What it means to be a Longhorn: Ragan Gennusa

This is the 13th of a 14-part series celebrating the Hall of Honor class of 2019. In these first-person vignettes, each inductee shares his/her thoughts on 'What it means to be a Longhorn.' Thirteen former University of Texas student-athletes and one former UT System administrator will be inducted on Friday, Aug. 30 into the Hall of Honor. Tickets for the Hall of Honor banquet are available at TexasSports.com/tickets.

Ragan Gennusa Hall of Honor bio

I think all creative people are born with a "creative brain." I don't think that at some point they just decide they want to do something creative. While doing something creative, you experience a tremendous, rewarding sense of accomplishment that is difficult to explain. I always enjoyed athletics and art immensely, so it only seemed natural for me to pursue both, and I was never bothered about what others thought.

I ran track and played football in high school. I ran the 120-yard high hurdles in the state track meet during my junior year. Football recruiting season at UT was well under way, and I had the privilege of meeting some recruits and seeing the stadium and campus which was very exciting. I was thoroughly impressed. Having grown up in the coastal refinery town of Port Arthur, the beauty of the Texas Hill Country with its bluebonnet-covered hills and clear-flowing limestone creeks also affected me, so I was already leaning toward Texas.

My high school coach was Clarence "Buckshot" Underwood. He had taught us to never quit or give up. I was an all-state quarterback my senior year and after football season, Coach Underwood told me, since I was running track, he didn't want me visiting a lot of schools. He said I should choose three that I was seriously interested in to visit. I chose Texas, Arkansas and LSU, but I never really felt comfortable at the out-of-state schools.

Coach Royal had already established himself as a great coach and The University of Texas had a reputation for being a great school. Coach Bill Ellington, who recruited me, always made me feel at home as did the fellow recruits and Texas players. I knew that I would major in art, and UT had a brand- new art building. We ran UT's offense in high school, so it was a very easy decision for me to choose Texas.

Heading into the first game of the 1965 season against Tulane when I was a redshirt sophomore, I was barely on the team. I had suffered numerous injuries during my first two years at UT, but the most serious were to my left knee which required multiple trips to the hospital and two surgeries. The last injury was a torn ACL, and the surgical repair for that injury had not yet been invented. The doctor recommended that I quit football, because he did not think my knee would be stable enough to play.

Quitting was not an option. I had gone home for the summer and worked out to strengthen the muscles in my leg to stabilize my knee. When I returned for two-a-days, I was listed as ninth-team quarterback and knew I would have to work my way up from the bottom. I was injured again at quarterback and after returning to practice, I wound up on Coach Mike Campbell's "attack team," which ran the opposing team's plays against the first two defenses. I chose to play wide receiver in hopes of showing what I could do to get an opportunity to play defensive back.

Our offensive formation consisted of two tight ends, however, Coach Campbell liked what he had seen and asked Coach Royal to look at me at wide receiver. After practice on the Friday before the season opener against Tulane, Coach Royal told me I had been doing a good job and instructed me to suit up for the game. The game had been moved to Austin because of a hurricane that was due to strike New Orleans. Because our traveling squad for the local motel had already been set, I was told to meet the team at the stadium the following day.

I spent the night in the dorm and walked down to the stadium the next day. Here I was a skinny kid, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, standing about six feet tall and weighing 170 pounds. When I tried to enter the stadium, the guard at the gate asked me for a ticket. When I told him that I was on the Texas team, he called for security. Fortunately, an athletics department employee came by and persuaded the guy to let me in. I was issued a uniform with an oversized number 23.

UT was a big favorite over Tulane, but with two minutes left in the first half, Texas led only 3-0. It was then that Coach Royal summoned me. He told me to go in for the tight end, split out and run an out at 10 yards. I went in, caught the pass and the stadium announcer said, "Pass complete to number 23." The announcer never said my name. Because of all the injuries and the subsequent doctor's evaluation, I wasn't listed when the football programs were printed that summer. The announcer had no idea who the skinny kid on the field was, wearing the long sleeve jersey with number 23.

Eventually my name was sent up to the announcer. When I caught another pass, he said, "Reception by number 23, Ragan Genesis." (A newspaper article titled "'Genesis' Turned into Revelation'' came out the following week).

On Monday, Coach Royal called me to his office and told me that he had created a position for me on the team as a wide receiver. I would be used on long-yardage downs and whenever we needed quick yardage. The following year, he added the split receiver position to the offense. Even though we did not throw the ball a lot, I led the team in receptions my junior and senior year.

I graduated from UT in 1968 with a BFA in Art. I used many of the lessons I learned as player as I struggled early in my career. I found out very quickly that I had to rely on the lessons taught by athletics of fighting through adversity and never quitting. I started out painting wildlife, but as I visited many of the large ranches of Texas and learned the history of the state, I became fascinated with the story of longhorn cattle. Soon, painting these magnificent animals became part of my destiny.

So, what does it mean to be a Texas Longhorn? From the moment that I first suited up, ran on to the Memorial Stadium field with the varsity, heard the band play "Texas Fight" and "The Eyes of Texas" and witnessed thousands of screaming fans, I experienced a sense of pride that I had never felt.

I felt immensely proud of belonging to a great athletic program as well as a tremendous educational system, a huge family teeming with tradition. I felt an obligation and a duty to live my life in a manner that would make all the athletes, students and graduates who have gone before me and all who have gone after me, proud.

The University of Texas at Austin Athletics