Bill Little Articles part VII

Bill Little articles For https://texassports.com–

• The 4th Quarter

• Horns and Cougars on the Road to Omaha

• A Mulligan

• Home on the Range

• A Christmas Gift

• Rise to the Occasion

• A Memorial for the Ages

 11.15.2013 | Football

BILL LITTLE COMMENTARY: THE FOURTH QUARTER

Saturday’s meeting with Oklahoma State is a Big 12 showdown in the midst of the 2013 season, but it also reflects a special kind of history on a day that will be filled with remembrances and tributes.

 Near the end of every Longhorns football practice, as the team prepares to enter the final drills, they all come together and chant “Fourth quarter!” repeatedly.

With three games remaining in the regular season, having won six straight games in a season that now stands at 7-2, they are about to enter the final fourth of their regular season of 2013. Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Baylor — three teams all with outstanding records — stand between the Longhorns and a dream.

But in a year where Mack Brown has constantly stressed that the only game that matters is the next one, the Cowboys of Oklahoma State are the only issue on the docket at the moment.

After a playing a unique schedule which at one point had the Longhorns playing away from home for 42 straight days, Texas faces two of its final three opponents at home. Saturday’s meeting with Oklahoma State is a Big 12 showdown in the midst of the 2013 season, but it also reflects a special kind of history on a day that will be filled with remembrances and tributes.

The Longhorns are in the midst of the 90th season in what is now known as Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. On Nov. 8, 1924, Texas played its first game in the facility which was built as a memorial to those Texans who had lost their lives fighting in World War I. Then, it was called “The Great War — the war to end all wars.”

Time has proven that didn’t happen. Today, men and women of America’s military still stand in harm’s way, fighting wars in an effort to create great peace. And for these ninety football seasons, the mandate for the reason for the stadium’s initial role hasn’t changed.

When the stadium name was changed to include Darrell Royal in 1996, Royal made it very clear that he would accept the honor only if the original dedication to the Veteran’s remained. Hence, it became officially “Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.”

A stadium Veterans Committee, chaired by World War II hero and Longhorns benefactor Frank Denius, is appointed by The University president. The committee, which dates from Denius and others who served in World War II through former UT quarterback Mike Cotten who served in Vietnam, and to David Little (Iraq) and Nate Boyer (several tours in the Middle East), stands sentinel to task of preserving the original mission of the stadium.

Saturday’s activities in pregame will include a fly-over from World War II aircraft and a game ball delivery by active duty paratroopers. Boyer, who is the first UT current student to be appointed as a standing member of the committee, will also be recognized by Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby for his selection as the league’s male sportsperson of the year for 2012.

The salute to history will also include the on-campus recognition of former defensive back Jerry Gray as the newest Longhorn to be enshrined in the National Football Foundation’s College Hall of Fame. Gray will officially be inducted in ceremonies in New York in December, but NFF president Steve Hatchell will be on hand to present Gray and UT with his certificate. Gray is the 17th Longhorn player — and 19th UT person including coaches Darrell Royal and Dana X. Bible, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Student groups are exhorting Longhorns faithful to arrive early — and loud — to welcome home the team which started its six game winning streak (all in Big 12 play) with a victory here on September 21 and has played only one other opponent at home (Kansas) since.

The total package — which is supposed to be encapsulated in a brilliant afternoon — should make for a memorable day.

It is about the past, certainly. But for the Longhorns of 2013, it is very much about the present. They say proudly about Texas that “What starts here changes the world,” and this Longhorns team has a big chance to take a step toward their season’s goal as they face an outstanding opponent in Oklahoma State.  

 

 

06.05.2014 | Bill Little Commentary

BILL LITTLE COMMENTARY: HORNS AND COUGARS ON THE ROAD TO OMAHA

Texas and Houston met in a Super Regional in 2002.

 Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

While much emphasis was appropriately placed on the first-ever NCAA postseason baseball meetings between Texas and Texas A&M in last weekend’s NCAA Regional in Houston, history records some very significant games pairing UT and the Houston Cougars on the threshold of Omaha and the College World Series.

The memories are varied between happy and sad, exhilarating and painful, but in almost every case, the matchup proved historical. And as always seems the case, the eras, and the teams, are often interconnected.

The best example of that is the current group of Longhorns and the team that became Augie Garrido‘s first national champion at Texas in 2002. Today’s players were in elementary school when a freshman named Huston Street led a group of newcomers who joined with a few quality veterans to Omaha and the College World Series.

Today, Huston Street makes his living playing baseball, but he and former teammates such as Seth Johnston, Buck Cody, and Curtis Thigpen have, from a distance, adopted this current group of the Longhorns of summer.

“I can’t explain why I have been drawn to this particular team. I have talked to so many guys who were on our team, and we actually talk about how we are really pulling for these guys this year. I see a lot of similarities,” Huston said on his way to Petco Park in San Diego where he is the star closer for the Padres. 

