Tilting at Windmills

Blogging inspirado comes from various sources. Rehashing UT’s litany of arrests and thugs isn’t really news, but when our friends at Barking Carnival feel the need to dig up 20 and 30-year-old OU arrests and thugs, we at TaW feel obligated to respond in kind.

So, in response to BC’s “Oklahoma All-Garbage Team,” we present to you the Texas All-Garbage Team.”

We already posted our retort to the Sooners that BC chose to include. (Actually, Blevins was a nice inclusion, we’ll give you that one. Odds are 90-10 the entire Sooner fanbase will agree with you there.) The only reason it took me a couple of days to come up with the Texas version, instead of a couple of hours, is that there is so much Longhorn asshattery to wade through. It was hard to pare down the list. I mean, really … do I go with Ron McKelvey or Tyrell Gatewood at safety? Does Ricky Williams start ahead of Cedric Benson, or do I say fuck it and run the veer?

One thing you’ll notice about the list is that most of these UT players are from THIS decade. I didn’t have to go back very far, although there were a couple of gems from a ways back that tasted like special, delicious sauce and were too good to pass up. What we ended up with was almost enough players for UT to hold an intra-squad scrimmage. Unfortunately, a lot of these guys aren’t allowed to associate with other known felons, so that will never happen.

This post is long enough as it is, so it will only include footballers. Steroid-abusing asshole Roger Clemons will not be mentioned. Nor will domestic abusing basketballer Jason Klotz, drunkard basketball coach Tom Penders, drunkard baseball coach Auggie Garrido, or sleazebag corporate defense attorney Joe Jamail.

I’m sure I’m leaving some people out, so feel free to include your own below.

So, all of that out of the way, fellow Sooners and our welcomed guests from all corners of the Interwebs, I give you … the Texas All-Garbage Team:

Quarterback

1st team – No brainer: Vince Young. We all know as we move through life that after the applause comes the reality. Sorry the people of Tennessee didn’t line up to swallow your choad everytime you walked through a shopping mall, Vince. Did the NFL turn out to be actual work? Did people actually start critquing your work? At least next time you’re so distraught that you embarrass a 13-year-old girl, we’ll know where to find you – at your friend’s house eating chicken wings and watching football. Your mama says you just need “a lot of love and support.” Apparently, that’s mama’s code phrase for “my welcoming bosom.” While you’re cuddled up with her, see if she can help you with your throwing motion, Vince.

2nd team – Matt Nordgren. You thought I was going to say Chris Simms, right? Not even little Chrissy’s all-world talent could match Nordgren’s rocket arm that, upset at not getting playing time earlier in the day, fired a UT student’s cell phone through a few practice tires after said student wouldn’t yield a drop-off spot outside Jester Center at 3:30 a.m. in the fall of 2003. Apparently Nordgren had his feelings hurt (see a theme here?) because he didn’t get any playing time earlier in the day. Further pissing him off was that the aggrieved UT student wasn’t impressed by Nordgren’s Lexus SUV (let that simmer), with DB Cedric Griffin’s gold teeth in the passenger’s seat playing willing accomplice.

Carrying a clipboard – Chris Simms. After decommitting from Tennessee to play for the Horns (how doe$$$ that happen, anway?), Simms went on to star in Teddy Lehman’s and The Great Roy Williams’ personal highlight reels for a couple of years. Simms went 0-fer against Oklahoma and seemed to have more interceptions returned for touchdowns than he did actual passing scores. That’s why he’s holding the clipboard on this team: if there’s some way, any way, we can get Chris Simms back on the field or at least coaching those who are in the OU-TX game, I’m all for it.

Graduate assistant – Peter Gardere, he of beating OU four times (approximately 15% of his total wins as a starter over four years) and marrying banging rich Westlake skanks cougars broads fame, was pulled over in downtown Austin for DUI in 2007.

