Bill Little Articles Part XII

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

• The Longhorn, the warrior, and the Eagle

• Remembering Memorial Day

• Chykie Brown- an Unlikely Journey

• Leonard Davis-A large Shadow

• Justin Tucker – The Final Four

• Welcome, my friends, to the life of Tarell Brown

• A Cowboy’s Heart

• A Perfect 10

• Back to the Future

 06.19.2013 | Football

Bill Little commentary: The Longhorn, the warrior and the eagle

June 19, 2013

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

Wikipedia’s dictionary tells us that “coincidence” is “a collection of two or more events or conditions, closely related by time, space, form, or other associations which appear unlikely to bear a relationship…” It also says that the word “serendipity” is one of the ten hardest words in the English language to translate. However, their best shot is “a happy accident or pleasant surprise, a fortunate mistake.”

Specifically, it says “the accident of finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it.”

That is why the serendipitous coincidence of a couple of seemingly totally unrelated events suddenly seemed to come together the other day after learning that Texas Longhorns deep snapper Nate Boyer had been named the male Big 12 Sportsperson of the Year.

First, I had done one of those “impulse buys” at the supermarket when I picked up a copy of Time magazine’s re-issue of its special edition “Special Ops—The hidden world of America’s toughest warriors.” And second, I sat transfixed at the computer as my wife, Kim, reviewed photos that she and others on the KOKE-FM Cruise to Alaska had taken.

In one of the photos, one of the women on the cruise had taken a stunning shot (truth is, nearly all the pictures from the cruise were stunning) of the stark, polished cliffs alongside the famous Tracy Arm Fjord deep into Alaska’s Inside Passage.

Her telephoto lens had captured the majesty of the cliffs against the iceberg filled waters in the shadow of the great Sawyer glacier. But as she was filing her photos for folks on the web to share, she noticed a speck right in the center of the cliff. Blending into the picture, almost invisible at first glance, was an eagle – with its proud, white feathered head and tail, and its seven and a half foot wingspan – in full flight.

The enlarged photo was still on the computer screen when I picked up the magazine, and I read these words: “Special operations units must be prepared to go wherever the bad guys are. They must be able to locate and identify the enemy. They must be able to choose a range of weapons available to counter the threat. Day or night, they must be able to see, hear and smell signs of danger…

“After having once operated at the margins of the military, the special ops warriors have become America’s elite warriors. Yet being elite does not mean being arrogant. Just the opposite. Being elite imposes upon the individual the necessity for modesty, discretion, silence, and respect for every military and civilian person upon whom each mission’s success depends.”

That is why, in this summer of 2013, Nate Boyer steals some private moments in a faraway land in the middle of harm’s way to practice snapping a football so he will be ready to rejoin his Longhorn teammates when fall practice opens in early August after he returns from active duty with the Army of the United States of America.

During two tours of duty as a Special Forces Green Beret during the first decade of the 21st Century, Nate earned a Bronze Star (the nation’s fourth highest combat medal). He was in the inactive reserve when he came to Texas, but soon was enticed to join the Texas National Guard. His summer vacations, his commanding officer explained to his teammates, would be a bit different from theirs. And so it has been. This summer, he is on active duty as a Green Beret Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army.

When former Longhorn defensive back Rod Babers was doing his radio talk show with the “Voice of the Longhorns” Craig Way, Rod noticed that Nate was among the members of the football team who had earned their degree this spring.

“What a proud moment for us,” he said, “to think he will walk across that stage and get his diploma.”

When Craig explained that Nate wouldn’t be there for the ceremony, Rod asked why.

“Nate is an American hero,” Craig said. “And because he is an American hero, he is busy elsewhere.”

The addition of the Sportsperson of the Year award extends a long list of honors which Nate has earned since coming to Texas and walking on to the football team in 2010. He has taken the leadership skills he brought with him into the military and has blossomed as a leader and mentor to all around him.

Mack Brown‘s deep commitment to the military goes back a long way, but it was reinforced when he accompanied several other high profile coaches on a trip to visit troops in the Middle East. His respect for what Nate has meant to the Texas program is obvious.

“Nate sets a tremendous example for our guys and is a daily reminder of how our military personnel give so much to protect and provide us freedom. He is a great example for student-athletes across the country and someone who is worthy of any award or recognition that comes his way,” Brown said.

Besides the coveted Disney Award as America’s most inspirational football player, Nate’s 2012-13 honors include the Armed Forces Merit Award presented by the Armed Forces Bowl and the Football Writers Association of America. He received the Lorene L. Rogers Scholar-Athlete Award given to the senior student-athlete who has the highest grade point average, and last fall became a member of the Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium Veterans Committee.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in physical culture and sports in May, and is enrolled in graduate school for the upcoming fall semester. Last fall, Longhorn coaches awarded him a scholarship and he became the team’s starting deep snapper for placements. He fits perfectly the words in the Time article – modesty, discretion, silence, and respect.

Before he left for his deployment in May, Nate was instrumental in the forming of a group called “Caring for Camo” – primarily made up of students who put together care packages for men and women of the U.S. military who are currently deployed. It was his way of reminding all of us that there are thousands of men and women who daily stand in harm’s way to defend the cause of freedom.

I thought about that as I remembered the glory of the mountains and the sea in Alaska, and the eagle seemed an appropriate symbol for Nate. It is, in its way, the ultimate warrior in the skies. Its vision is four times better than that of a person with perfect vision. It can see a rabbit running from a mile away; it sees fish swimming underwater from a distance as high as a football field away.

It is a protector, standing sentinel at its nest to guard its family.

The late Lewis Timberlake used to tell a story in his motivational speeches about being somewhere in the mountains and asking an Indian guide to take him up the trails so he could see an eagle fly. When dawn came, however, there was a fierce windstorm with rain and lightning. Lewis said the guide told him not to worry, because he would still see the eagle.

“In the storm,” he said, “eagles fly. Small birds head for cover.”

The naturalist on the cruise ship had a little different twist on the story. He said the eagle was smart enough to hunker down in the rain, but there was one part of Lewis’ story that he did confirm.

“Eagles soar,” he said. “When the wind is blowing the hardest, the eagle will fly. The small birds will not.”
That is why the lady’s picture mattered. In the distance, you can hardly see it. But it can see you.

And that’s Nate Boyer. A Longhorn, a warrior, an eagle, but most of all, an American soldier.

05.26.2013 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Remembering Memorial Day

May 26, 2013

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

There is a unique meaning to Memorial Day, 2013, for a whole lot of folks around The University of Texas. The centerpiece of memories, of course, is the football stadium that is approaching the 89th year of its life on the UT campus. It is also significant that this is the first Memorial Day we have observed without the presence of Darrell Royal, who in 1996 allowed his name to be placed on the stadium—with the stipulation that it remain “Texas Memorial Stadium” as well.

