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Longhorns v. Aggies: The Way Rivalry in Sport Shapes History and Culture

The “Longhorns v. Aggies” Exhibit is currently on display at the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports at the University of Texas at Austin

I have lived in Texas my entire life. Because of this, the football game between the University of Texas and Texas A&M University has always played an integral part in the way my family experienced the Thanksgiving holiday. When I was a kid, we often spent the week at my grandparents’ farm in Temple, Texas, where they did not have cable television. So, when the Farmers and Longhorns played, my grandfather would rent a room at a little motel off the interstate highway, and we would all cram in together, sprawled across tiny beds with itchy comforters, and eat bad delivery pizza while watching the big game. My family, however, was all maroon. My grandfather graduated from A&M, my father graduated from A&M, and my younger sister is now a graduate of A&M. I was an anomaly in my family, an artist and writer, and by the time I was a sophomore in high school, I knew College Station wasn’t the place for me. I completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at Saint Edward’s University, a small, liberal arts school on the hilltop off South Congress Avenue here in beautiful Austin, Texas. And now, I work as the curator at the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports, a world-renowned research library with significant gallery space that allows us to host public exhibitions at the University of Texas at Austin. This article is the first in a new series for Not Even Past exploring topics in sports history and the Stark Center archives, with a focus on developing exhibits in public spaces.

The Stark Center’s latest exhibit, called Longhorns v. Aggies, celebrates the long-running rivalry between the Texas Longhorns and Texas A&M Aggies, specifically the annual Thanksgiving Day football game.^[1] The 2025 game was the 120^th matchup between the two schools’ football teams. It was the first time in fifteen years that a game between the Longhorns and Aggies was played at DKR-Texas Memorial Football Stadium.^[2] Because of that hiatus, most of our current undergraduate students had no personal ties or first-hand connection to this historic game, commonly referred to as The Lone Star Showdown. So, when I sat down with Stark Center Museum Director Jan Todd and we began having conversations about an exhibit covering the long feud between Aggies and Longhorns, we decided that current students deserved to know about the highs and lows of this game’s past, as well as its influence on the cultures, traditions, and identities of each school. The result is an exhibit that attempts to show the complexities of the renewed rivalry.

“Longhorns v. Aggies” Exhibit. Courtesy of The H.J. Lutcher Stark Center

The Origin of Powerhouse Athletics Programs

Although many people assume that The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) is the oldest state institution of higher learning, Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College (A&M) began educating students in engineering and agricultural science in 1876, seven years before UT Austin opened its doors to students. From those earliest times, however, the two schools regarded each other as rivals. UT Austin offered higher education focused on liberal arts and the humanities. Its campus was located in downtown Austin, the state capitol. The student body was co-ed from its inception. The Aggies, on the other hand, emphasized a curriculum centered on agriculture and engineering. Theirs was a rural campus with an all-male student body required to participate in Corps of Cadets military training. After the two schools began meeting for an annual football game in 1894, the frictions between the rural “Farmers” of A&M and the big-city “Steers” of Texas only grew. We tell “Aggie jokes.”^[3] They call us “t-sips.”^[4] The lyrics in each school’s fight song bids the other farewell. The rivalry deepened as UT Austin won fourteen of the first seventeen games.^[5] Folks in College Station were frustrated.

In 1909, the Aggies hired Charley Moran as their new head football coach and assigned him one task: build a team that could beat Texas. After recruiting players from other successful collegiate programs in the American South, the A&M football team did just that, winning back-to-back games in the 1909 season and the lone game against Texas in the 1910 season. Tensions ran especially hot during this period. On-field play was remarkably violent with players from both teams regularly suffering major injuries. Off the field, supporters clashed, taunting and fighting each other—Longhorn fans once carried broomsticks and marched in a mockery of A&M’s Corps of Cadets, which led to a massive brawl. A University of Texas student suffered knife wounds in a rumble after the 1908 game–the wounds were non-fatal and A&M officials issued a sincere public apology. In 1911, the game was played on neutral territory in Houston, as the headline event of the city’s No-Tsu-Oh Festival. Texas defeated A&M 6-0 on a late game scoop-and-score fumble recovery. After the game, A&M’s Corps of Cadets marched on downtown Houston, taking over city blocks and instigating physical altercations with anyone perceived to be affiliated with the University of Texas. Swarms of police were required to restore the peace. In the aftermath, the Athletics Council at UT sent a telegram to the Athletics Council at A&M:

