Gene Powell Left His Hometown Of Weslaco To Attend UT On A Football Scholarship. The Former Linebacker And Defensive End Still Proudly Wears A “T” Ring Given To Him By Legendary Coach Darrell Royal.  

William Eugene (Gene) Powell, BBA ’68, MBA ’70, is an innovator, community leader, and longtime supporter of education. In 2004, he co-founded the medical software company AirStrip Technologies. He served a six-year term on The University of Texas System Board of Regents from February 2009 through March 2015 and served as chairman of the board from February 8, 2011, through August 22, 2013. Powell has been a member of the Real Estate Council, the Greater San Antonio Builders Association, the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Chamber of Commerce of San Antonio, and a National Council Member of the Aspen Music Festival and School. He is the founder of the Responsible Growth Alliance. He has served previously on the Executive Committees of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Los Compadres de la Missiones, the Executive Board of the Witte Museum in San Antonio, and the Alamo Endowment Board. The board’s mission is to preserve and protect the Shrine of Texas Liberty. A noble and worthwhile goal.  

Testimonials from Red McCombs, Governer Rick Perry, Doctor Cigarroa and others celebrate Genes accomplishments as he enters the McCombs Hall of Fame https://youtu.be/nSkDj7_NMmc

The Longhorn Chairman of The Board
by Larry Carlson for https://texaslsn.org

Here is the link to Gene Powells podcast- https://traffic.libsyn.com/forcedn/cdogg/TLSNS05E01.mp3

Gene Powell greets me at the door of his office/casita tucked into a forest not far from the home where he and his wife reside in San Antonio. The former Longhorn football player from the ’60s, who became a powerful South Texas mover and shaker in business and education, looks like a Southern squire from the cover of either Garden & Gun magazine or the J. Peterman catalog.

I admire the many paintings adorning the wall and ask if any were done by the late Ragan Gennusa, one of the all-time Texas artists and a teammate from days at The Forty Acres. They are not, but Gene tells me of one particular piece he paid ten dollars for in 1966 when he convinced his college buddy that, yes, he really did want to own what Ragan had been working on.

Powell has about a zillion interesting stories. When we sit down and begin recording a podcast for TLSN/The History of Longhorn Sports, I introduce Powell by comparing the thickness of his resume to Tommy Nobis’ (another former teammate) neck, to one of Earl Campbell’s massive thighs or to Steve Sarkisian’s substantial wallet.
 
Gene chuckles, but facts are facts.  The guy grew up in Weslaco in the Rio Grande Valley, idolizing and watching Bobby Lackey, Darrell Royal’s first star quarterback at Texas, then later followed Lackey to the University of Texas.  Playing days curtailed by a painful and lasting shoulder injury and surgery, Powell persevered, played D-line and linebacker, and eventually earned two finance degrees from UT. 

By the early 1980s, Powell moved from success back home in the Valley to even greater laurels in the Alamo City.  He’s been one of the titans of real estate and development, launching — along with his business partner, Laddie Denton — The Quarry and Lincoln Heights in addition to stellar neighborhoods such as Rogers Ranch, Inwood, Kinder Ranch, Shavano Heights and Lookout Canyon. .

He found time to pursue a keen interest in improving higher education and was appointed by then-Governor Rick Perry to a position on the University of Texas System Board of Regents in 2009.  Powell soon ascended to leading the Regents as Chairman of the Board in 2011.

When I joke that Gene, despite sporting the famed “T” ring emblematic of academic/athletic success under DKR, managed to become a friend and associate of at least one Aggie — the longtime “guv” had been a yell leader back in his College Station days — Powell laughs heartily.  Turns out Gene’s own Daddy was an A&M grad.  It makes for a great story.  When young Gene was initially getting interest from college football recruiters during the JFK presidency, he tested the waters about college choice with his father.  College costs would be covered, his Dad told him, if he matriculated at A&M.  Should he be able to manage “free” education via an athletic scholarship elsewhere, the choice of schools would be strictly up to the youngster.  

When the recruiters came a’calling, young Gene took a recruiting trip to Texas A & M and Texas But in 1964 Austin and UT provided a stark contrast to College Station.   Pretty girls were everywhere on Powell’s recruiting trip to Austin, UT, and Tommy Nobis, fresh from an all-star season as a precocious soph, hosted Gene for a sizzling steak out at Hill’s Cafe on South Congress.

The next day, when Powell was set to head home, he thought he blew any chances at a Texas offer.  Saying goodbye to Coach Royal, the Weslaco Kid fell victim to the slick soles of a new pair of shoes he was sporting, slipping and sliding down the stairs below Gregory Gym.  He assured the coach that he was okay, but more than his backside was smarting as he drove away.  
 
After our podcast, Powell leans in and tells me a story outlining the excitement of receiving a written scholarship offer, signed by Darrell Royal in early ’64, when the youthful DKR had just led the Longhorns to their first national championship in football. According to Gene’s keen recollection, his father winced a bit at the sight of the UT document.  But as Powell goes on to tell me, his Daddy was “a man of his word,” even when it came to maroon versus burnt orange.  Gene became a Longhorn.  And his parents cheered him on.
 