Top incoming recruit – Ryan Perrilloux didn’t set foot on campus, but apparently that didn’t matter on the OU AGT. He was supposedly the crown jewel of Mack’s 2004 recruiting class, but did a 180 on signing day and stayed in state to play for Les Miles. Don’t kid yourselves, Longhorns: it’s not that you didn’t want Perrilloux; he didn’t want you. Mack and UT fans were drawn like mosquitos to a bug-zapper to Perrilloux’s now-defunct www.ryan11.com website, which listed all of his high school accomplishments and was a celebration of everything Ryan. After he got to LSU, it didn’t take long for trouble to, er, find him. Miles suspended him “indefinitely” in May 2007 for trying to use his brother’s ID to get into a casino. “Indefinite” turned out to be three months as Perriloux was starting by September. In October, he got into a bar fight with some other LSU players and was subsequently suspended for one game (the others involved in the fight were kicked off the team). The following February (2008), Perrilloux was “indefinitely suspended” again for “violating team rules.” Supposedly those rules had nothing to do with anything outside the football program. Tell that to the feds, though, who had been looking into him for more than a year for his part in a counterfeiting ring (allegedly).

Running back

1st team – Ricky Williams. How’s that draft workin out for ya, Ditka? How’s that Nepalese blonde hash workin’ out for you, Ricky?

Admittedly, he was one of the best college running backs I’ve ever seen. But as good of a runner as he was, he was just as much (if not more) of a fruit. Apparently the rigors of having to earn his paycheck proved to be too much.

“Playing in the National Football League, you’re told, you know, where to be, when to be there, what to wear, how to be there.”

Ricky quit the NFL before news of his third failed drug test came out. Apparently he didn’t care that he was liable to the Dolphins for millions in signing bonus money they wanted back because what did he do with his time off? He moved to an RV park in Australia and read a lot. Presumably he eschewed the cheeba so he could come back and make the millions he pissed away. Well, not so much.

This guy’s one of the biggest waste of talents in NFL history, but surprisingly enough, he almost didn’t make the first unit on the Texas AGT.

2nd team – Cedric Benson. You could almost say Ced the Head is on the 1a team. Benson had already been busted for pot and the innocuous-sounding “criminal trespass” in 2003. The latter was actually when he and a couple of his boys rolled up at some girl’s apartment and busted down her door looking for his stolen (allegedly) plasma TV. He was sentenced to jail time, but as luck would have it, the Travis County Jail had no vacancies and he was free go to. Being the strict discplinarian that he is, Mack punished him further by suspending him for the Baylor game. In 2008, Benson apparently couldn’t use his NFL millions to hire a boat driver at Devil’s Cove on Lake Travis and was arrested for boating while intoxicated. Benson said he wasn’t drunk and thought he passed all of the field sobriety tests, which included saying his A-B-Cs, a challenging feat for him even if he was sober.

“They gave me a field sobriety test, told me to say my ABCs and told me to count from 1 to 4 up and down,” Benson told the Chicago Tribune. “I’m thinking, I passed all the tests, did everything right.”

He resisted arrest and eventually had to be pepper-sprayed in order to be subdued. How did he respond? He got arrested for DUI again two months later in downtown Austin, near the Rainbow Cattle Company, a popular gay nightclub at 5th and Lavaca (just sayin).

Given all that, yeah … it’s a wonder Benson didn’t make the first team on this list. The reason he didn’t was, in actuality, he was a gutless, overhyped running back.

3rd team – Edwin Simmons. Here’s another guy who almost deserved first-team honors if it wasn’t for that little thing called lack of talent. He once had a lot of promise and even had a great game against OU one year, but he lost it when he went off-tackle with some UT alum’s wife in 1987. Austin Police arrested a naked and stoned Simmons in somebody’s West Austin yard.

Reserves – Selvin Young and James Henry. Young worked himself into the defensive bong rotation in 2003, arrested for pot along with half of the UT defense (see below). Henry was a real winner, of “bitches must be kicked” infamy. In 2007, he was arrested for defending the honor of a teammate, Robert Joseph, who was already in jail for robbery (allegedly). Henry was outed courtesy of an overheard phone call at the Travis County Jail, teaching both he and Joseph that the jail phones are tapped. You learn something new every day.

Fullback – Because everybody needs a battering ram to make a hole, may I present fullback Brock Edwards. In 2002, Edwards was sentenced to 2 years probation, 200 hours of community service and ordered to pay $5,700 in restitution for a fraternity fight where he punched a guy, knocking him out, then kicking him in the face when he was on the ground. Dude, if I ever need to get three yards, I want Brock leading the way.

