Bill Little Articles Part X

 

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

• The Orange in Marian Dozier

• Why Does Sport Matter

• Football

• The Memorial in the Stadium

• All the Way with LBJ

• The Last Ride

• November the twenty-second

• The fourth quarter

• A Tree is Gone

• Chasing the dream, racing the wind

 

 

08.20.2014 | Bill Little Commentary

Bill Little commentary: The orange in Marian Dozier

Bill Little comments on longtime friend and Texas Athletics supporter Marian Dozier, who recently donated a significant gift to name the football and baseball press boxes the Bill Little Media Center.

  Bill Little comments on longtime friend and Texas Athletics supporter Marian Dozier, who recently donated a significant gift to name the football and baseball press boxes the Bill Little Media Center. Read more here.

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

In the late 1990s, there was a popular personality test called “True Colors.”

A simple test would show if you were aligned with the characteristics of four colors.  You could be blue, green, gold, or orange.

Marian Dozier was “orange.”

There is irony in that, since coming to Austin in 1968 Marian and her family have been loyally linked to the color orange. Because the personality test defines her perfectly.

Kim Scofield, Bill Little and Marian Dozier [Aug. 20, 2014]

Orange, you see, is the true color of a person who is “action-oriented, quick-witted, charming, spontaneous, playful, a risk-taker, creative, a multi-tasker, cheerful, energetic, bold, quick acting, a performer, a problem-solver, a negotiator, and a person who is resilient.”

And that, my friends, is the quintessential Marian Dozier.

If you want to take the test, you will find Marian has characteristics of the other three colors as well. The odyssey of Marian and Dick Dozier from two college kids at Oklahoma City University in the early 1950s to a role among the corporate giants of America’s fast food industry is story linked together with ingenuity, and the core values once set forth by Marian’s good friend, Mack Brown—faith, family, friends and a common purpose.

It includes four sons and their families, a legion of faithful employees and friends, and a faith that found the owners of a fledgling company called Austaco kneeling by the bed at night, praying that just enough people would buy their nineteen cent tacos to keep their single store on Burnet Road in business.

The fate that had brought them to Austin was a journey in itself. Marian married Dick after he graduated from Air Force Officers Training, following his time playing basketball at OCU where Marian, a former high school cheerleader, was a student. They then followed Dick’s career as a highly successful high school coach to city after city, and success after success. Finally, in the mid-1960s, when it appeared that a career change would be appropriate, Dick ran into a former player who invited him to come to Houston and join him a fast food business which had started only six years before and had only a few stores outside of California.

“It’s called ‘Taco Bell,'” the young man had said.

“What’s a taco?” Dick replied.

When Dick Dozier died of a rare form of leukemia in 1996, Marian moved from her role as the company’s head cheerleader and the employee’s best friend to head of the company. By the time Marian sold her controlling interest in Austaco several years ago to their son, Dirk, the company had become the largest fast food franchisee in the state, at one point owning more than 79 Taco Bell and 45 Pizza Hut stores throughout all of Central Texas.

Austaco’s growth made it part of the “Big 12,” which is comprised of the 12 largest Taco Bell franchises in the United States. In the early 2000s, Marian became the first woman to be honored with the Glen Bell Award (founder of Taco Bell) as the nation’s outstanding franchisee, an award she accepted with Dirk. In 2003 Marian received a “Cheese Head Award” epitomizing all that Yum Brands and Pizza Hut stand for when it comes to family business.

The Dozier connection with Austin and The University of Texas came when they had been a part of the opening of the single store on Burnet Road in 1968, and it coincided with one of the greatest eras of Texas football. And it didn’t take long for Dick and Marian to connect with fellow Oklahomans Darrell and Edith Royal.

In the 1970s, long before today’s current concepts of marketing were in vogue, the Doziers realized that a potential way to reach new customers was a blank piece of cardboard—that just happened to be the back of tickets to Longhorn games. So with that, they became the Athletics Department’s first “corporate sponsor,” placing an ad on the back of the tickets that offered free tacos to the holder of the used ticket stub.

The Dozier family, with sons Doug, Dirk, Jay and Rich, settled in a home in North Austin before eventually moving to Westlake, and Marian was “mom” to just about every kid in the neighborhood. Soon, a cove on Lake Travis became a family retreat just a few miles from Austin. Before Dick died, Marian and Dick built a lighthouse in the cove, which became a beacon. Sitting high above the water with a great view of the famous Texas sunsets, the lake place became the site of many Fourth of July parades, reflecting Marian’s patriotism as well as her pride in the Doziers’ family values. 

Coinciding with all of the changes during the mid-’70s, Dick’s former OCU teammate and coach Abe Lemons had moved from Oklahoma and had become highly successful as the head coach at Pan American University. The Doziers often traveled to the Rio Grande Valley to see Abe and his wife Betty Jo. As it turned out, it wasn’t long until an even stronger alliance occurred. In 1976, Royal (as athletics director) hired Lemons as the head basketball coach of the Longhorns.

The move reunited the player and the coach. With the coming of a new basketball facility which was then called “The Special Events Center,” Lemons’ basketball program took off. In 1978, his Longhorns went to New York and won the then prestigious National Invitation Tournament (at the time only 32 teams were invited to the NCAA playoffs).

The Dozier family secured ticket options on most of an entire section behind the scorer’s table for the men’s games when the building opened, and when the renamed Frank Erwin Center was remodeled, Marian purchased courtside seats for Longhorn women’s games.

It was during Lemons’ era that the Dozier link to Texas solidified. Sons Jay and Rich (known as Richie at the time) became ball boys at Longhorn games, where Rich once got to participate in a shooting contest at halftime at a Texas game. After Lemons left Texas in the mid-1980s, Rich would follow him to Oklahoma City, where he became a starter at the same school where his dad had played.

Even though the tough times of Lemons departure were hard, the Doziers never wavered in their support of Texas basketball. When the Cooley Pavilion was built during the remodeling of the basketball facilities, Marian, on behalf of her sons and in memory of Dick, gifted the Dozier Court—the practice facility for men’s basketball, as well as the Marian Dozier Instructional Video Lab, where men’s and women’s teams could study game tapes. She agreed that her name could be attached so that young people could see the positive possibilities of women succeeding in the work place beyond college.