Dear Sir:
Referring to my telegram of November 8 and letter of November 9, I beg to inform you that the Athletic Council of The University of Texas has decided not to enter into any athletic relations with the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for the year 1912.
Very respectfully,

W. T. Mather Chairman of the Athletic Council The University of Texas

“Longhorns v. Aggies” Exhibit. Courtesy of The H.J. Lutcher Stark Center

The Farmers’ Athletic Council was, apparently, fine with the idea and the schools did not face each other again until 1915.^[6]

This is significant because the loss in revenue from the already ubiquitous rivalry, deemed the “richest attraction in the Southwest,” left both schools’ athletics programs teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.^[7] Enter L. Theo Bellmont. In 1913, Bellmont was hired as the University’s first director of athletics. Bellmont’s hiring was promoted by Lutcher Stark, a great benefactor of Texas Athletics, who would later become the youngest man ever appointed to The Board of Regents.^[8]

It was Bellmont’s job to organize physical education classes for men and to run the sports programs. One of his first acts was to establish an advisory board for Athletics and then to petition for his new Athletic Council to have financial oversight for running the games and raising funds. First, he appealed to President S. E. Mezes to grant him and the Athletic Council complete management of all athletic events. His wish was partially granted in 1913 and then fully in 1914. Second, he began the formation of a new athletic conference, the Southwest Athletic Conference. The Southwest Athletic Conference came to be known, more famously, as the Southwest Conference, which existed from 1915 until 1996 when Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor moved to the Big XII Conference in search of television revenue from football and basketball games.

“Longhorns v. Aggies” Exhibit. Courtesy of The H.J. Lutcher Stark Center

Meeting with A&M officials in “behind-closed-door sessions” in 1914, Bellmont was able to navigate a renewal of the rivalry between Aggies and Longhorns through the establishment of the Southwest Conference and a still unconfirmed agreement by the Aggies to fire Coach Charley Moran.^[9] Essentially, the first pause in the Lone Star Showdown led both athletic departments to face their greatest crisis to date, very nearly bankrupting and ending them entirely. And the renewal of the rivalry, through the actions of Theo Bellmont, gave birth to the modern intercollegiate athletics program at the University of Texas.

Shaping the Exhibit
This past summer I was blessed with research help from Valeria Misakova, an undergraduate Stark Center intern, who normally attends Notre Dame University. Valeria spent dozens of hours scanning The Daily Texan and The Cactus yearbooks for information on these historically significant games and teams. Stark Center Archivist Caroline De La Cerda was a tremendous resource on this project, including connecting me with archivists at Texas A&M’s Cushing Library who helped accumulate assets related to Aggie history and culture that can’t be found in our own archive. Sports archivist Patty McCain and Stark Center Associate Director Kim Beckwith also contributed to helping us find artifacts to display and getting the history “right.”

“Longhorns v. Aggies” Exhibit. Courtesy of The H.J. Lutcher Stark Center

This exhibit, with its rich history, is shaped by chapters or subsections, rather than a rigid chronological organization.
1. “The Kickoff” presents the origins of football at each school and the early matchups.
2. “Raising Cain” documents the colorful history of off-field hijinks.
3. “Siblings First, Rivals Second” memorializes the 1999 Bonfire Tragedy and the Unity response.
4. Untitled, the longest wall in the gallery and primary backdrop of the exhibit, features photographs and artifacts that showcase the history of the games played on the field, from 1915 all the way up to the game in 2024, highlighting specific decades for each team as well as recognizing the three Heisman Trophy winners that played in the Lone Star Showdown.
5. Two walls, presented side-by-side in burnt orange and maroon, respectively, showcase the various cultures and traditions at each school, particularly those that were formed out of this rivalry.
6. “Cover Art” features a colorful collage of gameday programs spanning the past 100 years of games played between Texas and Texas A&M.^[10]

“Longhorns v. Aggies” Exhibit. Courtesy of The H.J. Lutcher Stark Center

If you have not been to the Stark Center, or you have not visited since we opened Longhorns v. Aggies, please drop by and explore our space and learn more about the history of this Texas-sized rivalry. The Stark Center is located on the 5^th Floor of the North End Zone at DKR-Texas Memorial Football Stadium, open Monday-Friday, 9am until 5pm. There is no charge for admission, and all fans are always welcome in our space.

“Longhorns v. Aggies” Exhibit. Courtesy of The H.J. Lutcher Stark Center

Kyle Martin has worked as the Curator of the Stark Center since September 2024. His primary fields of work are writing, designing, and curating new exhibits and other creative projects related to the promotion, marketing, and enhancement of the Stark Center and its missions. He also serves as the technical editor of Iron Game History.

