Subjects in this newsletter- Razorbacks, Carsey, Carlson, Moore, Sanders, Ludvigova, pistol diplomacy
TLSN is not affiliated with the UT Athletic Department or any organization closely aligned with UT.
11/08/2024 TLSN volume VIII Newsletter # 24
Important notice:
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Although mastering the complexities of WordPress is a personal challenge for me, it is essential for expanding the TLSN site and supporting its growing readership. Until I become proficient with WordPress, Squarespace will remain the platform for the newsletters. The new WordPress site is Https://texaslsn.org . Please use the search function to find information of interest to you.
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John Carsey, a member of Abe Lemons’ NIT championship team, has joined the TLSN Board of Directors.
John has sponsored 13 TLSN oral history podcasts and fully embraced TLSN’s primary mission. He is also among the first to share his podcast on the TLSN website. His podcast chronicles the 1977 NIT Championship.
John says, “Our 1977-78 team was the first to play in the Special Events Center ( the Drum now imploded), and we were undefeated at home. After our inaugural season at the Drum, it was reported that we averaged the third-largest home attendance in the nation, with an average of around 12,800 fans that season.”
You can find the link to John’s oral history podcast, along with photos and written content, at:
John is #24 in the photo above.
John’s podcast is at the link https://texas-lsn.squarespace.com/john-carsey-basketball-under-coach-black-and-coach-lemons-1-1
John says, “While we certainly had our stars, particularly the Big Three of Johnny Moore, Ron Baxter, and Jim Krivacs, no player (even the lone walk-on) was made to feel lesser. We all appreciated that it was a total team effort to push everyone to be better, and there was no class system.”
John continues, “One of Coach Lemons’ motivational tools was using each practice between games as a “tryout” for the next game. Nobody’s “job” was secure. We scrimmaged with the starters from the last game wearing white jerseys and the rest in orange.”
“If at any time during practice, Coach felt that an orange-jersey player was more deserving at that moment of starting the next game, he would have that player switch jerseys with whichever player in a white jersey he felt was faltering. Whichever five were wearing white jerseys at the end of the last practice prior to the next game were the starters for that game.”
We are excited to welcome John Carsey, a notable Longhorn brand builder, to the Board of Directors of TLSN.
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The author of the article below is unknown. I will research this further to see if I can find the author’s name and give him/her credit.
LONGHORN FOOTBALL PLAYER SPEC SANDERS
Sanders was All-Pro in 1946 and 1947 while leading the New York Yankees to two American Conference Championships. Sanders led the AAFC in rushing yards and was named All-AAFC in 1946 and 1947. In 1947, Spec led the AAFC with 231 carries, 114 points, and 18 rushing touchdowns, a new pro record that stood until Jim Taylor broke it in 1962. Sanders’ 1,432 rushing yards established a mark until 1958 when Jim Brown ran for 1,527 yards. Sanders completed 93 passes for 1,442 yards, adding 14 more touchdowns to the team’s total. He also returned a kickoff for a score. Although used sparingly on defense, Spec intercepted three passes. He also averaged 42.1 yards on 46 punts.
Unfortunately, most of his records were expunged after the NFL absorbed the AAFC. AAFC records are not part of the NFL record books.
In 1950, Sander was lured out of retirement to play in the NFL. Because of the knee problems, he opted to play only defense that year. He responded by being named to the Pro Bowl and tying the NFL’s all-time single-season record of 13 interceptions.
Spec Sanders was scouted at Cameron by Longhorns assistant Blair Cherry, who heard stories from Texas alumni about a bruising inside runner in Lawton. As a rule, UT did not cross state lines to recruit, but Bible and his staff kept getting letters about Spec. They knew that two of their chief rivals—Southern Methodist and Oklahoma, who beat the Horns in 1939 were trying to sign him. Instead of taking a chance of Spec beating them in another uniform in 1940, the Horns offered him a scholarship.
Initially, the Longhorns had thought of Spec as a pile-driving fullback. They soon realized he was best in the open field. But as long as Crain was on the squad, Spec would be his backup. They were the two best runners in the Southwest Conference. Spec rushed for 365 yards, the sixth-best mark in the conference, and averaged 8 yards per carry.