Doug, the oldest son (who died in 2012), eventually became a basketball official.  Dirk, who became president of Austaco when Marian sold him her interest, has continued philanthropic interests after a second sale of the company last year. Rich was head of the Pizza Hut division of Austaco until he left to become a high school basketball coach, following in his dad’s footsteps in leading teams into the state UIL playoffs. Jay, who became one of the Longhorns’ biggest fans during his student days, studied for the ministry and was pastor of a church in Kerrville until recently resigning to pursue other endeavors.

Marian’s stunning list of activities includes causes and board memberships such as the Longhorn Foundation Advisory Council, the Neighborhood Longhorns, Any Baby Can, the Dell Children’s Hospital Specially for Children Infusion Center, the Miracle Foundation, the President’s Council of Austin Lyric Opera and her church Shepherd of the Hills Christian (Disciples of Christ), of which she and the family were founding members in the early 1970s.

She has been honored by the First Tee of Austin and recognized as one of Austin’s most influential women by the Austin Business Journal, has served on the board of Brite Divinity School at TCU, and has worked with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the Greater Austin Chapter of the National Football Foundation.  She has been recognized and honored by Taco Bell nationally.

Most of all, her gifts have come from the people.  Each year at Christmas, Marian used to visit every store in the company, taking Christmas gifts. Employees felt her love and support, and learned the true meaning of a hug, and a smile.

People love Marian, because she loves them. Packed inside a spunky cheerleader’s body is a dynamo who most of her recent years could be found on the golf course or the tennis court.

It is not by accident that the motto the Doziers chose for their company motto is “Here to serve.” It is in that space that Marian leads the family. Recently, when someone asked her about the rising price of tickets to Longhorn games, Marian thought for a minute.

“This ticket,” she said, “isn’t about the price of admission to a game or an event. It is a commitment to young people. It is the reason that a young woman can have the same opportunities for an education as a star quarterback. And in that sense, it is worth every penny of it.

In the personality test, blue represents loyalty. Green means you are assertive.  Gold reflects a need to belong through carrying a load. But listen again to the definition of “orange”:

“Orange represents energy, it generates an impulse toward active doing: sport, struggle, competition and enterprising productivity. In temporal terms, Orange is the present.”

And that, better than anything, defines Marian Dozier.

 

 

07.03.2014 | Bill Little Commentary

Bill Little commentary: Why does sport matter?

It’s been 20 years since famed U.S. Representative and UT professor Barbara Jordan spoke out on the importance of sports.

         

By Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

It has been twenty years and a couple of months, but the power of the moment is still there.

The occasion was a seminar, sponsored by The University of Texas, on the issues of “Integrity In Athletics,” and it came during a blue ribbon panel discussion in the spring of 1994.

The panel, which was made up of professors, writers, sociologists and other noted authorities, stretched all the way across the front of the vast expanse of the stage at the LBJ auditorium. From the back of the room, the red carpet and cushions on the plush seats seemed to almost lap at the base of the white cloth-covered tables, behind which the panelists sat patiently as one after another held court.

The speaker was H. G. Bissinger, a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who had published a book called “Friday Night Lights” in 1990. To write it, Bissinger had gone to Odessa, and used the Midland-Odessa hotbed of Texas football as the backdrop to his exposé on Texas high school football. The book would later be the genesis for a movie and a television series.

Having grown up in Winters, a small town south of Abilene, I learned a healthy respect for high school football. And in West Texas, high school sports are part of the very fiber at the base of community.

As Bissinger spoke, talking of all of the negatives that come from organized sport and the emphasis on high school football, I couldn’t help but think of my youth. I remembered Miss Freddie Gardner, without whose guidance as the girls’ basketball coach a lot of my friends would have never learned valuable lessons that extended far beyond the basketball floor. The same was true of W. T. Stapler, who would go on to become a legend in Texas high school football coaching. At the time, he was in his first job, and was just barely older than we were.

I thought of guys whose lives were changed by the advice and the discipline brought by our coaches, not to mention the values etched in all of us by “old-school” methods of stern castigation. It didn’t take many wrongs to get the message of how to behave right.

All of that flashed through my mind as Bissinger went on about the problems in organized sports, and of the excesses he thought he saw during his visit to a cradle of Texas high school football.

No one, it seemed, was moved to challenge his premise.

And then suddenly, it all changed.

As the audience faced the panel, Bissinger was seated far to the right. From the other end of the table, as Bissinger was almost in mid-sentence, a familiar voice boomed.

Barbara Jordan had heard enough.

“Why does sport matter so much?” she boomed defiantly in what surely could have been best described as “the voice of God.”

Her love of sport and faith in young people transcended politics, race, and gender. And as Bissinger was speaking on the things wrong with amateur sports as we know them, he was treading on the fighting side of the famed former U.S. Representative who was teaching at UT’s LBJ School of Public Affairs.

“Why does sport matter so much?” she repeated.

“It matters because sport is vital, it is viable, it is basic, and it is essential. Sport is not a frivolous distraction, as one may first, without thinking, believe. Sport is an equal opportunity teacher. It is a nonpartisan event. It is universal in its application.”

At the other end of the table, Bissinger was slumping, almost out of sight.

“I see sport as an antidote to some of the balkanization that we see occurring in our society; everybody wanting their own private little piece of turf; an absolute abandonment of any sense of common purpose, of common good,” Jordan continued. “It is almost a cliché to say there is no ‘I’ in the word ‘team.’ If you are so focused on self, you cannot have any awareness of the common good.”

A hush grew over the auditorium, as the audience, made up of students and professors who were leaning toward agreeing with Bissinger, hung on every word.

“Another reason why I believe sport is essential is self-esteem,” she said. “In order to be a contributor to American life, each individual needs to have a high regard for himself or herself first. Sport can do that. If you get out there and you have never been recognized for anything before in your life, if you show some capability, some particular tilt and talent for a sport, it gives you self-esteem.”

Heads began to nod, and every speaker on the panel turned in their chairs to listen and view an American legend. That is, except for Bissinger, who by now was so far down in his chair you could barely see him.

