7/05/2024 TLSN volume VIII Newsletter # 14
|
IMPORTANT: Please click on the black letters shown above titled “VIEW IN BROWSER” to enlarge and enhance the photos and text on your cellphone. If you don’t, the text and photos will be very small and difficult to read.
|
A message from TLSN Chair – Beth Coblentz
While the TLSN worldwide Longhorn fan base continues to grow exponentially, TLSN still faces challenges in adding email addresses from our target audience, which includes former Longhorn student-athletes, support staff, and their immediate families to communicate our fundamental mission of providing financial assistance to those eligible and sharing Longhorn sports history.
TLSN needs YOUR HELP in spreading the word about the TLSN mission. The mission statement is at:
|
Through the years, an organization supporting former players of DKR (LSG), and Texas Legacy Support Network, a 501(c)(3), have offered temporary financial assistance to 16 qualifiers, totaling $186,138.
Presently, TLSN is providing financial assistance to two former Longhorn student-athletes.
Since 2017, Yanaq, the son of former UT Volleyball player Jackie Campbell, has been battling leukemia. Donations from the Glenn Blackwood family, and many others, have paid some of her non-medical expenses including food, housing, and car payments.
Yanaq’s treatment regimen at M.D. Anderson is comprehensive, aimed at enhancing his chances of survival. Over the next six months, he is scheduled to undergo chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and a second bone marrow transplant.
Billy Dale and I met with Jackie and her family (see picture below) two weeks ago before Yanaq started his chemo treatments and delivered a check to defray some of the families temporary living expenses in Houston.
This is a marathon, not a sprint, and Longhorn brand builder Jackie Campbell’s family needs financial support along the way.
|
|
|
Longhorn volleyball player Jackie Campbell is far left and Yanaq is third from the left.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The other Longhorn family member who qualifies for help is Tyres Dickson – (former UT Football player paralyzed in a car accident 20+ years ago).
Tyres is bedridden, which has resulted in bed sores. TLSN has found a manufacturer that specializes in custom beds that will donate the new bed and mattress to Tyres.
However, his needs do not stop there; Tyres needs help defraying some of his living expenses. TLSN has helped him with over $14,000 in the last three years, but he still needs a helping hand to enhance his quality of life. TLSN’s goal is to offer Tyres financial assistance between $300 to $500 a month.
TLSN has also connected with a caseworker who will provide direct assistance to Tyres in arranging his transportation and exploring options to increase his insurance benefits, among other services.
|
|
|
|
Beth Coblentz, Jim Kay, Billy Dale, Kirk Bohls and in the middle is Tyres Dickson.
|
|
|
|
TLSN IS ACTING PROACTIVELY
|
TLSN is building an interactive professional network of organizations to assist the TLSN tax-exempt in fulfilling its mission. Recently, we received a positive response from a physicians’ group which has formed a charity organization. This charity has connected us with many other support groups that may be able to help former Longhorn student-athletes and support staff.
How can you help?
1. Connect us to other Longhorns and charities that can assist TLSN
2. Share the TLSN mission with others
Hook’em Horns!
Beth Coblentz
TLSN Chair
|
Betsy Mitchell’s life journey has been more than about medals.
Below is the link to Betsy Mitchell’s Longhorn History podcast, written comments, and a highlighted photo journal. Betsy acquired the tools necessary to build a life of character, fulfillment, productivity, and excellence through swimming disciplines, personal commitment, and the aspiration to excel.
Her book, “More than Medals,” details her journey from setting world records to becoming an athletic director. She excels as a mentor, guiding young student-athletes towards individual greatness by teaching them that success should not be measured by wins or losses but by personal best records, even if they finish last.
She is a leader of young souls, dedicated to creating paths for others to reach their personal bests. She reminds everyone that a fulfilling life journey is measured by more than just medals.
The link to Betsy’s podcast, written, and photo history is at:
Gallery Furniture owner Jim McIingvale proudly sponsors Betsy’s oral/history podcast. Horns Up! A link to Jim’s site is https://www.galleryfurniture.com/cart
Gallery Furniture
|
|
|
|
|
Due to collegiate transfer rules, Betsy was red-shirted after transferring from North Carolina to Texas in 1984-1985.
Despite redshirting at Texas, she did not fall behind. She took part in national team trips and acquired international experience.
|
|
|
|
“When I got to Texas, the athletic director there was Donna Lopiano. She was a major force, along with Senator [Birch] Bayh of Indiana, in getting Title IX passed in our country in 1972. Donna is just a force of nature.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“My experience at Texas was awesome, transformative, and exciting. I was grateful to be there, there was high-quality competition in high-quality venues, and we were competing against the best swimmers in the country at an exciting time for the sport. I couldn’t have asked for more.”
|
|
|
“I felt a lot of pride swimming for Texas. I felt proud and happy just to have a spot on the team. At meet time, I knew I had a job and that my teammates counted on me to do my best.”
|
|
|
|
|
Professor Carlson wrote an excellent piece on Longhorn and Cowboy Tom Landry. The article is too long to share in total in this TLSN newsletter, but if you want to read Larry Carlson’s entire article on the history of Tom Landry, click on this link:
Larry’s article is definitely an insightful article and worth 5 Cowboy stars.
Tom Landry: Longhorn For Life?
The edited version of the TLSN newsletter is below.
Coach Landry is famous for telling his Cowboy athletes when they were having fun at practice one day, “Gentlemen, nothing funny ever happens in football.”