Royal, a veteran himself who was born the same year the stadium was completed in 1924, wanted to make sure that the original purpose of the stadium—to honor those Americans who died in World War I and later was rededicated to include all U.S. veterans who have served in foreign conflicts —was never forgotten.

A country music fan, Coach Royal would have celebrated the latest tribute from singer Aaron Watson to those who stand in harm’s way protecting our freedom. In his song, “Raise Your Bottle,” we hear a piece of the past and a sobering reminder of the present when he sings, “…from Normandy to Korea, to Khe Sanh, Vietnam, heartaches stretch from coast to coast…from Bunker Hill to Fallujah, Gettysburg to Japan, everyone who’s ever served or lost someone…let’s make a toast.

“So raise you bottle to the boys and let’s remember, all the fallen and the price they had to pay. Hold ’em up high and salute all the ones that made it back, and for the ones away from home, don’t forget to pray.”

And so we have Memorial Day. It is about boats and barbecue, celebrations and an extra day off. But if you walk in a cemetery where the dead are remembered, you will see the flags of a bygone era, and the stark reminder that peace, as we seek it, comes with a price.

And that is why a structure of concrete and brick that is now known as Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium is important. To understand it, it is important to remember how it came to be.

It has been 100 years since the world as they knew it was thrust into turmoil and World War I began. At first, it was a battle in Europe, but as the years continued and the war raged on, the United States was drawn into it. And that was when the song “Over There” by George M. Cohan became popular.

“Over there,” it went. “The Yanks are coming. The Yanks are coming, and we won’t come back ’til its over—over there.” For the young men of the time—this was before so many brave women would serve as they do today—war was nothing more than an act of bravado which would end quickly in victory, with the vanquishing of the foe and the return of heroes.

Trouble was, many didn’t come back.

At the northwest corner of the stadium, surrounding flags and a replica of a World War I soldier, there are plaques and monuments to those who died in that conflict which would become known, in its time, as “The Great War.”

Perhaps most notable among them were Louis Jordan and Pete Edmond.

Jordan was a popular native of the Hill Country of German ancestry who was a former Longhorn team captain. After he was killed in France, the people in his hometown of Fredericksburg erected a flagpole in his memory when the new stadium was constructed. A replica of that flagpole is located in the Frank Denius plaza outside the northwest corner of the stadium. And then, there is Pete Edmond.

In the first quarter century of The University of Texas, Pete Edmond stood out as a model of what every young man entering college would aspire to be. He was active on campus, was an honor student, and was a superior athlete.

It would be there, in the arena, that Edmond would manifest the character and the value of athletics. For it was there, with all of his God-given abilities, that he would manifest the innate nature of sport—the importance of teamwork.

True, there is a plaque in his honor, but you cannot capture on a plaque the story of Pete Edmond, or the message his life sent about the combined values of patriotism, and the challenges of real war and the philosophies of sport.

That, instead, is tucked away in a letter marked “return to sender” in Edmond’s old Hall of Honor file. There, ghosts of the past march as a solemn reminder of why, this day, we should celebrate all of these men and women, and what they have done.

Pete Edmond gave up his banking job to enter Officer’s Training Camp, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant assigned to the Fourth Division, 39th Infantry. He sailed for France in April of 1918.

His family knew that he was in Paris as America celebrated Independence Day on July 4, 1918. In the days before instant communications with cell phones and the Internet, the written word was all that a soldier, and his family had.

“Only little letters of a few lines came to us,” wrote a member of his family later. “But every day he wrote those few lines. A last letter and a rough picture came 24th October.”

Months later, after searching for word through the military and the Red Cross, the family received a cable gram from General Pershing himself.

“Deeply regret to inform you…” it began. It went on to describe where Edmond had been buried, in what would become the largest overseas cemetery in United States history.

Later, the family would begin to piece together the story of Lieutenant Pete Edmond.

In a field “near Ferne de Filles, St. Thibaut, France,” on August 6, 1918, he made a personal reconnaissance of German positions in the area, covering almost two miles of ground under heavy fire. For that, he was awarded the Silver Star, the third highest recognition in the US military.

On September 26, at Nantilles, Edmond was wounded, but refused to go to the rear and stayed with his men as company commander.

Leaders do that, we’re told.

And then, on October 11, 1918, he was killed charging a German machine gun position in the battle of the Argonne Forest, one of the bloodiest campaigns in the history of American warfare.

He died fighting for his men, and fighting for his country. To understand the magnitude of that last battle, it is important to realize that there were 117,000 U.S. casualties. Seventy-thousand French soldiers died, as did 100,000 Germans.

One month later, on November 11, the “War to End Wars,” was over.

That lofty goal, time has proven, has never been achieved. Men and women serve, and men and women fight, not for war, but to achieve great peace.

And that is why this day, and these people, are so very important.

Aaron Watson’s song reminds us to remember those who are standing in harm’s way for us every day, including our own Nate Boyer, who is currently deployed with the U.S. Special Forces in the Middle East. It is they whom we remember, and for whom we pray.

You have heard this before, but it is worth repeating. In the middle of the last decade, our son, David Little, left his successful Austin law practice and his family to return to active duty with the U.S. Marines. He served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Al Anbar province in Western Iraq during the campaign for Iraqi Freedom. When his tour of duty ended, he wrote to an ever-expanding e-mail base the following message:

“I cannot leave this place without remembering those who will not return. Both friends and Marines and sailors I did not know shed their blood and gave their lives here. They believed in what they were doing. They took a stand and made a difference with their lives, and are to be respected for that. They stepped up and faced death so that others would not have to, and they are to be honored for that. And, they gave of themselves selflessly so that my children and yours can play in the yard, go to school, and live their lives without fear…they are to be thanked for that.”

That is why, on Memorial Day, it is important to pause, reflect, remember…and to pray.

02.01.2013 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Chykie Brown — An unlikely journey

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

The distance between Manhattan, Kansas, and the Superdome in New Orleans is just two-and-one-half miles shy of 1,000, and as Chykie Brown walked off the field in the purple hue of the Bill Snyder Family Stadium at Kansas State University with a broken arm two years ago, odds are he didn’t envision getting from point A to point B so suddenly.

From one of the lowest points in that 2010 season, the injured Longhorn defensive back from Houston North Shore was about to embark on a surprising journey, which will make its high-point stop Sunday when Chykie and his Baltimore Ravens play the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII for the right to be called the world champions of professional football.

The Longhorns would finish 5-7 that year, prompting a recommitment from the entire football program. In the 2011 NFL draft, Chykie Brown would be the 164th player chosen, picked in the fifth round by the Ravens. And there begins our story.

“It’s a wonderful feeling,” said Chykie as he prepared for the upcoming game. “I am going to take every advantage of it. It is a rare, rare opportunity, so it is really important to make every moment count. Not everybody gets there. And what we know is, the chance to get that championship trophy or that championship ring, you have to cherish that opportunity, and I am blessed to be a part of a team that does that.