Even on the most savage tackles, he managed to fall forward for an extra yard or two. The Longhorns went 8–2 in Spec’s first campaign. Their season included a shutout of mighty Texas A&M that would kill the Aggies’ chances of playing in the Rose Bowl that January.
Despite being a second-stringer behind Crain, Spec received some mention on several All-America squads. In 1942 second, string back Sanders was drafted in the first round by the Washington Redskins based on a scouting report by Bear Bryant.
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Coach Jeff Moore had an eye for tennis talent, a special recruiting style and his record at Texas proves it. One of his athletes was Lucie Ludvigova.
There is a reason why Europeans began to dominate college tennis at one point; this will be explained in more detail in a future article. The following T-Ring reflection is paraphrased from an article written by Trent Freeman for the Cactus. Trent’s article is included below.
Lucie Ludvigova’s mental toughness played a crucial role in her journey to the Longhorns. In her early years, she was prevented from participating in U.S. tournaments by the Czech government, yet she still managed to achieve a world ranking of 28th in the juniors bracket. In 1991, she won the Czech National Indoor Championship. The following year, she played at Midland Junior College, where she clinched the Flight II national championship. She then transferred to Grand Canyon University in New Mexico, where she won the Division II national championship. Her success caught the attention of the UT Tennis coach, Jeff Moore, and a year later, she joined the Longhorn team.
Lucie hit the ground running. In college tennis, team matches are played in the spring. Most coaches view individual tournaments in the fall as an extension of practice. It was one hell of a practice schedule for Lucie. Lucie dominated by nearly sweeping all three major college tournaments. She advanced to the finals of the clay court championship and then won both the All-American and indoor championships.
Just three months after joining the Longhorns, Lucie Ludvigova grabbed the nation’s #1 ranking in women’s collegiate tennis. Coach Moore said, “Lucie could be the best player in Lady Longhorn tennis history.” “She competes at another level mentally.”
She was an ITA singles All-American in 1994 and 1995, Conference Player of the Year in 1993, and All-Conference in singles and doubles in 1993 and singles in 1994.
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Reggie Freeman (1993-97) 6’6” shooting guard who flourished behind the arc, Reggie Freeman drained 243 career three-pointers to place third in Texas history. Fueled by all those jumpers, Freeman scored 1,958 points, the fourth-most for a Longhorn all-time—Hall of Honor inductee.
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TLSN is an ethos-driven support system and a Longhorn sports history site that captures the attitudes and principles contributing to our university’s excellence. Please send donations to
https://texas-lsn.squarespace.com/send-donation-to
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Horns have a sense of humor. Documenting the history of our Longhorn heritage has been a complex task, but TLSN has finally unearthed a family photograph that illustrates Bevo’s ancestry. Several ‘Horns Down’ and one confused Horn were expelled from the Longhorn clan and settled in cities like Norman, OK, and College Station, where they perpetuate the ‘Horns Down’ lineage. These former Longhorns are a dangerous and rabid breed who are bitter at being excommunicated from the Longhorn Nation.
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True Story
Everything is relative in life. Throwing bottles in protest during the 2024 Georgia game was not right, but it was better than this 1898 TCU football player with a Longhorn name (Ed Bull)’s resolution to a bad call. Fortunately, Ed never shot a referee.
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TIME FOR TEXAS TO SEE RED
by Larry Carlson for https://texaslsn.org
When the Texas Longhorns cross over into the brisk mid-November air space above Arkansas, they will see red—lots and lots of it. The state’s denizens love to sport the cardinal color of their flagship university’s football team.
This will be the Razorbacks’ most anticipated home game since, well, since rookie UT coach Steve Sarkisian and his first Texas herd visited some 38 months ago. Fayetteville was rocking the red, as always, stoked a tad extra by grain alcohol for a night game. The hometown Hogs embarrassed a team and staff that seemed unprepared for the vim, vigor and vitriol coursing through the red sea. The scoreboard said 40-21 but it wasn’t that close. Arkansas, y’see, hates Texas. And now, after zero conference matchups in one-third of a century, the teams’ inaugural SEC game, well, it just means more.