“Both our team in 2002 and this team started out under the radar. We had a unique group of guys who were veterans—Jeff Ontiveros, Dustin Majewski, Omar Quintanilla, Tim Moss, Justin Simmons along with Ryan Hubele behind the plate, just to name a few. You need that kind of leadership, but you also need that kind of exuberance and the excitement of the youth.

“I see that in this team in the way they have rallied around each other. They are like we were. They had their backs up against the wall in the regional, very similar to what we had in our regional and super regional against Houston, which is ironic,” Street said.

Texas was trying to return to glory in the early 2000s. In 1999, the Longhorns had gotten back into the NCAA playoffs, but had been eliminated from a regional tournament in Houston with losses to the Cougars and what was then known as Southwestern Louisiana.

The next year, in his fourth season as the head coach at Texas, Augie Garrido had accomplished a near-miracle in 2000. The man who was respected as the best coach in the college game after three national championships in three different decades at Cal Fullerton took his Texas team into top ranked Arizona State and knocked off the Sun Devils in their own regional. Then, he took Texas back to Omaha for the first time since the 1993 season with a Super Regional win over Penn State in Austin.

“The 2000 team started the whole process,” said Street. “They built on that in 2001, and we were able to realize the rewards in 2002. There have been a number of very successful teams in the middle which have helped continue the tradition, but this team in particular has done a phenomenal job of bringing it back, and it has a lot of very cool similarities to us in 2002. You have to have a unified belief in each other. It takes a team, and Augie Garrido is the best in the world at expressing and conveying that.”

By 2002, the Longhorns had reestablished themselves as a force on the college landscape. The Horns had won the Big 12, and after an opening loss to Texas A&M in the league tournament at the home of the Texas Rangers in Arlington, they had stormed back to claim that title as well. Garrido was clicking off what he called a “series” of championships. First, the Big 12. Then, the Big 12 Tourney. Next came the NCAA Regional in Austin, where the Horns had won it in three games, including two victories over fellow Big 12 member Baylor. Now, it was the Super Regional, against an excellent challenger in the University of Houston.

The Cougars has won Conference USA with a 22-7 record, and brought a 47-15 record into Austin to battle for the right to go to Omaha. The team was ranked ninth in the country, and got to Austin by coming through Arizona State in a regional tournament played in Mesa. The Cougars had a remarkable 25 victories over top 30 teams, and were led by three all-Americans, including pitchers Brad Sullivan and Jesse Crain. Of all the Houston teams the Longhorns have faced in NCAA competition, this was arguably the best.

In the 1950s and 1960s, as Houston bounced between mid-major conferences and life as an independent, the Cougar baseball program fought hard to establish itself as a force. Evolving in the talent-rich area of the Bayou City, the Cougars took advantage of a Rice program which was a non-factor, even in the Southwest Conference.

Texas, under the legendary Bibb Falk, was nearing the end of its second of the Billy Disch, Falk, Cliff Gustafson and Augie Garrido eras. But Falk’s 1960 team had been something really special. With an all-American outfield of Wayne McDonald, Roy Menge, and Jay Arnette, Texas had its best record since the 1920s. The Longhorns dominated the Southwest Conference, heading into the NCAA District 6 playoffs with a record of 21-2.

It had been ten years — and that was long enough — since Texas had won the national championship, and this was a team to make a run at it. The district playoff was set for a month between Texas and Arizona, with only the outside possibility — remote though it was — that Houston would squeeze into the mix by winning the Missouri Valley title. But the Cougars did qualify, and the NCAA baseball committee determined that Texas and Houston would play a true “sudden death” game to determine who would travel to Tucson to take on Arizona in the more traditional best two of three series to determine who would represent the district at the College World Series.

Houston was 11-9 and was not expected to gain a playoff berth, but—in a time of short seasons and no thought of things such as conference tournaments — it did by winning a rain-shortened, one-game playoff with Cincinnati for the Missouri Valley championship.

Texas had won 17 of its last 18 games, had the great outfield melded with a young infield and a young pitching staff, and was the odds-on favorite to easily dispose of the Cougars at a game played at Austin’s minor league park, old Disch Field (which was located near where the Palmer Events Center now stands).

The Cougars, however, had other ideas. A three-run homer and control pitching netted a 4-2 victory, and the best Texas team of its generation was finished. McDonald, the star of the team, still fretted over the loss years later.

“I still remember that awful feeling as I walked out of Clark Field after we’d come back to dress. It didn’t seem real then, and it doesn’t even now,” he said more than 20 years later.

As an example of the inequality in the sport at the time, there was no national limit on the number of games teams could play. Arizona, which eliminated Houston and went on to finish fourth in the CWS, took a 41-7 record to Omaha, and was eliminated eventually by runner-up USC, which was 40-14 heading to the series.

