorn Foundation, that dream never wavered. In high school, he was a leading receiver and one of the top players during Lake Travis’ run of state championship success over the past five years.

When it came time to attend college, he had several offers at other places, but made it clear to his folks that he wanted to be a Longhorn. So three seasons ago, he made the team as a walk-on wide receiver. He also had a special skill that would turn out to serve the team well – he was a holder for extra points and field goals. When the Horns were looking for a holder two years ago after Jordan Shipley left, Cade McCrary stepped up and won the job.

The tradition of, “Justin Tucker….out of the hold of Cade McCrary” became a common announcement for the Longhorn kicking game. In fact, as Justin was lining up for the winning field goal in College Station last Thanksgiving against Texas A&M, all I could think about was, “Tucker, out of the hold of McCrary.” The rest, of course, is history. You never hear much about a deep snapper or a holder unless they screw something up, and in one of the grandest moments in Texas Longhorn football history, Cade McCrary became a hugely important footnote to legend.

Nate Boyer‘s story may be the most unusual of any Longhorn ever.

In a way, it is fitting that Nate Boyer was once an aspiring actor in Los Angeles, because the story of his life seems destined for a novel or a movie. An honor student who is the 2012 winner of the Greater Austin Chapter of the National Football Foundation’s Distinguished Young American Award, Nate has packed a remarkable odyssey into thirty or so years of living.

Boyer, has (in no particular order) found employment on a fishing boat in San Diego, sought work as a young actor in Hollywood, worked with autistic children in L.A. and refugees in Darfur in Africa, and joined the U.S. Army following the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

A graduate of Valley Christian High School in Dublin, Calif., Boyer not only joined the Army, he was admitted into the elite Special Forces Unit of the Green Berets, rising to the rank of Staff Sergeant. He served six years in the Middle East, earning a Bronze Star — the nation’s fourth highest combat medal — for his service in Iraq.

When he finished his second tour of duty in 2009, Boyer decided to use funds from the G.I. Bill to get a college education. At that point, he had never seen Austin, Texas. He was born in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and had lived in California, Colorado, North Carolina, Okinawa, Japan, Africa, Israel and had been in various countries in the Middle East. All he knew about The University of Texas came from his comrades in the far reaches of the world who had become Longhorn fans by watching games on TV.

Their loyalty to the Longhorns interested him, so he applied to Texas and was accepted. He had been a good athlete in high school, but Valley Christian did not have football. But that didn’t stop Nate. He figured as long as he was at Texas, he should try to make the nationally ranked Longhorn football team. He studied all he could about the game, tried out as a “walk-on,” and made the team as a defensive back and special teams player.

After being honored with members of the Stadium Veterans Committee at the Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium Veterans Recognition Day as a freshman, Boyer was recruited in the spring of 2011 to resume his military career as a Special Forces member of the Texas National Guard. While other Longhorns seek summer employment around Austin, Nate’s “summer job” is serving his country on various missions abroad. At Texas, he is a member of the Athletics Director’s Honor Roll as a 4.0 student and a Provost Award semi-finalist studying physical culture and sports.

The respect the Longhorn coaches and staff have for McCrary and Boyer was mirrored by the team members, who gave rousing standing ovations to both as they were announced as recipients of the scholarships. There, standing side-by-side, were two young men who came from widely different backgrounds, yet they had arrived at a very special place in the life of the 2012 Longhorns football team.

As their teammates cheered and each struggled for the right words, the moment was not lost that Hardee McCrary had dreamed of his son one day playing on scholarship at The University of Texas. And Nate Boyer could now save his G.I. Bill funds and apply them to graduate school.

That’s why “s” has so many meanings. Both young men sacrificed to be here, both are confident enough in themselves to embody all the positive things in swagger (as opposed to conceit or arrogance).

And most of all, they, and their teammates reinforced the meaning of solidarity — a togetherness that represents all that is right in the word “team.”

 

 

June 18, 2009  The Littlest Longhorn

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

OMAHA, Neb. — She’s been mistaken for one of the player’s little sisters, or one of the coaches’ kids. She weighs something less than 100 pounds, can stretch to 5-feet-2, and she does have eyes of gun-metal blue.

But those who know the recently graduated Longhorn student Baseball trainer will give you one piece of advice: Don’t mess with Jessica Yanta.

As the Longhorns practiced on their second off-day, waiting for Friday night’s bracket championship game, Jessica and three student managers — the unsung heroes of any team — put in another day’s work as well. Jessica, along with brothers Travis and Tyler Wright and John Mardirosian, are part of a small army of support staff students who spend a lot of time and effort working with every sport at Texas, earning degrees and going out to make a difference in the world, just as they have for the coaches and athletes whom they have served.