^[1] Or Thanksgiving-adjacent; Longhorn/Aggie football games have also regularly been played the day after Thanksgiving, as this year’s game was. The first time Aggies and Longhorns played football against each other on Thanksgiving Day was 1900. Since then, the game has, typically, been scheduled on or near the holiday.

^[2] In 2011, Texas played Texas A&M at Kyle Field in College Station. The Longhorns won 27 – 25. At the conclusion of the 2011-2012 academic year, Texas A&M Athletics left the Big XII Conference to join the Southeast Conference, a move that shocked both fan bases and led to the Longhorns and Aggies no longer facing each other on a regular season schedule. The teams did not play again until 2024, at Kyle Field in College Station, when the Texas Longhorns played their inaugural season in the Southeast Conference, following their own departure from the Big XII. The pause in play was so monumental that state legislators attempted to pass bills forcing the restoration of the rivalry. They were unsuccessful in doing so. As a result, the 2025 match up was the first played in Austin—at DKR-Texas Memorial Football Stadium—in fifteen years.

^[3] Here’s an example of an Aggie joke that scores points against A&M and the Longhorns’ other rival, OU:
Did you hear about the Aggie who moved to Oklahoma? The move raised the average IQ in both states.

^[4] Or “Tea-sip” is a label that Aggie students gave to Longhorn students to mock their perceived “snootiness” or elitism, one who hoists a pinky up and sips at their tea.

^[5] Played in the span of 14 years; the schools often played twice per season at this time. There were two games that ended in a tie (1902 and 1907). Also worth noting, the Aggies did not score a single point in their first 8 matchups against Texas.

^[6] From a class paper by Bill Gunn and Jimmy Viramontes, “An Early Athletic Administration Problem at The University of Texas, A Problem Presentation” for ED. AD. 392. Dr. Kenneth E Mcintyre-Professor, by. Found in the Texas Athletics Media Archives, The H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports.

^[7] Ibid

^[8] Here, at the research center which bears his name, we credit H.J. Lutcher Stark as the “father of the Longhorn logo,” when he purchased blankets for the 1914 Texas football team that featured the image of a longhorn on them. This was the first time a longhorn logo—a full head and neck with details like eyes, fur, and spots—was used on official gear at the University of Texas, cementing the mascot/brand.

^[9] Gunn and Viramontes, “An Early Athletic Administration Problem.” Also note, Moran was beloved by the Farmers and colloquially referred to as “Uncle Charley” but hated by Longhorns who believed he coached his teams to seek out plays that would injure opposing players. In 1910, Longhorn fans developed a new cheer for football games against A&M: “To hell, to hell with Charley Moran, / and all of his dirty crew / If you don’t like the words of this song, / to hell, to hell with you.”

^[10] What can football programs tell us about the past? As it turns out, plenty. The many Texas v. A&M football programs featured in this collage have helped to create the public images of both the Longhorns and Aggies as they evolved over time. Cover art has been used to foster traditions and emotions that surround the game experience, but also to mark changes in technology and historic events, giving us a glimpse into the mindset of Texas and A&M students through the years.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Medieval Facial Hair in Major League Baseball

(via flickr)

by Guy Raffa

What is it with baseball players and whiskers?

The 2013 Red Sox perfected the art of beard-bonding on the way to their third World Series championship in ten years. Boston players and their fans rallied around what Christopher Oldstone-Moore calls the “quest beard” in his history of facial hair, Of Beards and Men. Two years later the Yankees began winning only after Brett Gardner stopped shaving his upper lip and, seeking to propitiate the baseball gods, his teammates followed suit. Lip caterpillars soon dwindled along with victories that first year without naked-faced Derek Jeter, but there were still more staches and wins than pundits predicted before the season began. The 2017 Fall Classic featured two rosters—the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers—modeling a wide assortment of trendy beards, with Dallas Keuchel’s voluminous but well-tended shrubbery taking first-place honors.

Dallas Keuchel and his beard (via wikimedia)

The Washington Nationals entered this 2018 season determined to supplant the Astros for best overall beard garden, but Houston more than held its own in facial fashion and on the diamond, finishing the year with the second best record. Helped by long-bearded pitchers Craig Kimbrel and David Price, the Red Sox led all teams in victories, pulling away from the mighty yet clean-shaven Bronx Bombers, and could well square off against the Astros in the American League Championship Series for a ticket to the 2018 World Series.

