WEDNESDAY, NOV. 4, 2015 VOLUME 90 ■ ISSUE 42
ARTIST SHOWCASE
VOLLEYBALL
PG. 5
M ATA D O R E X P R E S S
PG. 6
ONLINE
INDEX OPINIONS LA VIDA SPORTS CROSSWORD CLASSIFIEDS SUDOKU
4 5 6 5 5 2
ALUMNI
Trail Blazing and Hell Raising Montemayor leaves mark on Tech, journalism industry By ANDREW GLEINSER
W
Editor-in-ChiEf
hen confronted by an irate reader on the Texas Tech campus who asked if he thought he could “get away with hell,” Robert Montemayor, then-editor of The University Daily, simply replied, “Hell no, I can’t get away with hell. I just raise it.” Montemayor wrote about this exchange in his column on Sept. 11, 1974, during which the irate reader took exception to a previous column Montemayor wrote criticizing President Gerald Ford’s pardon of former president Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal, according to the column. After serving as editor of The UD, now The Daily Toreador, during the 1974-75 academic year, Montemayor went on to a distinguished career in journalism that included a Pulitzer Prize while working for The Los Angeles Times in 1984. He died Oct. 22 at age 62 after a long battle with cancer and diabetes, according to a Tech news release. “It’s just a great loss,” Bill Dean, executive vice president of the Tech Alumni Association, associate professor and former director of student publications, said. “He’s too young to lose somebody with that much talent. He’s too young.” Montemayor grew up in Tahoka and was a first-generation college student, Dean said. He also was the first Hispanic to serve as editor of the Tech student newspaper. “He came from very humble surroundings,” Dean said, “but he was very bright and he wrote very well.” Jeff Klotzman, news anchor at FOX 34 and former staff writer and assistant sports editor at The UD, said Montemayor was proud of where he came from and proud of his culture, and serving as editor of The
COURTESY OF THE COLLEGE OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION
Robert Montemayor speaks at the 2012 ceremony inducting him into the College of Media and Communication’s Hall of Fame at the McKenzie-Merket Alumni Center. Montemayor was the first Hispanic to serve as editor of the Texas Tech student newspaper and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. UD and earning his college degree were important to him. “He was just making incredible advances not only for himself, but I think he also felt he was making incredible advances for his family and incredible advances for his culture,” Klotzman said. “It was a real source of pride for him, and he was battling through what he probably considered a lot of roadblocks to make it happen.” While Montemayor was editor of The UD, he printed a quote on page two of every paper, below the masthead and directly above his name, which read, “It’s this newspaper’s business to raise constructive hell.” Klotzman said this quote was Montemayor’s way of sending a message. “He was sending a message, I think, to the administration, that we’re not going to rubber stamp everything that you do,” he said. “We are going to question, which is what our job is as a member of the journalistic fraternity, and you need to take
us seriously because we are taking ourselves seriously.” In spite of this message, Montemayor maintained a strong relationship with Tech President Grover Murray, Dean said, because he was ethical and professional in how he went about asking the tough questions. Klotzman said Murray was a conservative, no-nonsense academic, and while Montemayor and Murray disagreed on many things, they enjoyed engaging each other intellectually. “If Dr. Murray was here today, he would tell you he had a lot of admiration for what Robert was doing,” he said, “but I think he wished (Montemayor) would probably have played a little bit more within the confines of what he thought was good rules.” During his year as editor, Montemayor wrote a daily column in which he discussed a multitude of things, sometimes including multiple topics in one column. Chuck Lanehart, former staff
COURTESY OF SOUTHWEST COLLECTION/SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY
Robert Montemayor, editor of The University Daily, literally eats his words after writing a column in the Sept. 27, 1974 edition of The UD in which he promised to eat his column if the Texas Tech football team defeated the University of Texas on Sept. 28. Tech won the game 26-3, and Tech quarterback Tommy Duniven watches as Montemayor fulfills his promise. writer for The UD and Montemayor’s lifelong friend, said the columns were popular among students. “Back at that time, everybody read The University Daily,” he said, “and the first thing they turned to was his editorial because there was always something controversial going on.” After Montemayor wrote a story about the streaking phase on campus, in which he did not use the names of the streakers he interviewed, the police wanted to know the sources’ names, but Montemayor refused,
Dean said. This culminated in an incident at a Tech basketball game where Montemayor told Dean an officer was threatening him if he did not reveal the names. Dean said he found the officer and confronted him, defending Montemayor’s right to refuse to give up his sources. The officer then backed off. “From that day forward, Robert and I were a lot closer than we were before,” Dean said.
SEE ALUMNUS, PG. 5
FOOTBALL
West Virginia, Tech series features dramatic games By JEREMY KRAKOSKY Staff Writer
Texas Tech and West Virginia have only played each other three times since the Mountaineers joined the Big 12 Conference, but there has been no lack of drama in that short amount of time. Before West Virginia was in the Big 12, they had played Tech once in school history. The two teams met on New Year’s Day in 1938 for the Sun Bowl, and the Mountaineers walked away with a 7-6 victory, according to the previous article in The Daily Toreador. The two teams did not play each other again until 2012, when West Virginia joined the conference. West Virginia rolled into Lubbock as the No. 4 team in the country, 5-0 with Heisman-hopeful senior quarterback Geno Smith. Tech stunned the undefeated team by jumping out to a 35-7 halftime lead. They never let the Mountaineers back into the game and went on to win 49-14.
FILE PHOTO/The Daily Toreador
Texas Tech running back Justin Stockton slips away from a West Virginia defender during Tech’s 37-34 loss to the Mountaineers on Oct. 11, 2014 at Jones AT&T Stadium. Coach Tommy Tuberville said most people thought the game would not be close, but with West Virginia winning by a large margin. “What a game. Who would have ever thought that that game would
have been pretty much put away going into the fourth quarter,” he said, according to the Tech Athletics website. “Really proud of our players.”
SEE FOOTBALL, PG. 6
SEE THE STORY ON PAGE TWO