Travis Wright, this year’s senior manager, has graduated with honors, and it is Jessica’s story which has captured the interest of the television cameras and the fans at Rosenblatt Stadium. She is the classic story of one who has never let anything stand in her way. In fact, one of the few times she had ever been beaten came at birth, when she was the last triplet born to Mary Jane and Allen Yanta of Lampasas, Tex., on Christmas Eve a little more than 20 years ago. But, considering the early arrival of the three sisters resulted in a C-section birth, she was only a couple of minutes behind.

Jessica will frown when she tells you she only graduated fourth in her high school class of several hundred, and even seems a bit frustrated to admit to a graduating GPA at Texas of 3.95, summa cum laude in kinesiology with a specialty in athletics training. She has been a shining light in the young program, which began five years ago as an accredited program for students interested in entering the field professionally.

Jessica has won the “Pride” award for the best GPA in the program for three straight years, during which time she has served as a student trainer for Volleyball, Men’s Tennis, Women’s Track and Field, club soccer, Spring Football and, finally this spring, Baseball.

She came naturally to the field because of a love of athletics and an interest in anatomy as a high school student in Lampasas, where older brother Brett, who attended UT in the early `90s, had “brainwashed” her about the Texas Longhorns.

Do not, those who know her will warn you, let her size deceive you. The competitor that burns inside her once threw her tennis racket when she lost a friendly match to her teammate on the Lampasas High tennis team (she lettered four years in tennis), but she swears that was the only time she did that.

At practice on Thursday, she was busy stretching 6-4 Austin Dicharry, a skill she had perfected while working with the volleyball team. “Some of the girls’ legs seemed like they were longer than I was tall,” she says. “So I learned to just use my whole body to get in position to help them stretch.”

Conquering an image is not always easy, so Jessica just used her competitiveness to overcome a self-admitted serious case of shyness when she first got into the program. It was one of those deals where the goal was worth the price of overcoming the fear, which, ironically, is something that Augie Garrido stresses to his team.

“At first I had to act confident, even if I wasn’t,” Jessica says. “Fake it `til you make it. But it got better and better when the athletes began to understand that I knew what I was doing, and they began to listen to me.”

That was a skill learned early, because life as a triplet proved both interesting and challenging for the three little girls whose parents were both teachers.

“At least we had somebody to play with,” Jessica says of her sisters Mary Beth and Allison. “But I don’t know that they liked that I always wanted to play like I was a teacher and make them my students.”

At Texas, Jessica looked first at biology and then nutrition as a major before migrating to the combination of athletics and training, and while she’s a fitness fanatic who eats healthy, she still will tell anybody who will listen that if you are passing through Lampasas, you darn sure better stop at Storm’s for a hamburger and fries special with cheese.

It will be awhile before she can spend much time in that part of the Texas Hill Country, however, because as soon as the NCAA Mens’s College World Series is over, Jessica is preparing to enter a 33-month select program in physical therapy at Texas Women’s University in Houston. Her dream is to one day work as a head athletics trainer at a university.

“I just enjoy working with the combination of athletics and competition, where people are motivated to get better,” she says.

Work in Jessica’s life comes from the roots, and her idol is probably her inspirational 92-year-old grandmother, Louise Yanta, who still runs a 2,000 acre ranch near Karnes City. Jessica’s Dad was 7 when Louise’s husband died.

“She’s amazing,” says Jessica. “She is smaller than I am. She is really tiny. But that has never stopped her. She raised those kids and ran the ranch all by herself. We still go there every Thanksgiving and Christmas, and she insists on doing all of the cooking and she won’t let us help at all.”

Inspiration is a word that seems to come to mind when you consider Jessica, and all of those students who have worked as trainers and managers with Longhorn athletics for many, many years. Among their number are doctors, corporate executives, lawyers, Marine officers, and many of those who chose to work as trainers continue to do just that in professional sports, high school sports and colleges.

As for Jessica, the little girl in the dugout who may seem to be too tiny to carry a water cooler, she comes up really big in her quest for life, and in the job that she does. In her own way, she has touched more Longhorn athletes, with her hands and with her heart, than many will have a chance to do in a life time.

Jessica, a female trainer working with men’s sports, is part of a growing number of women in the profession. And for the old timers at Texas, there is also a particular irony in the power of somebody her size. One of the pioneers of athletics training, a man who worked with Olympic teams and became a legend at The University of Texas, was a Cherokee Indian named Frank Medina.

Like Jessica, he bravely came into a field where the athletes with whom he worked were a lot bigger than he was. But with his mind and his wisdom, he won their confidence.

And by the way, he was five feet tall, two inches shorter than Jessica.