Facial hair has been attached to masculine dominance as far back as the late Middle Ages and the early modern period: “No hairs,” so went the pun, “no heirs.” The trend continues. Adjusting to the new normal of fewer shaves and more beards over the past decade, Procter & Gamble (parent company of Gillette), has sought to increase revenue by marketing styling and grooming products more aggressively.

A recent survey of 8,520 women by researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia found that, while stubbled faces are deemed sexiest, full-bearded men are favored for long-term relationships. Gay men surveyed also respond more favorably to men with facial hair. Another scientific study reveals that bristles make men wearing aggressive expressions appear that much more threatening. Hence the many pitchers who forgo razors the day of the game in search of a predatory advantage over club-wielding scruffs standing sixty feet, six inches away.

Woodcut of Ezzelino III da Romano, unfortunately without the famous nose hair (via wikipedia)

But forget about staring down plain old beards and mustaches. Just imagine having to face the facial hair sported by the medieval warlord Ezzelino da Romano. By facial hair I mean just that, one single strand. This alpha male, a dark and hairy beast of a man, sprouted a single black hair on the tip of his nose, a genetic abnormality that had nothing to do with fashion but made quite a statement nonetheless.

Ezzelino terrorized inhabitants of northern Italian cities and towns in the thirteenth century. A murderous despot, he was said to be responsible for taking over 50,000 lives, on one occasion slaughtering over 10,000 Paduans by fire, sword, and starvation. He was such a bad dude that the pope of the time, Alexander IV, called him “a son of perdition . . . the most inhuman of the children of men” and launched a crusade against him.

Ezzelino’s nose ornament took hostile facial fuzz to another level. Whenever he became enraged, the long dark hair on his nose immediately stood up, making those around him run for their lives. Anger on steroids. Little wonder that the poet Dante condemned Ezzelino to the circle of violence in his Inferno (canto 12, lines 109-110), placing him with other homicidal tyrants in the Phlegethon, a river of hot blood. Like a meatball in a pot of tomato sauce, a dark head of hair is all that appears of Ezzelino above the bubbling red surface.

Dante and Virgil observe the centaurs shooting the tyrants in Phlegethon. Charles S. Singleton (Inferno XII) (via wikimedia)

Imagine plucking Ezzelino da Romano from Dante’s red river and fitting him in an Astros uniform for game seven of the 2018 American League Championship Series against the Red Sox. There is no score with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. José Altuve, Marwin Gonzalez, and Evan Gattis beam their impressive face rugs from third, second, and first base. Pinch-hitting for peach-fuzzed Alex Bregman, Ezzelino steps to the plate and digs in.

Craig Kimbrel and his red beard (via wikipedia)

Red-bearded Craig Kimbrel gets the sign and checks the runners. Ezzelino waits, his head steady and slightly tilted toward the mound. Kimbrel rocks back, lifts his left leg, and just as his eyes find the target—boing!—Ezzelino’s nose hair snaps to attention, perfectly parallel to the bat in his hands. The terrified hurler uncorks a wild pitch, allowing Altuve to sprint home with the winning run. The Astros are headed to the World Series, while the Red Sox and their fans brace themselves for a long, cold New England winter.

Bibliography:

Will Fisher, “The Renaissance Beard: Masculinity in Early Modern England,” Renaissance Quarterly 54, no. 1 (2001): 155–87, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1262223; Christopher Oldstone-Moore, Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); Douglas Biow, On the Importance of Being an Individual in Renaissance Italy: Men, Their Professions, and Their Beards (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 181-224; Giovanni Villani (c. 1280-1348), Nuova cronica, ed. Giuseppe Porta, 3 vols., 2nd ed. (Parma: Fondazione Pietro Bembo, 2007); Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, ed. Giorgio Petrocchi. (Turin: Einaudi, 1975); Benvenuto da Imola (1375-1380), commentary on Inferno 12.109-112, database of the Dartmouth Dante Project, https://dante.dartmouth.edu; Paget Toynbee, A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).