History was made the next time the Cougars and Texas played for the District 6 crown. It was a strange set of circumstances from the beginning. Texas got into the playoff by winning a coin flip after the Southwest Conference finished in a four-way tie. The District 6 playoff featured a best two of three playoff this time, with the first game in Austin followed by a trip to Houston to finish the work.

Rain hammered the first game, which ended in a tie. The next day, Houston won, 5-4, meaning the Cougars needed to win only one game in Houston to earn the trip to Omaha. Falk, and Texas players, had begun the series almost as an afterthought to what had been a disappointing regular season. But all of that changed when the Cougars celebrated after that victory in Austin.

“At the end of the game they started jumping up and down and throwing their gloves, and I remember thinking, ‘They look like a bunch of Little Leaguers…. They got no business beating us,'” recalled UT outfielder Joe Gideon.

Even so, the bus ride to Houston was uninspired, Gideon said. But rain hit Houston, and the Cougars’ home field was unplayable for several days. With that, arrangements were made to play a doubleheader, if necessary, in the brand-new “Eighth Wonder of the World” — The Astrodome.

“When we found out we were going to be playng in the dome, we all got fired up,” said Gideon.

So fired up, in fact, that Texas got 14 hits to win 9-3 in the first game, and took advantage of eight unearned runs in an 8-5 victory in the championship game — the first college games ever played indoors.

A year later, in the 25th season of his head coaching career, Bibb Falk decided to retire at the end of the 1967 season. The Longhorns gave him his 20th SWC championship, but as the teams in Texas continued to struggle with the inequalities of the landscape of the college game, the label of “tradition and Falk” — rather than talent — placed on that time of the ’60s — became all too true when the Longhorns faced UH in another district playoff.

Houston won the first game of the series on its home field, 11-8, led by all-American Tom Paciorek. Texas answered with a 5-1 victory in Austin, setting up a third and deciding game. The scene was set for drama, as it was Falk’s last game at old Clark Field, and the Longhorns had a 3-0 lead in the ninth inning. But the Cougars scored four runs in the top of the ninth to take a 4-3 lead. In the bottom of the ninth, Texas had the tying run at second, but a great play by the Houston shortstop knocked down a single in short centerfield, and the runner was thrown out at the plate — the third time that had happened in the game. And so, despite a brilliant pitching performance by little-used Jimmy Raup, the season, and Bibb Falk’s career, had ended.

The Cougars entered the Southwest Conference in the 1970s, and the two didn’t meet again in NCAA competition until the rain-plagued tourney at Houston’s ball park in 1999. Then, as Texas represented the Big 12 and the Cougars carried the Conference USA banner, came the season of 2002.

“Brad Sullivan pitched a brilliant game and beat us, 2-0,” Street recalled. “Then we pounded them, 17-2 in the next game. Finally, we were in a real dog fight in the last game, but we won, 5-2. It had happened just as Coach Garrido had said it could. He talks a lot about ‘the process.’ But as is the case with 18 to 20 year old young people, you have to take those words and put them into action.

“I was lucky enough to be surrounded by guys who all bought in to what Coach Garrido was saying, and we believed it. It made us better people, it made us better baseball players, and it allowed the team to do the things we were capable of. Those experiences, especially on the road to Omaha, were what allowed us to perform once we got there.”

The record will show Street became the MVP of the College World Series as he came out of the bullpen to close and save all four tournament games. But he is the first to take his experience back to the concept of team.

“I remember in the championship game against South Carolina (which UT won, 12-6), Brandon Fahey hit a shot off the shortstop’s glove that led to four runs, and Chris Carmichael hit a home run that put the game out of reach. When I came in with that big lead, I was able to make different pitches than I would have had to make, and we closed it with a ground ball double play and a ground out,” Street said.

“Thinking back, it reminds me of stories my dad told me about the importance of getting the job done,” he said.

Street’s biggest memory of that final game of the 2002 season came from the impact he has felt from a simple speech Garrido made to the team before Texas played South Carolina.

“It is one of the most profound moments of my entire career, and life for that matter. He walked in, looked us all in the eye, stood there with a small moment of pause, and said this: ‘The world treats winners different than it does losers.’ And then he walked out. It was the most spot-on sentence, which is true.”

But Huston’s message to this 2014 team carries something from both his late father — whom this team has honored all season — as well as Garrido.

“This game will not change who you are, whether this team goes on and wins the national championship or not, but it is important to understand the consequences. Before those games in the NCAA playoffs, I had no aspirations of playing major league baseball, but when we finished, I remember thinking ‘Hey, I think I can do this.'”

As far as the Houston series is concerned, he offers two thoughts: “I remember the crowd in that final game in Austin, with the Houston fans chanting and our fans yelling. And when we won it, I remember my dad, and what he told me that day has stayed with me forever.

“He said, ‘Good job, Bubba.’