 

 

9.13.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: A toast to Willie Morris

       

         

        

Sept. 13, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

OXFORD, MS – No one – absolutely no one – would have loved this Texas-Ole Miss football game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium more than Willie Morris. He loved sports, he loved Texas and Austin, and he loved Ole Miss and Oxford.

In this college town in Mississippi, Willie Morris was a literary giant in a haven of great writers. Modern day John Grisham still visits here regularly. The late William Faulkner’s home, Rowan Oak, is a local shrine. Square Books has hosted signings by such famous authors as Stephen King and John Grisham – at the same time.

But it is Morris, who died in 1999 down the road in Jackson, who would have been a likely choice to flip the opening coin toss at Saturday night’s game. After growing up in Yazoo City, Miss., he came to The University of Texas at Austin in the mid-1950s. He was elected editor of the Daily Texan, and his scathing editorials against segregation, censorship and government corruption won him no prizes with the UT administration. He was named a Rhodes Scholar, and after graduation from the other Oxford – the one in England – he eventually returned to Austin as the editor of the liberal weekly newspaper The Texas Observer.

He migrated to New York City, where he served as the youngest editor ever of Harper’s Magazine, and then he wrote “North Toward Home,” which became one of his most famous books. In 1980, he became a writer in residence at Ole Miss, and lived his final years there. While writing was his vocation, sports were his avocation.

Langston Rogers, the long-time media relations director at Ole Miss, remembers Morris sitting in the lounge at the Holiday Inn in Oxford with his black Labrador retriever, Pete, by his side, regaling folks with stories – including those memorialized in his books about trips with his father to football games and the puppy dog he immortalized in his book (which later became a movie), “My Dog Skip.”

Morris’ relationship with Oxford (the one in Mississippi) extended to reverence when talking of things such as the pre-game parties at The Grove – the tailgating capital of the South – near the football stadium. He also was known for taking guests on a late-night trip to the local cemetery to visit Faulkner’s grave. There, with a bottle of spirits of choice, he would announce that, “Mr. Bill is thirsty.” And then he would pour out the contents and leave the empty bottle on William Faulkner’s tombstone. It is one of those literarily inclined in Oxford to this day.

The irony of Morris and his odyssey is that he and Texas’ legendary football coach Darrell Royal were ships passing in the night at UT. Morris left after graduating in the spring of 1957, as Royal was preparing to coach his first season in 1957. However, as the years passed, Morris and Royal would become great friends. And the connection with Texas and Ole Miss would also have significant impact on Royal’s early career. Fact is, the meetings of the schools in bowl games following the 1957 and 1961 seasons arguably represent the lowest and highest points of Royal’s early career at Texas.

The season of 1957 was a Cinderella story for Royal, who had come to Texas following a 1-9 season for the Longhorns in their final year under favorite son Ed Price. In that opening season, Royal’s team surprised the country. They knocked off four nationally ranked teams, including a shocking 9-7 win at Texas A&M that knocked the Aggies out of national contention.

It was an era of excellence at Ole Miss, however. The Rebels of Johnny Vaught were a juggernaut of Southern football, and when Texas, at 6-3-1, was a surprise invite to the Sugar Bowl to meet the No. 7 ranked Rebs, Royal knew he was overmatched. And he was. The story goes that Royal was so embarrassed by the 39-7 thrashing that he walked out of a post-bowl team dinner and gave his watch to a guy on Bourbon Street. That, by the way, has never been verified.

What is true, however, is that four seasons later, Royal and his Longhorns would find redemption. This time, the game was a national showcase.

Ole Miss was still a major force in college football, and Texas had held the nation’s No. 1 ranking for much of the regular season until a stunning 6-0 loss to TCU in the next-to-last game of the year knocked the ‘Horns out of contention. In the final rankings (which were done before the bowl games back then) Texas had finished No. 3 and Ole Miss was No. 5 when the two headed into the Cotton Bowl Classic in Dallas on New Year’s Day, 1962.

Royal’s first bowl win at UT had been elusive. Texas followed that Sugar Bowl loss with a defeat to Syracuse in the Cotton Bowl game following the 1959 season, and a 3-3 tie with Alabama in the 1960 Bluebonnet Bowl. But riding the wings of perhaps the best offensive team of his career, Royal used a surprise 80-yard quick kick by all-American running back James Saxton to seal a 12-7 victory and claim his first bowl game win.

This 2012 version of the match-up has far different, and yet still important ramifications. It is the first road game for Mack Brown‘s very young football team. The times have changed since Willie Morris held court in that bar in what was then a sleepy college town. Folks who know say this game is one of the biggest things to happen in Oxford, where the Rebels are a dominating 40-6 against non-conference foes recently.

ESPN-TV will be airing the game nationally in a late (8:15 p.m. CDT) window, giving the country a look at the two schools who were national powerhouses fifty years ago.