“I believe that sport can teach lessons in ethics and values for our society. It is attractive to the young, and how many times have we heard someone despair over the plight of our young people?” she said. “If you give them something to engage their energies, you would see that it might be something which lures them into the community of mankind and womankind.”

It was several seconds of almost stunned silence before the applause began, a tribute to the lady who cared so much about kids, and to the power of her words.

That was in 1994, and over twenty years later they still play football at Odessa Permian High School, where a community embraces young people of all races, where that fiber of Texas football is obvious. 

It is the same fiber that weaves its way through the small towns and cities of Texas, on a Friday night or a Thursday night or a Saturday afternoon, when the sense of community transcends a win or a loss.

It is part of the coming of age in the state, and it expands its message far beyond football to all of the other sports where lessons are learned, and values are taught.

Generations have continued to understand that. Sayings that have sometimes been treated as clichés still carry the message. 

Barbara Jordan understood that, and she remained a steadfast supporter of women’s athletics at Texas until her passing in 1996. She saw that whether it was something played on a football field or in an arena, with a stick and a ball or a piece of dreams, sport itself teaches us a lot about life.

And in an auditorium years ago, midst writers and teachers and philosophers, Barbara Jordan gave us a great gift—a transcending thought about not only what is, but what can be. 

  

 

05.26.2014 | Bill Little Commentary

Bill Little commentary: The memorial in the stadium

·         

By Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

One of the most popular students at The University of Texas from 1911-1915 was a young man of German heritage from Fredericksburg, Texas, named L. J. “Louis” Jordan.

Jordan was like everybody’s big brother. He was a round-faced blond who stood over six feet tall and weighed 205 pounds, which was big for the time. By timeless standards, he was exactly what you would want in a player.

Jordan, in fact, was so gentle by nature he had to be coaxed to play football. But when he did, he became the greatest lineman, both offensively and defensively, of his era. He became the first Texas player to earn national recognition, earning Walter Camp second team all-American honors in 1914. It is significant that this was a time when people in the East barely recognized that football was played west of the Mississippi.

Jordan made the electrical engineering honor roll every year, and he helped Texas teams post a 27-4 record during his four years, including a perfect 8-0 mark as a captain of the team his senior season of 1914. While the Longhorns played most of their games then in Austin, Dallas matters in this story. It was in Dallas, before a crowd of 7,500 at Gaston Field—the Texas league baseball park—that Texas and Oklahoma met in what was then a showdown for power in the Southwest.

It is also notable that the game was usually played at the State fairgrounds, but horse racing had taken over the fair that day.

Oklahoma’s Hap Johnson ran the opening kickoff back 85-yards for a touchdown, and the Sooner hopes soared. In those days, opposing fans openly bet with each other, and a lot of Oklahoma money went up at that moment. While the bets were coming, Louis Jordan gathered the Texas team around him for the ensuing kickoff.

Clyde Littlefield, one of the great Texas legends who was playing on the team, remembered the speech until the day he died.

“He told us in no mincing words, with a few cuss words in German and some in English, ‘Nobody leaves this field until we beat the hell out of them.'”

Let the record show that Texas scored 32 straight points, winning 32-7. Eleven men started the game, and the same eleven finished it, and an awful lot of Oklahoma betting money stayed in Texas.

Jordan lettered three years in track and four in football at Texas, and his athletic skill was superior to those players of his time. But what he brought to the game is the enduring quality that every coach searches for in every player they seek and every company worth a toot desires: leadership.

They inducted Louis Jordan in the first class of the Longhorn Hall of Honor 42 years ago. He was one of only four men inducted, and was the only former athlete chosen.

Sadly, he was not there to get the award.

As the years go by, fewer and fewer of us remember World War II, and almost none remember World War I. Only the history books and the Internet will tell us of the Luneville Sector in France, where brave young men like Louis Jordan went to fight for that elusive dream called freedom and peace. Luneville was the “quiet sector” of France, where the French troops helped harden the young Americans for the battle with Germany. It is ironic that a young man who was so proud of his German heritage would go there and die.

On March 5, 1918, Louis Jordan died in another land in another time. Legend has it that two days later, on March 7, 1918, German artillery shells suddenly turned on the “quiet sector” and one shell hit a bunker where 21 Americans were hunkered down. The dirt collapsed on the soldiers, trapping them alive.

In the confusion that followed, they say a big blond headed American who nobody had seen in that unit from New York was cussing and yelling and urging the rest of the unit to dig with their bare hands to try to save the soldiers. They say, too, that he was seen charging at the artillery position, fighting with such rage that even hardened soldiers retreated.

Many of the soldiers died in that bunker, but those who lived praised their comrades of the 69th for risking their lives to save them. No one will ever know why the artillery shelling stopped.

News of the death of Louis Jordan, the first Texas officer killed in action, saddened the entire UT community. When they dedicated the new stadium in 1924 as Texas Memorial Stadium—in honor of the war veterans—the people of Fredericksburg erected a flagpole at the south end of the stadium where the Steinmark scoreboard stands today. It stood until 1971. Fred Steinmark, a Texas safety on the 1969 National Championship team, battled cancer until his death in 1971. Texas players on the way to the field touch his picture to symbolize the courage he showed. That spot is hallowed ground when it comes to courage.

Louis Jordan is important to us today because he represents what this game of football means to both sides. It is a challenge of the human spirit, and it is a contest played only on a Saturday in mock war. Louis Jordan reminds us that leadership and drive matter not only in a football game, but in life.

And somewhere in France, his ghost may be walking even in the next millennium, telling them all that “nobody leaves this field until we beat the hell out of them.”

When the Veterans Plaza was completed, the new Jordan Flag Pole was relocated there, where it stands beside the soldier’s statue.

Until Jordan’s remains were moved to Fredericksburg, there were actually three wooden crosses in the fields of France in 1918—each for a former Longhorn football player who died fighting in World War I.  Jordan and Edmond are in the Longhorn Hall of Honor and rank among the best athletes in school history. It is the legacy of the third that has endured in a unique way for almost 100 years.

