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As a build-up to the 1969 National Championship game, the media asked Royal if he would change his running offense from the wishbone to counterbalance Notre Dame’s height and weight advantage.
Royal’s response to the media, delivered as a metaphor, simplified a complicated question.
Texas danced “with who brung us”- the Wishbone- and won the National Championship. The story of the 30-game win streak is in the link below.
https://texas-lsn.squarespace.com/football-dkr-1968-1970-30game-win-streak
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DKR told anyone who would listen that he did not coin that phrase The saying was a popular colloquial phrase as early as 1914. In 1927 one of the most popular songs was “I’m Gonna Dance Wit De Guy Wot Brung Me.” Here is the link to the song. It is pretty funny. https://youtu.be/xlM-3xrtwHI
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There is no question that 2021 was a bloom buster year- an environmental disaster of epic proportions. The 2021 team continued the decade’s decline in the intangibles needed to win games. Hopefully, the Athletic Department will fix these ecological problems, and the burnt orange rose can strike a victory pose in 2022. However, talent alone will not do this.
The Measure of an athlete is more than just star ✨ ranking. While talent is an important factor in winning, it is not the primary reason teams build winning traditions.
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The Power of Intangibles.
Royal, Akers, and Brown understood winning traditions required good recruiting, a competent coaching staff, players with faith in the system, trust in and respect for teammates, combined with talent, team chemistry, a strong work ethic, intangibles, and a little luck.
Coach Snyder’s Kansas State football teams were the model for winning with intangibles. Coach Snyder’s teams, composed of 2 and 3-star athletes, consistently beat higher-ranked blue-chip teams.
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Women’s basketball Coach Page in the early 1970s said that winning traditions are “built around intangibles.” “It’s Character And Pride………………. It’s The Things That Keeps People performing When They’re Tired…. It Can Be As Important As Money In Building A Program.”
Coach Akers said intangibles are “whatever it is that makes you feel bigger than you are and faster than you are.”
For Royal fixing the losing environment required testing each player’s character to the very core. He chose brutal Spring practice to determine the intangible quotient of each player. Royal wanted to expose the quitters during spring training instead of during an important game.
Mack Brown understood that winning required intangibles to strengthen the heartbeat of a team.
Under Royal, Akers, and Brown, Longhorn teams consistently made the Longhorn iconic helmet the national symbol of winning the “Longhorn way.”
In the last decade, winning, the Longhorn way has disappeared. Computers ranked talent but not a player’s inner drive.
Only a coach can do that!
For the whole story on “Fix the environment, not the flower.” click on
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One night in Austin in 1992, Pops (Nolan Ryan) took the mound for the Rangers against his son’s Longhorn baseball team.
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1904- 18-10-1 COACH R.F. HUTCHINSON
The Longhorn tradition of playing exhibition games against professional teams started in 1904 under baseball Coach R.F. Hutchinson. It was also the year that a field with no name was officially named Clark Field.
The Cleveland Indians beat Longhorn pitcher J.R. Beasley 6-1. This would start a Longhorn losing streak to professional teams that reached 22 games.
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The 1904 Longhorn baseball team
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Under Billy Disch, Pro teams considered the Longhorns worthy of competition in spring training. Pro’s said Disch’s UT teams had uncanny headwork and a fighting spirit.
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1929- 18-4-1 COACH BILLY DISCH SWC CHAMPS
Longhorns almost beat the New York Yanks at Clark Field, but Lou Gehrig hits a home run off of Mike De La Fuente in the bottom of the 9th with two outs and a 3-2 count to win the game. Horns also play the Chicago White Sox losing 5-1, and New York Giants losing 4 – 1.
1930-20-4 COACH BILLY DISCH SWC CHAMPIONS
Oscar Peeples receives the call to pitch against the Yankees, but he is late to the game because he is directing traffic in a Parking Lot. In front of 6,500 Longhorn fans, Babe Ruth, with the New York Yankees, hits a 3-run double in the 9th inning to beat the Longhorns 4-2.
Bob Oglesby, the team manager, gets Ruth and Gehrig to autograph 12 baseballs but forgets to get one for himself.
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A celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Title IX
In the late 1800s, many doctors believed that “both muscular and brain labor must be reduced at the onset of menstruation.” Sports activities were considered unhealthy for the “weaker” sex. Society believed that a woman’s body should be protected from the stress of too much competition and that women’s sports should reflect “modesty and dignity.”
The road to Title IX required strong-willed visionaries to overcome these dogmas. From 1921 through 1957, Anna used guile, cunning, coercion, diplomacy, and patience to build competitive intramural leagues, club sports, and a gym for women.
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In her early years of the Women’s programs, Hiss’s credo included :
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moderate physical activity;
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a de-emphasis on competition among women;
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a focus on inclusive participation over individual achievement; and
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female-run space to protect athletes from the commercialization and professionalization common in the “male model” of sports.
Sports that reflected her doctrine included tennis, golf, archery, swimming, and interpretive dance.
However, competitive basketball, as we know it was restricted. Hiss thought that basketball fell outside of the parameters of a sanctioned sport for women. She felt that basketball was unfeminine and dangerous; therefore, the Hiss doctrine strove to develop and maintain basketball as merely a sport of enjoyment.
In later years Under Hiss, women enjoyed competing in track and field, volleyball, softball, rowing (canoeing), and basketball.
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Title IX stopped the “No’s”.
Title IX was not just about sports. It was about removing repressive doctrines allowing equal access to men in any field of endeavor.
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The road to Title IX is too long to tell in the TLSN Reader’s Digest newsletter format. While TLSN has spent many months chronicling the history of women’s sports at Texas, the research is still incomplete. Recently major media outlets have written articles, and youtube videos have been produced to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Title IX.
In time bullet points from all of these articles and the full videos will be added to the TLSN website. In the meantime, enjoy the 11 links on the TLSN website that chronicle the history of Longhorn women’s sports, starting with https://texas-lsn.squarespace.com/1896-1921
For more on Title IX, click on
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Plonsky served as UT’s third women’s athletics director. During her tenure as A.D., the women’s program recorded three NCAA Championships (2005 outdoor track and field, 2006 indoor track and field, and 2012 volleyball) and a league-best 54 Big 12 Conference championships across ten different sports.
This total includes five league titles during the recently completed 2015-16 season (volleyball, indoor track and field, swimming, rowing, and outdoor track and field). The Longhorns’ 11-sport women’s program provides competitive and educational opportunities for more than 190 women student-athletes, including walk-ons.
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TLSN is not associated with the UT Athletics Department or any organization closely aligned with UT.
TLSN is an independent organization celebrating Longhorn Sports History and assisting qualifying Horns who need temporary financial assistance.
The TLSN website and newsletter are free, educational, historical, and insightful, sharing Longhorn sports history through the eyes of those who created it.
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