The Longhorn coaches are anxious to see how the development progresses for a team that will close out the first quarter of its 12-game regular season with this road trip. As the non-conference schedule ends Saturday, Texas will follow its bye week next week with a trip to open Big 12 play at Oklahoma State on September 29.

Saturday’s game will be intriguing and watched with interest across the country. And maybe, if the moon is just right, Willie Morris (wherever he is) will cover the game and drink his own toast to the two schools which drew his allegiance so many years ago.

 

 

09.09.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Just for the fun of it

        

        

        

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

The day had started with a crispness – a cool morning driven by a strong north wind.

The early evening had brought the music and the crowd, the burnt orange cast across a perfect sky at sunset. There, under the Saturday night lights of the big stadium, was a bushel-basket full of old memories and new dreams, all mixed together in the experience we call college football.

There were cheerleaders from as far back as 40 years ago, some of whom came dressed in their vintage uniforms. The Alumni Band, with its repertoire of obligatory songs, marched proudly. The old guy with the baton got almost as big a cheer as he tossed it and caught it, as did quarterback David Ash when he ran for a career long 49 yard touchdown to open the scoring for the home team in the 45-0 victory over New Mexico.

Earl Campbell had walked – under the watchful eye of football strength and conditioning coach Bennie Wylieand his assistant Caesar Martinez – to midfield as an honorary captain for the coin flip in pre-game. Mack Brown would call it “chilling” to see the former star out the day before, practicing step-by-step, to return to a place where he was once the most feared running back in all of college football. If the Longhorn faithful involved themselves in Vince Young’s run to beat Southern Cal in the BCS National Championship game and willed Justin Tucker‘s immortal field goal to victory over Texas A&M in the final game ever in that historic series….it wasn’t close to the more than 100,000 who pulled with Earl, every step of the way.

When the old had been celebrated, it was time for the new, and the 2012 Longhorns are perhaps college football’s best example of that. Now 2-0 on the season and with only six seniors figuring in the playing mix, this is the youngest team in the Mack Brown era.

New Mexico, under the capable instruction of the respected Bob Davie, even brought a “retro” look to the game as it utilized a 21st century version of the triple option Wishbone Offense which Darrell Royal made famous with two national championships in 1969 and 1970. And for a while, the Lobos showed why that offense can still be a defensive coordinator’s worst nightmare. New Mexico executed it well, and kept the ball for two thirds of the first half.

But Saturday wasn’t about nightmares. After a season of disappointment in 2010 and of ups and downs at home in 2011, football was fun again in Austin.

A year ago, the team spoke of the building blocks of “brick by brick.” Against New Mexico, it was clear that the construction job was very much into its second phase – still a distance from being finished, but a long way from where it began last September.

Mack Brown has said many times that you can coach a team a lot harder after a win than you can after a loss. Mistakes are correctable. Losses are irreversible. The psychologists will tell you that Austin (with apologies to the fans of other schools who really don’t care) takes on a different feeling after a Texas victory. It wasn’t just the delightfully cool morning Sunday that prompted breakfast at the local restaurants and brought a spring in the step of folks on the trail at Lady Bird Lake.

While football is a team game, its attraction of “star power” to its followers is unmistakable, and that is one of the things that separates the 2012 Longhorns. Offensively and defensively – despite its youth and inexperience – this team is developing players the fans can relate to. David Ash and Case McCoy are household names already, and each time guys such as Daje Johnson and Jonathan Gray touch the ball, folks slide to the edge of their seats. The “veterans” such as Jaxon Shipley, Mike Davis, D. J. Monroe, D. J. Grant, Marquise Goodwin and Malcolm Brown and Joe Bergeron are supplemented regularly with the players who flash into the scene with promise. And all of those are successful because of an offensive line with grows with every game.

Saturday’s game turned (as most games do) on the defense and kicking game. A blocked kick and a huge punt return set up two of the three first half scores. And in the second half, a defense led by seniors Kenny Vaccaro and Alex Okafor and underclassmen such as Jordan Hicks, Carrington Byndom, Quandre Diggs and Jackson Jeffcoat combined to snuff out the Lobos. The days when people talked about a “no name” defense are long gone in an era of electronic media and the Longhorn Network. It is a throwback to the days when freshmen were not eligible for the varsity and fans and media learned of them watching a five-game freshman season. Now, players arrive with a certain pedigree, and quickly have a chance to make their own name in the exposure that is available.

All of that, of course, combines under the umbrella of “team.” When Mack Brown pointed out that the Longhorns stalled after taking a 31-9 lead over Wyoming and didn’t put the game out of reach so that everybody would have a chance to play, the team embraced his admonishment to “turn it up” when you get a team down.

Saturday night, Texas turned it up. The reflected joy in the locker room was a unity drill.