The people of Fredericksburg erected a flagpole to honor their favorite son, Louis Jordan.  General Pershing himself sent a personal message to the family of Pete Edmond, who won a Silver Star. Mrs. John D. Kane of Fort Worth, Texas, gave a scholarship

For ninety years, that scholarship was duly presented to a deserving student. While its purpose is being reworked, it remains one of the oldest on record at the Texas Exes.

So what do we know about Bothwell Kane? That he, like all the others, was more than a name on a wall. That in his way he touched lives, both then and now.

The stadium has been rededicated many times, most significantly in 1977 when it was designated in honor of all US Troops who have served in foreign conflicts. A stadium Veterans Committee oversees it. The committee’s commitment is to do exactly what the stadium founders intended—and what Royal maintained must remain its lasting tribute—to honor those who have perished, and who today stand in harm’s way in defense of our American dream. 

 

  

04.09.2014 | Bill Little Commentary

Bill Little commentary: All the way with LBJ

A look back at the friendship between President Lyndon Johnson and Darrell K Royal

           

By Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

The only elevator in the old press box at the Cotton Bowl Stadium was a vintage one removed from the push button, digital world of today, and the white-haired fellow who personally drove it for the navigation from the field level to the writers level had made that trip many, many times.

It was standard procedure, with five minutes remaining, the elevator would be held for the press to vacate their posts from high atop the west side of the stadium and descend to post-game interviews after yet another “Cotton Bowl Classic”—played annually on New Year’s Day, year after year.

The veteran media relations director for the Southwest Conference was a fellow named Bill Morgan, who ran the media portion of the game with a rigid, iron hand.  Nothing—absolutely nothing—was more important to Morgan than the needs of the media. Unless, of course, it was his need to be in charge.

Such was the case on January 1, 1970, when Texas was playing Notre Dame. The game itself was historic. The Irish hadn’t played in a post season bowl game since 1925. Texas had beaten Arkansas in the “Game of the Century” in early December and was the acknowledged National Champion of college football.  Everybody who was anybody was at the game, and the media coverage was unprecedented. 

So when Bill Morgan announced over the press box public address that the elevator was being held for the departure of the press with five minutes remaining on the game clock, he was in complete command. Until a gentleman in a dark suit wearing sunglasses and an ear piece approached him.

“We will be taking the elevator for President Johnson to go to the field,” he said, adding, “with five minutes on the clock.”

As Morgan started to protest, I took one look at the bulge underneath the vest pocket of the dark suit, and I pulled the SWC representative aside.

“Bill,” I said.  “This guy is with the Secret Service.  Don’t argue with a guy with sun glasses, an ear piece and a gun.”

And with that, Lyndon Johnson, by then the former President of the United States of America, headed to the Longhorn dressing room to congratulate his friend, Darrell Royal.

As Austin is immersed in memories of Lyndon Johnson, it is appropriate that we in Texas Longhorn Athletics take just a minute to remember the remarkable relationship between LBJ and DKR.

On the surface, it would seem an odd union. President Johnson was a politician whose roots dated all the way back to the New Deal days of Franklin Roosevelt, and Royal was a football coach who wouldn’t know a Democrat from a Republican. In fact, when he was hired as Texas’ head coach in December of 1956, his boss, Dana X. Bible, had given him one piece of advice toward negotiating the rough waters of co-existing with the power brokers in the Texas statehouse.

“Darrell,” he had said with a strong drawl, “stay away from the Capitol.”

But in the early 1960s, as Royal became a larger-than-life figure as the dashing young football coach at the nation’s highest profile grid power, it was only natural that powerful people would get to know powerful people. And that became a natural fit for Darrell and Edith Royal and Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson.

It was Royal who had been hand-picked to greet John Kennedy when he arrived in Austin with Lyndon Johnson for a dinner on Friday, November 22, 1963. He was tying his tie to head to Bergstrom Air Force when word came that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.

The dark days that followed actually changed the lives of both men. Royal’s football team went on to defeat Texas A&M six days later to win his first National Championship, and Johnson assumed the daunting task of trying to hold together a nation in mourning.

When Johnson was elected president in the fall of 1964, Darrell and Edith were invited to join the Johnsons and the nation for the inauguration in January of 1965. The ensuing years found Johnson carving history, and that is why this week’s activities will remember him as the master at bringing two divergent sides together, a reflection of his incredible ability as a negotiator and mediator.

While LBJ was burdened with managing an unpopular war in Vietnam, Royal hurt for his friend—and as leader of young men, he understood all too well the heavy weight the President carried.

The decade of the 1960s would end with ABC-TV naming Royal the Coach of the Decade, but in the middle of the ten-year span, while Lyndon was still in the White House, Royal’s teams struggled.  It was then that Johnson dropped Royal a note that said, “You are the finest example of an inspiring young leader that I know.”

The unique relationship continued to blossom, even though Royal avoided politics and Lyndon—by his own admission—didn’t particularly care for football. The bond, instead, was their friendship.

“I am not a football fan,” Johnson had said, “but I am a fan of people, and I am a Darrell Royal fan because he is the rarest of people.”

During his years in the White House, Johnson never attended a Longhorn football game, even though he and Lady Bird were known to call Darrell and Edith from time to time after a significant UT victory.

But when he returned to his beloved Texas Hill Country , he connected with Royal as a follower and supporter. 

In that space, it seemed that Royal and Johnson had linked a friendship that easily covered the hour or so drive from the ranch near Fredericksburg and included some family vacations together. But on January 22, 1973, the heart disease which Johnson had battled most of his life would claim him as a victim.

When plans for the state funeral included various dignitaries and friends sitting in the great hall of the LBJ Library as mourners passed Johnson’s casket, Darrell Royal was one of the sentinels.

This week, we remember LBJ, and those portions of legislation which he helped forge as America began its quest for “The Great Society.”

And it is interesting to remember two diverse leaders who became fast friends, and who, each in their own way, made a significant difference in the lives of people, a state, a nation—and most of all, of each other. 

 

 

12.25.2013 | Football

Bill Little commentary: The last ride

Following a Sunday morning practice, the Longhorns headed home for the holiday, and will regroup in San Antonio on Christmas night, beginning their final bowl practices on Dec. 26.

