Have y'all picked up the new copy of Texas Monthly

Very, very interesting article and a must read for all Longhorn fans. It's good to know where the dominance all started. Thank you Mr. Dodds, thank you.
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the national review is probably too liberal over there.
 
I wonder if this is enough to avoid an administration actively hostile to athletics in general and football in particular for a while. Or maybe all this notice and cash still is offensive to academic sensibilities.
 
This man, this Mack Brown guy, I think he is a winner. He has put the swagger back in the Longhorns football program and done so with class, humility and respect. Mr. Dodds made such a fantastic hire.

Then he went out and did it for men's basketball. Then others, then women's basketball. He is a badass as far as A.D.'s go.
 
Can't wait to read this article. Too bad some of the coaches weren't able to make the picture, but it looks awesome nonetheless.
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I remember reading an article about John Connally in 1964 in which he talked about dreaming of the day when our academic departments were in the same class as our athletics.

Some day.
 
I thought academics and athletics were both considered elite? I'm not sure how anyone thinks otherwise. What do you mean?
 
Academics are great for a large public state-funded school, but over all we are not "world class". I don't think we ever will be in the top tier of schools for academics, just based on size and admission standards, but that's ok. UT just tries (or is forced) to serve waaayyy too many people.
 
I plan on picking up a copy, but does anyone with a subscription care to post the article so I can read it at work?
 
I was reading this article on a plane from Austin yesterday evening, and didnt get a chance to finish it, so I'm not sure it delves into this thought: A large portion of the success and growth of UTs academics, labs, libraries and facilities over the past ten years is due directly to the success of the athletic program, and at the core, the football program.

There is a stark contrast between the school as it was pre-MB and how it is today. My freshman year was 1997, and everything looks so much better now than it did back then, it's incredible. The buildings on MLK are really turning into pedestrian friendly, asthetically pleasing buildings. They've got a nice tree lined view down one of the north/south cooridors from MLK looking up into campus. There seems to be new labs going up, and different structures getting remodeled all the time.

I might be wrong, but I think all of this is a direct affect of the University getting more attention because of the football team's success. If it was Deloss' idea and vision to start marketing everything, and selling naming rights, then I do not think it was by chance the business school suddenly came up with this idea for the McCombs School of Business in 2000. I also don't think it was a coincidence the atrium became the Pepsi atrium, or whatever it's called.

Granted they might have sold naming rights eventually to someone, but I do not think the rights could sell for as high a price without the success of the football program. As the article reads, it was a desire to be the absolute best, with the best equipment and coaches money could buy. If you make it available, what athlete wouldn't want to be lavished with such facilities. If the athletics are successful, the school becomes popular with kids. You can raise admission standards (sound familiar?) and your students are the best and brightest. Employers start to notice. Suddenly you can sell naming rights to some random office/classroom within your building for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

So while some might not agree with the capitalism of it, I do think the growth of the university is a direct effect of the success of the football program.
 
Where’s Rick Barnes?
posted by Evan Smith at 4:56 PM

And, for that matter, where’s Eddie Reese? Both coaches — basketball and swimming, respectively — were off recruiting when we shot our November cover and could not be persuaded to return to Austin to sit for the photo with their Athletic Department peeps. So now you know. And you can stop emailing me to ask.
 
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