5/24/2024 TLSN volume VIII Newsletter # 11

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Dana LeDuc notified TLSN that Charlie Wilcox, has passed away.

Obituary for Charles Walter Wilcox

Charles Walter Wilcox of Montgomery, Texas, was called home by his Lord on May 17, 2024. Charlie, as he was known by his friends, was born October 22, 1955, and is preceded in death by his parents, Florine and Wayne Wilcox, and his beloved son, Christian Charles Stewart Wilcox. He is survived by his wife of 36 years, Dawn Duroy Wilcox, one brother, William Wilcox and wife Donna, nephew Stephen Vandusen and wife Tammi, numerous other nieces and nephews, and in-laws, Lollie and Ray Duroy.

Charlie loved to hunt, but that passion was rivaled only by his love for his friends and “U T” football! A graduate of the University of Texas, at Austin, Charlie played alongside his brother William for four years and then later coached for an additional year. From his earlier sales career for Waukesha-Pearce to his lifelong friendships, Charlie was the forever, people-person! He will be greatly missed by many.

TLSN will be adding to his link to celebrate his life. Save this link for future updates – 2024 CHARLIE WILCOX FOOTBALL (squarespace.com)

Please send information about Charlie to Billydale1@gmail.com, and your remembrance will be posted on his celebration page.

Jim Bayless, a UT varsity tennis player under Coaches Wilmer Allison and Dave Snyder from 1971 to 1974, shared his thoughts on the new TLSN oral history podcast featuring Jackie Kamrath’s account of the Kamrath tennis family.

Jim says,

Jack Kamrath’s and his family’s profound influence and impact on the game of tennis in Texas and nationally for a century is hard to fathom. Burnt-orange-blooded fans of UT athletics will find this podcast interview, full of little-known nuggets of the rich history of Texas tennis, most informative and impressive.

As a beneficiary of Jack’s guidance and encouragement as a young teenage tennis player in Houston over a half-century ago, I can speak personally to Jack’s impact on intercollegiate tennis, enduring to this day with the facilities he has designed nationwide. We knuckleheaded youngsters idolized those who had played in college and dreamed that, with luck, we might also one day. Jack took the time to practice with me, among others, which an aspiring high-school player never forgets. We Longhorns who followed in Jack’s footsteps are proud to be a band of brothers for life, both on the court and off.

The link to the podcast, images, and text featuring the Kamrath family is at,

THE KAMRATH FAMILY BY JACK KAMRATH (squarespace.com)

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The Longhorn Kamrath Tennis Family

Jeannie Sampson Kamrath Gonzalez

THE KAMRATH FAMILY BY JACK KAMRATH (squarespace.com)

In her youth, in the 1920s and 1930s, Jeannie was the leading tennis player in the Midwest Section of the US Lawn Tennis Association and competed for many years at the US National Championships in Forest Hills, New York. While attending UT-Austin in 1931, she was invited by famed University of Texas tennis coach Dr. D. A. Penick to play tennis on the UT Varsity men’s tennis courts and was the first female player to be so honored.

As Steve McMichael battles ALS, old friends visit with stories to tell

Below is part of the article written by Dan Pompei. His whole article is on the TLSN Steve McMichael website. The link is at the end of this article.

May 6, 2024

The doorbell rings, and it feels as if the sun has broken through the clouds. The dogs rush to the front door. There’s Blue, the yapping chihuahua, and Marshmallow, the Shiba Inu with a limp. And here comes Misty McMichael with a big smile and a big hug.

A visitor has arrived, and Steve McMichael is as buoyant as someone in his situation can be.

Whoever is at the door undoubtedly will bring up his upcoming induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and if he could still smile widely and proudly, he would.

For a while, McMichael derived pleasure from Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream in his feeding tube, but he was cut off because it made him vulnerable to pneumonia. For now, he can experience the flavor only in ice chips — Pedialyte, cranberry, and Coca-Cola.

These days, satisfaction is scarce, and pleasure is mostly a memory.

Three years into a diagnosis of ALS, McMichael, the former Chicago Bears defensive tackle, is about one year beyond when doctors said he might expire. He can’t move his legs or arms. Misty, his wife, has rushed him to the hospital at least ten times over the last few years, always with dire fear.

He hasn’t been able to communicate verbally for about a year, but he expresses simple sentences through a speech-generating device that reads eye movements. The machine has a few phrases saved that he uses frequently.

“Ass on fire,” he makes it say often, a plea to address a recurring pain.

“More meds” is another.

Below is the link to a year’s worth of articles written about Steve.

For the whole article and more, click on the special site set up for Steve on the TLSN website. https://texas-lsn.squarespace.com/steve-mcmichael

Annually, during the Texas Relays, U.T. Athletics hosts a reunion for former Longhorn track and field stars to reminisce and share memories. Below are three photographs courtesy of Rey Moreno.

Two former Longhorn student-athletes, Betsy Mitchell and Bill Bradley, are set to publish books. TLSN will feature their stories from a Longhorn perspective. Larry Carlson interviewed Bill Bradley for TLSN two years ago, and the links to his interviews are below.

Betsy Mitchell’s TLSN oral/history podcast, with text and photos is pending.

https://texas-lsn.squarespace.com/goodbye-lhn

DeLoss Dodds, Athletic Director at the University of Texas from 1981-2013, once famously snapped off a line that made the Longhorn faithful smirk and UT enemies boil.  Asked something about “keeping up with the Joneses” in college sports, Dodds, self-assuredly, swatted the concern as if it were a lazy, slow-moving housefly.  

“We ARE the Joneses,” Dodds said.  Overseeing the capture of nineteen national championships and 287 conference crowns brings confidence.  Smugness, perhaps.

And sometimes, oftentimes, the rich get richer.  

Talk of a network for Longhorn sports came bubbling up to Dodds’ Bellmont Hall office one decade into the new millennium. At first, Fox Sports was thinking of investing $3 million per year for the rights. There was a hint at Texas A&M joining in with UT so that there would be enough content to justify the existence of 24-programming, even heavy on re-runs.

But the Aggie decision-makers weren’t in the mood.

Quickly, ESPN got serious about the plan.  Texas football had been riding high.  It was the Gibraltar of collegiate pigskin programs, having recently rolled to nine straight 10-win seasons.  A bad dream of a 5-7 season in 2010 seemed no cause for worry.

The broadcast behemoth offered $15 million annually for a twenty-year contract to air Longhorn sports coverage—all sports, not just football. There would be lots of gamecasts for baseball, softball, volleyball, and men’s and women’s hoops. Even Dodds later confessed to being more than pleasantly surprised by what was on the table.

Other schools were in disbelief.  Especially those who competed against UT.

Nebraska had already had its fill of Texas and the Big XII.  Cornhusker operatives griped regularly about a perceived burnt orange favoritism in the league.  Instead of keeping up with “the Joneses,” Nebraska opted out for the Big Ten.

For the rest of Larry’s story, click on https://texas-lsn.squarespace.com/goodbye-lhn

TEXAS LEGACY SUPPORT NETWORK shares a panoramic view of Longhorn sports history as seen through the eyes of those who created it.

Many current fans may consider the history of Longhorn sports to be “dated” and irrelevant, yet this is far from the truth!

TLSN encourages you to enjoy a voyage in the TLSN time machine to visit the excellence of the bygone eras in Longhorn sports.

Longhorn sports history is told by former Longhorn student-athletes who took great pride in building the symbolic bridges for today’s players to cross safely and represent Texas.

Https://texaslsn.org