Beard Links:

Beard bonding: http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2013/10/02/beards/BAQGj2IcEckzCq5Z0Piy3N/story.html

Brett Gardner stopped shaving his upper lip:

http://m.yankees.mlb.com/news/article/120449078/for-brett-gardner-yankees-its-not-a-stache-decision

Wide assortment of trendy beards:

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/10/world-series-dodgers-astros-beards-ranked-turner-keuchel-kershaw-reddick-mlb-mlbeard

Long-bearded pitchers Craig Kimbrel and David Price:

https://www.masslive.com/redsox/index.ssf/2018/07/craig_kimbrels_long_beard_isnt.html

Best overall beard garden:

http://www.nbcsports.com/washington/washington-nationals/years-nationals-are-stacked-glorious-facial-hair-bryce-harper-jayson-werth-beard

Fewer shaves and more beards:

https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2018/08/08/909324-beards-bad-gillette-razors/

Early modern period:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1262223?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

A recent survey:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/well/family/are-men-with-beards-more-desirable.html

Another scientific study:

https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/23/3/481/221987

A river of hot blood:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Inf._12_anonimo_fiorentino.jpg

Beyoncé as Historian: Black Power at the DPLA

By Edward Shore

The Digital Public Libraries of America (DPLA) has published sets of primary sources to help students sharpen analytical skills, to empower educators to breathe life into history in their classrooms, and to enlighten anyone anywhere interested in history. The anthology focuses primarily on U.S history from the colonial era to the present. It compiles rare photographs, oral histories, political propaganda, speeches, advertisements, and other primary sources to tell sixty different stories. Themes range from the familiar— the “Exploration of the Americas” and the “Secession of the Southern States” — to the understudied— “Women and the Blues” and “American Indian Boarding Schools.” Each category contains between ten and twelve primary source materials. They humanize historical actors, contextualize major events, and “make real” the seemingly arcane and distant past. The public historians among us can use DPLA primary source sets to lend historical perspectives to contemporary debates.

Take, for instance, the uproar that has followed Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s halftime performance at Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara, California. Critics lashed out at Beyoncé and her dancers for wearing Black Panther-inspired costumes and carrying signs demanding justice for Mario Woods. Woods, 26, who was shot dead by San Francisco police officers on December 2, 2015, after he was suspected of stabbing a pedestrian. “I thought it was really outrageous that she used it as a platform to attack police officers,” Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, told Fox and Friends. “These are the people who protect her and protect us and keep us alive.” “I’m tired of #BlackLivesMatter,” added Patrick Hampton, an urban youth minister from New York. “I’m tired of the New Black Panthers. I’m tired of seeing women on TV twerking. I’m tired of the racial division.”

Beyonce performs at the Superbowl. Courtesy of Ezra Shaw/Getty Images.

Sadly, DPLA primary source sets do not elaborate upon the historical significance of twerking. But they can offer clues to explain why Beyoncé and her dancers paid tribute to the Black Panthers and #BlackLivesMatter during the Super Bowl.

Let’s start with the DPLA primary source set related to the “Black Power Movement.” The collection contains sermons, photographs, drawings, FBI investigations, and manifestos to shed light on the political and social movement whose advocates believed in racial pride, self-determination, and equality for all afro-descendant peoples. A sketch of a black man and woman captures an aesthetic that Beyoncé clearly sought to emulate: afro hair-dos, sleeveless blouse, a t-shirt with a raised black fist. That style was closely associated with the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which originated in Oakland, California, some fifty miles away from Levi’s Stadium.

Black Panther Party logo, circa 1966. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Black Panthers’ 1966 party platform called for “an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.” We can surmise that Beyoncé’s tribute to the Black Panther Party was an expression of solidarity with the Bay Area African-American community after another fatal police shooting. According to the Guardian, the number of people killed by US police in 2015 reached 1,000 after Oakland police officers shot dead a man who allegedly pointed a replica gun at them. It was the 183rd such death recorded in California, by far the highest of any state. What better place to publicize police violence than the Super Bowl, the nation’s most popular television event where approximately 70% of athletes on the field were black?

The public historian can synthesize materials from several DPLA primary source sets to tell a larger story about race relations in the United States. For instance, the Transatlantic Slave Trade collection offers the historical context for Beyoncé’s message of protest. I came across an advertisement for a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina. “To be sold on board the ship the 6th of May next!” the caption reads. “A choice cargo of about 250 fine healthy NEGROES! The utmost care has been taken, and shall be continued, to keep them free from the danger of being infected with small pox onboard!”

Advertisement for a slave auction in Charleston, SC. Photo courtesy of Digital Public Library of America.

This disturbing image underscores the callous normalization of violence against black bodies. It also helps to explain why it was so critical for Black Power activists to foster black pride and reclaim human dignity through the articulation of a bold, uncompromising Afrocentric message and aesthetic. (If you are curious about what smallpox looks like, you can consult the “Exploration of the Americas” collection. It contains a 1910 photograph of a man infected with variola, better known as smallpox.)