“‘Now you have to go out and do it again.'”  

 

 1.17.2013 | Football

BILL LITTLE COMMENTARY: A MULLIGAN

It is, after all, one of those times, where all you can do is just keep swinging, and see where that takes you.

          

Every person who has ever played in a charity golf tournament understands it. Teams of four or more players try to achieve the lowest score possible by taking the best shot from each participant. Often, to earn more money for the charity and liven up the game, folks are given the chance to buy one extra shot. When the usual rotation is exhausted, and the result is a poorly played ball, somebody pulls out another ball and hits that silver bullet that is known as a “mulligan.”

After Saturday’s defeat by Oklahoma State, the Longhorns now get to play a two game mulligan in the midst of the Big 12 race. Win the next two, and Texas will — despite the loss to Oklahoma State — claim at least a share of the league championship.

When the Big 12 reconfigured a couple of years ago, eliminating the league championship game and setting up schedules where all teams played each other, the reality of a team going through the league unbeaten became remote. With the teams winding down the regular season schedule, only one team — Baylor, stands without a loss. And the Bears have to play at Oklahoma State and TCU before hosting Texas on Dec. 7.

Oklahoma State has thrust itself into the mix after a league-opening loss at West Virginia, but the Cowpokes still must beat both Baylor and Oklahoma in Stillwater.

Texas, at 6-1, hosts Texas Tech on Thanksgiving Night before the trip to Baylor.

As the Longhorns went through an emotional and physical six straight victories, you had to see this one coming. Oklahoma State was favored in the game, which seemed to match teams that were a mirror-image of each other.

Throughout the season, Mack Brown has said time and again that this was a year where the league champion could easily have one loss. In assessing the Oklahoma State contest, he noted that both teams were similar — a balanced attack offensively and aggressive defense.

Brown has never used injuries as excuses, and he made it clear to the TV announcers before the game that he wasn’t going to start now despite the season-ending blows of losing two of its best players in running back Jonathan Gray and defensive tackle Chris Whaley in the West Virginia game only a week before.

“No excuses, no regrets,” he said. “It’s ‘the next man up’ for us.”

Pressed to identify the keys to the game, he was sadly prophetic.

“When you have two teams this evenly matched,” he said, “it usually comes down to turnovers and the kicking game.”

Somewhere, Darrell Royal must have nodded his head. That’s straight out of Royal’s play book for big games.

And it was exactly what happened.

This Texas team has fought together, cried together, laughed together, and won together all season. Saturday, they lost together. Mixed in with some outstanding plays from all three phases of the game were critical mistakes that turned what was expected to be a down-to-the-wire game into 38-13.

Football, more than anything, is a game of field position. It is played on a field that is 100 yards long, and the object is to get from here to there faster and better than your opponent. And despite a yeoman effort from punter-place kicker Anthony Fera (who dropped two of his five punts inside the 20), field position would dictate the course of the game.

The Case McCoy-led Texas offense was forced to begin play from its own three-yard line, its own 18-yard line, its own 20 and its own four on the first four drives of the game. The second half started about the same — with the first three drives coming from the 6, and two from the 18.

For the entire game, Texas averaged starting from its own 19 while Oklahoma State started from its own 33. Texas turned the ball over three times on interceptions (with two leading directly to touchdowns), and gained only one on an interception in the end zone that stopped an OSU drive.

As a result, the game statistics reflect Texas yardage from drives that moved the ball, but seldom far enough after starting with its back to the wall. Texas actually had 25 first downs to 21 for OSU, and converted 10 of 19 tries on third down compared to 5 of 13 for the Cowboys. But three of the five OSU conversions came on third and seven or longer.

For the Longhorns, the game was a situation where “what could go wrong” — did.

What emerged from the dressing room after the game, however, was a reflection of the resolve this team and coaching staff has shown throughout the season. With an open date coming up Saturday, they will regroup and get ready for a final run in an effort to achieve their goal of winning at least a piece of the Big 12 championship.

And in a year when the unpredictable is the only thing that is predictable, it’s your next shot, and not your most recent shot that counts. Golfers will tell you that. Many a tournament has been won because one of the players, using his “mulligan” puts the team in position to win. It is important to note that you get only one “do-over,” and you better hit this one straight. It is, after all, one of those times, where all you can do is just keep swinging, and see where that takes you. 

 

 

08.19.2002 | Football

BILL LITTLE COMMENTARY: HOME ON THE RANGE

The twilight had been spectacular and the massive steaks had given way to a little fishing, swimming, tennis and ranch-road touring. As the Longhorns football team gathered on the tennis court, a cool Hill Country breeze gently moved the cow bells in the distance.

The team was 45 miles removed from the 6,000 people who waited for four hours for autographs at Fan Appreciation Day, but as Mack Brown spoke, his players had a chance to understand the spirit of being part of The University of Texas.