Wide receiver

1st team – Ramonce Taylor (Texas AGT MVP). If you thought Benson and Henry were fun, you’ll love this guy. Taylor was arrested with four pounds of pot in his native Temple, TX in 2006. Lucky for him, it didn’t weigh more than five, else the charge would have been upgraded (items tend to settle during shipping). Naturally, Taylor’s attorney said he was just holding it for a friend. Mack took a hard line and dismissed Taylor from the team, but not for the pot charge. Rather, he cited academics. Taylor made it academic after doing two months, then getting busted again for pot possession in 2008. Realizing that Taylor was really just a misguided kid who “is like a piece of coal … If you put enough pressure on him he can become a diamond,” the court suspended his two-year sentence. Taylor served five months.

2nd team – We get a two-fer here: Mike Adams and Lovell Pinkney. Adams was an ultra-talented wideout who, in 1994, was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend. It’s amazing he had the strength to do it since, just two months prior, he was stabbed by UT basketball player Al Segova during an altercation. Adams also slugged a cop on Sixth Street while in school at UT, but I digress.

When Adams was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend, who was holding her down? Lovell Pinkney. That’s right, the same Lovell Pinkney who admittedly made 30 grand selling crack when he was 16 years old.

Pinkney and Adams were also investigated for the free use of a rental car, but after assaulting cops and selling crack, this seemed so insignificant that it just went away.

3rd team – Myron Hardy. He was arrested in 2005 for pulling a switchblade in a fight at Seventh and San Jacinto in downtown Austin.

Tight end

This position was pretty scarce in my research, but we can approach this a couple of ways to alleviate any issues:

• Move Pinkney to TE. He was pretty big and based on the incident with Adams girlfriend, good at holding people up (or down) if he has to stay in to block.
• Run the spread with no tight end. UT pretty much has to do it these days anyway since they have no TE.

Offensive line

Going for quality over quantity here. If nothing else, since we have so many skill position players already, we could just take this team and run Leach’s Ninja formation.

1st team – BucKKK Burnette. I know lots of people from Wimberley and “racist” can’t be applied to a single one of them. Obviously, none of them are Buck Burnette, a backup center who Mack booted from the team in 2008 for posting a racist epithet on his Facebook page just after President Obama’s election:

“all the hunters gather up, we have a #$%&er in the whitehouse”

BucKKK subsequently came out and said how sorry he was for putting it on a public site and for just repeating what somebody else had told him. He failed to apologize for being a racist, though. At least I think that’s what he meant with his Facebook status. I assume he didn’t censor “Sooner.”

2nd team – Stan Thomas. This genius thought it would be a great idea to taunt Miami before the Horns met them in the 1991 Cotton Bowl. Among the gems he fired off:

• Taking Russell Maryland’s Outland Trophy away from him
• Compared attending a barbecue to Canes being in prison (not sure of the logic here, but he’s on a roll – let him go)
• He wanted “the first play to last five minutes because I’m going to hit everybody.”
• He predicted Texas would win 28-10

Let’s just say that didn’t sit well with Miami. They had 16 penalties (nine for unsportsmanlike conduct) for 203 yards and face-raped the Horns, 46-3. Texas AGT graduate assistant QB Peter Gardere was sacked eight times, three of them by Maryland, who abused … Stan Thomas – all day long.

3rd team – Mike Williams. The posterboy for fatass linemen turned out by the moobs-laden Maddog Madden, Williams is considered by the Buffalo Bills to be the biggest bust in the history of their organization. Williams was 6’6″, 375 when he was the #4 pick in the draft and signed a $10.5 million bonus. His ankle joints understandably started failing in his rookie season, causing him to miss a few games. The next year he began missing workouts and only started five of nine games before his back said “enough” and he lost his job to a converted tight end.

Maddog’s name in Project Mayhem was “Robert Paulson.”

Defensive line

1st team – Andre Jones. This genius was busted in 2007 for assisting in the robbery with Robert Joseph (see below), which subsequently led to James Henry kicking some bitches (see above).

2nd team – Henry Melton. Before he was a fat defensive end, he was known as UT’s fat running back who could get you three yards and an oxygen tank. Melton’s DWI bust in downtown Austin was just a part of the Longhorn Summer of Love in 2007.

