Bill Little commentary: The last ride

He was standing about where he had been walking with Darrell Royal that early spring day, just a few feet from where Mike Campbell had sat looking and listening when Mack Brown's first Longhorns defense took the field for their initial practice.

Time had changed a lot of things. The hair was gray now, and the assistants had changed. An indoor practice facility now covered the corner of the Denius practice fields where the old Villa Capri Hotel had once hosted Royal's famous postgame media meetings in another time.

The Longhorns of 2013 had finished their final practice in Austin, and in keeping with seemingly everything else in this season of change, the last practice had been moved from Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium indoors because of a chilly wind. The final game -- against Oregon in the Valero Alamo Bowl on Dec. 30 -- will be played inside the Alamodome.

As Mack joked with his team and assistants gave instructions to the players about the bowl schedule, he finished with the usual comments about being careful on their travels home from Austin and back to San Antonio on Christmas night. A week before, Brown had apologized to the team and to recruits and their families for the disruptive distractions during their week of final exams. Throughout all of turmoil, while the college football world pondered who would be the next Texas coach, this Longhorns team has been preparing to play one final game with a chance to improve on their regular season record of 8-4.

The close of practice usually comes with a brief meeting, and ends with a coming-together team huddle that finishes with a slogan shouted by featured leaders. It has been tradition for that final practice in Austin to be led by the seniors. This time, however, the team which made a vow to play for each other took over. As Brown called for the seniors, All-American Jackson Jeffcoat stepped forward. On behalf of the seniors, he said, they felt that final honor should go to Brown, in what would be his last appearance as the Longhorns' head coach on the practice field in Austin.

Sixteen years is a long time, particularly in the collegiate coaching profession. And with the changing of the head coach, there is also a changing of the guard. Besides the 115 or so members of the football team, there are as many as 150 other people whose lives are directly touched by the football program. When there is a change in the head coach, all know that the direction of their lives may well be altered.

In the week that has passed since Mack Brown announced he was leaving Texas, assistant coaches and all the support personnel whose jobs it has been to help them have worked hard to live in the present. Coaching football is what they do, and it is to that space that they have regrouped and focused on preparing this team to play an excellent Oregon team on Dec. 30.

Brown has said many times this group of young men constitutes one of his favorite teams ever. They have earned that, just as they won respect from many of the Longhorns fans, because of the way they have fought against unbelievable odds in the midst of one of the strangest seasons in Texas Football history.

For the first time ever, they endured two lengthy weather delays that made long road trips even longer. They hit a "Hail Mary" pass at the end of the half against Iowa State, and then won on a last minute drive. They played a showcase game to beat rival Oklahoma in Dallas, and won in overtime at West Virginia. Along the way, they lost seven key players to season-ending injuries, and shuffled lineups because of others who were dinged and slowed.

And even with all of that, they were tied at halftime and only 30 minutes away from a Big 12 Championship and a BCS bowl game in their final game against eventual league champion Baylor.

With each circumstance, Brown kept repeating that the Longhorns were committed to a theme of playing for each other, and that whatever happened it would be "Next man up, no excuses, no regrets."

Following the Sunday morning practice, the Longhorns headed home for the holiday and will regroup in San Antonio on Christmas night, beginning their final bowl practices on Dec. 26. The Longhorns under Brown have won nine of their last 11 bowl games. Mack has spent 41 years in the coaching profession, including 30 as a head coach. He is the 10th winningest coach in college football history.

The changes he brought to Texas when he walked onto that practice field with Royal and Campbell as a 45-year-old head coach are well documented. History will remember him for changing the culture of Texas Football, for righting a ship which had been mostly adrift for more than 20 years before his arrival.

In his own way, he became the embodiment of his charge to UT fans to "Come early, be loud, stay late, and wear orange with pride." In a program built on the premises of "communication, trust and respect," he delivered both on the field and in the classroom for his players.

That is why Jeffcoat and the seniors conspired to salute Brown at the end of the final Austin practice.

In the book, "One Heartbeat," Brown put down on paper his thoughts about coaching:

"Your challenge as a coach is to make a difference for people…. That's part of the joy of coaching, but the hard times teach lessons. There are times when your faith in yourself will be tested. That's when you need to remember to take pride in what you do and have the courage not to give up. Will Rogers once said, 'Never let yesterday take up too much of today.'"

And then he said this:

"When it's all over, your career will not be judged by the money you made or the championships you won. It will be measured by the lives you touched.

"And that is why we coach."

The University of Texas at Austin Athletics