There will be tough times ahead in a Big 12 schedule that is perhaps the roughest-top to bottom-in recent league history for the `Horns. Adversity begins next Saturday with a late 8:15 p. m. kickoff against Ole Miss in Oxford.

But what happened Saturday night gave the coaches and the team a lot to build on, and it went beyond planning and execution, blocking and tackling, throwing, running and catching. Saturday night was about fun. And if you are to play this game and play it well, that is what you have to have.

 

 

 

 

2.11.2011 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Pipe dreams — Remembering Emory and the Wishbone

                 

Feb. 11, 2011

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

It was the baseball season of 1968, and I had just joined the Texas Longhorn athletics staff as Assistant Sports Information Director. Texas was playing Rice in Houston, and I had agreed to meet my favorite uncle for breakfast at the legendary Shamrock Hilton Hotel. I was there with our baseball team; Uncle Clarence was there because my cousin’s husband was in the hospital at the fledgling medical complex which would later become world renown.

“How’s Gale?” I asked.

The usually cheerful face darkened as he said somberly, “Gale is a very sick man.”

It was then that I learned that my cousin-in-law was battling a disease with a very long name that for practical purposes had been shortened to its initials: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was becoming known as ALS. I would learn in time that one of my heroes, Lou Gehrig, had died of it. And within three years, so would my cousin’s husband.

That was 40 years ago. Modern medicine has solved a lot of things in those years, but sadly, curing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is not one of them. That is why we were all devastated to learn that Emory Bellard, an icon of the coaching profession, was fighting the uphill battle that matches modern medicine and the disease. Thursday, the disease won.

Just two years ago, Emory had attended a Sportsman’s Club dinner previewing the Longhorns’ upcoming season and honoring the 1969 Texas National Championship team. His hair was snowy white, and the ever-present smoking pipe which had been his trademark was gone. Otherwise, he was the usual, ultimate gentleman. A master of the game and a citizen of the people. And in this space, I remember another place, and another time, when the faces of Texas Longhorn football, and the mindset of the college and the high school game, were about to change.

It was the summer of 1968, and Emory Bellard sat in his office, down the narrow, eggshell-white corridor that was part of an annex linking old Gregory Gymnasium with a recreational facility for students. There were two exit doors, one at the glassed-in front of the two-story building, and the other at the end of the hall.

Summer, in those days, was a time for football coaches to relax and to prepare for the upcoming season. Summer camps for young players were years away, and few of the players were even on campus. Most were home, or working to earn extra spending money to last the school year. Most of Bellard’s cohorts on Darrell Royal’s staff were either on vacation or had finished their work in the morning and were spending the afternoon at the golf course at old Austin Country Club.

Texas football had taken a sabbatical from the elite of the college ranks in the three years before. From the time Tommy Nobis and Royal’s 1964 team had beaten Joe Namath and Alabama in the first night bowl game, the Orange Bowl on January 1 of 1965, Longhorn football had leveled to average. Three seasons of 6-4, 7-4 and 6-4 had followed the exceptional run in the early 1960s.

Despite an outstanding running back in future College Football Hall of Famer Chris Gilbert, the popular “I” formation with a single running back hadn’t produced as Royal and his staff had hoped. So with the coming of the 1968 season, and the influx of a highly touted freshman class who would be sophomores (this was before freshmen were eligible to play on the varsity), Royal had made a switch in coaching duties.

Bellard, who had joined the staff only a season before, after a successful career in Texas high school coaching at San Angelo and Breckenridge, was the new offensive backfield coach.

He had gone to Royal with the idea of switching to the Veer, an option offense which had been made popular in the southwest at the University of Houston. As the Longhorns had gone through spring training, they had returned to the Winged-T formation which Royal had used so successfully during the early part of the decade.

So, as the summer began, the on-going question was, who was going to play fullback, the veteran Ted Koy, or the sensational sophomore newcomer Steve Worster? With Gilbert a fixture at running back, even in the two-back set of the Veer formation, only one of the other two could play.

And that is how, on that summer afternoon, the conversation began.

“So, who are you going to play, Koy or Worster?” I asked. Bellard took a draw on his ever-present pipe, cocked his chair a little behind the desk that faced the door, and said, “What if we play them both?” He took out a yellow pad and drew four circles in a shape resembling the letter “Y.”

“Bradley,” he said, referring to heralded quarterback Bill Bradley, as he pointed to the bottom of the picture. “Worster,” he said, indicating a position at the juncture behind the quarterback. “Koy”, he said as he dotted the right side, “and Gilbert,” indicating the left halfback.