In the only other Texas-Arkansas game in the past decade, the Porkers undressed an already humbled 6-6 Charlie Strong team in the 2014 Texas Bowl.
In post-game remarks, then-UA coach Bret Bielema said beating Texas was “borderline erotic.” Understood. The Horns had only fifty-nine yards in total O.
At SEC Media Days last summer, UA’s fifth-year coach, Sam Pittman, was asked about the accuracy of Sarkisian’s statement that Arkansas fans “almost at times feel like they hate Texas more than they like themselves.”
Pittman, always affable and candid, allowed this much. “He’s probably correct. You’d have to ask the old hats of Arkansas, but he’s probably right.”
1969, Arkansas was prepared for this game, and President Richard Nixon watched.
The touchdown by Street on a semi-busted play changed the momentum of the game.
President Nixon presented a plague in the post-game locker room that symbolized the national championship for the Horns.
That red-hot hate has boiled for awhile. Lance Taylor was an All-Southwest Conference linebacker for the Longhorns during his playing days, 1976-79,
Last week, from his home in Tulsa, Indian Territory, he reflected on the Arkansas mindset.
“I have a good friend that is a Hog. One time I told him ‘I just don’t feel the animosity for the Pigs that you do for the Horns. He said, ‘that’s because you always beat our butts.'”
The overall series record reveals a lopsided 56-23 UT advantage. Texas won the first fourteen meetings. The rivalry was at its summit when best buddies Darrell Royal and Frank Broyles were duking it out in the old SWC’s fiercest annual brawl in the 1960s and ’70s.
Royal’s Texas squads took 15 of 20 matchups against the “Wooo Pig Sooey” crews, highlighted by the incomparable 1969 “Big Shootout” between top-ranked Texas and number two Arkansas. The Horns, of course, rallied from a 14-0 deficit after three and — fueled by the magic of QB James Street — won 15-14 to snatch the national championship in front of the crestfallen Fayetteville partisans.
DKR was a tough act to follow, to greatly understate things, but Fred Akers, who had starred for Arkansas, went 7-3 against his old alma mater.
One of the best high-stakes duels came in ’77, Akers’ first season as head coach. Texas was high after a breathtaking 13-6 win over OU.
Fans of number eight Arkansas were as eager as kids before Christmas. But better to give than receive…they could hardly wait to shower the second-ranked Longhorns with Ozarks-style “hospitality.“
The Longhorns had an established regimen for Fayetteville. They would fly into a slightly larger city that offered more than a sidewalk for an airstrip, do a walk-through at Razorback Stadium, then spend the night away from the college town and bus in for the game.
Lance Taylor remembers the autumn October setting in ’77 when he was a sophomore anchoring a dominant UT defense that featured seven other sophs.
“When we drove into town the street was lined with Arkansas fans all the way to the hotel. Of course they were all doing the Hook ’em Horns down sign along with a wide variety of colorful language,” Taylor said. “Then that night the phone calls began in an effort to keep us awake. We finally had to take the phone off the hook so we could get some sleep.”
That Texas team was powered by explosive Earl Campbell. But the man under center would be getting his first career start in a nationally televised game.
Randy McEachern, having been the third-string QB entering the Texas-OU showdown eight days earlier, was the toast of college football for a few days. He had managed the game well from the early going in Dallas when both Mark McBath and Jon Aune sustained season-ending injuries.
“We had just beat OU, a game a third-string quarterback is not supposed to win,” Randy recalled last week, “which was a no-lose situation for me. But after that win more was expected of me and now the pressure was on.”
McEachern had a friend who was a defensive back for the Razorbacks’ impressive unit. He also had a former coach on the Arkansas staff after several seasons in Austin. The new UA assistant dropped by a meeting of the Hog DBs and reportedly told the defensive backs not to worry about “that Texas QB…he throws like a three-fingered clown.”]
Let McEachern take the narrative: “Well, my good friend called me and relayed the message. We won that game (13-9) with a couple of key passes in the fourth quarter. After the game, that coach came in to shake my hand…and I shook his hand with three fingers.”