“Nobody else in America is sitting on a ranch this nice tonight,” Brown said, as he reflected on the RM Ranch owned by their hosts, Red and Charlene McCombs. “We had a great day with our fans at the stadium, and tonight, we are really blessed to have friends like this. Here’s a guy who just gave $50 million to our business school, who owns the Minnesota Vikings and has invited us here.”

McCombs had gone out of his way to make the late afternoon and evening visit special for the Longhorns players. He personally prepared the 200 or so steaks (some guys actually ate two) with his secret seasoning recipe and hired Rudy’s Barbecue to cater chicken and the side dishes.

The 4,000-acre ranch is filled partly with Texas longhorn cattle. Half of the ranch, however, is dedicated to exotic animals from giraffes to gazelles. McCombs also raises animals for some of the nation’s leading zoos.

When McCombs spoke, he talked of the value of an education from The University of Texas and he talked about all that the football team had done for its school.

“You should be proud of what you have done,” McCombs said. “You have brought football back to where it belongs, at the top. In doing so, you have brought the whole university along with you. Your accomplishments echo throughout the whole university and that is positive.”

McCombs talked about the thousands of people who are behind the team and he used the perfect night on the prairie as an example.

“Look at that beautiful moon,” he said. “Understand that once this whole nation pulled together to put a man on it. Only a few could really go there, but there were all kinds of people working and believing it could happen.”

He talked about words like commitment and focus and pointed out that every single play is an opportunity.

It would have been easy, between the reflection of success from the land and the fishing holes and the rare animals and the well-done steaks, to miss the story of McCombs.

McCombs wasn’t always rich, at least not with worldly possessions.

From life as an auto mechanic’s son on the wind-swept plains of West Texas, he has risen to become one of America’s most successful businessmen, with varied interests in auto dealerships, oil, ranching, communications and professional sports.

Born Billy Joe “Red” McCombs in 1927 in Spur, Texas, his passion for sports took him at 17-years old on a hitch-hiking tour of schools of the old Southwest Conference as he tried to find a place to play football, the game he loved.

When that didn’t work, the young man played junior college ball at Corpus Christi Junior College, and after a stint as a student at The University of Texas, he took his talents to a smaller university, Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, where he finally realized his dream of playing on a college team.

Beginning his business career as a used-car dealer in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1950, McCombs bought his first new car dealership in San Antonio in 1958 at the age of 29. From there, he built an auto dealership empire which is the largest in Texas, and the sixth largest in the country, with nearly 40 franchises in more than 25 locations.

He parlayed his first dollars into a parallel career as a breeder of registered cattle and is co-founder of Clear Channel Communications, co-founder of Forney-McCombs Oil and now, as head of McCombs Enterprises, he also is active in a variety of other business activities.

In 1998, the man who as a young car salesman once splurged $5,000 to buy a minor league baseball team, spent nearly $200 million to become the owner of the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL. The former owner of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs and Denver Nuggets who, as a collegian, struggled to make a team, had bought his own.

Along with his wife, Charlene, McCombs has contributed millions to the two universities he attended, Texas and Southwestern. His recent gifts include $3 million to The University of Texas to build the Red and Charlene McCombs Softball Complex for UT women, and $5 million to Southwestern as part of the university’s $75 million capital campaign.

Their center for charitable contributionsthe McCombs Foundation contributes up to $8 million each year to more than 400 charities, colleges and universities across Texas.

In the late 1990s, McCombs – who studied business and law at The University of Texas at Austin 50 years before – donated $50 million to UT’s internationally renown business school, which then became the Red McCombs School of Business.

Athletics, and the competition it nurtures, have been major factors in McComb’s adult life.

As a used car salesman in 1950, he was selling 35 cars a month when his fellow workers were averaging 10. Today, McCombs still maintains an office in his flagship dealership in San Antonio.

“I wake up each day and work on my offense, keeping an eye open for opportunities and acting on them,” he said. “Offense is fun. I don’t like playing defense, just concentrating on problems that try to drag you down.”

Once, in a session with the senior athletics staff at The University of Texas, McCombs, who is an ardent supporter of Longhorns sports programs, summed up the secret of his success thusly – “make decisions, take chances.” Today, McCombs figures he spends about 35 percent of his time working on opportunities, about 35 percent on existing operations and 30 percent on community interests.

In San Antonio, he was instrumental in founding the Texas Research Park, in helping create Sea World of Texas and launching the campaign to build the 60,000-seat Alamodome. He also has been dedicated to education at all levels, from his participation with the universities to funding programs that aid students K-12 and a prison halfway house to help released inmates. In 1977, McCombs, then 50, clung to life in a Houston hospital, with non-functioning kidneys and liver. Close to death, some hospital personnel had all but written him off, but he survived due to what he calls “a miracle.”

“God willed me to recovery,” McCombs said in a recent article. “He told me there was more to do on this earth.”