He was a mythical figure on the NFL sidelines. One of pro football’s brightest, an innovator without peers, he was frequently described as aloof, laconic, cold, and an automaton.
Landry brought a reputation as an innovator to Big D. He was the mastermind of the 4-3 defense, then reinvented his own philosophy and introduced the ingenious Flex Defense.
It is easy to fast-forward through four more decades of football and peruse the NFL years and the coaching legacy Landry left behind. But a question…has Landry ever been irrevocably linked to the Texas Longhorns?
This writer does not recall ever hearing of a congratulatory call from Landry to Darrell Royal, but that certainly does not mean it didn’t happen.
|
But did he and DKR ever meet other than as opposing combatants in the Texas-OU wars of the late ’40s?
|
|
|
|
|
Big, at 6-1, 195-pounds, the South Texan was a standout punter and fullback for the Longhorn teams of 1947 and 1948. Those squads finished as Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl champs, whipping Alabama and Georgia, respectively. A captain for the ’48 Horns, Landry ran for 117 yards in his final college game.
|
|
|
|
Tom Landry and Dick Harris celebrating the 1948 Orange bowl victory.
|
|
|
|
|
With Landry at the helm, the Cowboys seemed to avoid drafting Longhorns. After their second season, they took big tackle Don Talbert in the eighth round in ’62. And in ’64, the ‘Pokes chose the Longhorns’ first Outland Trophy winner, Scott Appleton as the first round’s fourth overall pick. But not really. They had worked a deal with Pittsburgh to acquire receiver Buddy Dial, and immediately shipped the rights to Appleton to the Steelers. Also, the first pick of Houston’s AFL team, Appleton signed with the Oilers.
It was twenty-three years before Dallas again took a shot at a Texas-ex within the first ten rounds of the draft. Wide receiver Everett Gay was the ‘Boys’ fifth-round choice in ’87.
But one question regarding the NFL legend can still be tossed around, a political football as it were, among Longhorn backers. Once Tom Landry left the Capitol City of Austin…just how orange was his blood?
Well, the blood of his grandkids need not be tested. Some fifty years ago the coach gave his daughter, Kitty, at the altar, to a guy with pretty solid burnt orange credentials. Name of Eddie Phillips. Landry’s son-in-law and the father of the coach’s grandchildren quarterbacked the 1970 Longhorns to a national title.
And it is absolutely on the record that the coach who would become an NFL Hall of Famer and “Mount Rushmore” figure did indeed stay involved with UT football. One former Texas player told me of Landry’s participation in a Longhorn team banquet in the early ’70s that took place not long after the Cowboys had claimed their first Super Bowl title. That player said Landry helped award letters to Texas players, smiling and enjoying himself greatly throughout the evening.
(TLSN’s Larry Carlson teaches sports media at Texas State University and lives in his hometown of San Antonio. He is a member of the Football Writers Association of America.)
The photos below show Don Talbert, Scott Appleton; no photo of Everett Gay
-Royal, Regan Lambert, and Tom Landry
|
A Couple of Coach Barnes’s Special Game Moments
Coach Rick Barnes was a hybrid basketball coach combining the attributes of spirited Abe Lemons and the internal strengths of Bob Knight.
Upon succeeding Coach Tom Penders, the new coach shifted the basketball team’s tempo from Penders’s “shoot it circus-style” to a more structured offensive and defensive strategy. He emphasized that victories are secured from the inside out rather than the outside in, and he instilled in his players the notion that intensity isn’t something that can be switched on at will—intensity doesn’t have an off switch.
The link to Rick Barnes is below.
His teams hold the record for the most top 100 basketball games in U.T. sports history. Two of the top 100 games are listed below. Barnes’s first year at Texas was chaotic. Three players transferred, and eligibility issues took another, leaving him with only seven scholarship players. But Coach Barnes was well-equipped to manage this challenge, having once faced a 4-on-5 situation at Chapel Hill. He emphasized conditioning to equip his teams to secure victories through defense.
Moment #33 defines the coaching miracle performed by Coach Barnes.
MOMENT NO. 33 of 100
Feb. 24, 1999: UT tops Baylor 62-52 in Waco to capture the school’s first-ever Big 12 Conference championship. Despite playing with just seven scholarship players for most of the season and struggling out of the gate to a 3-8 mark, first-year coach Rick Barnes remains patient and engineers one of the greatest midseason turnarounds in school history. The Longhorns win 16 of their final 21 games and post a 13-3 mark in the Big 12.
|
Moment #81 also occurred during the 1998-1999 basketball season, and it defined the future of Longhorn basketball under Coach Barnes.
|
|
|
|
|
MOMENT NO. 81 of 100
Jan. 23, 1999: Despite playing without starting forward Gabe Muoneke (suspension), Chris Mihm blocks a pair of three-point attempts in the final 10 seconds to preserve a 73-70 upset over No. 23 Oklahoma State at the Erwin Center.
|
|
|
|
TEXAS LEGACY SUPPORT NETWORK shares a panoramic view of Longhorn sports history as seen through the eyes of those who created it.
|
TLSN invites you on a journey through the TLSN time machine to discover the splendor of Longhorn sports’ past eras. Former student-athletes, renowned writers, media personalities, well-researched books and magazines, and tales from Longhorn enthusiasts bring Longhorn sports history to life. ACCESS TO THE SITE IS COMPLIMENTARY.
Https://texaslsn.org
|
|
|