Touche’, to say the least. And McEachern smiles now, acknowledging that he learned a valuable lesson for life. “Always know your audience,” he cracks.
2024 – Larry Carlson and Randy McEachern
Longhorns and
Razorbacks helmets 
The Arkansas Razorbacks and the Texas Longhorns have a long-standing football rivalry that dates back to 1894. As of now, Texas leads the series with 56 wins to Arkansas’s 23. The last time they met was on September 11, 2021, when Arkansas won 40-21.
Back in the SWC era, Arkansas alternated its home games against its most despised rival. One game for Fayetteville, a trip to Austin, a game in the state capital of Little Rock — featuring a larger stadium in a more centralized location for the state’s fans — then back to Texas.
Until freshmen became eligible in ’72, Longhorns were not exposed to the atmosphere in both Arkansas locales. Here’s a quick look back at the SWC era of Darrell Royal, beginning in 1957, then continuing through the coaching regimes of Fred Akers and David McWilliams, until Arkansas exited for the SEC after ’91.
In that span, Arkansas was victorious in Austin four times. The Hogs won three matchups in both Fayetteville and LIttle Rock.
In spite of the great success for Texas on the scoreboards, both spots in “The Land of Opportunity” provided daunting atmospheres for visiting Longhorns and their outnumbered fans. Back in the Cold War era, UT’s greatest defensive coach ever, Mike Campbell, famously compared journeys into Arkansas as, “like parachuting into Russia.”
Jay Arnold was a wide-eyed soph defensive end when a 3-1 Texas team of 1971 flew into Little Rock without the services of star QB Eddie Phillips, and with backup Donnie Wigginton banged up. Across the field was a formidable Razorback QB, record-setting Joe Ferguson. He torched the Horns for 250 passing yards in a 31-7 beatdown, in spite of a driving rain that punished despondent Longhorns.
The beating stuck with Arnold, who did manage to serve UA’s All-America kicker, Bill McClard, with his first-ever blocked kick. The retired attorney told me that the night before the game was foreshadowing to the rude on-field reception.
“We stayed at a hotel with gravel landscaping,” Arnold remembers. ” (Arkansas fans) threw gravel at the windows and called the hogs all night long.”
On Saturday night, they fired oranges and whiskey bottles at the Texas players, according to Arnold. Those Horns would serve revenge up cold that autumn. They ran off five consecutive SWC victories to close the season while Arkansas was dealt a loss and a tie, resulting in UT’s fourth consecutive conference crown and Cotton Bowl.
When Texas returned to “the Red Zone,” two years later, the battle site was scenic Fayetteville instead of Little Rock and War Memorial Stadium, a grittier capital city setting. Arnold, then a senior and set to lead the conference in interceptions as an All-SWC DB, was part of a UT class that would win the conference championship all three varsity seasons, sealing the deal on a never-to-be-repeated six straight titles. On this day, Texas would dominate Arkansas, bullying the Hogs, 34-6.
Offensive tackle Bob Tresch (he would switch to center in ’74) waxed nostalgic when I contacted him about pondering the resumption of Texas’ series against Arkansas and A&M this season. He cited those rivalries as “a gift passed on by 100 years of Texas football tradition,” and was just getting warmed up on reminiscing.
“The hate was born the minute you stepped on the field as a freshman, and it continues for life.”
Like Arnold, Tresch recalls the Arkansas fans and their tendency to display strong, if not always accurate, throwing arms. “You kept one eye on the field and the other in the stands,” Tresch recalled. “Coach Royal instructed us to keep our helmets on. Expect the unexpected.
“They wore these ugly hog hats, which were an improvement for some of them,” number 57 continued. “I think the local police escort took us the back roads from the airport so the Arkansas fans without tickets could express their spirit, often with hand signals as they lined the street.”
Billy “Sure” Schott, the Horns’ placekicker from ’72-’74, expressed merriment and amusement when looking back to the that ’73 Texas blowout win. “We thrashed ’em pretty handily up there and the fans weren’t too terribly worked up on that nice, sunny afternoon,” he said. That doesn’t mean all the Hog fans were docile. Schott salutes Royal’s helmets-on mandate as “sage advice,” then adds this about that sojourn to the Ozarks: “We had a few random Robitussin bottles, whiskey travelers, baby bottles and various aerodynamically sound fruits hurled in our general direction.”
