The Rise, Fall, and Return of the Texas Cowboys

When the Smoke Cleared

T

hirteen

years

ago

on

a

afternoon, 42 members of the Texas Cowboys, the student organization best known for shooting the cannon at football games, caravanned to a piece of property near Cola Vista Ranch outside of Bastrop , along the banks of the Colorado River. The 14

The Rise, Fall, and Return of the Texas Cowboys

CHRIS CARSON

b y T i m T a l i a f e rr o

Friday

current members there, called Old Men, came to initiate the 28 New Men at what was known as the Cowboy Picnic. As part of the initiation, the New Men were hazed. They were forced to ingest hot dogs covered with tobacco, garlic, and onion. Then they had to run, perform calisthenics until they threw up, and forgo food and water for the day. There was heavy drinking, though boozing was voluntary. Old Men poured beer into the New Men’s floppy Cowboy hats, and the pledges rolled one end into a spigot, got down on a knee, made the Hook ’em Horns sign, and drank until their hat was empty. It was all, according to the participants, lighthearted and fun — a rite of passage.

At the end of the night, per tradition, the Old Men and the New Men retired to separate campsites. At dawn they were to come together as brothers, all of them officially Old Men. But some time in the wee morning hours of Saturday, April 29, 1995, when it was still dark, New Men Cliff Condrey and Gabriel Higgins, both of whom had been drinking, decided to swim. The river there was between 12 and 15 feet deep and flowing strong. The two waded in, and others followed.

When the Old Men heard a ruckus coming from the waterfront, some officers ran to the riverbanks with flashlights and ordered the New Men out of the water. Carter Bechtol, the organization’s Foreman, or president, met the New Men back at their campsite and there took a quick head count. At 2:30 a.m. everyone was present and accounted for, except Gabe Higgins.

Bechtol roused all the Old Men and together they sprinted back to the river, calling out Higgins’ name and trying to convince him that he wasn’t in any trouble — just to come on out and everything would be fine. They searched all along the near riverbank in vain. Figuring he had probably just curled up under a tree and passed out or perhaps hitched a ride home, the Old Men gave up their search and returned to their campsite, worried but hopeful Higgins would turn up in the morning. “Nobody went to bed that night thinking this was no big deal,” says Bechtol, BA ’95, Life Member.

At daybreak, the time when the Old Men and New Men would traditionally come together in celebration, the two parties began a desperate search for their friend. They fanned out across the brushy property looking for him. Some guys crossed the river and searched along the opposite bank. One New Man ran up to the property owner’s house to use the phone and started calling Higgins’ friends in Austin for word of him. As the morning wore on, remembers Bechtol, “It started to dawn on us that unless he came out of the bushes in the next five minutes, this was not going to be good.”

At 11:46 a.m. the Cowboys called the Bastrop County sheriff’s department to report him missing. The sheriff’s department

arrived with officers mounted on horseback, K-9 units, and a swift-water rescue team. Bechtol and the other officers stayed to help with the search. At 4:46 p.m. they watched as divers dragging the river found Higgins’ body 150 yards downstream and pulled it from the fast-flowing current. He had drowned wearing all of his clothes, even his cowboy boots.

Word traveled fast. The news reached Sharon Justice, dean of students, and her boss, Jim Vick, vice president for student affairs, that Sunday afternoon. Both had for some years worried that something like this could happen. They had warned the Cowboys repeatedly about hazing, even placing the group on probation a year before after an Old Man was seen outside a fraternity house using his paddle on a New Man. This was their worst fear realized. The University launched an investigation to determine what happened and whether hazing was involved.

That the Cowboys would be punished seemed a given — the only question was how severely.

When the investigations were completed, the case was brought before the Bastrop County Grand Jury, who deliberated for 15 minutes before deciding to bring no criminal charges against the defendants. The civil suit settled out of court more than a year later for $1,090,000. UT’s investigation uncovered eight hazing violations, four of which were later characterized by a hearing officer as minor and another that was dismissed.

None, though, were determined to have caused Higgins’ death.