3rd team – Lamarr Houston. He was arrested for DUI when he drunkenly wrecked his car in downtown Austin last fall. Mack was torn about suspending him for the UTEP game.

Honorable Mentions

Stonie Clark. After James Allen stopped juking ghosts, Stonie Clark opened his big arms and bear-hugged the Sooner tailback on the goalline to preserve a Texas win in 1994. Clark became a Longhorn legend and parlayed that one play into a lucrative skeezy career selling cars on the Austin Motor Mile.

Larry Dibbles. He was in the car with Selvin Young (see above), Edorian McCullough and Aaron Harris (see below) when the Brazos County Task Force stopped them and did a “well, looky here!” with the weed they were packing.

Linebacker

1st team – Sergio Kindle. He’ll be on the DL this fall, but he was a linebacker when he was busted for DWI in Austin.

2nd team – Aaron Harris. Harris was the rocket surgeon who tipped police off to the pot in the car when he, Tyrell Gatewood and Tarrell Brown (see below) were arrested.

Top incoming recruit – Chris Collins. The only reason Collins isn’t on the first team is because Mack finally had to cut him loose, or else. Collins was sentenced in 2007 for the aggravated sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl when he was 17. Collins admitted to police that he had sex with the intoxicated girl in Room 207 of the Comfort Suites in Texarkana at an after-prom party. After Mack was forced to cut him loose, Mike Gundy’s humanitarian streak kicked in and he welcomed him to the Payne County lockup Oklahoma State football team in Stoolwater.

Defensive back

If you’ve made it this far, get comfortable. The Texas AGT is absolutely loaded in the secondary (pun intended).

1st team – Ron Weaver (a.k.a. McKelvey). First team status here really means something and Ron McKelvey’s story is one of my favorite Longhorn schadenfreudes of all time. McKelvey (that was his UT name, so I’m going with it) began his football career as Ron Weaver the wide receiver at Monterey Peninsula College in 1984, then went to Sacramento State in 1988. By the time he got to Mackovic’s Longhorns in 1995, he was a 30-year-old defensive back, still clinging to glory like Uncle Rico wistfully throwing a football over a mountain. He’s best known (athletically) for getting burned on a long touchdown in a 48-7 win against Tech, costing the Longhorns a shutout.

2nd team – Another two-fer: Tyrell Gatewood and Tarrell Brown. Only a real-life Wooderson could knock these two out of the starting spot. Brown was arrested in 2006 with Gatewood and Harris (see above) at 3 a.m. on I-35. Brown gets special recognition for, unlike the other two, having a loaded 9-mil in his lap. Gatewood makes the team for having multiple arrests. His second bust was with Ben Wells (see below) when police found pot, xanax and a baby bottle full of codeine cough syrup.

3rd team – Robert Joseph. Really? The guy charged with aggravated robbery at an East Austin apartment complex is THIRD team?!? I told you the secondary was stacked. Joseph was arrested with Dre Jones (see above).

Honorable mention

Edorian McCullough. One of the Madisonville 4, he was arrested with Dibbles, Harris and Young (see above).

Ben Wells. Arrested with Tyrell Gatewood (see above) in, you guessed it, 2007 for possession of drug paraphernalia.

Kicker

Russell Erxleben. He once set an NCAA record with a 67-yard field goal in 1977. He was also a three-time All-American punter, so the guy had really good feet. He’s also a sneaky, thieving motherfucker. In 2000, Erxleben was convicted of running a Forex ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of close to $33 million. He plead guilty and was and sentenced to 84 months in prison (that’s 7 years, if you’re into the math thing). He was ordered to pay $28 million in restitution and fined another mil on top of that.

Coaches

1st team – Mack Brown (MacIII). Might as well grab the low-hanging fruit. With teeth yellower than a baby’s stool and a voice that’s a dead ringer for Mr. Haney on Green Acres, Brown has exactly one (1) conference championship in 25 years as a head coach. It does so happen that in that conference title year he got a national championship, as well, but that was also in 2005 and if you’re doing the timeline math with the above-referenced arrests, you’ll see how desperate he was to get one. Mack coddles when he thinks his players need a hug, he claps when you do poorly, he answers questions for Chris Simms at press conferences and he makes excuses like “we didn’t throw because it was too windy” and “we didn’t lose, we just ran out of time.” He’s a living legend in the UT community, which only goes to show that it doesn’t take much.