Brown has turned the 2012 season into a dream season for him. He spent much of 2011 as a special teams player, but came into camp energized and redirected last summer. The hard work has paid off. Now, he is sharing starting time as a “nickel” back in the veteran Raven defense, as well as being a leader on special teams.

He comes into the game having been a part of a team that has faced three outstanding quarterbacks in the playoff run – including two legends in Peyton Manning of Denver and Tom Brady of New England – both on the road. The Ravens started the playoffs with a home game against Indianapolis, led by their outstanding rookie quarterback, Andrew Luck.

Brown celebrates that he is part of a defense that includes outstanding veterans, including three future Hall of Famers in defensive back Ed Reed and linebackers Terrell Suggs and Ray Lewis.

“I try to take every advantage of that and try to learn every day from them,” Chykie says.

Most of all, Brown has come to understand what it takes to play in the NFL.

“I do feel like I am growing up. You have to go in there and work. Those guys [the other quarterbacks] will question you at a strong level. They will challenge you on every play,” he said.

There has been, he says, a unique closeness in the Ravens.

“It is a lot like we were at Texas,” he says. “We have a togetherness, and we understand that nothing matters right now except winning.”

The total team concept is not lost on Brown, who is still true to his roots on the kicking teams.

“Special teams is a big part of a game. We try to win the game with our special teams. Every play that happens, the special teams have a chance to do something that can come up with a win,” he says.

A reflection of that “all in” look came in the Ravens’ victory over New England in the AFC Championship. On a windy night in Foxboro, Massachusetts, the ball kept blowing off the tee as fellow former Longhorn Justin Tucker prepared to kick off. Chykie was drafted to kneel and hold for the kick.

“It was kind of cool having a Longhorn connection right there in Foxboro,” Tucker said later.

Brown and Tucker share the experience of having played in both a BCS National Championship Game against Alabama in 2009 and now a Super Bowl game. Brown says that, while the Super Bowl is certainly at an advanced level, the scheduling and the pacing of preparation for the games are similar.

The fact that Brown and Tucker will share the field with fellow Longhorns Tarell Brown and Leonard Davis of San Francisco is not lost on Chykie. Fact is, it marks the eighth straight Super Bowl to have a Longhorn competing.

“I got a text from [Texas assistant head coach/defensive backs] Coach [Duane] Akina after the AFC Championship, and everybody has been really supportive. It [the fact that there are four Longhorns in the game] just shows what kind of athletes we put out,” he said.

While the distance and the circumstances are dramatically different from his last game in college to the highlight of what is a very young professional career, perhaps the most “goes-with-the-territory” factor of the game has been the demand for tickets for the Houston native.

“Yeah, my phone went crazy right after the game. I heard from a lot of good friends and family wanting tickets – including `family’ that I hadn’t seen in a long, long time!”

With one of the world’s largest television audiences focused on every moment Sunday, chances are Chykie Brown will be feeling the challenge of the 49ers and the bright lights of center stage in the Superdome.

And if things go well, he may find he’s got a lot more new-found relatives that he’s never met.

01.31.2013 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Leonard Davis — Casting a large shadow

Jan. 31, 2013

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

If you have ever peered through special dark glasses and watched the eclipse of the sun, or watched from a prairie as the earth and its celestial satellite collaborated to create a lunar eclipse that disappeared the moon, then you will understand what I am about to tell you.

Because that is what happened in the doorway to the athletics’ offices that day more than fifteen years ago when Leonard Davis walked into the life of Texas football. A giant of a man had just arrived as a brand-new Longhorn.

He seemed, for all practical purposes, the biggest man we had ever seen. He wore shoes the size of shoe boxes, and folks opined that his clothes were tailored by Omar the Tent Maker. What we would soon learn was that he had a heart to match.

An odyssey is often a strange journey, and on Leonard Davis’ football odyssey, destiny has been a strange traveling companion.

When he came to Texas, with a 6-6 frame that now carries 353 (or more) pounds, the coaching staff in John Mackovic’s final season tried him on defense. But by the time he was helping the Longhorns in the early years of the Mack Brown era, he had found a home on the offensive line. It was from that space that he would launch a career that would carry him through four different franchises in the NFL, eventually landing him on what would turn out to be a Super Bowl ride with the San Francisco 49ers.

He was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals as the second pick in the 2001 NFL draft. In 2007, he left Arizona (though he still maintains a home in Chandler) to join the NFL franchise in Dallas as a free agent. There, he spent four seasons as part of a Cowboys team that played some of its best football in over a decade. In Davis’ first year with the team, the Cowboys finished 13-3 and won the NFC East but suffered a disappointing loss in the playoffs to the New York Giants. In 2009, the Cowboys again placed first in the division and won a post-season game for the first time in 13 seasons with a Wild Card victory over the Philadelphia Eagles.

Davis was an All-Pro in 2007 and played in three straight Pro Bowls, beginning with that season. His time with the Cowboys began with high hopes, but a long-term stay in Dallas wasn’t meant to be. After the NFL lock-out in 2011, Leonard was released by Dallas as part of cost-cutting measures.

But it was during his time in Dallas that Davis formed lasting friendships with many teammates, even forming a heavy metal band with fellow offensive linemen Marc Colombo and Cory Procter. Davis plays bass in the group and along with a guitarist named Justin Chapman, their band “Free Reign” released a debut album in 2009 aptly named “Heavier than Metal.”

“It is fun being in a band with teammates,” Davis said earlier this year. “The camaraderie you have with football is very similar in the band.”

In week nine of the 2011 season, he was picked up by Detroit, but despite being in good condition and his best efforts, he never played for the Lions. Then, just when it appeared his career was in serious jeopardy, he was signed this season by San Francisco. His role has been that of a back-up offensive lineman, and he has played in every game this season.

Where other players who had been at the highest level might have had difficulty checking their ego at the door, Leonard took on the challenge of presenting the other team’s attack in practice, and has been used as an extra lineman in the 49ers jumbo run package.

“It feels like he’s fit in, he’s one of us. Another guy that’s just a pure joy to be around,” head coach Jim Harbaugh said early in the season. “Pure, pure athlete and good guy.”

“Leonard’s been a great addition,” Niners teammate Patrick Willis said. “He’s a big guy, and we know he still has some oomph to him.”

So Davis has played eleven of his twelve years since he left Texas as a consensus all-American offensive tackle, and as his dark hair gently begins to fleck with gray, his career path in its twilight has led him to the biggest game in his sport.

“I always knew that as a player in this league you never knew what could happen,” he told reporters on Media Day in New Orleans on Tuesday. “From the decisions that coaches make to decisions that players make, it’s crazy. I always knew something could happen. It was never unexpected.”

