The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Forty Acres Insider: Sept. 27
09.27.2018 | Forty Acres Insider
Important news, interesting tidbits and exciting stories happening in and around Texas Athletics compiled by Vice President and Athletics Director Chris Del Conte. [<a href="http://texassports.com/archives.aspx?path=forty_acres_insider">Forty Acres Insider archives</a>]
Greetings Longhorn Nation,
What a start it was to Big 12 Conference action for our teams last week. Like Coach Herman's team mantra, everyone was 1-0 with Volleyball winning at K-State, Soccer knocking off Baylor and Football's thrilling victory over No. 17 TCU. The locker room after the football game was absolutely electric. Seeing the coaches and kids celebrating and having fun together is why I got in this business and why we're all such big fans of sports.
It was a great week on the Forty Acres outside of our student-athletes competitions, capped off by a truly special Friday. That day, we gathered with our Longhorn Foundation Advisory Council to share our state of the athletic department thoughts and plans; celebrated and honored Melinda and Mike Perrin for all they've done for Texas Athletics; unveiled our 2018 Men's Swimming and Diving National Championship banner; and officially broke ground on our new indoor baseball facility at UFCU Disch-Falk Field, the J. Dan Brown Family Player Development Center.
On a more serious note, our game of Whac-A-Mole continues at the football stadium as we addressed issues that arose in the west side upper deck during our first few home games. We're dealing with infrastructure that is 75-100 years old, so that will remain a challenge for our team this season. Thank you again for your patience, and we appreciate you alerting us to issues that arise. We will continue to address them but, unfortunately, won't be able to do a full overhaul of the aging facility until after the season. Please accept our apologies and know that we will continue to do our best managing the situation this season. We're in this together and always looking to get better!
Once again, thank you all for your continued support and, together, helping us put the "T" back in "Texas."
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Hook 'em, Horns!
CNN/HLN Morning Express visit
What a pleasure it was hosting Coy Wire and the crew from CNN/HLN TV's Morning Express last weekend, as well. It was another wonderful opportunity to share our Longhorns pride and all of our gameday traditions with the nation. Thank you to all of our spirit groups and to the folks at CNN/HLN for choosing to come tailgate with us in Austin. Watch the clip here.
Gameday atmosphere
I've said it many times, but we've all been thrilled with the atmosphere at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium for our first three home games. What a standard the fans and students have set, and the nation is taking notice of your tremendous support. Thank you to Andy Staples at Sports Illustrated for sharing what we're doing here in Austin with his national audience. Read more.
A look back at "Animal House"
Totally off topic, but I hope everyone had a chance to see ESPN GameDay's look back at the epic movie "Animal House" during their visit to Eugene, Oregon last week. For those of us in my generation (and every generation should see this great film), it was so cool seeing Douglas C. Neidermeyer, Sergeant at Arms, and Eric Stratton, Rush Chairman ("Damn glad to meet you!") all these years later. "Drop and give me 20!" What a wonderful tribute by our friends at ESPN to allow us relive it and share our memories with those a bit younger than us. Watch the video.
Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting
The second Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting awards, hosted by the Center for Sports Communication & Media in Moody College, were held on campus Friday night. What an honor and privilege it was to attend that outstanding event. Read more.
No. 4 Volleyball sweeps No. 21 Baylor
A big shout out to Volleyball as they move to 2-0 in the Big 12 with a victory over No. 21 Baylor on Wednesday night. Texas faces West Virginia in Morgantown this Saturday at noon..
No. 8 Soccer
An unbeaten 9-0-1 start and an eight-match winning streak have paid dividends as Texas Soccer roared into the top 10 of every major ranking this week, coming in at No. 6 in both the Top Drawer Soccer and Soccer America polls and No. 8 in the United Soccer Coaches listing. Congrats and good luck on the road this weekend with challenging visits to No. 13 Oklahoma State (Friday, Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. CT) and TCU (Sunday, Sept. 30 at 1 p.m. CT).