There had been much speculation about whether the Cowboys could recover from the incident or whether it might be best to disband the group forever. But on June 12, 1995, Dean Justice announced a five-year suspension, long enough to purge the organization of its entire current membership and start over. “It was one of the most difficult issues in my 15 years as dean,” says Justice. Her decision was appealed but ultimately upheld and went into effect September 1, 1995.

It was a far fall for one of the oldest and most prestigious student organizations on campus, but one long in coming. While the Texas Cowboys of 1995 looked for the most part the same as the Texas Cowboys of 1922 — the black hats, leather chaps, neckerchiefs, and boots — the ’90s version was only a shadow of its former self. The modern Cowboys had strayed from their founders’ original vision, articulated in the motto, “Give the best you have to Texas, and the best will come back to you.” Somewhere along the way — according to many accounts, in the ’80s — the Texas Cowboys had become primarily a social club, and the emphasis on giving to Texas had diminished.

Gabe Higgins’ tragic death gave the Texas Cowboys an occasion to reset, to return to the principles that had made it into one of the most respected groups on campus. Only the Longhorn Band and the Friars Society predate the Cowboys among UT student organizations that still exist today. Perhaps no UT student group can claim as many distinguished and recognizable alumni, or as many who have served the state and University so materially. The rolls read like a Texas Who’s Who: Rooster Andrews, R. Gordon Appleman, Lloyd Bentsen, Jack Blanton, Dolph Briscoe, Earl Campbell, Harley Clark, H. Scott Caven Jr., Peter Coneway, Denton Cooley, Mike Cotten, Doug English, Don Evans, Joe Greenhill, John Hill, Page Keeton, Tom Landry, Thos Law, Wales Madden, Mark McLaughlin, David McWilliams, Joseph Painter, James Saxton, Benno Schmidt, September/October 2008 The Alcalde 31

U T c e nt e r f or a m e rican histor y / b risco e f a m i l y

Charlie Seay, Robert Shirley, Allan Shivers, Sam Sparks, and Bob Strauss, among others in the state’s political, social, athletic, and professional elite.

Today the Cowboys are back, transformed into an organization once again dedicated to service and, perhaps more than ever, drawing from the campus elite. Student government presidents, Daily Texan editors, band leaders, fraternity and organization presidents, athletes, ROTC standouts, and exceptional independents all wear the chaps. Above all, the Texas Cowboys as they exist today possess an acute sense of their own history — pressed upon them by much more watchful alumni — and of how very close they came to extinction by drifting so far from their original charter.

•••

In the spring of 1922, Arno “Shorty” Nowotny, BA ’22, LLB ’25, MA ’32, Life Member, and his buddy Bill McGill, BA ’22, MJ ’23, decided that what The University of Texas really needed was an organization dedicated above all to serving it. Nowotny, then head cheerleader, and McGill, president of the Longhorn Band, were two of UT’s most enthusiastic devotees. Together they picked 40 similarly inclined men who were campus leaders and launched their first meeting in the fall of 1922.

In deciding what to name the organization, Nowotny and McGill culled Texas history for an appropriate archetype. The cowboy was as Texan an icon as existed, a tradition with roots dating back to the Spanish vaqueros who first brought horses and cattle to the New World. The cowboy rode into the American consciousness after the Civil War ended in 1865. Soldiers returning home found massive herds of wild longhorn cattle — by some estimates as many as 10 million head — roaming the Texas countryside. Some of the more industrious men began driving the cattle north to the railheads, and as the cattle industry blos32 The Alcalde September/October 2008

somed so too did the Texas economy. George W. Littlefield, for one, made his first fortune in cattle, which gave rise to a banking fortune, which ultimately accrued to The University of Texas when Littlefield became the University’s biggest donor.