Finally, let’s respond to criticism that black activists have fostered “racial division.” DPLA primary source materials on the secession of southern states include an 1861 pamphlet, “The Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union,” that highlights the origins of such divisions in the ways state governments codified racial apartheid into law. “We hold, as undeniable truths, that the government of the various states and of the Confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and for their posterity,” the manifesto proclaimed. “That negroes were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.”

If any one group was most to blame for the promotion of “racial division” it was southern legislators. One should not need to remind Rudy Giuliani and Patrick Hampton that state-sanctioned apartheid persisted in states like Texas a full century after the conclusion of the Civil War. The legacies of secession and Jim Crown still loom large today. On January 8, 2016, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called for a Constitutional Convention to restore states’ rights. DPLA source sets reveal the extent to which white supremacists invoked “states’ rights” to defend slavery and segregation. Meanwhile, four in ten Trump voters in South Carolina wished the Confederacy had won the Civil War. Racial division persists in the United States. DPLA primary source sets such as “The Secession of the Southern States” illuminate its historical, structural foundations.

DPLA primary sources may not win hearts and minds at Fox News. Still, they can help anyone acquire a richer account of the Black Power Movement than Texas SBOE-sanctioned text books. The collection possesses several shortcomings. Although it furnishes educators with ample documentation to challenge those who reduce the Black Panther Party to “thugs,” DPLA primary source sets do little to explain why critics have associated the movement with violence in the first place. It also fails to highlight women’s voices within the Black Power Movement. Where are selections from Assata Shakur’s autobiography? Why not include excerpts from Angela Davis’s memoirs? These and other sources can give necessary and even richer background to contextualize Beyoncé’s performance and its historical implications.

The Longhorns’ Resident Historian

By Nicholas Roland

Most days Clyde Rabb Littlefield may be found busily managing a real estate investment and property management business from a small office adorned with Longhorn sports memorabilia in the historic Robinson-Rosner building in downtown Austin. Littlefield holds two degrees from the University of Texas at Austin (B.A. ’53, M.A. ’57), neither of which is in the field of history, but everyone who knows him knows that Littlefield is first and foremost a historian, with a particular interest in the early history of the institution that he and his family have been intimately connected with for over a century.

Photograph of Clyde Rabb Littlefield standing next to a plaque memorializing his father — Clyde Rabb Littlefield standing next to a plaque memorializing his father.

As a native of Austin and two-time alumnus of UT, Littlefield bleeds burnt orange. In fact, his connection to the University of Texas is genetic. His father, Clyde Littlefield, was a legendary athlete and coach for the Longhorns. The elder Clyde was one of a duo of famous, albeit unrelated, Littlefields who left a significant mark on the University of Texas. George Washington Littlefield (1842-1920), a member of the Board of Regents and important early donor to the University, endowed the Littlefield Fund for Southern History, the iconic Littlefield Fountain, and the sometimes controversial South Mall statuary on the Forty Acres campus. In contrast, Pennsylvania-born Clyde Littlefield (1892-1981) began his career in Austin in the fall of 1912 as a freshman student athlete from the oil boom-town of Beaumont, Texas. By the time he graduated in the spring of 1916, Littlefield was a twelve-time letterman, an all-Southwest Conference athlete in football and basketball, an all-American in basketball, a conference hurdles champion in track, and had equaled the world record in high hurdles in 1914. According to his son, Littlefield only lost one race during his entire collegiate career. After a brief stint in the Army followed by some high school coaching, he returned to Austin and coached football, basketball, and track until 1962, winning twenty-five Southwestern Conference titles in track and field and two conference titles in football. Clyde Littlefield’s most enduring legacy at UT is the Littlefield Texas Relays, a major national track and field event. A campus road adjacent to the track stadium bears his name and he is memorialized in the Longhorn Hall of Honor and on a plaque located at the gate to Mike A. Myers Stadium.

Having virtually grown up in the shadow of the UT Tower, it was only logical that Clyde Rabb Littlefield would become a Longhorn himself. Upon entering the University in the fall of 1949, he enrolled in Air Force R.O.T.C., a new program on campus resulting from the Air Force’s establishment as a separate military branch in 1947. “Well,” recalls Littlefield with a laugh, “when I joined ROTC as a freshman it was not popular. And then the following summer the Korean War broke out, and to avoid the draft it became popular!” He graduated in the spring of 1953 with a bachelor’s degree in Government. After commissioning as an Air Force officer, Littlefield received orders to Korea and soon found himself on a troop ship crossing the Pacific Ocean. Arriving shortly after the cease-fire took effect on the Korean Peninsula, Littlefield’s unit decided that it needed a historian and he recalls that “they discovered that I minored in history.” This fortuitous discovery would have a major impact on Littlefield’s career for decades to come.