Destiny, we know, makes no promises. And that is why Leonard will cherish the moment in New Orleans.

Davis shares the San Francisco locker room with another Longhorn, cornerback Tarell Brown, and will be facing a Baltimore Ravens team that includes two other former UT players – rookie kicker Justin Tucker and defensive back Chykie Brown. Much has been made of the number of veterans on the Baltimore team, and at 34, Davis is one of the older players in the game.

As the 49ers posed for their team picture on Media Day, the folks in charge of the risers used for the picture wisely placed Big Leonard on the front row, standing on the field of the Superdome. He was almost right next to his head coach, Jim Harbaugh. It was solid ground, for a solidly grounded human being.

For Leonard Davis, there are three reflections that truly show how “big” he really is, and they have nothing to do with a size 17 or larger shoe. One, quite naturally is his size. The others are his heart, and his smile – and not necessarily in that order.

Because, you see, Leonard Davis laughs from the heart. And it comes out through his eyes.

01.29.2013 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Justin Tucker — The final four

Jan. 29, 2013

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

Justin Tucker tucked his head inside a “hoodie,” sitting behind the wheel as his car was filling with gasoline on a clear cold day in Baltimore. He was, for the moment, trying to be obscure in a city where he has become one of the most recognizable and popular stars in the sports-hungry sky which seems to cast a predominantly purple and black hue to an otherwise azure experience on NFL Sundays.

In the summer, the evening lights in the Inner Harbor flicker with the roar of the crowd and the crack of a Baltimore Orioles baseball bat. But when winter comes and the games provide the warmth to folks nestled near the waters of the Chesapeake, it is the imposing dark black and purple of Baltimore Ravens football (with an occasional look of gold and white) that reigns supreme.

Justin Tucker’s ascension from a relatively unknown free agent to the Ravens’ star kicker as they play in Sunday’s Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans is a remarkable story of opportunity, faith, tenacity and self-confidence.

On Sunday – one week from the game – Tucker was preparing for the team’s trip to New Orleans and the impending game a week later.

“These are the moments that we always look forward to when you start playing sports. You want to be in that championship matchup with a chance to take home the spoils of war, and we have that opportunity,” said Justin. “It’s really like a dream come true.”

For Tucker’s family, the dream actually began when his Dad, Paul – an Austin cardiologist – used to take him to a practice field in West Lake Hills. When he was in high school, his Mom, Michelle, photographed every game from the sidelines. Sisters Samantha (a UT swimmer) and Nicole would cheer him on. Now, the family will gather in New Orleans.

“After we had won the AFC championship game, I got a lot of texts and phone calls from friends wishing me and our team luck. It is really cool to know that I have the support of all my friends and family. Part of the reason we play is for the name on the back of our jerseys so we can honor our family names and honor our relationships with what we do on the football field,” he said.

Tucker’s role in honoring the family name at Texas came when he kicked the last-second, game-winning field goal to give the Longhorns a victory in what for the foreseeable future was the final regular season game ever between UT and its rival Texas A&M in College Station. To that point, he had never had the opportunity for a winning kick on a game’s final play. When he booted a 47-yarder in sudden death double-overtime to send the Ravens to the AFC Championship game at Denver, it was his third game winning kick of this, his first NFL season. The others came during the regular season. En route to New Orleans and the Super Bowl, the Ravens won a playoff game at home against Indianapolis, and two more on the road against Denver and New England.

“This playoff run has been pretty cool to be a part of, especially having played in a couple of close games. That’s how all games are in this league, usually coming down to the last four minutes of the game. This whole playoff run has been a blessing to share it with so many great people,” he said.

Reflecting the difficulty of reaching the NFL’s final game, the veteran-laden Ravens have only one player – iconic linebacker Ray Lewis – who has ever played on a team which won it all.

“Ray’s message to the whole team has been that it’s going to get crazy when we get to New Orleans, but it is important to remember that nobody will care if you don’t win the game. All that is important is that we come out of this week , 1-0, because a victory celebration is a lot better than being on the other end of it,” Tucker said.

The veterans on the team have come to believe in the rookie, who is now 32 for 35 in field goals – including a perfect three-for-three in the playoffs including the game winner against Denver.

At Texas, Tucker was the punter and kickoff specialist when teammate Hunter Lawrence booted the game-winning field goal over Nebraska which sent Texas to the BCS National Championship game in 2009, and then he responded when he had his own chance against Texas A&M. Still, the superstitions of the game usually put talking to a kicker before he goes out to try a game winner right up there with never mentioning “no-hitter” to a pitcher who has not allowed a hit in baseball.

In two of the three occasions at Baltimore, that hasn’t been the case -including the game winner in the bitter cold in Denver.

“Usually everybody leaves me alone, but I was standing next to that heater on the sideline just trying to get warm, and Ed Reed came up to me. I don’t remember exactly what he said because I was pretty locked in, but it was something to the effect of: `We know you got this. It’s not even a question to us. Just go out there and do your thing.’ And that’s exactly what we did. We always think about the action and not the consequence when we are out there on the field,” Tucker said.

“We,” includes his holder, punter Sam Koch, and deep snapper Morgan Cox. For Tucker, the three are as one.

Before Tucker kicked the game winner on the road at San Diego earlier this year, the legendary Lewis broke the kicker code of silence.

“We were about to go out there and hit the winner and Ray clapped his hands and goes, `It’s your time, Tuck.’ And Terrell Suggs says, `Be quiet, dude. Nobody talk to him,'” Tucker said. “I just thought it was kind of funny. Morgan and Sam and I always run out on the field together and we were all over there laughing and smiling and saying, `It’s going to be cool to watch the highlights on the plane ride home when we knock this thing down.’

“That’s really all that goes through our mind. We are able to have fun with it to the point where we are not stressed out or nervous. And to have future Hall of Famers voice their support is a really cool deal.”

Reed is a nine-time Pro Bowl selection, Suggs was the defensive player of the year last season and Lewis is recognized as one of the greatest linebackers of all-time.

Justin Tucker will be kicking Sunday at the very highest level of the game of football. History tells us that we are a montage of life as we have known it, and the final regular-season moment of his Texas career will always be a part of who he is.

“When I have been in those situations here where the game comes down to my foot, I am super thankful that my one opportunity in school came in probably the hardest, most hostile environment possible. Being able to come through in that situation gave me a lot of confidence going forward, and like I said, I just go out there and have fun with each opportunity that I have, like I always do,” he said.

Tucker sees the fact that he, teammate Chykie Brown and San Francisco 49ers Tarell Brown and Leonard Davis all represent The University of Texas in the game as an opportunity.

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool to be well-represented and to represent not just our school but the State of Texas in this game,” he said. “Being able to play in front of 101,000-plus people for home games and a bunch more watching on TV has definitely helped prepare me for playing in the National Football League. But it is a great feeling to be able to play for everybody back in Texas.”