According to legendary UT professor J. Frank Dobie, MA ’18, Life Member, the age of cowboys and cattle drives ended around 1890 with the introduction and proliferation of barbed-wire fences. (It’s true that during the University’s first several years, cattle roamed the Forty Acres, a highly disruptive condition that severely irked the faculty. No wonder then that the University didn’t adopt the Longhorn as its mascot until 1917.) During their heyday, cowboys garnered both widespread respect for their toughness and a reputation for resourcefulness, honesty, and loyalty. In time their image in the popular memory grew, and by 1922, when Nowotny and McGill were starting their organization, the trail-driving exploits of their fathers and grandfathers had soared into legend.

McGill and Nowotny seized on that image to anchor their vision for the Texas Cowboys. They were to be men’s men, committed to Texas and to each other. Their president would be called the Foreman, after the leader of a trail. The vice president was the Straw Boss; the pledge trainer, the Horse Wrangler; the social director, the Camp Cook; the treasurer, the Shotgun. Existing members of the outfit would be called Old Men, while the new guys, or “tender feet” as they were known on trail drives, were named New Men. In one of the organization’s earliest traditions, the New Men demonstrated their loyalty to The University of Texas by having the initials UT branded on their chests. Former Texas governor Dolph Briscoe, BBA ’43, Life Member, remembers that Dick Kleberg, BA ’37, Life Member, an Old Man who was from the family that owned the King Ranch, branded him. “He was gentle on me,” remembers Briscoe. “He didn’t press too hard.”

The process was primitive, as might be expected. The men

went out to a field, started a fire, and set the branding iron in among the coals. When the iron was red-hot, a New Man would take a pull of whiskey, have some friends hold him down, and prepare for the scalding that would forever mark him an orangeblood. The tradition lasted 20 years, as Briscoe’s class in the spring of 1942 turned out to be the last to experience the smell of their own flesh burning beneath the iron.

There are competing theories as to why the branding was stopped. One contends it was halted at the urging of the U.S. military, who noticed the branded initials on World War II enlistees during their physicals and were reluctant to have soldiers with such obvious identifying markers. The other holds that it was the University administration that, after learning of the high infection rate, put a stop to it. One thing is for sure: It was not stopped for lack of willingness on the part of New Men. In fact, once the tradition was discontinued younger Cowboys envied those lucky enough to have been branded. Even today Cowboys will ask heart surgeon Denton Cooley, BA ’41, Life Member, to show them his, and he is more than happy to oblige. In 1972 at the 50-year reunion of the Texas Cowboys some attendees so wanted to brand (or re-brand) themselves that they tried to break into the Alumni Center to steal the iron, which was at the time hanging on a wall inside, but the brigands were caught by the police and sent home. When asked whether he would be branded today, Steve Ballantyne, BA ’72, MBA ’74, Life Member and past president of the Texas Exes, who was among said brigands, answers, “In a second.”

Another of the Texas Cowboys’ early traditions was to function as guardians of pep, stokers of fan élan. During football games, the Cowboys performed stunts and maneuvers on the field, pairing with the Longhorn Band at halftime to form the human UT and sitting behind the band during the game. They hosted the pep rallies, including leading the Torchlight Parade before the Oklahoma game. For March 2 Texas Independence

From left, Cowboys co-founder Arno “Shorty” Nowotny who would go on to become dean of men. The Cowboys in 1923 a year after their founding, with co-founder Bill McGill called out. Future governor Dolph Briscoe proudly shows the scars of the Cowboy brand in 1942. Today, the brand resides with the Texas Exes.

Day parades and the Battle of Flowers parade in San Antonio the Cowboys rode on horseback in their full get-up.

The Cowboys quickly became staples on the campus social scene. No group was more visible. Every spring through the 1970s the Cowboys held a popular minstrel show in Gregory Gym in which they sang, danced, and performed skits (some, to their modern regret, in blackface), all to raise money for charity.

The show often featured some recognizable headliners, including Steve Martin and the Doobie Brothers. Whenever big names came to visit the University the Cowboys attended as symbolic hosts, a Texas-style honor guard. The Cowboys made some visitors into honorary members and presented them the signature black hat, as they did for Paul “Bear” Bryant when he became the head football coach at Texas A&M in 1954. And at the annual Roundup weekend, when ladies from schools all over Texas would come to Austin, they had the pleasure of Texas Cowboys for escorts.