        

He was standing about where he had been walking with Darrell Royal that early spring day, just a few feet from where Mike Campbell had sat looking and listening when Mack Brown‘s first Longhorns defense took the field for their initial practice.

Time had changed a lot of things. The hair was gray now, and the assistants had changed. An indoor practice facility now covered the corner of the Denius practice fields where the old Villa Capri Hotel had once hosted Royal’s famous postgame media meetings in another time.

The Longhorns of 2013 had finished their final practice in Austin, and in keeping with seemingly everything else in this season of change, the last practice had been moved from Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium indoors because of a chilly wind. The final game — against Oregon in the Valero Alamo Bowl on Dec. 30 — will be played inside the Alamodome.

As Mack joked with his team and assistants gave instructions to the players about the bowl schedule, he finished with the usual comments about being careful on their travels home from Austin and back to San Antonio on Christmas night. A week before, Brown had apologized to the team and to recruits and their families for the disruptive distractions during their week of final exams. Throughout all of turmoil, while the college football world pondered who would be the next Texas coach, this Longhorns team has been preparing to play one final game with a chance to improve on their regular season record of 8-4.

The close of practice usually comes with a brief meeting, and ends with a coming-together team huddle that finishes with a slogan shouted by featured leaders. It has been tradition for that final practice in Austin to be led by the seniors. This time, however, the team which made a vow to play for each other took over. As Brown called for the seniors, All-American Jackson Jeffcoat stepped forward. On behalf of the seniors, he said, they felt that final honor should go to Brown, in what would be his last appearance as the Longhorns’ head coach on the practice field in Austin.

Sixteen years is a long time, particularly in the collegiate coaching profession. And with the changing of the head coach, there is also a changing of the guard. Besides the 115 or so members of the football team, there are as many as 150 other people whose lives are directly touched by the football program. When there is a change in the head coach, all know that the direction of their lives may well be altered.

In the week that has passed since Mack Brown announced he was leaving Texas, assistant coaches and all the support personnel whose jobs it has been to help them have worked hard to live in the present. Coaching football is what they do, and it is to that space that they have regrouped and focused on preparing this team to play an excellent Oregon team on Dec. 30.

Brown has said many times this group of young men constitutes one of his favorite teams ever. They have earned that, just as they won respect from many of the Longhorns fans, because of the way they have fought against unbelievable odds in the midst of one of the strangest seasons in Texas Football history.

For the first time ever, they endured two lengthy weather delays that made long road trips even longer. They hit a “Hail Mary” pass at the end of the half against Iowa State, and then won on a last minute drive. They played a showcase game to beat rival Oklahoma in Dallas, and won in overtime at West Virginia. Along the way, they lost seven key players to season-ending injuries, and shuffled lineups because of others who were dinged and slowed.

And even with all of that, they were tied at halftime and only 30 minutes away from a Big 12 Championship and a BCS bowl game in their final game against eventual league champion Baylor.

With each circumstance, Brown kept repeating that the Longhorns were committed to a theme of playing for each other, and that whatever happened it would be “Next man up, no excuses, no regrets.”

Following the Sunday morning practice, the Longhorns headed home for the holiday and will regroup in San Antonio on Christmas night, beginning their final bowl practices on Dec. 26. The Longhorns under Brown have won nine of their last 11 bowl games. Mack has spent 41 years in the coaching profession, including 30 as a head coach. He is the 10th winningest coach in college football history.

The changes he brought to Texas when he walked onto that practice field with Royal and Campbell as a 45-year-old head coach are well documented. History will remember him for changing the culture of Texas Football, for righting a ship which had been mostly adrift for more than 20 years before his arrival.

In his own way, he became the embodiment of his charge to UT fans to “Come early, be loud, stay late, and wear orange with pride.”  In a program built on the premises of “communication, trust and respect,” he delivered both on the field and in the classroom for his players.

That is why Jeffcoat and the seniors conspired to salute Brown at the end of the final Austin practice.

In the book, “One Heartbeat,” Brown put down on paper his thoughts about coaching:

“Your challenge as a coach is to make a difference for people…. That’s part of the joy of coaching, but the hard times teach lessons. There are times when your faith in yourself will be tested. That’s when you need to remember to take pride in what you do and have the courage not to give up. Will Rogers once said, ‘Never let yesterday take up too much of today.'”

And then he said this:

“When it’s all over, your career will not be judged by the money you made or the championships you won. It will be measured by the lives you touched.

“And that is why we coach.”

 

 

11.22.2013 | Football

Bill Little commentary: November The Twenty-Second

As America remembers and retells its story to those who never saw it or lived it, November 22, 1963, has eerily come to life again, fifty years later.

           

The structure on the northeast corner of Whitis Avenue and 24th street is now the Geography Building–its shell abuzz with the activity of extensive remodeling. As I stood across the street in front of the Littlefield House, I had hoped that it would be different. In that moment on Thursday, November 21, 2013, I was immersed in nostalgia—suddenly young again, and yet at the same time, very old.

As America remembers and retells its story to those who never saw it or lived it, November 22, 1963, has eerily come to life again, fifty years later. The generations that preceded us could remember the day the stock market crashed, or the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Those that followed can tell you where they were when the Challenger space shuttle exploded, or when they turned on their color television sets and saw the buildings fall in the national tragedy that became 9/ll.

The journalism building—that same structure which is now undergoing that reconstruction—was the home away from home for those of us aspiring to enter the newspaper business in the early years of the decade of the ’60s. The epicenter of our existence was the office of The Daily Texan, recognized as the best student newspaper on the planet—at least that is what we thought. When it came to training young journalists, Texas was challenged only by the likes of Missouri and Columbia.

Austin was a city of fewer than 200,000 people, and UT at its best could easily match or beat ten percent of that number. There was actually a Bachelor of Journalism degree available, and those pursuing it began their education with basic courses. The elite of the elite would make it to the staff of The Texan. It’s offices were on the first floor of the building at the corner of Whitis and 24th, down the hall to the right as you climbed the granite steps to enter the hallowed halls of learning.

Our instructors and advisors included some of the legends of The University. A battle-seasoned professor named Olin Hinkle taught an editing class, and regularly he would post copies of the day’s edition of The Texan—complete with scathing critiques of our work penned by a big red grease pencil.