Second Lieutenant Littlefield was soon slotted as a unit historian, an assignment that proved very memorable for the young officer. After being assigned to Advance Headquarters in Seoul, Littlefield remembers being sent to the Demilitarized Zone in a Jeep with an armed escort to carry an important message to the United Nations commander: a North Korean MiG had been shot down in the first major incident after the July 27, 1953 cease-fire. He recalls that during this incident, “They didn’t trust electronic communications, so that’s why they sent me.” An assignment to Headquarters also meant that Littlefield had the opportunity to travel widely in East Asia and the Pacific. During his service in the Air Force he visited the Philippines, Japan, Thailand, Macaw, Hong Kong, and Iwo Jima in both official and unofficial capacities. Upon completion of his Active Duty service, Littlefield made the ten-day Pacific Ocean crossing to the United States on a troop ship.

A postcard view of UT's West Mall, ca. 1940 — A postcard view of UT’s West Mall, ca. 1940 (Image courtesy of The UT History Corner)

After returning to Austin, Littlefield pursued a master’s degree in Government at UT, graduating in 1958. His thesis, “American Assistance to Japan, 1945-1956,” was inspired by his experiences in war-torn East Asia, especially his realization that “in California seemingly so much concrete was around, relative to Japan or Korea.” After receiving his M.A., Littlefield worked briefly for Hughes Tool Company in Kansas, and subsequently found a job as a civilian historian for the Department of the Air Force. He continued to work as an Air Force historian for the next twenty years, retiring in 1980. Along the way Littlefield was able to continue his love of travel, living in such locations as Los Angeles, Kansas City, Wiesbaden, Germany, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Washington, D.C. His stint in Hawaii encompassed Vietnam War operations and he later authored a white paper on the proposed B-1 Bomber while working in Washington, D.C. Upon retirement, Littlefield returned to his hometown and embarked on his current career in real estate investment and property management. Littlefield laughs when recalling the changes he found in Austin when he returned: “You know I naively thought when I was moving back here from [the] Washington, D.C. area that I was going to know everybody! Because when I was growing up we only had one high school, well one white high school anyway. So even though it was very large you tended to – if you didn’t know of somebody you knew somebody who knew somebody type thing. But of course, when I got back that didn’t exist at all.”

Clyde R. Littlefield’s interest in history did not end with retirement from the Air Force. Today he spends much of his free time researching the first decades of The University of Texas, exploring the origins of Roundup, Bevo, and “The Eyes of Texas” as well as the origins and fates of a wide range of individuals who shaped the early history of the school. In 2004 his research produced a book on the early history of Kappa Alpha, his fraternity while a student at UT. He has spent so much time at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History that he now sits on the advisory board for the internationally renowned archive.

Photograph of UT students gathering under the UT Tower to celebrate the annual Gone to Texas Night — UT students gather under the UT Tower to celebrate the annual Gone to Texas night (Image courtesy of Austin American-Statesman)

Through his research and his own lifetime of experience at UT, Littlefield has seen many sweeping changes. The athletics program has evolved from the days of student club teams that played and sometimes lost to prep school squads to a professionalized department generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue each year. Littlefield recalls that the friendship between his mother and Rowena Bible, wife of Coach Dana X. Bible pre-dated Bible’s move from Texas A&M to UT, noting that “in those days people knew each other pretty well. There weren’t too many … extra coaches running around shall we say.” Overall, until recent decades athletics were “more amateurish, less commercial. Remember, we didn’t have commercial television here until the 1950s. I think the timing of any game was not driven by television. And it was very predictable. I remember, let’s say a football game, you almost always knew when it was going to start. Because that was the set time,” he concludes with a chuckle. The growth of the University itself has been equally astounding. Littlefield’s believes that “when I was in school and before, I think the University was more personal. And I’ve got the impression today it’s much more bureaucratic.”

Massive growth in the state of Texas, the city of Austin, and at UT have combined with wide ranging social changes to render the UT of 2013 a vastly different place from the slowly desegregating campus Clyde R. Littlefield encountered as a freshman in 1949, to say nothing of the small town university his father Clyde Littlefield entered in 1912. Whatever the future holds for The University of Texas, one thing is certain – the Littlefield name will remain synonymous with the Forty Acres, as it has for the past century.