Royal had told Bellard he wanted a formation that would be balanced, and that, unlike the Veer which was a two-back set, would employee a “triple” option with a lead blocker. On summer mornings, Bellard would set up the alignments inside the old gymnasium next to the offices, using volunteers from the athletics staff as players. When the team members came back at the end of the summer break, Bellard took Bradley, James Street, Eddie Phillips and a fourth quarterback named Joe Norwood to the Varsity Cafeteria next to the gymnasium. There, as they sat at a table in the back of the room, Bellard arranged some salt and pepper shakers and the sugar jar in the shape of a Y. Then he explained the concept.

When the players tried it on the field for the first time, Street remembers saying with Bradley, “this ain’t gonna work….”

Still, Bellard persevered. As fall drills began, the formation was kept under wraps. Ironically, Texas opened the season that year against Houston. It was only the second meeting of the two. The Longhorns had won easily in 1953, but the Cougars had established themselves as an independent power that was demanding respect from the old guard Southwest Conference.

A packed house of more than 66,000 overflowed Texas Memorial Stadium for the game, which ended in a 20-20 tie. The debut of the new formation didn’t exactly shock the football world. A week later, Texas headed to Texas Tech for its first conference game, and found itself trailing 21-0 in the first half. It was at that point that Royal made the first of a series of moves that would change the face of his offense and the face of college football, for that matter.

Bill Bradley was the most celebrated athlete in Texas in the mid-1960s. He was a football quarterback, a baseball player, could throw with either hand and could punt with either foot. He was a senior, and when Royal unveiled the new formation, he thought that Bradley’s running ability would make him perfect as the quarterback who would pull the trigger.

But trailing in Lubbock, Royal made one of the hardest decisions of his coaching career. He pulled Bradley and inserted a little-known junior named James Street.

A signal caller from Longview, Street had been an all-Southwest Conference pitcher in baseball the spring before, but no one could have expected what was about to happen.

Street brought Texas back to within striking distance of the Raiders, closing the gap to 28-22 before Tech eventually won, 31-22. Bradley would eventually move to defensive back, where he became a star in the NFL.

Back home in Austin, the staff met to adjust where the players lined up in the new formation. In a debate that was won by offensive line coach Willie Zapalac, the fullback position alignment was adjusted. Worster, who had been lined up only a yard behind the quarterback in the original formation, was moved back two full steps so he could better see the holes the line had created as the play developed.

Against Oklahoma State the next week, Texas won, 31-3. Nobody realized it at the time, but that would be the start of something very big. With Street as the signal caller, that win was the first of 30 straight victories, the most in the NCAA since Oklahoma had set a national record in the 1950s, and a string that held as the nation’s best for more than thirty years.

Today, James Street is one of the nation’s most successful structured settlement money managers, and in countless public speeches, he uses things Bellard taught him–not only about the game, but about life.

“Emory,” Royal recalled Thursday, “understood the game of football, and was a great coach. But beyond the X’s and O’s, he was a great teacher.”

A teacher, Street says, of more than just the game.

“Before every game he would tell me `stay steady in the boat,'” Street recalled. “‘Play every play like it’s a big play. Don’t worry about the outcome of the game. Just play every play like it’s a big play.'”

The offense Bellard designed became a staple for colleges and high schools in the 1970s and on into the 1980s. Bear Bryant at Alabama and Chuck Fairbanks and Barry Switzer at Oklahoma would use variations of it to compete for national championships. Bellard would run it successfully as a head coach at Texas A&M and Mississippi State. The service academies–most notably Air Force–would use the concept with good results for years.

Bellard, whose highly successful high school career included a record of 136-37-4 and three state championships, left Texas after the 1971 season for his head coaching stints at Texas A&M and Mississippi State. He eventually came out of retirement to return to his roots as a high school coach before retiring for good as he neared his 80s.

Mack Brown remembers him from his time as a coach at Mississippi State, when Mack was coaching at Tulane. Most of all, he remembers his contribution to the history of the game, and to his dedication to help young coaches whenever they asked.

They will hold a memorial service on Saturday, February 19, at the First Baptist Church in Georgetown. There’ll likely be a gathering of Longhorns, from his five years as an assistant here, as well as Aggies, for his years as a head coach there. There will be those who remember the Wishbone, and the legacy it left.

More than that, however, they will recall the patience of a pipe smoker, who in his own way was an artist of the game, as well as a teacher. There is a touch of sad irony as well. With Bellard’s passing, seven of the eight assistant coaches on that staff which changed the face of Texas football are gone. Tom Ellis, Bill Ellington, Mike Campbell, Leon Manley, Willie Zapalac, and R. M. Patterson preceded Emory in death. Only Fred Akers remains.

And through his legacy – like all of them – Emory, with his pipe and his yellow pad, his schemes and his dreams, will stand the test of time, not only for what he did, but for who he was–and the lives that he touched.