Jay Arnold
Lance Taylor
Bob Tresch
Broyles and DKR are in heaven playing golf and watching a football game. Illustration by Bill DeOre
The ’73 trip marked the Longhorns’ first return to Fayetteville since the ’69 epic shootout. And the aforementioned ’77 victory for Campbell, McEachern, Taylor and company was another cheery chapter for Texas. But turn the page and ’81 in Fayetteville did not go well for the traveling Texans.
Kiki DeAyala has not forgotten that day in the Ozarks, or that Texas — hot off a 34-14 whipping of OU — was number one and the Hogs were unranked. DeAyala, UT’s all-time sack leader by a mile (both single season and career) told me this week that he and his family had been so impressed by UA head coach Lou Holtz that he initially committed to Arkansas.
“The stadium was electric with the Fayetteville crowd hyped up in a frenzy and screaming at us the minute we came on the field,” Kiki recalled from his home in the Coastal Bend, where he is president at The Islands of Rockport, one of his developments. “There were very few friendlies in the crowd that day,” he said, remembering a cloudy, cool afternoon that was, in his words, “perfect for football.”
It quickly became imperfect. “From the first play from scrimmage, we started off with a fumble on the way to having seven turnovers,” DeAyala said. Indeed, Texas lost three fumbles and had four passes picked off during one of the darkest days in Longhorn football history, a 42-11 pile-on.
“At the end of the game, I recall their fans coming out on the field and just rubbing it in how badly they had defeated us,” the pass-rushing king said. “I will say it was the most frustrating game that I can remember during my career at The University of Texas.”
DeAyala and his teammates did not have to endure many bad days. In fact, the loss at Arkansas was the only one of the ’81 season, and actually prompted the UT coaching staff to make a positive QB switch to former walk-on Robert Brewer. Several months later, Brewer would lead Texas to an upset win over Alabama in the Cotton Bowl and a number two ranking in the final AP poll.
The Arkansas vs. Texas football game in 2004 took place on September 11 at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Texas narrowly defeated Arkansas with a final score of 22-20.
2004
Tony Jeffery was a key player in the win against Arkansas
Cedric breaks free for a long run against Arkansas. Texas won 22 to 20
As for avenging their disappointment at Arkansas, Kiki and the Longhorns delivered big-time in ’82, his senior year. The re-match came in December, as number 12 Texas played host to the sixth-ranked Hogs. It became a Texas-style pork-roasting barbecue. Following a 7-7 standoff in the first quarter, the Horns put up 26 unanswered points to cruise in, 33-7. In his final home game, DeAyala led UT with twelve tackles, six of them solo. He was named the ABC/Chevrolet Player of the Game. “It was a great way to end my career,” he says.
Texas also captured the final two Fayetteville games in the old SWC series.
The Horns utilized five pinpoint field goals from Jeff Ward to take an unlikely 15-13 upset win over fifth-ranked Arkansas in 1985. Then Texas bested the Porkers, 24-20, for one of the very rare highlights of the undercooked 1989 season that dished up just five W’s.
So it has been 35 years since Texas and Arkansas roughed each other up at Fayetteville in a conference game. Now an eleven a.m. kickoff looms for November 16. Maybe the early kickoff slightly aids UT because Hog fans won’t have all day to fortify themselves with refreshments. Maybe not, though.
Perhaps the die-hards and students will get started Friday evening and pull an all-nighter before pushing into Donald W Reynolds Razorback Stadium. Head-to-head, Sam Pittman leads Steve Sarkisian, 1-0. It really means nothing now. Except for this: Sark and a few of his players from 2021 can painfully recollect just how inhospitable things can be up in northwest Arkansas. If the lesson was learned, the Longhorns know one thing:
Better see red. As DKR once stated, “Only angry people win football games.”
(TLSN’s Larry Carlson is a member of the Football Writers Association of America. He teaches sports media at Texas State University and lives in San Antonio.
Write him at lc13@txstate.edu)
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