That “extra life” has been one of giving for Red MeCombs. For a comparison to a familiar figure associated with the old West, he’s a real-life John Wayne. He is a big, fair man with a big heart.

On Sunday night, at his comfortable ranch home, he opened his arms to a group of young men who hold a special place in that heart.

 

 

12.23.2002 | Football

BILL LITTLE COMMENTARY: A CHRISTMAS GIFT

Far below in the vast auditorium, the Preacher was talking of Christmas. The choir and the soloists had reminded everyone of the season, and through the net screen, you could see the trees and the valley that leads to the river. The sermon came from a scripture in the Old Testament and it was about what you can give God for Christmas.

Six rows from the top of the main level of the amphitheater, Rick Nabors sat with his arm around his wife. His hair is thinning now. In fact, it is darn near gone and his solid but still-in-good-shape frame carries a few extra pounds.

However, as Christmas Day nears and the Longhorns’ trip this year to the Cotton Bowl for a New Year’s Day game against LSU approaches, somewhere in the photographs hanging in the chambers of the mind, he had to remember.

Thirty-three years before, on a bitterly cold day in Dallas, Nabors became a significant actor in a human tragedy acted out on the highest-profile stage in college football.

Every Longhorns football player in the Mack Brown era knows the story. It is about the courage of a little guy named Freddie Steinmark, who started at safety in the 1969 National Championship season. The week after Texas beat Arkansas for the National Championship in early December, Steinmark lost his leg to bone cancer. A year-and-a-half later, he was gone. His courage is one of the bench marks of Longhorns football that Brown refers to as he talks of the pride of the past and the courage to face challenges.

The nation (an incredible 28 million fans had watched the Arkansas game) was spellbound when Steinmark, on crutches and missing his left leg that had been amputated at the hip, entered the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 1, 1970. The day was gray and the field was a mud bog from a week of cold, rainy temperatures. Prior to the coming of the current bowl system, the game was probably the most significant bowl game in modern history. UT had won the National Championship by closing the regular season with a 15-14 victory at Arkansas. Notre Dame brought exceeding glamour to the game by making its first bowl appearance since the famed Four Horsemen played Stanford in the 1925 Rose Bowl.

All of that we know in legend, but the secret to the game of football is that it is a team sport, and when somebody goes down, somebody has to post. That is where our story begins.

Nabors was a junior on the team. The son of a former star at Texas Tech in the days of the Border Conference, he had grown up in Austin. After graduating from McCallum High School, he had gone to junior college and joined the Longhorns in fall 1969. As the backup safety in a season where the Horns crushed a lot of opponents, he had registered five interceptions and a bunch of playing time.

Midway through the fourth quarter of the Arkansas game, Chuck Dicus, the Razorbacks’ All-American receiver, had gotten behind Steinmark. Realizing he was about to give up a touchdown that would have meant almost certain victory (Arkansas led, 14-8), Steinmark intentionally interfered with Dicus at the UT 10-yard line. A pass interception in the UT end zone stopped the drive, and as every faithful orange-clad follower knows, the Longhorns went on to take the lead with less than four minutes remaining.

No one could have known that defending the pass to Dicus would be the last football play Steinmark would ever make. That heart-wrenching story was yet to be told, but Texas still had a game to win and Darrell Royal still has a vivid memory of his conversation on the sidelines with his trusted assistant and defensive guru Mike Campbell.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with Freddie, but he’s lost a step and just can’t seem to keep up,” Campbell said. “I am going to have to make a change.”

So it was at that moment in the Cotton Bowl Classic on the first day of the 1970s, Nabors became the starting safety at Texas.

“He came in and did his job,” Royal said. “He was a good, solid player. He never asked for any credit. He just stepped up when Mike called his number.”

In the 33 years since that day, Nabors has lived his life the way he played the game, solidly and dependably. He started at safety for Texas during the next season as the Longhorns extended their winning streak to 30 games. He took a short look at becoming a coach but chose instead to enter the field of animal research. Thirty years later, he runs a state-wide network of animal disease laboratories, testing for toxics that might appear in the foods that we eat.

He’s got a wife and family now, and on Sunday mornings, you will usually find him at about the same place at the early service at Riverbend Church as he was for Gerald Mann’s Christmas message this past Sunday.

As the sermon painted a picture of how to live life, Nabors came to mind. A lot of people know the story of Steinmark, but Nabors’ story is just as important. Freddie’s is a story of bravery and courage and Rick’s is the story of the value of a person who is willing to take the challenge of life, even if the spotlight is somewhere else. Simply put, do whatever it takes to make a difference.

The message on Sunday talked about “doing justice,” which translates to doing what is right. It talked about being merciful and that was obvious when Nabors’ eyes glistened as he talked about seeing Steinmark for the first time in the dressing room, knowing that his friend would never play the game he loved again or walk on his own two legs.