For decades the Cowboys nominated and picked new members internally, rather than selecting from applicants. In fact, until the Cowboys came back on campus, there was no official application at all. It has always been a process by which Alpha males select other Alpha males to join the club, but over the years the selection process has mirrored the Cowboys’ priorities. Early on, the guys selected were enthusiastic UT fans. As the group’s stature rose, so too did the emphasis its members placed on leadership, character, and professional promise. During the ’80s and ’90s social elites in particular were sought after.

Existing members of the Texas Cowboys would nominate someone whom they thought fit the bill. What followed were September/October 2008 The Alcalde 33

rounds of cuts, culminating in a final “knock-down, drag-out” discussion over whom to take, whom to cut, and whom to hold off on until the next semester.

A candidate never knew he was being considered until, if he was lucky enough to be chosen, a posse of Cowboys would show up wherever he was — and at whatever time of day or night it was when the deliberations were finished — to inform him that he was now a Texas Cowboy.

More than anything else, the central idea of the Texas Cowboys was to bring together quality men from different parts of the campus. Many former Cowboys talk about the effect it had on them to find themselves in the same room and the same organization as men they admired. “These were the elite of the elite,” says Ballantyne, who remembers wondering the first time he was put in charge of something, “How am I supposed to lead these guys?” Clarence Bray, BA ’64, LLB ’67, says, “The Cowboys was a group that was high character. They were guys you respected, people whose friendship is now important. That’s what distinguished them from other groups.”

At first Greeks made up a small portion of the incoming New Man classes, but that steadily changed. By the time of Gabe Higgins’ death nearly the entire New Man class came from the fraternity system. So too had an elaborate bid system developed, with each of the major fraternities claiming a “slot” for “their guy.” Selection was no longer the concern of the whole organization, but a decentralized effort whereby the members of each fraternity selected their one New Man. Accordingly, any measure of accountability went by the board, and those knockdown, drag-out discussions became things of the past.

“In my view,” says Vick, “by the early ’90s they were putting forward candidates who were not up to the organization’s reputation.” And the size of new classes were growing to accommodate the proliferation of fraternities and the desire each had for representation. While New Men classes in the ’40s and ’50s ranged in size from 12 to 15, by the ’90s New Men classes had swollen to as high as 30 each semester (though that growth was certainly in proportion to the student body’s).

Most former Cowboys nonetheless pronounce as the defining characteristics of the organization both the high quality of the members and the unique bonding that occurred between them.

Many attribute an old tradition known as “rides” for the bonds’ covalency. The protocol on rides was as follows: Packs of New Men would band together and try to capture an Old Man. Groups of Old Men would respond in kind. The captors would then drive the captured out into the country and unceremoniously drop him on the side of the road or in the woods. Whether he remained in possession of his clothing depended on the captors’ generosity.

Harley Clark, former head cheerleader, and promulgator of the Hook ’em Horns sign, BA ’57, MA ’60, LLB ’62, Life Member, remembers once being taken on a ride out to the old Boat Town 34 The Alcalde September/October 2008

docks on Lake Austin near Tom Miller Dam, where his captors showed neither modesty nor mercy, stripping him of his clothes and tossing him into the lake in the dead of winter.

Certain Old Men, in particular the officers and especially the Foreman, were prime targets of the marauding New Men. One Foreman was so frequently taken on rides that he began sleeping in a different location every night. Some Old Men, on the other hand, were nearly impossible to capture, most notably Tommy Nobis, ’65, Life Member, an All-American football player who was so strong that even five or six New Men couldn’t drag him to the car. “The only time he was ever captured,” remembers Platt Davis, BA ’66, JD ’70, Life Member, “was when a host of fellow football player-Cowboys once ganged up on him.”