For the Longhorns, the Super Bowl and this last weekend’s Pro Bowl continue the legacy of the Mack Brown era at Texas. The contrasts are reflected with the 49ers offensive lineman Davis, who came to Texas in 1997, and Tucker. Tucker was eight years old when Big Leonard first walked into the athletic offices at Texas, and now here are they – along with two other fellow UT alums – playing on the biggest stage in football, and all four continue to represent the Longhorns well.

Earlier this season, after Tucker had achieved celebrity status in Baltimore, he was in a local restaurant and was asked what he wanted to drink.

“Dr Pepper,” came the reply.

To which the flustered waiter said, “I’m sorry sir, we don’t have Dr Pepper.”

At a nearby table, a fellow diner who had overheard the conversation, abruptly arose and left the restaurant – only to return shortly carrying a liter of Dr Pepper purchased from a nearby convenience store.

If Tucker, his kicking comrades Cox and Koch and the Ravens can continue their quest which has taken on miracle proportions, chances are next time the Dr Pepper will arrive in an 18-wheeler. An amazing response for a remarkable rookie, a team seeking destiny, and America’s most popular game – all of which may be determined by a sport’s final four minutes.

01.28.2013 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Tarell Brown — Out of darkness, into light

Jan. 28, 2013

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

“If it wasn’t for the dark days,” Earl Campbell once told me, “you wouldn’t know how it feels to walk in the light.”

Welcome, my friends, to the life of Tarell Brown.

The former Longhorn defensive back is a starting cornerback for the San Francisco 49ers, and is on his way to the Super Bowl in New Orleans on February 3. But it is the journey, as well as the destination, which makes Tarell’s story so absolutely special.

To the Longhorn football program, Brown is significant in that he is one of four former players (two for San Francisco and two for Baltimore) who will be playing in the game. If the 49ers win the game, he will joined the rarified air of former teammates Aaron Ross and David Thomas as men who have played on teams which won college football’s BCS National Championship as well as the NFL’s top prize.

“I didn’t realize that,” Brown said Tuesday as the 49ers began preparation for their meeting with the Baltimore Ravens. Brown, Ross and Thomas played on Texas’ 2005 National Championship team. Ross was a part of two Super Bowl champs with the New York Giants, and Thomas earned his ring with New Orleans. In this year’s Super Bowl, Longhorns joining Tarell in the game include teammate Leonard Davis and Ravens Chykie Brown and Justin Tucker.

While the two were at totally different levels, Brown senses the similarity between the interest in the Super Bowl game in just less than a week and the Longhorns’ 2005 game matching Texas and USC.

The preparation, and the ability required to handle the hype during the run-up to the game, have much in common.

Teammates and friends such as Ross who have been through the Super Bowl have counseled Brown on such things as social media and pacing yourself physically, but the bottom line he says remains the same. It is one thing to “get” to the Super Bowl – the important thing is to win it. Friends and family have been “blowing up” Tarell’s cell phone with questions about accommodations and tickets.

For Brown, it represents the high point of a football career that includes being a part of one of the most successful eras in recent Texas football history, as well as a return to glory for the San Francisco 49ers.

“It still hasn’t sunk in yet,” he said last week. “Getting there means a great deal to our team, but there is still something more. The most important thing is still to win the game. When I talked to Ross, the thing he talked about most was getting that ring. It is something that we as a team understand. We are really close, and we have had to play at a high level to get where we are. Now we have to keep preparing as we have all season.”
Brown sees the fact that there are four Longhorns in the game as a credit to the Texas program.

“It is a reflection of the coaching and the character of the Texas program.[Assistant head coach/defensive backs] Coach [Duane] Akina did a great job in preparing us for the fundamentals of the game, but it is more than just on the field stuff. You learn to play in big games at Texas, and you understand what it takes to win at that level. When you look at the fact that Texas has had at least one player in eight straight Super Bowl games, it is a reflection of the stability of the program, and a credit to how they prepared us.”

But beyond the on-the-field success (which has included a pass interception and 39-yard return against Green Bay in the game that advanced the 49ers to the NFC Championship game), the most remarkable part of the Tarell Brown story has not been in the work he has done on the field. While as a defender his job is based on “taking” from the other teams’ offense, it is the giving that sets Tarell Brown apart.

From the beginning, his life has had its tragedies. His mom was murdered in what may have been a case of mistaken identity while she was on her way to her job with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation when he was nine years old. When he had a couple of off-the-field missteps during his senior season at Texas, the Longhorn coaching staff and his dad, Robert, stood by him. Then, as Tarell was preparing for the NFL Draft Combine in the spring of 2007, Robert Brown died of a heart attack.

On the field, his defensive coordinator, Vic Fangio, praises his work ethic, and mentions a common strain which runs through Brown’s life: “He learns from his mistakes.”

That is why Tarell Brown is one of the most admired men in the NFL. It is what he gives back that matters.

Brown has created various charity foundations which are paramount in his many acts of kindness. “Brown’s Kids” helps underprivileged youngsters to get opportunities which otherwise would not be available to them.

“We make sure they can get breakfast, school supplies and have after school activities such as the YMCA and study programs and that sort of thing,” says Brown.

A second Foundation is called “Born Again,” and is dedicated to giving felons a second chance.

“We want to help them find jobs and a decent place to live,” he says. “Finding employment and something like a halfway house is important. I know we all make mistakes in life, but it is only a mistake if you don’t learn from it. It’s just giving them a chance to get back on their feet and do something positive with their life in the community and become a model citizen.”

In conjunction with Brown’s Kids, Tarell has held a football and cheerleader clinic for kids in his hometown of Mesquite each of the last several summers. Teammates and NFL players who are friends volunteer to help.

This past Christmas, Brown joined the Bay Area’s Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY) organization and agreed to provide dinner and a shopping trip to a local sporting goods store for 25 high school teenagers. The teens had the opportunity to interact with Brown as he provided advice and encouragement to the youngsters to be positive influences in their community. FLY is an organization dedicated to preventing juvenile crimes and incarceration through legal education, leadership training and one-on-one mentoring in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

It was Brown’s Christmas gift to the kids.

All the while, he continued to work at playing cornerback, one of the toughest jobs in the NFL.

He was picked by the 49ers in the fifth round of that NFL draft in 2007, and with steady improvement is now a mainstay with the San Francisco defense which will be matched against the Ravens’ quarterback Joe Flacco.

According to the 49ers website, Brown’s solid play reflects his preparation. Every morning, he is on the treadmill at 6:30, running two miles before he goes to practice later in the day.

“It’s part of what I do, he told the web reporter, “it makes me feel prepared.”

Tarell credits his dad and uncles, friends and grandparents for rearing him, and he wears tattoos in memory of his mom and late father. The tragedy which permeated his early life never really goes away, and through the years the thoughts of his mom and dad remain precious. Their memory never leaves. He says he thinks about his mom every day.