 

 

Sept. 5, 2010

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

HOUSTON — On the day that Jake Little (the youngest grandchild in the Little family) was choosing to come into this world in a delivery room in a southwest Austin hospital, we sat in the waiting room working on a puzzle.

A thousand pieces or more it was, and some of them had to be tried all sorts of ways to make it work. The folks that made the puzzle had provided the beautiful picture of what it was supposed to look like, but we had to figure out how to get it, and young Jake, to come out just right.

That’s the way it is with season openers. You know what it looks like, and you may even know how to solve it. But you still have to get the pieces to fit.

The 2010 season opener against the Rice Owls in Reliant Stadium was one of the most anticipated inaugural appearances in recent years. For almost eight months to the day, Texas football and its young quarterback Garrett Gilbert had been frozen in time. It was like when we were kids and went to the ten cent movie on Main Street in Winters. Each Saturday there was an episode of a western serial, and you had to wait until next week to see how your hero escaped impending disaster–kinda like the TV dramas of today.

Now, it was time to push the play button.

To those who have never played it and never lived it, football seems a simple game. But when your life depends on what happens in and around a traveling entourage of 150 or so folks, it is the puzzle that occupies your time before the baby comes.

The hero this time was George Wynn, the Assistant Athletics Director for Football Operations, whose job it is to coordinate road trips. On Thursday, George and his right hand man, former Longhorn DT Marcus Tubbs, had journeyed to Houston and back to solidify operations at the team hotel near Hobby Airport. By the time George got back to Houston on Friday morning, he learned that a generator fire at the hotel had rendered it unable to handle the rooms and the meals for the Longhorns.

Fortunately, thanks to George’s experience as a travel coordinator for folks such as the Harlem Globetrotters as well as the Longhorns and other teams — he found an option. To put it in perspective, the last time Texas had a problem like this on the road was in College Station when the team had to go without a pregame meal because the cook overslept on Thanksgiving morning in 1999.

This time it worked out better. Wynn was able to receive help from the Westin Galleria Hotel, which accommodated the team almost seamlessly.

In a game, Mack calls that “sudden change,” and the team took it in stride.

The primary trademark of Brown’s Texas teams has been family, and family means lives are touched — in great and sad ways. On Friday night, kicker Justin Tucker, who was about to assume the field goal kicking duties for the first time in his career, learned that a good friend from high school had died in a car wreck.

In a microcosm of America, the Longhorns have lots of family connections to the military. The team carries American flags as it enters the field at games to show their support for those in service to the nation. In a show of hands at the team meeting on Thursday, Equipment Manager Chip Robertson collected the names of players who have relatives in the military. Fozzy Whitaker and Dustin Earnest were chosen as the first flag bearers. On the road, the Horns will also carry a Texas flag, and its inaugural carrier was Eddie Jones.

Which brings us to the game itself. Eddie Jones, a defensive end who had outdone himself in a fun post-practice basketball three-point shooting contest after practice on Thursday, proved he can catch the ball as well, as he led the team in kickoff returns when Rice chose to avoid kicking to speedsters D. J. Monroe and Marquis Goodwin.

A crowd of over 70,000 — the largest to see a Rice-Texas game in Houston in almost 50 years — was decidedly burnt orange, and what it — and the rest of the country got to see — was a newborn accompanied by both labor pains and growing pains.

When expectations are as high as they are now at Texas, they often surpass reality. It is one of those quandaries — logic tells you to be patient, while emotion wants a quick segue to the half-a-hundred offenses and shutout defenses of the finished puzzles of recent eras.

Coaching is a fun profession because it is challenging. And coaching can be a really hard profession because it is challenging. You coach because you love kids, and you also coach because you love the game. And the game is important, and offers its greatest rewards, because of the puzzle.

Mistakes cause frustration. The piece of the puzzle you thought fit didn’t work. Mistakes also underscore the importance of the piece, every bit as much as the finished product. Pre-season work and evaluation emphasized what this team “can” be. That, then, is about the potential — which Coach Royal once described as meaning “you ain’t done it yet.”

In the game in Reliant, a whole lot of really good things happened. Flashes of brilliance formed far more of a highlight reel than a collection of “what if” plays. Most of all, for Texas, it was an opening win. Mack was quick to point out to his team that while a lot of things were going to have to get fixed, you should never underestimate or under appreciate the value of an opening game win. In the week that will come, rest assured that the team will be reminded over and over again that they have achieved a place at Texas where excellence is expected, and there are no excuses. It will be the blending of the “attaboys” and the “you are better than that.”

It has been almost eight months since the Longhorns of 2009 seemed freeze-framed on that field in Pasadena. Many of the key participants who helped bring them there are gone, a celebration of the unique nature of the ever-evolving and revolving game of student athletes in college football.

The 2010 team is in the midst of the puzzle. New players, new schemes — all got their first test against a live opponent on Saturday.