Oftentimes even girlfriends became embroiled in the shenanigans. Betty Cotten, BA ’64, Life Member, remembers once coming home from a date with her eventual husband, football player Mike Cotten, BA ’62, LLB ’65, Life Member, who at the time was an Old Man. As he was walking her up the steps to Hardin House they found themselves surrounded by New Men who’d been lying in wait. Little did the New Men know that a girl working the desk at Hardin House, whose boyfriend was an Old Man, recognized the New Men and knew what they were up to. She notified her boyfriend, who quickly organized a separate group of Old Men to ambush the New Men after they sprung their trap on Cotten. “All of a sudden there were these Cowboys everywhere,” remembers Betty. “It was insane.”

How Cowboys found time to pursue a college education amidst the hi jinx is unclear: New Men were required to complete a certain number of rides every week, and on each ride they had to muster a certain number of their fellow New Men in order for it to count. For decades this was the primary method by which New Men spent time with and got to know one another and the Old Men. “There was a bond built that you don’t lose,” explains Kevin Holcomb, BA ’68, JD ’71, Life Member. Though rides were officially stopped when the Cowboys were kicked off campus, still the tradition continues in watered-down form.

Once the New Men are selected at the beginning of the semester one of their first outings is to Texas Hatters in Buda, where they are fitted for their black hats. Typically the New Men will meet at a fraternity house, where waiting Old Men collect their keys, phones, and wallets before driving them to Buda. After all the New Men have been fitted for their hats, they’re directed around to a large shed behind the store and told to line up inside.

The New Men, of course, expect hazing. One of the proprietors of Texas Hatters is in on the joke and so menaces into the shed brandishing a paddle. The ploy is meant to hold up just long enough for the Old Men to get back in their cars and drive off, leaving the New Men stranded and broke.

Of all the Cowboys’ many traditions, the initiation rite ironically termed “Picnic” counted among the least pleasant. Before

the Cowboys were banished from campus, the Cowboy Picnic was the event where New Men became Old Men, and it had always been held at the end of the semester. Before Gabe Higgins died at his, the last, Picnic — and indeed even long before that — the hazing that accompanied the Picnic had steadily tamed. In the early days Old Men carried paddles of the sort school principals used to wield, and part of the Picnic involved Old Men paddling the New Men. The New Men were made to run through what was called “the gauntlet,” two lines of Old Men facing each other. As each New Man ran between the lines, he’d be whacked from both sides. “They beat the hell out of us,” laughs Harley Clark. In an activity called “Circle Up,” the New Men would form a circle and each Old Man would have a lick at each New Man, who stood facing inward while his rear-end took the blows. Sometimes the Old Men hit hard and sometimes it was just a tap, but the rule of thumb was that if blood showed through a New Man’s jeans he was exempt from any further paddling.

Also as part of Circle Up, New Men would hold hands in the circle and an Old Man carrying what was called “the Bee,” basically a car battery with a live wire attached to it, would press the wire against one New Man, sending a shock to the rest of his brethren by way of their connected hands, a closed circuit.

Sometimes the Bee was turned on an individual New Man, who was made to lie down while Old Men ran the wire along his skin, causing him to squirm as the voltage jolted his limbs. “It sounds cruel, but it wasn’t,” says Ballantyne. Sometimes Old Men carried cattle prods, which they used to urge on New Men performing calisthenics. The New Men endured these activities willingly and sometimes even enthusiastically. “Your time as a hazer would came later,” adds Clark, “so it all evened out.” At the end of the Picnic, the New Men, now full-fledged Cowboys, received their chaps and paddle. Afterward they could return to Texas Hatters to have their hats properly shaped at last.

••• In 1954 the Texas Cowboys introduced two traditions that have since come to define them. First the group began a philanthropic and volunteer partnership with the ARC, at the time known as the Austin Council for Retarded Children. The Cowboys raised money for the ARC, and New Men were required to volunteer each week at the Rosedale School, the Austin I.S.D.’s facility for students with severe disabilities. On occasion the Cowboys would invite students from the Rosedale School to attend a football game and join them on the field at halftime. The pairing with the ARC in turn gave rise to other traditions still in practice today, including the annual Harvest Moon concert in the fall and the Cowboy Barbecue in the spring. The proceeds of both activities go to the ARC, and since 1954 the Cowboys have

raised more than $250,000.