Gerald Mann, the famed preacher who built a mega-church in Austin, once said that the only way to replace “grief” is with “gratitude.”

That has been the story of Tarell Brown. He plays football for the love of the game (he says it gives him a chance to just be a kid), and he lives his life for the love of people.

“I am just trying to do my part in my community. You know, this is bigger than me,” Brown said. “I have been blessed in my life to get through things…to have my ups and have my downs. I know there are people out there who have the same problems and are going through rough times.”

Perhaps it is more than coincidence that Tarell Brown wound up playing for the 49ers, who make their home in the city by the Bay. When you think of the great city, the lasting memory isn’t the fog or the cable cars or even the great food. For this is the city of the Golden Gate, which is humanity’s link over the troubled waters far below.

And it is in that space that Tarell Brown has placed himself. He’s a fine football player, a great friend, a humanitarian and good person.

Most of all, he’s a bridge.

01.23.2013 | Football

A cowboy’s heart

Jan. 23, 2013

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

It was almost five in the morning on Sep. 17, 2000, when an airliner carrying the Texas Longhorn football team on a return trip from a late-night game in Stanford, Calif., touched down at Austin’s new Bergstrom International Airport .

The players and staff awakened slowly, moving methodically toward buses that would take them to the football stadium and eventually allow them to crawl into bed, frustrated by a 27-24 loss to the Stanford Cardinal that had knocked them out of the nation’s top ten.

But for the oldest of the travelers — a pair of life-long Longhorn supporters who had joined the team on the trip — the journey would continue.

Louis Pearce Jr. was 83 years old and Hal Hillman was 73 as they moved from the plane and into a car that would take them — one an octogenarian and the other close behind — on a three-hour ride to their homes in Houston. Folks offered to let them stay in Austin, but no one, absolutely no one, expected them to do it. These were men who had ridden more miles than that together, and a trip through the Lost Pines in Bastrop, on past the legends of LaGrange and down the highway into the sunrise was just another trail ride for a couple of guys who were cowboys at heart.

A lot of folks said Louis, who died on Dec. 26, 2012, just a little less than two months shy of his 96th birthday, was never the same after Hal passed away in 2004. Together, they represented everything great friends should be –similar in so many ways, and yet individuals to the end. They achieved much, and they gave much. When it came to energy and determination, there haven’t been many matches for Louis Pearce Jr.

Longhorn co-offensive coordinator Major Applewhite was a player on that 2000 team, and continued his relationship with Pearce — first as a graduate assistant and later as a full-time coach — over much of the last 10 years. The story of the early morning ride home didn’t surprise him.

“He had a different tank,” Major said. “He had extra gallons that the rest of us don’t have.”
Mack Brown developed a very close friendship with Pearce, and his staff annually gathered for a preseason planning session at the Pearce Ranch near San Antonio. The Longhorn head coach always marveled at the source of that energy.

“He was always the last guy to go to bed, and the first person up in the morning, even in his ’90s,” Mack recalled. “He was amazing.”

DeLoss Dodds first met Pearce in the summer of 1981, shortly after Dodds had taken the job as the Texas Athletics Director. As it was for Mack and the others, the lasting image of Louis was that of his friendship, and his loyalty. The roots of that loyalty go back a long, long way.

When you ask T Jones, who was a young assistant on Darrell Royal’s first coaching staff almost 60 years ago, about Louis, he begins with a simple, all-inclusive word: “gracious.”

Pearce was just more than a decade removed from having ridden his way through the horse cavalry into the rank of major in the US Army serving in Italy in World War II when T Jones and Coach Royal first met him on a “get acquainted” trip for the new UT coaching staff.

Coach Royal was trying to rebuild Longhorn recruiting, and Pearce was a young, highly successful businessman in Houston.

“He was so gracious,” says Jones. “We were beginning to make headway in recruiting, and he wanted to do anything he could — within the rules — to help. “

If that included providing a car for a coach who was recruiting, it was done. If that meant introducing the new staff to the power people in the state’s largest city, it was handled. It was a pattern that would continue with every head football coach and their staff who would follow.

It was in that window of time that Pearce’s love affair with his alma mater began to flourish. They said of Pearce that he had three great passions in life: his ranches, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and The University of Texas.

Dodds saw Pearce as a person who gave generously, but also served in the role of a facilitator.
“He was always willing to help. He had a wonderful lifestyle which he shared with our coaches. He was a role model who had served in World War II and had lived history. He gave great advice, and seemed to always see the past, the current and the future of any situation,” said Dodds.

When Dodds embarked on an effort to create the Longhorn Foundation, he turned to Pearce for help among the Texas alumni base in Houston.

“We raised $1 million in one lunch,” DeLoss recalled.

Applewhite recalled the hospitality, and the way Pearce treated people with respect.

“His whole family is the same way,” said Major. “I saw that as a graduate assistant when I first went to his ranch. We would work on our planning for the season, and then take a recreational break. Some folks call it ‘fishing,’ but as Stacey Searels said, ‘at Mr. Pearce’s ranch, it’s catching…not just fishing.’ Everyone made sure we were given every opportunity to work and have a good time.”

The ranch near Charlotte, Texas, had been the launching space for coaching staffs long before Pearce and Mack developed their special bond over the last 15 years.

“Louis never wavered in his support of Texas athletics,” said Dodds. He always found a positive out of what could have been a negative.”

Applewhite marveled at the stories Pearce shared (a lot of which can’t be repeated), and recalled one where Pearce had invited Brown and a university administrator to ride horses in the majestic Grand Entry procession at the Houston Rodeo. Brown, who grew up in farm country in middle Tennessee, was happy to saddle-up, but the executive politely asked if he could ride in a wagon instead.

“Mr. Pearce told him, ‘If you want, you can certainly ride in the wagon with the women and children,'” recalled Applewhite. “Coach Brown rode with Louis.”

When he was on the streets of New York or in a business meeting, Pearce was dressed as if he had just stepped out of a Gentleman’s Quarterly magazine, but deep in his soul, it was boots and jeans, and an ever-present cowboy hat on the ranch that defined him. It was more than a labor of love — it was one of his deepest loves. Once, when Mack and Sally Brown were considering buying a small ranch near Austin, Louis advised, “If you buy a ranch, you will always have something to do. You never quit building, whether it is a fence or something else. There is always something that needs work.”

And Louis Pearce never quit building. On his ranches, he grew some of the finest cattle in Texas, and, ever the horseman, he was as accustomed to being in the saddle as he was riding in that car that early morning with Hal Hillman. In the business world, he became head of one of the largest oil rig equipment companies in the world, but he never forgot his roots. It was from a ranch that he first discovered the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, with a history that dated back to the late 1930s.