A college education is many things…was then, and still is today. But the greatest lesson…the greatest gift you can attain…is pride in who you are and what you do. It was with that backdrop and into that world that we walked on that bright morning of November 22, 1963.

The biggest news on campus, of course, was the Longhorn football team. Darrell Royal was in his seventh season as the head football coach at Texas. He was still a young 39 years old, and his team—make that “our” team for the thousands of loyalists on campus—had lost only one regular season football game during the seasons of 1961, 1962 and 1963. Ranked No. 1 in the nation, all the ‘Horns had to do was dispose of the lowly Texas Aggies (who had won just two football games all season) to claim UT’s first ever college football national championship.

It was an age of innocence. Earlier in the week, the biggest news in the state had been the kidnapping and recovery of Bevo VII, the Texas Longhorn mascot. Legend had it that the Aggies, who were not very good at football, were quite accomplished at the hijinks of heisting mascots. Supposedly they had pilfered the mascot of every school they had played that season—except the Houston Cougar and Mike III, the LSU Bengal Tiger—both perfectly understandable omissions.

But the football game, which would be played on Thanksgiving Day, was still a week away. The student body was looking forward to its upcoming holiday break. In the city itself, there was a stirring of excitement in the fact that on Friday, there were big political “doings” about to happen. President John F. Kennedy was already campaigning for a second term in the White House, and he was making a swing through Texas which included a $100-a-plate dinner at the Austin Municipal Auditorium. His visit was of interest to the students; the dinner was not—few among them could have afforded it.

Besides the football team, the most notable member of our student body was Lynda Bird Johnson, the daughter of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Politically, the state of Texas was still very much in the camp of the Democrat party, and while much of the state was lukewarm to JFK’s perceived liberalism, the young president had carried his New Frontier straight to the hearts of the young. It was, as so many have said, our very own version of Camelot, with John Kennedy playing the king to his fair lady Jackie, who doubled as Guinevere to his Arthur.

Fritz’s Restaurant sat at the southeast corner of Manor Road and Interstate 35, and it served the best burgers and fried chicken in town. It was a hangout both early and late for students, and on Friday it was a great place to grab lunch after wrapping up your morning classes. From the booth in the far corner, I remember seeing students rushing over to the bar across the south wall. In the days before “sports bar” style television, a small radio had cackled something of interest. My roommate, Henry, asked “wonder what that’s about?”

“Oh,” I said, “I bet it is about the President…you know, he’s coming to Austin today.”

It is our nature as humanoids to seek comfort…to yearn for home…in the darkest times of trouble. And that is how I found myself walking into the Daily Texan offices fifty years ago Friday. In the corner of the journalism lab, UT-ex Walter Cronkite was telling us the news we had all feared—the President was dead. It seems hard to comprehend today, but in the span of seventeen-and-a-half years, our country had witnessed the death of two sitting presidents (Franklin Roosevelt in April, 1945 and Kennedy in November of 1963).

I was sports editor of the Texan, but had been trained in news writing from the time I was a kid in Winters, Texas. Now, as we began to muster our resources, I would accept the responsibility of writing a story on Lyndon Johnson. A year before, I had traveled with the Vice President’s press corps and spent a day with him when he had come to Texas and visited Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio for a heart check-up.

On Saturday, November 23, The Daily Texan published one of the few “Extra” editions in its history. We took pride in our effort then, and looking back, it is interesting to realize that we not only were we walking through history, we were chronicling it.

I’m not sure any of us left our apartments during the weekend. The same black and white television sets which had brought us the stunning news now were “going live” for the first time in history. We saw the president’s accused killer shot dead in a police station before our eyes. We cried at the little boy’s salute to his father, mourned with the riderless horse in the funeral procession to Arlington Cemetery.

Many people today have asked why the football game which was played on schedule six days after the assassination wasn’t postponed. It was discussed and considered. But looking back, I would say that by the next Thursday, we were drained of our emotions. We were worn out from grief.

Texas did play, and win in a tight game, the contest with Texas A&M. Coach Royal talked with Nellie Connally, the wife of our wounded governor, and she said he had gotten so excited they had to turn the television off. Royal, whose team had squeezed out a 15-13 victory, allowed that he wished he could have turned it off at times himself.

It is true that there are moments in our lives which we remember forever. We know where we were, remember what was said, sense images that hang like pictures in the hallways of our minds.

In time, our country did move forward. Lyndon Johnson became the first born-and-bred Texan ever to serve in the White House, and history has validated his political career and his massive contributions as our president.

Those things we remember. But each year—and particularly on a significant anniversary such as the fiftieth—we also never forget. We did lose our innocence that day, and America has never been the same. The country may look different, think different, even be different. What is true, however, is that the “torch” that president Kennedy talked of passing from generation to generation is both a charge and a challenge. It is an everlasting standard of a dream started long ago.

And we–each of us–are the keepers of that flame.

 

  

 

 

11.15.2013 | Football

Bill Little commentary: The fourth quarter

Saturday’s meeting with Oklahoma State is a Big 12 showdown in the midst of the 2013 season, but it also reflects a special kind of history on a day that will be filled with remembrances and tributes.

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Near the end of every Longhorns football practice, as the team prepares to enter the final drills, they all come together and chant “Fourth quarter!” repeatedly.

With three games remaining in the regular season, having won six straight games in a season that now stands at 7-2, they are about to enter the final fourth of their regular season of 2013. Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Baylor — three teams all with outstanding records — stand between the Longhorns and a dream.

But in a year where Mack Brown has constantly stressed that the only game that matters is the next one, the Cowboys of Oklahoma State are the only issue on the docket at the moment.

After a playing a unique schedule which at one point had the Longhorns playing away from home for 42 straight days, Texas faces two of its final three opponents at home. Saturday’s meeting with Oklahoma State is a Big 12 showdown in the midst of the 2013 season, but it also reflects a special kind of history on a day that will be filled with remembrances and tributes.

The Longhorns are in the midst of the 90th season in what is now known as Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. On Nov. 8, 1924, Texas played its first game in the facility which was built as a memorial to those Texans who had lost their lives fighting in World War I. Then, it was called “The Great War — the war to end all wars.”