The second tradition to start in 1954 was the firing of Smokey the Cannon. The original Smokey, designed and built by the School of Engineering, can hardly be described as anything more than a glorified firecracker launcher, a black metal cylinder that swiveled on an axle and had two small wheels. It fired a twostage aerial bomb, which the Cowboys detonated when the football team scored and which exploded twice over the stadium in loud, lovely, dramatic fashion. The cylinder had a small hole in its side near the base where the fuse stuck out and could be lit, but since it did not lend itself to rapid fire it did not commemorate points-after-touchdown.

There’s some contention as to how Smokey I met its demise.

One version of the events has the Aggies stealing the cannon and tossing it into Lake Austin. The competing version holds that near the end of the game against Texas A&M in 1954, held at Texas Memorial Stadium, the game had reached the point where it was clear that Texas was going to win. Preston “Peppy” Dial, BA ’54, LLB ’54, Life Member, who was on cannon duty that game, remembers loading the bomb into Smokey in anticipation of the final whistle. After it blew, Dial lit the bomb and stepped back. Meanwhile the fans had descended onto the field and, as he tells it, “an obese woman wearing a maroon and white corsage” walked up to the cannon and kicked it over, just before the bomb was about to go off. When it did, it shot into the crowd and exploded directly between the then-speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Reuben Senterfitt, LLB ’40, and his very pregnant wife. “I know for certain the Aggies never stole the original Smokey,” says Dial. “I virtually committed suicide with it.”

Concerned that it was unsafe, the University silenced Smokey after the incident. They sent it back to the School of Engineering and told the engineers to improve upon the prototype. They did, and it resumed firing at games in 1955. Smokey II debuted in 1968, a much easier to load and much safer to fire, short-barreled cannon that shot a blank 10-gauge shotgun shell. After UT’s relatively lackluster 1967 football season, Coach Darrell Royal called the Cowboys into his office one day, concerned with what he perceived as low fan enthusiasm at the games. Royal told the Cowboys to fire the cannon as often as they wanted — after any good play Texas made. The next season, the Cowboys put Smokey II through its paces, firing not only after every touchdown and quarter change but every Texas first down or fourthdown defensive stop. The fans and the team responded, and thus followed the winningest run in Texas football history, with six consecutive conference championships and two national titles.

The third and current cannon, Smokey III, a six-foot long, half-ton Civil-War replica, replaced Smokey II in 1989. It shoots five blank 10-gauge shotgun shells, and recently its primitive mechanical firing pin was replaced with an electronic trigger.

The Cowboys transport Smokey in their own truck and trailer to any away game at which the opposing team approves its atSeptember/October 2008 The Alcalde 35

tendance. (It couldn’t make the trip meetings. Since the Cowboys came to the Rose Bowl because Pasaback in 2000, they quite cleverly dena County has a ban on machine have established a new tradition of guns, which is how it is registered.) naming 10-15 junior girls as CowBefore the installation of the elecboys Sweethearts, meaning they are tronic trigger, it cost the Cowboys being considered for the position about $16 every time they shot the of Sweetheart the coming year and cannon. Now it’s down to about $8 thereby encouraging the dozen or a shot. so junior beauties to spend a year When the Cowboys were kicked attending Cowboys functions and off campus in 1995, Smokey’s fate acquainting the members with their was at first uncertain. By then it charm. had become part and parcel of football game pomp, and fans ••• were reluctant to see it disappear

with the Cowboys or be silenced In the tale of the Texas Cowboys’ while the Cowboys served time. return to campus, Jim Vick plays a Several campus organizations central role. Even though it was he lined up to fire the cannon, includwho had been warning the CowUT Vice President Jim Vick in the 1990s ing ROTC, APO, and various other boys for years to curtail the hazing, spirit groups. Dean Justice was and even though it was he who reinin favor of having the Orange Jackets work Smokey. At one stated Dean Justice’s five-year suspension after it was reduced point the administration even entertained the idea of having

by Gaylord Jentz, a hearing officer, to three years plus one of a rotating schedule where a different group fired the cannon probation, it was also he who championed the Cowboys’ comeat each game. back and took it upon himself to remake the organization acBut as soon as former Cowboy Mike Perrin, BA ’69, JD ’71, cording to Nowotny’s original vision.