Most of all, however, the message was about humility, of being humble and doing a job regardless of who gets the credit and of giving of yourself so that those around you will be a little better for it.

In his time, Steinmark gave us all a message of courage against odds and he left us way too soon. Somehow, as the bright sun sparkled against the morning chill, Nabors reminded us all that “what is,” is just as important as “what might have been.”

The real message of Christmas is that life is a gift. Each of us, through our own journey, faces challenges and choices. Our job is to give back, make the necessary adjustments and play the game.

Merry Christmas and I wish you well.

 

 

06.15.2012 | Football

BILL LITTLE COMMENTARY: RISE TO THE OCCASION

·  June 15, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

In the midst of a seventy-five minute press briefing on Wednesday, Mack Brown mentioned the “theme” for the 2012 Texas Longhorn football team – R. I. S. E.

The four letters, as chosen as a standard by the team members themselves, represent a particular meaning for each letter comprising the word “Rise.” That’s the goal-oriented message the players are sending as they spend their summer in team-directed drills that are variously monitored by the strength and conditioning staff or the training staff as allowed by NCAA rules.

In Brown’s previous 14 seasons at Texas, each season has had at least one theme, and on occasion there have been at least two. Some are more memorable than others; others more significant than some.

The themes have represented everything from frustration (such as “Finish” following a season where the team ended its season just short of its goals) to commitment (“Take Dead Aim” in the National Championship season of 2005) to dedication (“Brick by Brick” for last season’s reconstruction effort).

Historically, themes tie well into Mack Brown‘s philosophy of building his teams based on communication, trust, respect, and “a common purpose.” Some, such as “All In” which became part of the 2009 season after a fall practice speech from Pittsburgh Steelers legend “Mean” Joe Greene, have become particularly bonding.

The success, or lack thereof, related to themes often reflects a couple of things. One is based on one of Mack’s favorite truths from his friend Darrell Royal – “the less you say, the less you have to take back.” Historically, those themes that live in infamy are those which predict something that isn’t backed up by a team’s play.

In 1987, when favorite son David McWilliams became the head coach at Texas, the marketing group representing the Texas radio network came up with a pretty cool poster of a dozen or so Longhorns, dressed in old west style dusters, standing on Mount Bonnell at sunset. They even rented a smoke machine for effect, and labeled the picture “Coming to Restore Order in the Southwest.” The intention was good. The Southwest Conference had been mired in a sea of probations and controversy, and McWilliams was cast as a replica of his former coach Darrell Royal – one who would return Texas to its accustomed place on the national college football landscape.

The theme was far from deliriously successful, but at least was salvaged, despite a 7-5 record, by a last second win over Arkansas and victory over a ranked Pittsburgh team in the Bluebonnet Bowl.

It was about that time that Longhorn basketball marketers were trying desperately to sell seats in the Erwin Center. In the final season of the regime of Bob Weltlich, they produced a poster based on a popular song of the time, showing players leaping to fit the words of “When the Joint Starts Jumping.”

When the season floundered and Weltlich was dismissed, Royal was part of a large committee to determine what Texas was looking for in a coach. When the suggestion came that a little more promotion might have saved the program, Royal exclaimed, “You started this season with a theme of `when the joint starts jumping’. Well folks, when there are three thousand people in the building and you are getting your butt beat, the joint AIN’T jumping!”

Bottom line to all of that is, the most successful pre-season themes are those which you – as a team and a team member – can do something about. You want to be better than you were? Then take charge and do something about it.

That’s why “Rise” is a great choice.

The “R” stands for relentless. The “I” for intensity. The “S” is currently up for debate between the players and the coaches, and the “E” is for emotion.

The conversation about “S” is based on the players’ wish to have it stand for “swagger” and Mack says the coaches thought that perhaps the word “sacrifice” is a better fit. Understand, of course, that there is nothing more Texan than a bit of swagger – but the coaches feel that’s a mode you have to earn, and you earn it – and the other qualities – by being willing to give everything for the good of the whole. Let’s be clear here – the players who want “swagger” are not being cocky. They clearly understand there is a difference between “arrogance” and “self-confidence”, and the definition hanging in the balance between the two is “swagger.”

The most powerful words in the English language are active verbs. And that is why the team’s choice for 2012 is important. There is also a message in it for any teacher at any level. Somewhere between the actions of the learning process of kids, there is a constant search for the truth between “pulling” somebody along or “pushing” them to move.

“Rise,” however is different. When you succeed as a coach or a teacher, you teach young people to take responsibility for their actions, to respond to challenge, to move autonomously in a positive direction.

In other words, you teach them, not to simply follow or be shoved.

You teach them to “Rise.”