Time has proven that didn’t happen. Today, men and women of America’s military still stand in harm’s way, fighting wars in an effort to create great peace. And for these ninety football seasons, the mandate for the reason for the stadium’s initial role hasn’t changed.

When the stadium name was changed to include Darrell Royal in 1996, Royal made it very clear that he would accept the honor only if the original dedication to the Veteran’s remained. Hence, it became officially “Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.”

A stadium Veterans Committee, chaired by World War II hero and Longhorns benefactor Frank Denius, is appointed by The University president. The committee, which dates from Denius and others who served in World War II through former UT quarterback Mike Cotten who served in Vietnam, and to David Little (Iraq) and Nate Boyer (several tours in the Middle East), stands sentinel to task of preserving the original mission of the stadium.

Saturday’s activities in pregame will include a fly-over from World War II aircraft and a game ball delivery by active duty paratroopers. Boyer, who is the first UT current student to be appointed as a standing member of the committee, will also be recognized by Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby for his selection as the league’s male sportsperson of the year for 2012.

The salute to history will also include the on-campus recognition of former defensive back Jerry Gray as the newest Longhorn to be enshrined in the National Football Foundation’s College Hall of Fame. Gray will officially be inducted in ceremonies in New York in December, but NFF president Steve Hatchell will be on hand to present Gray and UT with his certificate. Gray is the 17th Longhorn player — and 19th UT person including coaches Darrell Royal and Dana X. Bible, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Student groups are exhorting Longhorns faithful to arrive early — and loud — to welcome home the team which started its six game winning streak (all in Big 12 play) with a victory here on September 21 and has played only one other opponent at home (Kansas) since.

The total package — which is supposed to be encapsulated in a brilliant afternoon — should make for a memorable day.

It is about the past, certainly. But for the Longhorns of 2013, it is very much about the present. They say proudly about Texas that “What starts here changes the world,” and this Longhorns team has a big chance to take a step toward their season’s goal as they face an outstanding opponent in Oklahoma State.  

 

 

 

8.15.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: A tree is gone

 Aug. 15, 2012

Bill Little,Texas Media Relations

The news, for many, wouldn’t matter. But for those to whom it mattered, it will matter a lot.

Mike Korth died Wednesday morning. He wasn’t a legendary athlete, or a coach whose teams won a bunch of games. He never made a lot of money, and for almost a third of his life of 49 years he bravely battled a disease that would kill him.

The reason Mike Korth is important is that he represents dozens of employees in Texas athletics who go about their business every day, toiling – not for the fame or the glory or the money – but because of a commitment to excellence and a loyalty that transcends most other things.

Mike Korth was special because he drew his energy from the people. He loved being Mike Korth. From the athletes to the staff to the cheerleaders to anyone who came his way, he worked – not for The University – but for human kind.

A native of Rockdale, Mike came to The University from Blinn Junior College in the early 1980s. He earned a letter as a track manager and began working part-time for the athletics department. That was 29 years ago. For the next 15 years, every time anybody needed anything done around the athletics department, the simple answer was “call Korth.” Need something assembled (instructions not included)? Call Korth. Need somebody to stay late to turn on the stadium lights for a TV shoot? Call Korth. Errands, work detail, organization? Call Korth.

As his indomitable spirit passes to another dimension, you have to figure God needed somebody to take charge of miracles. That is how we saw him. You ask, and you knew it would be done.

It was soon after Mack Brown became the Texas head football coach in the spring of 1998 that Mike was diagnosed with a brain tumor. They told him he had six months to live. That was 14 years ago. It is safe to say that no one ever fought harder to live than Mike Korth. Every so often, there would be another setback, and yet, there he would be, perhaps walking more slowly, but always on the job.

When the cancer took much of his eyesight and made it unsafe to drive, Mike rode the bus to St. David’s Rehabilitation Hospital to see his friend and my son David Little as David fought through the effects of a stroke four years ago.

And still there was always the greeting:

“How ya doin’ Mike?”

“Just fine, sir.”

By the end, he needed a cane and his brisk walk had become a shuffle. His once-athletic frame was showing the effects of long years of serious medication.

In 2009, Mike was recognized as the honorary referee at the Texas Relays. Last fall, he was inducted into the Rockdale Sports Hall of Honor in his home town. Those were nice, but Mike Korth’s reward was more likely seeing young people happy. To that, he would flash an impish smile and politely move on to the next challenge.

As I said at the beginning of this, the reason Mike is significant is that he is a reflection of so many, many people who serve in the same way every single day. Our late, great friend Dick Dozier, who with his wife Marian owned every Taco Bell as far as the eye could see from Austin, always lived by a motto of “Here to Serve.”

Those who worked with Mike and those who knew him understand that. He was part of an era here in the athletics department that included so many young people who came here as a way station on life’s journey and stayed and kept working because this is a hard place to say goodbye to. Following in their footsteps are dozens of young college graduates who are just starting out in this profession of college athletics, determined to keep this athletics department on the cutting edge of the future, while preserving the great tradition which is inbred within us all.

They, like Mike, do not have the high profile of some of us. But it is their energy, and their commitment, that creates what this university stands for. Universities are not made of bricks and mortar. They are made of people. There are over 12,000 staff workers at UT who are not at the level of administrators or professors, but who bust their tails every day to do their job well.

I have told this story before, but when I was a kid growing up in Winters, Texas, I had returned home from college in Austin for the summer. I went with my Dad to what I remember as being the best fishing hole in Runnels County, and as we approached the creek, you couldn’t help but notice that the giant pecan tree which had shaded the bank was gone – a victim of age and a storm.

And yet as I stood there and looked at the scene from a distance, I could still see that tree, hanging like a portrait in the hallways of the mind.

So it will be with Mike Korth. In so many ways, he will always be there. On patrol, looking for the next job to do. And behind him will be all those who have followed…determined to live a life where pride is reflected in a job well done, and gratification came, not for what somebody did for you, but from what you did for others.

 

03.25.2014 | Bill Little Commentary

Bill Little commentary: Chasing the dream, racing the wind

What would they think, those legends and legions of men and women who race the wind?