2nd team – John Mackovic (MacII). Even UT fans will tell you he’s a douche. He’d rather have a nice Pinot than a Shiner and he sure didn’t like to coach defense. Ask UCLA, who came into Austin for the infamous Route 66. MacII also lost to Rice and John Blake. That speaks for itself.

3rd team – David McWilliams (MacI). McWilliams was just barely over .500 in five years (’87-’91) at the helm, with only two of them winning seasons. He also went to just two bowl games, winning only the Bluebonnet in ’87. He was 1-4 against A&M.

Honorable Mention – Darrell K. Royal. I would have put him higher on the list, but he is from Hollis, Oklahoma afterall. DKR will forever hold the ignominious distinction of coaching the last all-white national championship team in 1969. He resigned from coaching in 1976 after Barry Switzer was kicking 100% of his ass every year using Texas players – black Texas players who thought they wouldn’t be given much of a shot at UT. Because the UPI awarded their national champion before the bowl games, DKR’s 1970 title has an asterisk next to it.

Our friends over at Barking Carnival thought it would be a great idea to come up with an Oklahoma All-Garbage team, pointing out trouble players at various positions and making a team out of them.

For their target audience, it was a fairly well-written and funny piece that made for a nice off-season story. The impetus was that it has been 20 years since CT was on the cover of SI in an orange, Cleveland County jumpsuit. With that backdrop, this submittal was pretty clever. Kudos.

There were just a couple of problems, though:

1. We Sooners were probably thinking “Yeah, they’ll bring up Buster Rhymes and Stanley Wilson. We know we know.” Actually, no. The article is poorly researched by what appears to be a young 20-something who did nothing but scan the SI article, then throw in Chaisson and Granger to spice it up.
2. Really, Texas? You really want to play the “all-arrest” team? Fine, I’ll play your game, you rogue.

Before listing enough Longhorn arrestees and asshats to fill out a two-deep, Orange-White game scrimmage roster, I want to address the first point above. If you’re going to go with an all-douchebag team (or whatever your criteria was), do a little research. Look, man, any number of us could have helped you fill out this roster. Despite your perceptions, we know our flaws and readily admit that yeah … Joe Don Looney was fucking cray-cray, but he was our guy. Never heard of Joe Don? My point exactly.

Since you admittedly said you’re so young you’ve only been following football for 20 years, it’s understandable (and also obvious from the article without you even telling us) why you’d miss so much low-hanging fruit like Kerry Jackson, Buster Rhymes, Marcus Dupree, Stanley Wilson, Jamelle Holieway (seriously, you missed Jamelle and put Brent Rawls on there instead??), Darryl Hunt … I’ll stop before my Sooner brethren start stringing me up. Just know, fellow Sooners, that I’m not trying to bag on our own guys, but just wanting to help this kid out with his research because he obviously only flipped through the old SI a bit before he logged into his WordPress account, using the password “itsfiveoclockandoustillsuckshahaha.”

It never gets old

Then you think it’s clever to include Keenan Clayton and Jermaine Gresham for what amounts to parking tickets. Srsly? Hell, go ahead and throw me on your team then. It took me a couple of months past the due date before I remembered to pay that $4.00 tollway bill I got. TxDOT slapped me with a $5.00 late charge on top of it. Can I play kicker?

Addressing point two above – really, you want to play this game? I guess 2007 just magically didn’t happen in Austin. I’m glad you were able to dig up Billy Sims, who played 30 years ago (not three, like Ramonce Taylor). Oh, by the way … if the best thing you could dig up on Billy was his performance at Sam Bradford’s Heisman ceremony (which I thought kicked major ass, Billy!), you totally failed on your Sims research.

I’m just the messenger here, Billy. You can BOOMA! whenever you want to, my man!

We’ll soon post our own compilation of similar Texas transgressions, going position-by-position.

Several Austin businesses and retailers have decided to shutter their doors and eschew profits this weekend for fear of the crowds and subsequent revenue generated by the annual 82nd annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays.

I agree – that doesn’t make sense.