 

 11.07.2008 | Football

BILL LITTLE COMMENTARY: A MEMORIAL FOR THE AGES

Nov. 7, 2008

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

The names are etched in history, their stories are part of the fiber. And this weekend, The University of Texas honors the past, celebrates the present, and looks respectfully forward to the future.

It began as a dream, this concrete structure on the banks of Waller Creek, on the east side of what was then called “the Forty Acres.” The University of Texas was young then. The students began a campaign to raise money for a new stadium, the stated goal was to honor those Texans who had been killed in World War I – “The Great War” as they called it, the war to end all wars. Sadly, we know now that didn’t happen.

Time and again since, America has gone to war to fight for freedom, in order to achieve peace. The stadium was first commissioned as an official veterans’ monument when it was finished in 1924, and a large plaque including the names of the Texans who died in World War I was erected atop the north end when it was finished in 1926.

When the north end was about to be knocked down to make way for the stadium reconstruction, the plaque was removed, and the stadium at that time was de-commissioned. Friday, at a ceremony held in the stadium corridor above the Veterans Memorial Plaza at the northwest corner of the stadium, the commission was re-instated.

The events of the day, and of this weekend, are a reminder that universities are not made of brick and mortar, and stadiums are more than concrete and grass. Both are about people. Texas Memorial Stadium, as it was originally called before Coach Darrell Royal’s name was included as a part of it, stands in tribute to all those American men and women who have served The United States in all foreign conflicts.

Early Longhorn heroes such as Louis Jordan and Pete Edmond died in World War I. General K. L. Berry was a prisoner of war during the Bataan Death March, and Keifer Marshall was a Marine who survived the Battle of Iwo Jima. There were other Longhorn players who fought and served with distinction – among them quarterbacks Mike Cotten and John Genung, who served in the Marine Corps and Navy in Vietnam, and, of course, fullback Ahmard Hall of the 2005 Longhorn National Champions, who was a Marine in Kosovo and Afghanistan.

When the Longhorns played at Hawaii in 1995, their visit coincided with the 50th anniversary of the surrender of Japan, which marked the end of World War II. The contrast of the young football players, and the aging servicemen who had come in reunion was striking. And I will never forget the wreath that was tossed into the sea, where the brave had died at Pearl Harbor.

The old soldier had said it: “Soon, we will all be gone. Then, who will be left to tell our story?”

The answer is there, in the memorial plaza, in the wisp of the wind at twilight. During the ceremony Friday, UT Athletics Director DeLoss Dodds announced that the Plaza will officially be known as the Frank Denius Veterans Memorial Plaza, so named for longtime fan and supporter Frank Denius.

Denius, who three weeks ago joined Gen. Colin Powell as a recipient of the Patriot Award as given by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, was one of the 10 most decorated veterans from the European Theater during World War II. He also serves as chairman of the stadium Veterans Committee, which oversees the relationship between the veterans and the stadium to maintain appropriate recognition for the original stated purpose of the stadium.

Mack Brown has been a huge supporter of the U.S. Military since his coming to Texas in 1998. Beginning with 9/11 and continuing through this season, the Longhorn team has been led onto the field each game by players carrying American flags. This season, that assignment has gone to defensive tackles Aaron Lewis and Roy Miller, whose dads both serve in the military.

Among the members of the committee is Marine (Res.) Lt. Col. David Little, who is the member of the committee who most recently served in combat. When he returned from duty in Iraq, he was standing on the photo deck during a fighter jet flyover at the stadium.

As the roar of the engines passed, a nearby reporter joked, “Hey David, how often did you here that in Iraq?”

To which David replied solemnly, “every day.”

When Mack asked a group of Marines to speak to the team prior to the game against Texas Tech in Lubbock, that was the message which came burning through: “Those who stand in harm’s way for us do not get a day off.”

Friday’s commissioning service was a reminder of the old soldier’s question aboard the ship in Hawaii. On stage were Purple Heart recipients who had fought in every conflict in which America has been involved dating back through World War II. Surrounding the crowd were soldiers from Ft. Hood, and members of ROTC units at The University.

Often, the language of sport gets blurred with reality. “It’s gonna be a war,” folks used to say of a football game. Not really. In a lot of ways, it is not even a “battle.” Football is a game of individual accountability played as a team concept. To be sure, there is a balance needed between the importance of a game, and the responsibility of life.

That is why the restoration of the dedication of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium is so important. Because on this day, brick and mortar do give way to matters of the human spirit.

Frank Denius has understood that for most of his more than 80 years of living. He has been the ultimate Longhorn fan, and yet he is also the consummate American.

It is fitting that the Memorial Plaza bears his name, because no one person better reflects all that the project means. His generosity is significant, but his dedication to duty and to country goes far beyond that.

He has seen the beaches of Normandy, in war and in peace. And he knows that each generation must pay its own price for freedom.

History will remember the sacrifices of those before and since the creation of the stadium. And it will stand sentinel as younger generations are reminded of who they were, what they did.