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Top of the Queue – Volume VIII Newsletter #10 -May 10, 2024

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TLSN is a 501 (c)(3) Longhorn Sports history educational website with a compassionate component.

Https://texaslsn.org

TLSN is not associated with the UT Athletics Department or any organization closely aligned with UT.

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

For many, Longhorn sports history is perceived as “dated” and irrelevant because the past is interpreted through the eyes of the current reader’s biases. To understand sports history properly, you must leave the present and hop into a time machine to understand former Longhorn brand builders thoughts from the inside out.

TLSN is that time machine. A Longhorn website that shares history as told through the eyes of those who created the Longhorn brand.

LONGHORNS HONORED:  Former UT stars Cory Redding and the late Cedric Benson will be inducted into the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame   in Waco on May 18.        

For many years, Royal and the coaching staff had too many players, and it was obvious that some were just along for the ride and did not contribute to making the team better. To test many who were not on the first or second teams or who did not play on game day competitive spirit, the coaching staff devised a Darwinian process that athletes had to endure. Royal reasoned that If these players wanted to remain, they would have to continue to improve and contribute to team play.

Players understood that once tagged as “questionable talent,” they would enter a DKR gravitational black hole from which neither light nor most players could escape.

Enter the infamous TURD BOWL. On Mondays, upper-class men who did not play in the Saturday game scrimmaged the freshman in what was appropriately named the Turd Bowl. Most everyone who participated dreaded this game. Many felt that Royal’s turd bowl was just another attempt to run them off and an implicit punishment for their low status on the team. Tom Campbell says, “There were all-staters who thought they were above that, so they just lost their hearts.” Many became disillusioned and quit.

Tom Campbell was one of the “turd bowlers” who survived. Tom viewed these scrimmages as an opportunity to improve his skills. He viewed the event as “instructional,” a time to improve fundamentals and techniques. Tom knew that his dad, Coach Campbell, did not consider the turd bowl punishment. Coach Campbell was looking for talent to fill the pipeline. Tom persevered, and his place in Longhorn’s sports history is well chronicled in the photos below.

Education should be the # 1 priority for Longhorn student-athletes

Consider the following: Prior to September 30, 2019, pay-to-play practices were prohibited. Coaches utilized the power of the Longhorn Brand, the dedicated fan base, Longhorn Nation, and the assurance of a quality education as their main recruiting tools instead of financial inducements.

NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) rules and portals and the infusion of money into college sports have markedly complicated the decision-making landscape for athletes and their families. Some athletes will choose to follow the money trail instead of their heart and make a decision for the wrong reason.

Money is not evil. It is the American way, but high-school athletes who choose an educational institution solely based on short-term cash gains instead of long-term educational goals sets into play a dangerous life-altering precedent that could damage a young individual’s life path. Athletes should choose education first and then the money.

Student – Athletes

Coach Royal and Coach Brown had their priorities right. They coached student-athletes. That is, they coached students first and athletes second. I remember Coach Royal telling me on his recruiting trip to Odessa when I was a senior in high school that an education at the University of Texas would pay dividends for me my whole life. And it did! My T-ring opened many doors of opportunity.

Coach Royal’s primary focus was the holistic development of student-athletes using discipline, education, and character building as the keys to a successful life.

Mack Brown emphasized the importance of combining a positive attitude, education, and taking personal responsibility for the team and family.

“But let’s remember that happiness is found within and not in an environment.

SARK STORMS HOUSTON

by Larry Carlson for texaslsn.org

Texas Longhorn boosters are counting down till the season kicks off in late August. While Longhorn coach Steve Sarkisian is now focused on the four months leading up to the opener with Colorado State, he will acknowledge that the far horizon is also in view.

“We’ve gotta be peaking in December and January,” Sarkisian told a packed Houston Touchdown Club audience Wednesday. If it sounds as if Sark is planning on a long season, he is. He emphasized a goal to still be playing on Jan. 20, the latest date ever for a college football championship game, thanks to the new 12-team playoff.

Sarkisian, entering his fourth campaign at the Forty Acres, noted that the Longhorns under his tutelage have not just grown their win totals from five to eight to 12, but he boasted of great progress in the players’ collective grade point average. He said the Horns, in three seasons, improved from 2.3 to about 2.7 and are now just a tiny fraction below a 3.0 GPA. “It shows the correlation between what you do some of the time with what you do all the time,” Sarkisian said, pointing out that not one Longhorn was drafted after the ’21 season. Texas had eleven NFL draftees last week, second only to national champ Michigan, the team Texas will face in week two.

Asked about losing so much talent, Sark exuded confidence. “We’ve got a good football team.”

And when a backer in the crowd asked if taking on A&M – Thanksgiving weekend in College Station — might be a stealthy chore since none of the current Texas players or coaches have been part of the rivalry, Sark smiled. Stoking the rivalry on UT’s side will not be a problem.

“We’ll be ready,” he confirmed.

Texas fans can’t wait.

(TLSN writer Larry Carlson teaches broadcast journalism at Texas State University. He is a member of the Football Writers Association of America, and actually won the 1978 Southwest Conference Press Tour Singles championship in 1978, beating up on out-of-shape media members who wilted in Houston’s August humidity at the Rice University tennis complex.)

The TLSN platform archives Longhorn sports history and offers grants for qualifying former student-athletes, support staff, and their immediate families.

You can contribute to the TLSN archive by sharing your Longhorn sports memories and photos. Please send it to Billydale1@gmail.com. Your words and images will be posted and preserved for future generations.