           

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

Bill Little, longtime sports publicist at The University of Texas, first covered the Texas Relays as a student journalist for The Daily Texan in 1962. He has attended almost every meet since.

What would they think, those legends and legions of men and women who race the wind?

Here we are, in a sparkling facility with a state-of-the-art competitive arena, in the midst of new era in track and field in Texas. Across the street, continued upgrades are envisioned to a 90- year-old venue that has seen history and its moments. Gone forever is the track where super stars past and present ran.

But as one who knew Clyde Littlefield, Jack Patterson and Cleburne Price, I believe I can speak to what they would think.

They would be bursting with pride because, once again, Texas has created the best.

Memories, hanging like portraits on the chambers of the mind, will always be there.

The Texas Relays, the greatest track and field carnival in this part of the country, started in the spring of 1925 when Clyde Littlefield believed enough in the sport to convince the powers that were that the gathering of athletes from across the state and the nation would work.  

Held in the new Texas Memorial Stadium, that first Texas Relays drew more than 400 athletes from over 40 universities, colleges, junior colleges and high schools. More than 6,000 people came to watch the single session.

Littlefield believed the event could capture the interest of the country. He brought in legendary performers and even more famous personalities to serve as referees and honorary referees. Before the depression put a hold on the meet in the 1930s, football coaches such as Fielding Yost of Michigan, Amos Alonzo Stagg of Chicago and Knute Rockne of Notre Dame served as referees.

In the early days, the Relays under Littlefield turned out to be a promoter’s dream. His best-known venture was in 1927, when he invited long distance runners from the famed Tarahumara American Indian tribe from Northern Mexico to stage a race from San Antonio to Austin as a feature of the Relays. The men, who legend had it would run 200 miles and never stop, took 14 hours and 53 minutes, and finished the 89-mile course in a tie.

The list of honorary referees included University greats and almost every Texas governor from Dan Moody in 1929 through Price Daniel in 1958.

The huge shadow of Clyde Littlefield, perhaps the greatest athlete in Texas history, was cast on this meet in the 41 years he served as Texas Track and Field coach. Gentleman Jack Patterson brought a quiet class to the Relays.

The late Cleburne Price took the meet into the modern era. He made the weekend a happening with a Texas Relays Art Show and other events built around a track meet, which grew to mammoth proportions with over 3,000 athletes.

The list of great performers and their performances reflect a legacy that is forever cast in those photographs in our minds.

But the Texas Relays have been about more than just a computer-generated result with a picture to determine the finish. They have been about people.

It has been about Longhorn legends such as the late Rooster Andrews, who first worked the Relays as a student in 1941 and served until the first decade of the 21st century, and all of the officials and administrators who have donated their time.

The Relays have been about times. Not only the times on the scoreboard, but also the times in which we lived.

Women first participated in the meet in 1963. In the early 1960s, when integration was progressing slowly in the state’s major colleges, the flying feet of the Texas Southern Tigers dominated the meet. One of my earliest memories of almost 40 years of covering the Relays was Ray “Jackrabbit” Saddler, who was a superb quarter miler for TSU.

In a prelim of the Mile Relay, Saddler was waiting to run his leg of the race, and he was eating a hot dog.

“Here,” he said, turning to a companion as his relay teammate approached with the baton. “Hold this. I’ll be back in 46 seconds.”

And he handed his friend the hot dog, and returned in 45.8 seconds.

The 70s brought a strong influence, particularly in the distance races, of foreign athletes.  The University of Texas at El Paso was particularly powerful.

Price, in an effort to put more “pomp and circumstance” in the meet, set a time for a march of the officials. It was followed by a solemn playing of the Star Spangled Banner.  

Meet announcer Bill Melton’s standard introduction of the song was, “And now, to honor America…”

In the irreverent press box, longtime scribe Mike Jones, who covered the meet both for the Dallas News and Fort Worth Star Telegram, burst out, “And now, to honor Kenya…”

Thousands cheered in 1977 as a Longhorns freshman, Johnny “Lam” Jones posted a world record time in winning the 100-meter dash. The world of track had made the transition from yards to meters, and the old track in the stadium, which had gone from cinder to artificial surface in 1969, was squeezed together and converted to the longer distance of 400 meters, rather than 440 yards.

The Relays have showcased teamwork in a sport known for individual excellence. The baton races, the heart of the meet, have thrilled people year after year. Progress has brought not only superior performances by male athletes, but also the women’s and high school competition to an all-time high level. Olympian Sanya Richards-Ross is a perfect example of the level of female excellence.

While there have been world record performances in the field events, this is, and always will be, a meet that is about running.  

Field events bring outstanding performances. Running events, particularly if Texas is winning, bring the crowds.

It is important to note that today, in the 15 years removed from the massive stadium across the street, the venue is a track stadium — with the dual purpose of being home to two sports as the Mike A. Myers Stadium and Soccer Stadium.

Some men dream and some men do, and Mike Myers is a doer. His generosity, and his commitment to UT Athletics are reflected in a gift that will live for all time. And it is not coincidental that this excellent facility is part of the legacy of former UT Men’s Athletics Director DeLoss Dodds, who brought great Kansas State track teams to Austin and the Relays. He would never forget his roots when it came to building the best for that sport.

I remember well a day in the early spring of 1999, the day recruits were signing letters of intent to come to Texas and play football, Mack Brown and I sat in his office at the end of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

Out the window, on the floor of the stadium, men were working. There was a symbolism that couldn’t be missed. On the west side of the stadium, a steam shovel dug up chunks of track and soft fill dirt. But on the east, a needle-nosed jackhammer attacked solid rock.

The shovel was moving layers of earth that, like the years of memories, had been deposited over time. The jackhammer worked on the solid foundation on which fields and tracks and stadiums are built.

The Texas Relays weekend has evolved into a multi-cultural event in Austin, and its power as a statement for diversity has brought a whole new impact on Austin and the rites of spring. Reunions, parties, and gatherings help celebrate events that draw as many folks to the city as the track and field carnival itself.

So what would they say?

My sense is they would be proud of the 90 years that the Relays have sustained, and they would celebrate the future.