Photo Credit:

Clyde Rabb Littlefield by Nicholas Roland

Boxing Shadows, by W.K. Stratton with Anissa “The Assassin” Zamarron (2009)

By Anne M. Martínez

In November 2005, Anissa “The Assassin” Zamarron entered the ring for one of her most important bouts: a chance to win the Women’s International Boxing Association junior flyweight title. At 35, fighting in her opponent’s hometown and having lost her last four fights, Anissa was considered the underdog. San Antonio’s Maribel Zurita, a decade Zamarron’s junior, had earned the title three months earlier and was overwhelmingly favored to retain it. After ten full rounds, as the fighters awaited the scoring result from the judges, Anissa took comfort in the belief that she had fought the best match of her career. In the eight months since her last fight, she had eaten better and trained harder than ever before, and her preparation paid off: her trainer, Richard Lord agreed. “You did a great job,” he repeated, as the ring announcer came to the microphone. Anissa didn’t know it at the time, but it was her last fight, and she won: WIBA junior flyweight world champion!

Movie poster of the movie Boxing Shadows

Boxing Shadows tells the story of Anissa Zamarron’s life in Central Texas, including her rise to two-time world champion boxer. To those unfamiliar with the sport, Boxing Shadows offers a primer on the training, traveling, and match-ups of the early years of professional women’s boxing. Zamarron fought in the first sanctioned women’s bout in New York State along with a number of international bouts before women’s boxing was much of a blip on the radar of most American sports fans.

Black and white image of the Bennett sisters boxings, c. 1910

The Bennett sisters boxing, circa 1910.

But the book, co-written by Zamarron and sports writer Kip Stratton, is about much more. Boxing was not just a meal ticket for Zamarron, it was a life-saver. She was born in San Angelo, Texas, and her family moved to the Austin area when Anissa was seven. Shortly after, her parents separated and her family was divided. Her brothers — her heroes — lived with their father and Anissa went with their mother who, having married in her teens, relished a freedom she had never experienced before, to work full time, go to happy hour every night, and date. The loss of the structure of family life, the longing for the company of her brothers, and the rough and tumble apartment complex where she spent these formative years pushed Anissa further and further into darkness.

Image of Anissa "The Assassin" Zamarron in the midst of a boxing fight

Anissa “The Assassin” Zamarron (The Women’s Boxing Archive Network)

Anissa felt a strong self-loathing as early as second grade, began cutting herself in middle school, and was committed to a mental hospital for the first time in her early teens. She discovered boxing in 1993 at age 23. After years of therapy, self-mutilation, and struggle, boxing was an outlet for the demons that drove Zamarron to hurt herself. Boxing did not end her battles with herself, but gave Anissa ways to work through challenges in the gym, rather than in her mind. Zamarron is open about her struggles with learning disabilities, mental illness, and drug addiction. Her success in the ring offers inspiration for others struggling to overcome similar challenges to reach their goals.

Master-at-Arms Seaman Rhonda McGee, left, spars with Patricia Cuevas during an exhibition match in the preliminary rounds of the 2011 Armed Forces Boxing Championship.

Boxing Shadows is devastating in its frankness, uplifting for its courage, and all the more impressive when one meets Anissa. In May of 2012, I visited Anissa at Richard Lord’s Boxing Gym in Austin, Texas to talk about Boxing Shadows. [You can see the video interview at the bottom of this page or on our Youtube channel here.] Zamarron is marked, more than scarred, by her past. She is surprisingly forgiving of those who disappointed her or otherwise contributed to the internal battles she fought as a child. After the interview, Anissa prepared to spar, and even then, nearly seven years after her last bout, in the ninety seconds it took Richard Lord to wrap her hands, the Anissa I had just interviewed was completely transformed. She forgot about the camera, disconnected from everybody in the gym, and began moving like a boxer — even standing still. Focused in a way I had not seen in the half dozen years I had known her, at that moment — “The Assassin” was back.

Video Credits:
Producer: Amanda E. Gray
Co-Producers: Therese T. Tran and Anne M. Martinez
Cinematographer: Therese T. Tran
Editor: Amanda E. Gray
Colorist/Online: Therese T. Tran
Transcriber: Lizeth Elizondo

Photo Credits:
All photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Except the photo of Zamarron in the ring, which comes from the Women’s Boxing Archive Network

You may also enjoy:
More by Anne Martínez, “Rethinking Borders”
More on women’s athletics: “Title IX: Empowerment Through Education”

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