Powell was part of Royal’s huge freshman class of 66 signees plus dozens of walk-ons.  The attrition rate, less than 18 months later, when Gene’s classmates made up the spanking new sophomore class to Texas, was astounding.  On a hallway wall, mere steps from Powell’s office, he shows that squad’s team photo, pointing out the few classmates who had stayed and would remain.  Hardly any would figure prominently in the Longhorns’ lineup as seniors in ’67.  Fullback Linus Baer and linebacker Joel Brame were captains and stars on the field, but they had little company as returning two-year letter winners that autumn.  Powell had injured that shoulder, which severely limited his playing time.  The great majority of the 1964 recruits and walk-ons gave up on the demands of football or fell prey to injuries, sometimes grades.  

 
Longtime Austin newspaper columnist Lou Maysel, in his definitive history of the Horns (through Jan. 1, 1970), “Here Come The Texas Longhorns,” called the era of 1964-1967, “The Interregnum.”
Check that in your Funk & Wagnall’s.  You might find it to mean something like, “a period in which normal government is suspended.”
  
 
Whatever the case, when it comes down to UT football, what it meant was this:  After winning the school’s first national title in ’63, Texas came within one play — a missed two-point conversion pass against Arkansas — of repeating as national champs in ’64…then went into a severe funk (no Wagnall’s) for three straight years of unheard of 6-4 regular seasons.  
Those were Gene Powell’s years.  Most of his original teammates bailed.  Royal took the blame when he spoke to Maysel for his book a few years later.  After “Coach of The Year” honors in ’63, Royal honored obligations on the banquet and coaching clinic circuit.
And he admitted that he overdid it. “I was gone all the time.  I really played the fat cat. I really thought it would benefit the University of Texas and college football as well as Darrell Royal,” DKR said.
 
Ask Powell about the period and he places zero blame on his legendary head coach.  But he will tell you that his varsity seasons didn’t have the same feel as the halcyon days of ’61-’64.
And when asked about the literary “tell all” work of one of his old teammates, Gary Shaw, who penned the ultra-controversial “Meat On The Hoof” book in 1973, critical of the winnowing process of “running off” players at Texas to release more scholarships through brutal drills and what Shaw called “de-humanizing” treatment, Gene Powell doesn’t flinch.

“Everything Gary wrote in the book was true,” Powell confirms about the volume that blistered the coaching methods of Royal’s staff, as it came to dealing with the squad members who did not see playing time on Saturdays.  “I recently recommended the book,” Gene says, noting that, to his knowledge, what went on at UT, “went on at all the schools.”
 
Powell, though, seems to understand both sides of the equation from when scholarships were plentiful and the practice of tough coaching and tougher practices was the norm, up to an including the “running off” of players ultimately deemed expendable .
 
Perhaps that is why, in our podcast discussion, Powell voiced a refreshing take on today’s college football landscape’s most controversial topic: “The Portal.”
Powell said he’s all in favor of letting players opt out of prior commitments in search of the right place to find playing time.

Transferring in his day was about as easy as ending The Cold War. Approval, legal papers, sitting out a season…it was seldom done. But Gene points out that the portal enables players to find the right place and eliminates the perceived need for coaching staffs to test and physically punish players in order to drive them out of scholarship agreements.  Today’s athletes can receive honest evaluations from coaches about their potential to figure in a team’s plans.  They even often receive recommendations that enhance a player’s chances to maximize their playing potential elsewhere. In Powell’s opinion, it plays out in the best interests of individual players, coaches and programs.
For what it’s worth, this writer concurs.
 
Gene Powell still proudly wears his cherished “T” ring, awarded by Coach Royal to lettermen who graduated.  And he relates a story or two about having Edith and Darrell Royal in attendance when he became a member of the UT System Board of Regents.  Powell fought hard for lower tuition in higher ed and is justifiably proud of his part in seeing the dream of a UT branch become reality in the Rio Grande Valley.

 
In fact, UTRGV, headquartered in Edinburg and Brownsville, just celebrated its ten-year anniversary.  Powell is excited about the  booming 34,000-student enrollment and the UTRGV School of Medicine now serving a historically underserved population in deep South Texas.  And, football always in his blood, he will even allow that he, along with several other leaders of the UT system, suggested UTRGV’s “Vaquero” nickname to honor the original cowboys of The Great State.  The Vaqueros, by the way, will ride into their first football season come August.

Regardless Of all The Internal Political Battles At UT, By The Time Jennifer R. Lloyd Wrote An Article In The San Antonio Express On August 23rd, 2013 That States  “ Under Powell’s Reign, The Regents Made Significant Progress Toward Creating A New University In The Rio Grande Valley That Will Have Its Own Medical School, Adding A Medical School To The Flagship University, Exploring The Frontier Of Online Education And Approving Projects For UTSA And San Antonio’s UT Health Science Center.”
Red  McCombs Said, “I Don’t Know Of Anybody In That Short Period Of Time That’s Created As Much Change As He Has As A Leader.”

