Forty Acres Insider: May 14

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Greetings Longhorn Nation,

Time to light the UT Tower burnt orange again as Coach Floréal and Women's Track and Field pulled off a Big 12 Championship sweep by way of their Outdoor victory last weekend. What an awesome effort by our ladies, led by two senior leaders -- 100m and 200m champion Teahna Daniels, and heptathlon and javelin winner Ashtin Zamzow. It was a great weekend for Track and Field all around, as we had eight individual Big 12 champions between both squads, with the women sweeping the 400m and 1,600m relay crowns. That makes eight Big 12 Championships for us this year!

Despite challenging weather conditions, Coach Berque and No. 2 Men's Tennis got a huge win over Cal in our NCAA Super Regional matchup. Delays didn't impact the atmosphere at the Texas Tennis Center as the Longhorns faithful turned out to help lead our team to victory and a spot in the Elite Eight for the third time in the last six years. Now it's off to Orlando to face a familiar Big 12 foe in No. 9 TCU (Thursday at 1 p.m.) for a spot in the Final Four.

Speaking of weather conditions, I want to give a shout out to our facilities, operations, marketing and communications teams for their exhaustive efforts in managing the challenges and schedule changes at the NCAA Men's Tennis Super Regional last weekend. With great collaboration exemplified by a 'we not me' attitude, all of our staffs involved did a fantastic job of constantly communicating, and it paid off with a great crowd, a smoothly run event, and a wonderful experience for our student-athletes and fans. Kudos to everyone involved!

I also want to give a shout out to another group of talented staffers. On Monday, we celebrated the graduation of this year's CATAPLT (Collegiate Athletic Talent and Professional Leadership Training) class. That class is a year-long professional development program for high potential individuals which includes a semester long project focused on enhancing a key initiative for our department. This year's class of Sean Cartell (Media Relations), Elsa Hagemeier (Events), Billy Humphries (Longhorn Foundation), Tonya Johnson (Volleyball), Dustin Miller (Longhorn Foundation) and Tory Teykl (Football) did a tremendous job and epitomizes the servant leadership that is such a critical part of our department's success. I'm so grateful to have them on our team.

Earlier last week, Coach Murphy and No. 2 Women's Golf posted a historic victory. For the first time since NCAA Regional play began in 1992-93, our Longhorns won the regional. They did so in dominant fashion with a nine-stroke win on rival Oklahoma's home turf in Norman. Congrats on another awesome victory, their fifth tourney title of the season. We'll be pulling for them as they head to the NCAA Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas, starting this Friday.

This week, our staff will be hard at work again putting our best foot forward and serving our student-athletes, programs and fans with more exciting events on the Forty Acres. Early in the week, Men's Golf hosts an NCAA Regional at the UT Golf Club while seeking a spot in the NCAA Championships. It will be a rowdy environment east of I-35 as Women's Softball earned the No. 9 overall seed for the NCAA tourney and hosts an all-Texas NCAA Regional with Texas A&M, Houston and Sam Houston State in the house. Baseball also has a home series this weekend with our Red River rivals Oklahoma. Come on out and join us!

There's nothing like championship season, and it's even better when you're hosting so many of them. Thank you for supporting all of our programs and following our teams on TexasSports.com and our social media channels. We are so grateful for all you are doing to help us put the "T" back in Texas!

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Hook 'em, Horns!

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Women's Track and Field wins Big 12 Outdoor Championship

Women's Track and Field swept the Big 12 Indoor and Outdoor Championships. It marked a Big 12-record seventh time the Texas Women have accomplished that feat. Read more.

Softball hosts NCAA Regional

There's a fun weekend ahead as Softball earned the No. 9 overall national seed and will be hosting an NCAA Regional in Austin for the first time since 2013. Read more.

Men's Tennis advances to NCAA Quarterfinals

On to the Elite Eight! Men's Tennis knocked off No. 24 Cal, 4-0, in our Super Regional at the Texas Tennis Center to survive and advance in the NCAA Championship. Read more.

Football future schedules

We released Football future schedule additions last week, including a home-and-home with SEC power Florida and Pac-12 challenger Arizona State. It also included a pair of home-only deals to bring UTSA and UTEP to DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium four times. It's a win-win as those are two UT System programs that we benefit from scheduling and also in sharing the benefits financially of a game in Austin. Read more.

Texas Golf facilites tour

Thanks to our partners at Longhorn Network for helping us share this awesome tour of our amazing golf facilities at the UT Golf Club. Watch the video.

NCAA releases multi-year APR

We're all so proud of the accomplishments of our student-athletes and their efforts in the classroom. In a release last week, all of our programs once again surpassed the required NCAA Academic Progress Rate (APR) standards. Read more.

Rowing Academic All-Big 12 selections

Congrats goes out to the 23 student-athletes on our No. 4-ranked Rowing squad that were named Academic All-Big 12 last week. Read more.

Kickin' it with Michael Dickson and Ryan Bujcevski

What a cool story from our friends at Longhorn Network on the family roots of our recent Australian punters. Watch the video.

In memoriam: Jim Shamblin

Our thoughts are with the family of Baseball great Jim Shamblin, who passed away last week. Read more.

The University of Texas at Austin Athletics