When the Astrodome was constructed in the mid-1960s, Louis saw an opportunity for a venue that would take the rodeo to unprecedented success. To do it, he combined his love of animals with his sense of business. In 1966, realizing there were more than 50,000 seats in the new building they were calling the newest “Wonder of the World,” he found a way to persuade Elvis Presley to appear in concert.

Presley, of course, was a world-wide super star. Seventeen years later, in 1983, Louis helped book an up-and-coming country singer to headline the show. His name was George Strait — who went on to become the best-selling country music star in history. Strait, who was relatively unknown at the time, also recalls Pearce’s generosity and respect.

“I remember that he sent his plane to pick up me and the band,” Strait says.

Throughout his life, Pearce epitomized the “giver.” As much as he loved The University of Texas, he reinforced his commitment to the ranching industry by donating the Louis Pearce Pavilion, a state-of-the-art facility, to the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M University. Folks joked that he may have been the only UT alum to ever have a building named for him on the College Station campus.

Applewhite remembers Pearce’s respect for others being manifested in the way he treated his friend and “go-to” guy at the ranch, Juan, as well as the other people at the ranch. They were, Major recalls, like family.

He was a superb horseman and an avid hunter who traveled extensively. The cottages where the coaches stayed were shared with animal trophies from all over the world. He headed state boards and earned induction into countless halls of fame, he was as comfortable at the restaurant “21” in New York as he was at River Oaks Country Club in Houston. But he was most at home, as the old song says, “on the range.”

He had the rugged appearance of a classic westerner, and moved easily between the role of a tough operator and a charming gentleman who had the ability to first engage, and then envelop you.

On Wednesday evening, January 23, Mack and Sally Brown will be there to say good-bye to their dear friend at a public gathering to remember Pearce at River Oaks Country Club in Houston. Not surprisingly, the family has suggested that gifts in his memory can be made, among other places, to the Longhorn Foundation.

You can drag out all the superlatives when it comes to describing Pearce. He wasn’t perfect, as he would be the first to admit. He did things, in the greatest sense of the Frank Sinatra song, his way. His generous monetary gifts to Texas Athletics are significant, but it was his friendship and his gift of service that coaches and administrators will remember most. He served on the Men’s Athletics Council, and on the Longhorn Foundation Advisory Council. Most of all, however, he represented wisdom, friendship and loyalty.

Legendary Houston attorney Joe Jamail, himself an enormous Longhorn benefactor, said it this way: “Louis Pearce was intelligent, compassionate, generous, friendly, helpful and supportive of many worthy and charitable causes. He was at ease with rich or poor and treated all alike – with respect. He was a great friend to our University of Texas. He was a complicated man with simple tastes.

“He died as he lived – uncomplaining, grateful for the full life he lived with great dignity.”

The team meeting room in the Longhorn football facility bears his name, and the combination of structural and scholarship gifts afford us one final reflection of Louis Pearce.

A life-size bronze statue of a man on a horse talking with a teenage boy stands outside the Astrodome in Houston. The model for the rider on the horse was Louis Pearce. Entitled “Dreams and Memories,” the work is a lasting tribute to his ever-present interest in the bond between man, horse and youth.

When they asked Pearce awhile back how he would want to be remembered, he said, “As a cowboy.”

Webster would sign on to that. He was clearly a successful businessman, oil man, rancher and cattle man. But to those who knew him best, it was the “boy” in him that we will cherish. For it was in that space that our friend Louis Pearce remained forever young.

01.01.2013 | Football

Bill Little commentary: A perfect ten

Jan. 1, 2013

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

SAN ANTONIO — They came out of nowhere; and soon they seemed to be coming from everywhere.

For three quarters in the Valero Alamo Bowl game against Oregon State, the Texas Longhorns struggled close to mediocrity. They trailed, 27-17, and had been down by ten points for much of the game. Every time Texas seemed prepared to close the gap, the Beavers stretched away. The Longhorns had eight first downs. Oregon State had 20. Texas had 201 total yards (including only 153 in the first half.) Texas had 42 offensive snaps, OSU had 301 yard on 59 plays.

In a city whose history included a wipeout of the Texicans by Santa Anna back in history, the Longhorns were both unimpressive and ineffective. The coaches tried desperately to find something – anything – to ignite their team. And when the `Horns drove out to their own 44, facing fourth down with just less than twelve and a half minutes left in the game and trailing by those ten points, they tried a fake punt – which failed.

One of the marvels of college sports is that you always have to stay around to see what happens next. And “next” would produce one of the most exhilarating turnarounds in this bowl – or any bowl’s history.

The defense, which had been burned for 126 yards rushing and 175 passing through the first three quarters, went into complete lockdown.

And the offense rose from the ashes (pardon the pun) like the legendary Phoenix from ancient mythology. On the first series after the fake punt failed, Oregon State ran three plays and netted minus two yards before punting. Trailing, 27-17 with just under eleven and a half minutes left in the game,Texas had the ball, 83 yards away from a score. Keep in mind, to this point, Texas had only two drives of more than 36 yards.

In the movie, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” one of the greatest lines comes when the two heroes find themselves surrounded by an entire army, which they never expected. One says to the other in amazement as the bullets fly in the final battle, “Who are those guys?”

Which is absolutely what Oregon State, everybody in the Alamodome, troops watching on ESPN in the Middle East, and Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea had to be saying. Here are the numbers: in the final quarter, Texas ran 23 plays for a net of 157 yards. Oregon State ran 12 plays for a net of minus four yards. Texas had the ball for almost nine and a half minutes, the Beavers had it for five and a half.

Throughout the game, the Texas fans who overwhelmed the Oregon State fans in numbers, never gave up. Oregon State came in as the nation’s No. 13 ranked team, and wanted desperately to get their tenth win – making the 2012 Beavers only the third team in school history to do that.

But in one glorious moment, Texas decided to pull off a miracle. It was David Ash to wide receiver Mike Davis for 19 yards and then to wide receiver Jaxon Shipley for 14. Then Davis for eight, and running back Malcolm Brown for seven. Shipley seized an incredible one-handed grab for 14, and then Ash ran for seven. And on a third-and-four play from the Beaver 15, he scrambled, then hit running back Johnathan Gray for a touchdown. The “up tempo” offense had worked for Texas. Eight minutes and eighteen seconds remained and when Nick Jordan kicked the extra point out of the hold of Cade McCrary from a snap from Nate Boyer, the Longhorns were amazingly down by just three points.

On the ensuing drive, the defense produced two key sacks and OSU netted five yards on five plays. When the Beavers punted to Quandre Diggs at the UT 40, he was able to squirt the return for 12 yards, partly because of a block thrown by Matthew Zapata, a senior playing in his final – and only – game as a Longhorn. Four minutes and thirty-five seconds remained, and the ball was at the Beaver 48. Texas drove to the Oregon State 36. It was first down, with just under two and a half minutes left.