Meanwhile, speaking of football in the blood, Gene has two grandsons playing college ball. In fact, 6-4,225-pound D-lineman Whitefield Powell made a play or two when his Colorado State Rams opened the ’24 season in Austin against the Longhorns, and his brother, Hudson, then a preferred walk-on freshman wide receiver for Texas, was on the UT sidelines. But call Hudson the “little” brother at your own risk.
His grandpa will tell you that Hudson is likely one of the very rare college football wideouts who stands 6-7 and has clocked the forty in an extremely brisk 4.53 seconds.
 
When a new season kicks off in late August, it will be sixty-one years since Gene Powell first buckled up a Longhorn chinstrap in varsity action.  Been a while since his first rodeo.  The seasoned vaquero will be riding herd wherever and whenever the Longhorns and Rams roam.
 
(TLSN’s Larry Carlson is a Football Writers Association of America member.  He teaches sports media at Texas State University and lives in San Antonio.)

The Power of Education

Gene Says That His Appreciation Of The Power Of Education Was Fostered When He Saw People Who Were Economically Disadvantaged Go On To Become Lawyers, Doctors, And Bankers.  Ricardo Romo, President Of UT-San Antonio, Who Lived At Moore Hill Hall With Gene Said, ” Gene Was One Of The Studious Guys, And  “We’d Run Into Each Other Going To The Library Or An 8 O’clock Class.” Romo  Said He Has Always Had An “ Upbeat, Nose-To-The-Grindstone Approach”  To Life, And His Present Tenacious Commitment To UT As Chairman Of The Board Of Regents Is “Vintage Powell.”

In An Article Written By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz At The Austin American Statesman On March 4th, 2011, Gene Says “We Have To Remember. … It’s Always About The Students”. “We Have Some Challenges, But We Should Not Talk About Them In Draconian Terms. They’re Simply Challenges.” The New Leader Wants To Focus On Improving The Quality Of Education, Increasing Enrollment, And Graduation Rates, Ramping Up Online Learning And Expanding Commercialization Of Technology Invented On Campuses-All While Reducing Costs.

January 2, 2017  Gene Powell and the T-Ring Reflection

 In 2017, TLSN wrote an article about the importance of receiving the T-ring as a sign of accomplishment. Gene Powell responded. ” Billy,  You are correct that achievements obtained early in life mean so much to all of us because those achievements form the foundation of who we are and what we can achieve in the future.  When you go forward and achieve other successes later in life, those early successes are always the foundation of the later achievements.  Many times you have seen the devastation of a tornado, hurricane, or explosion.  The house is gone, but the concrete foundation is always there and intact!  No matter how we might stumble or fall when we look down at our right hand” and see the T-ring, there is an indelible sign that we can get up, dust ourselves off, adjust our chin strap, and succeed because we have done it before! 

When I first met Rick Perry in the fall of 2000, it was at Memorial Stadium, and one of the first things he noticed was my T-ring, and he asked me about it.  That gave me the chance to tell him the story about my father being an Aggie and my “escaping” to the 40 Acres in the fall of 1964.  To this day, that story remains a joke between the two of us, and he always says, “I was never impressed with Gene’s T-Ring, but I WAS impressed that an Aggie raised him.  And I know that being raised by an Aggie is really what made him who he is today.”  That is all funny, but it would not have made any impression on him without the T-Ring!
And I know that I have told you that when I was sworn in as a Regent in the spring of 2009, it was very important to me that (a) I have my T-Ring on for the swearing-in and (b) that Edith and Darrell be in attendance. ……   Since 1957, there have been approximately 90 regents at UT, and to my knowledge, only two of them earned a T-Ring.  And it so happens that both of us were from the class of 1964 and ended up being Chairman.  Tom Loeffler and me.

Atlantic Monthly

In An Article In The Atlantic Monthly By Ben Wildavsky, Gene’s Vision Is In Full Bloom.  The Article Dated November 2012 asks the Question,

“What Sort Of Populist Liberal Firebrand Would Set Out To Slash Tuition, Prioritize Undergraduate Instruction Over University Research, And Push To Enroll More Low-Income, First-Generation Students”?  In Fact, “He’s A Conservative Republican Appointed By Governor Rick Perry. “  “Powell Has Emerged As A Champion Of The Movement To Rethink How Colleges Can Operate Creatively-And, With A Boost From Education Technology, Cheaply.  He Called For Halving Tuition While Expanding Enrollment. And, Echoing A Proposal Made By Governor Perry, Powell A Real-Estate Developer And Tech Entrepreneur, Wants The System To Establish A Degree That Costs $10,000 For All Four Years.”

 Because of Gene’s progressive vision, The Atlantic Monthly named him one of the “brave thinkers” for 2012. As occurs with anyone in a leadership position at a major university, Gene’s changes were challenged by prominent UT exes and powerful political figures who wanted answers to legitimate questions about the implementation of his vision.