A couple of years ago, as we took turns laboring over that puzzle, Jake Little and his mom were busy with their work. Finally, near the end of the day, the puzzle was finished. In the labor and delivery room, after a lot of hard work and effort, the baby came out just fine.

 

 

 

Dec. 12, 2012

Bill Little, You can begin again by Gerald mann

Every holiday season, in his first sermon of the New Year, the legendary preacher Gerald Mann used to deliver a message entitled “You CAN begin again.”

Until recently, Gerald Mann (whose career was short-circuited by Parkinson’s Disease) never met Nate Boyer, but the Special-Forces-soldier-turned-Longhorn-football player certainly got the message. In fact, Nate is a sermon all by himself.

From an obscure walk-on football player who once was one of a hundred or so non-scholarship athletes at The University of Texas to a feature subject on ESPN and CNN, Nate Boyer has become a shining example to all those out there who would like to go for their dreams. There is no better “feel good” story in America today.

On back-to-back days on national television, Nate was in Orlando Thursday for the ESPN College Football Awards show where he was named the most inspirational figure in college football and received the Disney Spirit Award. Then at the Longhorn Honors Banquet televised live over the Longhorn Network, he was honored by the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl with their inaugural Armed Forces Merit Award as presented by the Football Writers Association of America.

All of this for a 31-year-old college student who served several tours of duty in the Middle East as an elite Special Forces Green Beret, and who never played high school football.

Folks, we can’t make this stuff up.

By now, most of you know the story of how a young man who graduated from Valley Christian High School in Dublin, California, made his way as the starting deep snapper for placement kicks at The University of Texas at Austin.

But what Nate Boyer represents to current U.S. Veterans returning to civilian life extends way beyond the distance of the seven yards he flicks a football to his holder Cade McCrary on Texas’ placement kicks. Boyer’s high-profile status in a way gives hope to thousands of men and women who are ending their tours of duty seeking a direction for the rest of their lives.

Nate’s strong commitment as a patriot to the military is stirring in its power, but his ability to seek new and different horizons is a lighted pathway to opportunities beyond their service to America. In a time when the media has focused on the plight of the returning soldier, Boyer steps up with a plan that has worked for him, and may work for others. While Nate and Ahmard Hall – the Longhorns’ Marine vet who played at Texas and went on to serve as a captain for the Tennessee Titans – are two examples of those who chose to use their G.I. Bill education fund to get a college degree, there could be many more who follow in their footsteps.

It is possible to envision new opportunities in colleges across the country for hundreds of young men and women who were athletes in high school and chose, for a variety of reasons, to enter the Armed Forces immediately after graduation. They offer maturity, both physically and mentally, and they provide opportunities for students to afford college and enter athletics programs as “walk-ons.”

Nate is the first to acknowledge that he entered the work force (or college program) in good physical shape. He knows many of his fellow Veterans suffered wounds – seen and unseen – that continue to affect their lives. He isn’t saying “you must do what I did,” instead he is saying, “this is what I did,” and it has worked for him. He has used the tenacity that helped him become a Green Beret to carve a life that continues to evolve for him. A recipient of the Bronze Star – America’s fourth highest combat commendation – he hopes one day to return to his comrades in battle, once again standing in harm’s way to protect our freedom.

At 31, he is the first to latch on to the right to be “young at heart.” He’s also the first to say that he’s made a bunch of mistakes along his journey. Clearly, as among the best of America’s best, he’s had to limit those considerably when lives are on the line.

He is America’s most inspirational college football player (as the Disney Spirit Award represents), and he is a deserved first winner of the Bell Helicopter Bowl and the FWAA’s Armed Forces Merit Award because he has embraced life proudly. He once said he entered the Green Berets and later the Special Forces because he wanted to earn the right to be an American. He had seen first-hand the admiration others around the world held for his country, and he wanted to carry that message.

The Longhorn football team has become a huge part of his life because the family atmosphere has brought him back to his roots as a member of a greater whole. He shares an amazing duality – he is a member of the team’s leadership committee, and he has been appointed by University of Texas President Bill Powers to the standing Veterans Committee for Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Any conversation, at any level, concerning Nate Boyer begins and ends with the word “respect.”

But it is impossible to tell his story without paying homage to the word “pride.” His friends are proud that he is in their lives. For Nate, however, his pride comes in a private moment that is also very public. At the beginning of each Longhorn game, he is one of the players who carries the American flag onto the field in front of the team. In that space, he says he thinks of those men and women who are still serving for all of us. He prays for their safety, and he anticipates with wonder the time when he might rejoin them in battle.

Because, you see, in the end, Staff Sgt. Nate Boyer is a warrior. He serves mankind. As a soldier in the army of The United States of America.