“The Cowboy membership was not representative of the Life Member, heard about Gabe Higgins’ death, he personUniversity as a whole,” says Vick. “It was too concentrated in ally bought the cannon from the Cowboys, in part to protect Greek, and there was too much automatic selection.” He stipuit against any punishment the University administration might lated that at least one third of each New Man class had to come mete out and any lawsuits that might arise. The 1995-96 football from outside the fraternity system, and that at least some efseason was set to be the last of the Southwest Conference. “I forts be made to diversify the overwhelmingly white, wealthy was fearful that the Cowboys might not come back, and I didn’t membership. An official application procedure would have to want the Southwest Conference to vanish without Smokey,” be set up, and his office would check candidates’ records for says Perrin, a former football player. “And I wanted Smokey to academic dishonesty or discipline problems. They would need be a tradition in the Big 12.”

Perrin called Knox Nunnally, BBA ’65, LLB ’68, Life Mema 2.5 GPA or better to be considered. And alumni and member, his old college friend and former Silver Spur, to see if the bers of the administration would participate in interviewing Spurs would be interested in firing the cannon. “It’s a big recandidates.

The Texas Cowboys Alumni Association, founded just days sponsibility, and I wanted an organization that had experience after Gabe Higgins died, threw its support behind the proposwith a truck and a trailer. The Spurs tow Bevo, so I knew they als. Less than a year into the suspension, members of the Cowcould handle Smokey,” says Perrin. He leased the cannon to boy alumni association began meeting with Vick to talk about Nunnally and the Spurs for five years, charging them $1 a year. the process of bringing the Cowboys back. “We started meeting At the end of the Cowboys’ suspension, Smokey would return over lunch, and I was impressed with their people,” says Vick. to the Cowboys’ possession. There was some outcry from the “We built a fairly good working relationship.” When the fall of student groups bidding to fire the cannon and from some in the 2000 rolled around, Vick, the Cowboy alumni, and members of administration who were not consulted before the deal was the UT faculty and staff selected the first class. More than half struck, but ultimately Vice President Vick gave the arrangewere independents. ment his blessing.

A third tradition that started in1954 was the selecting of a In the semesters since, alumni, administrators, and faculty Cowboy Sweetheart, the lone female member of the outfit. The have continued to participate in the interviewing, though not Sweetheart wears the same uniform as the Old Men, and she is the actual selecting, of candidates. Independents continue elected for a one-year term by a vote of all the members. She to make up at least one-third of each class, sometimes more. tends to be a beautiful, engaging, enthusiastic senior who loves But the old slot system has to some extent returned. “There the Cowboys and the University. She is treated reverentially, is a more disciplined approach to identifying quality people,” as something near a goddess, and it can be observed that typisays Platt Davis. “It reaches corners of the school that the selfcally the veneration is quite well deserved. In the past the New perpetuating method didn’t reach. But,” he adds, “I sat in on a Men took turns picking up the Sweetheart and escorting her to recent selection and was amazed at how similar it was to when 36 The Alcalde September/October 2008

I was Foreman in 1966, especially with the Greeks.”

With the much higher percentage of independents in the organization, there exists a mild to moderate tension between Greeks and independents, never overt but always present, a quiet and ongoing power play. The undercurrent tends to emerge most pointedly during elections, when, generally, independents vote for other independents to hold officer positions and Greeks vote for Greeks. This on the overall impression that many independents have of themselves as competent, driven, and less susceptible to the demands of ego, and on the impression many Greeks have of themselves as savvy, connected, and entitled.