For those outside the state of Texas, or who just don’t follow the event, the Texas Relays is one of the premier track and field competitions in the country. The meet is legendary: Knute Rockne was the meet’s referee in 1929. Held every year in mid-April at Mike Myers Stadium (e.g., mini-DKR), the spectacle reels in some of the top track and field talent in the world. Virginia Tech’s Queen Harrison, who ran the 400-meters for the U.S. Olympic squad, is at this year’s event. World 100m and 200m champion Tyson Gay (who currently holds the American 100m record at 9.77 seconds) anchored the fastest 4x100m relay team of the day in the prelims. Three-time Olympic gold medalist and four-time world champion Jeremy Wariner blistered the track with a 45.2 anchor leg for his team’s 4x400m relay.

The Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates 40,000 people will attend the event, generating an estimated $8 million in revenue for the city. As proof that Austin is also the Live Music Capitol of the World, the annual Urban Music Festival will showcase Boyz II Men, Cameo and the Sugar Hill Gang this weekend, too, meaning there are likely thousands more who might not necessarily attend the Relays, but will definitely go see Larry Blackmon’s codpiece.

So, why would Sixth Street clubs like Emo’s and the Flamingo Cantina, and the huge shopping complex Highland Mall, decide to close rather than rake in fistloads of cash over the next few days?

If you have any wherewithal about you, you’ve probably figured out the predominant ethnic makeup of the estimated 40,000 people: African-American.

Before knee-jerking and going willy-shrilly at even the slightest hint that something may be biased because of someone’s race (read: racist), know that some of these business owners have a point.

In those businesses’ defense, the Texas Relays weekend can be a little trying, to say the least. Angela Gillen, owner of Sixth Street’s Flamingo Cantina (a predominantly reggae bar) says her perception is that Texas Relays weekend “seems like it’s a big gun party in the street” and that it’s “counterproductive” to stay open.

Bill Corsello, general manager of Emo’s nightclub (a popular live music venue in the heart of Sixth Street), says it’s a financial decision to close this weekend, saying “people just want to be on the street. They don’t want to go into our club.” That gibes with Austin Police Chief Patti Robinson’s noting that many of the downtown partiers are underage and cannot get into the clubs, so they hang around outside, forcing her to put an additional 100 APD patrolling the downtown streets.

Highland Mall’s closing is a little curious, but there’s a history there that at least gives them a little benefit of the doubt. “There are malls where white people go and malls where white people used to go,” Chris Rock tells us. Highland is the latter. What used to be a bustling, high-trafficked and well-heeled place to shop has turned into ground zero for Austin urban thuggery on the weekends. For those of you who know Oklahoma City, think Crossroads. Two years ago, the mall shut down during Texas Relays weekend due to “unruly crowds” (read: a stabbing). Highland Mall claiming that there’s an increase in unruliness anytime is laughable. In a city known for its relative safety and low crime rate, you ask anybody where in Austin are you most likely to get assaulted or clipped in a drive-by. Those that don’t say Rundberg Lane will say Highland Mall (those that do say Rundberg will follow it up quickly with “Highland, too.”).

Austin’s television news stations aren’t exactly known for hard-hitting, thought-provoking journalism, but KVUE News’ Quita Culpepper, someone in the business I’ve always respected, actually put together some statistics that show recent crime hasn’t been any worse during Texas Relays weekend than it is during ACL fest or the ROT Biker Rally (where African-American attendees are as scarce as they are prevalent during the Relays).

So, can these businesses make a case to say that the color of the Texas Relay revelers’ money is no good? Sure. Does it send a good signal to those coming into town, and others who are on the outside looking in? Definitely not.

For those who don’t live in Austin, it’s is a city where a nasty, homeless, filthy crossdresser can come in second in the mayoral race, getting nearly 7.75% of the vote. (Note: you’re not funny or edgy anymore, Leslie. Quit bringing your stink and your leathery man-ass hanging out of that pink thong past my outdoor patio table at Guero’s when I’m trying to eat my damned fajita tacos). The city’s unofficial motto “Keep Austin Weird,” while a trite touristy slogan now, started off as a sincere sentiment that the majority of the population remember that the city became successful by celebrating its diversity.