As the Longhorns had prepared for this game, Texas had practiced for a week in Austin, and at the end of every practice, the team gathered at the goal line with football strength and conditioning coach Bennie Wylie. There, they would line up, stretching the width of the field, in three separate lines. At Bennie’s command, they would run ten very hard yards. The old-timers would call these “gassers”, a version of something akin to “wind sprints.” But with Bennie, it took on a different format. One hundred and twenty players had to line up perfectly, break on order perfectly, not jump off sides and go all-out to his satisfaction. From the goal to the ten and a bit beyond, and then back again. And they did this ten times. There were some times when they reached eight, and failed. And they had to start all over again.

It was about conditioning, mentally and physically. It was about concentration and stamina. There were times when Bennie would shout, “You are winning the game in the fourth quarter right now. Keep going.” Ten runs, ten perfect runs.

Bennie called it “the perfect ten.”

That is why, when the media and the television commentators were stunned and the Texas crowd was delirious in the wild finish, the Texas team always believed. They knew, they knew, that their “hurry up” offense and their punishing defense would eventually wear down the Beavers. And when Ash hit senior wide receiver Marquise Goodwin for 36 yards for the go-ahead touchdown with only 2:24 left, and star defensive end Alex Okafor completed what long-time football coach Spike Dykes called “the finest game I have seen a defensive player play in a long, long time,” by harassing OSU into two final sacks, it was done.

The dreams of the season they had hoped would be, weren’t quite achieved. The nine wins in the 9-4 season marked a solid step in their quest for a return to national significance. As the `Horns closed their season with the 31-27 victory over Oregon State, it was an impressive reminder that there is nothing in sport that equals a come-from-behind win. And there are few things in life that match that moment, when those around seem to doubt you, and you suddenly stand taller, reach higher, hit harder and run faster.

That, my friends, they call the Perfect Ten.

11.25.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Back to the future

Nov. 25, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

“If we could learn from history, what lessons it could teach us,” wrote Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is only a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us.”

Old Sam probably didn’t know much about Big 12 football, and he couldn’t have known about the long-standing emotion that Texas Christian University has always been able to generate when it comes to The University of Texas at Austin. Captured on the video of the ESPN telecast was a purple-clad fan holding up a sign saying, “Make it personal.”

For more than seventy years, it has been personal for TCU, but not for Texas. That is why the Longhorns never saw it coming. We live in either of two states: emotion, or logic. Coaches and players study films and understand the logic of the game. But when you tee it up, it is the emotion of the game that usually decides the outcome. And if you are living logically, you have a tough time measuring the effect of emotion. Despite all of the cautions, and all of the warnings, you can’t get it until you have seen it.

For TCU, it was personal. This was a series that has been on hold since 1995, when the Horned Frogs packed away a healthy resentment because they were not deemed good enough to be included when the Southwest Conference and the Big 8 Conference dissolved and formed the Big 12. When Gary Patterson came to Fort Worth and began to build a solid program, it still lacked that validity that could only be achieved by knocking off the flagship university of the state, and the acknowledged football power in Texas – The Longhorns of The University of Texas. Once, in 2007, the Horned Frogs had mustered their best effort and had gotten swatted away like a pesky fly, 34-13.

History could have told us that TCU had the tools with which to build a power football program. This was a school that once produced such giants as Sammy Baugh and Davey O’Brien, Jim Swink and Bob Lilly in the days of the old Southwest Conference. In the late 1950s and 1960s the program began to slide – so much so that its only claim to fame for a while were the devastating upsets it seemed to hang on Texas. In 1961, the Horned Frogs won only two league games. But one of them was a 6-0 upset of Texas in Austin that knocked the Longhorns out of an almost certain national championship. That was the burr under Darrell Royal’s saddle which caused him to proclaim that “TCU is like a bunch of cockroaches…it isn’t what they eat, but what they fall into and mess up.”

In the 1980s, the late Jim Wacker tried to rebuild the Horned Frog nation, but in one of the sad twists of the time, he would learn too late that his players were involved in serious NCAA violations that would practically destroy the program.

When the Frogs were left behind and Baylor was included in the formation of the Big 12, TCU began an odyssey that would take them from conference to conference. Patterson came in and began finding success – not just winning, but claiming some signature wins along the way. All of that was what TCU brought to Austin on Thanksgiving Night, with their guns focused totally on taking down Texas.

The Longhorns, on the other hand, had bigger fish to fry than a simple meal of frog legs on Thanksgiving. The league’s “purple people” now included the `Horns’ last two opponents – TCU and Kansas State. The irony is, the Longhorns fully understood the significance of playing Kansas State in Manhattan. Once a simple outpost of the rural nature of the new Big 12, Texas had become quite familiar with the Wildcats. Of all of the teams in the Big 12 – including Oklahoma – Kansas State has had more success percentage-wise against Texas than any other.

Every time the media and the fans tried to talk about what might be possible for Texas if the Longhorns won their last two games, Mack Brown and his staff would try to refocus the team and bring it back to earth by reminding them, “beat TCU.”

Little could they know that they were right back where their brothers in burnt orange had been in the years before the old Southwest Conference began to fade. They were in a new league that was just like the old – rife top to bottom with the strongest overall conference in college football. That will be challenged by the media, which is submerged in an adoring euphoria of the Southeastern Conference. But it is reinforced by Texas A&M, which took a Big 12-style of football into the bastion of the south and achieved great success.

TCU and West Virginia, both of whom have played as league champions in the BCS, have complimented the eight teams which stayed in the Big 12, and together the ten have formed a league where truly anybody can beat anybody. Teams are taking each other to overtime games in high-scoring contests and are putting up unimaginable numbers – a league so balanced that four of the ten teams went into the next-to-last week of the season with a chance to win at least a share of the conference championship.

What that means, of course, is that teams have to be ready to play every week. Kansas State found that out at Baylor, and the landscape is littered with other examples. All of which brings us back to Thanksgiving Night in Austin.

In 1961, when the Longhorns were No. 1 in the country with their only games remaining against Texas Christian and Texas A&M, I interviewed one of the players about being cautious considering that twenty years before, TCU had ruined UT’s dreams of its first national title. He brushed it off, based on the logic that the years were distant and the players weren’t even born when the other upset happened.

He was right, of course – logically. But football games are played with passion and emotion. So let me help you with something. In the Big 12, for the foreseeable future, winning is not going to come easy. Where once you won simply because of the name on the front of your jersey, that is no longer happening. Playing just “okay” is no longer “okay.” Too often teams have lived by the image of what they did to lose a game. This is a league which does, and will continue to, dwell in the space of games that will be won by the team that plays the best. It will be attitude, blended with aptitude, which will determine the eventual champion.

In a way it is back to the way it was, but in another, it is about the new world in which we live. It has always been really, really hard to win all of the games. And as every team in the Big 12 is finding out, it has gotten really, really harder.