The dual nature of the organization in some ways mirrors its own conflicted personality, a constant balancing act between the impulses toward a professed commitment to service and an aspiration for social standing. Nowhere does this dichotomy emerge clearer than in planning for the annual Harvest Moon Concert. In general, Greeks who organize the concert strive for big names, big venues, and will stomach more overhead costs, while independents are more willing to settle for smaller names and cheaper venues for the sake of net funds raised.

••• Each semester on a weekday afternoon, most current Texas Cowboys and a host of former Cowboys gather in the confines of the Alumni Center’s Legends Room for a reception. Men in the second semester of their sophomore year or later who are interested in becoming Texas Cowboys are invited to meet some of the guys in the organization and hear a bit about it.

After a while, former Cowboy Sam Bradshaw, BS ’57, Life Member, heads to the microphone and beckons the aspiring New Men to seats reserved for them in the front.

The 30-minute program that follows has one purpose: to shock and awe the candidates. Chanse McLeod, BBA ’88, Life Member, the current president of the Cowboy alumni association, mentions the organization’s proud tradition and rich history. He says there are four qualities they’re looking for: scholarship, leadership, character, and service — the essence of the Cowboys. Then he passes out two double-sided pieces of paper, listing the names of former Cowboys who have served in state or national office, have been on the UT System Board of Regents, were All American football players, or were inducted in the Longhorn Hall of Honor. It’s an impressive list.

A word from vice president of student affairs Juan González on integrity before Bradshaw introduces federal judge Sam Sparks, BA ’61, LLB ’63. Sparks says that when he enrolled in 1957, he was Plan II, a Delt, and a varsity athlete. “But it was

not until I became a Cowboy that I found the spirit organization that would last a lifetime,” he says. Of the 17 guys in his New Man class in 1959, he says, five became doctors, three lawyers, two mayors, and one head of a UT medical school. There was one PGA golfer, two football players, one baseball player, and two swimmers. When he became Foreman he got a phone call from former governor Allan Shivers, BA ’31, LLB ’33, Life Member, inviting him to breakfast, and when Sparks arrived he found not just Gov. Shivers, but also Lloyd Bentsen, LLB ’42, and Texas attorney general Joe Greenhill, BBA ’36, BA ’36, LLB ’39, Life Member, waiting for him. “They just wanted to know how the Texas Cowboys were getting along,” says Sparks.

When Bradshaw gets back to the mic he relates the story of the Texas Cowboys Pavilion, one of the only structures on campus named for a student organization. In late 2003 the Texas Cowboys agreed to raise the $1.2 million needed to build a pavilion on the Alumni Center grounds. The catch was the Cowboys had to raise the whole amount before 2004 in order to start construction before 2005. In a stunning demonstration of the wealth, commitment, and generosity of Texas Cowboys alumni, the fundraising committee managed to raise the entire amount in less than 90 days. “We raised the last $500,000 in December alone,” says Jerry Grammer, BA ’69, Life Member, who chaired the effort. “We got two $50,000 gifts on New Year’s Eve to put us over the top.” The Cowboys ultimately went on to raise another $2.5 million by August 2007 for the creation of an endowment to offset the costs of maintaining Smokey and endow student scholarships with the Texas Exes, including the Gabriel Higgins Memorial Scholarship.

For the finale, Bradshaw brings up Harley Clark. “I’m going to take you on a little trip to Mexico in 1521,” Clark tells the crowd, stretching back to the days of Cortez and then racing forward through 400 years of history, during which wild longhorn cattle propagate and Spanish horse handlers teach white men how to ranch, all the way to the founding of the Texas Cowboys. The land between San Antonio and Mexico City, he says, was full of nothing but thorns, and so vaqueros used to wrap their legs in leather chaps for protection. The vaqueros took pride in their chaps, he says, adding that to wear chaps today as a Texas Cowboy should engender the same feeling of pride in you all. “Join this outfit,” he says, “and you join your place in history.”

———— Tim Taliaferro, BA ’05, former associate editor of The Alcalde, will enter graduate school at Northwestern University this fall.

He is a Texas Cowboys alumnus, New Man 2003.

September/October 2008 The Alcalde 37