Many still remember some of the old wounds that Austinites would like to think have healed, but stories like this one concerning the Texas Relays weekend reminds us that they’re still visible:

• UT has the dubious distinction of fielding the last all-white national football champion in 1969. In 1970, Julius Whittier, a backup lineman, was the token African-American on the Longhorns roster. He backs up Darrell Royal’s claim that DKR wanted to recruit African-Americans (he had coached African-American players at two previous coaching stops), but that the culture surrounding the university and the football program wouldn’t allow it. Whether true or not, it didn’t stop Barry Switzer from cherry-picking Texas high school African-American sensations like Joe Washington, Greg Pruitt and Thomas Lott, telling them either directly or overtly implying that they’d never get a chance to play at UT because of the color of their skin. It also didn’t help when the 2008 movie The Express brought back some painful memories of Syracuse’s Ernie Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy, suffering racism at the hands of, among others, DKR’s Longhorns in the 1960 Cotton Bowl.


Whiter than an albino mime.

• Austin’s Police Department has had to unfortunately defend itself over claims of racism in the past. Granted, you probably can’t find a law enforcement agency that hasn’t had some kind of abuse or bias claims against it. Not everybody is the LAPD, though. The APD’s rep depends on who you ask. When former APD chief Stan Knee retired in 2007, he was commended by Austin’s NAACP for his work in addressing and reducing incidents that could be construed as racial profiling. When he first assumed the top post at APD, he had the incredibly difficult task of cleaning up a piss-poor community relations perception after the now-infamous 1995 Cedar Avenue riots. Again, the details of the incident depend on who you ask, but the facts we know are that on February 14, 1995, after an African-American resident in East Austin called 911 to say he had ejected a gang member from his party because he was carrying a gun, 65 Austin police officers swooped in and beat, maced and cattle-prodded over a dozen party-goers while others were threatened at gunpoint. The city eventually reached a financial settlement with some of the aggrieved parties, but the emotional scars no doubt still linger for some.

• Knee was lauded for expanding his predecessor Elizabeth Watson’s community policing program to improve relations with East Austin, but with a city of Austin’s size and ethnically-diverse makeup, unfortunate incidents keep the wounds from completely healing. Since 2002, white APD officers have shot and killed four minority residents. The 2003 killing of Jessie Owens by white APD officer Scott Glasgow galvanized East Austin. A District Judge threw out criminally-negligent homicide charges against Glasgow and the DOJ later ruled that Glasgow did not violate Owens’ civil rights when he killed him. The white officer’s punishment for taking a black teen’s life ended up being a 90 day suspension (without pay).

There are more recent examples, too:

• Geoff Ketchum’s afternoon show on Austin’s ESPN radio didn’t help matters this week when it referred to Texas Relays weekend as “South-by-Southwest for black folks.” I heard it with my own ears. I guess they thought that was OK, though, because their producer “AT,” an African-American female, said it.

• Lifted from the “I can’t believe there are still people like this” files, Longhorn backup lineman Buck Burnette was dismissed from the team this past season for “unspecified violation of team rules.” We can go ahead and glean that the specific violation was his Facebook status on November 5, 2008, the day after President Obama was elected, saying “all the hunters gather up. there’s a n***** in the White House.” In Burnett’s “apology,” he said he was just passing along what he thought was a funny text message from a friend and that “I grew up on a ranch in a small town where that was a real thing and I need to grow up.” I hope that doesn’t mean what I think it means. He also indicated that he thought his real transgression was merely expressing that thought publicly. Credit Mack Brown for showing this redneck the door post haste.

Flash forward to today in 2009, in the most progressive city in the state of Texas, the azure blue island in a sea of red. Is race playing a factor in these businesses shutting down on a huge financial windfall weekend? Living in Austin for a decade and a half and seeing the dynamics of the city at work, I can honestly say no. Does it look good, though? Honestly, no it doesn’t. At worst, it’s a very bad PR move and reflects poorly on a city still working to mend fences with its minority communities. Gossip can spread like wildfire in situations like these and people not prone to weigh all of the facts could easily jump to the “those folks are a bunch of racists” conclusion. Likewise, the other side should have thought further ahead at the impact their actions would have on the minds of tens of thousands of people coming to Austin to party, have fun and most importantly to business leaders, spend money.