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Throwback to the Big 12 Powerful Playmakers

  • 2 min read

Texas Tech, Baylor, Gov Ann Richards, and Lt Gov Bob Bullock

The Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners recently roiled the college sports landscape in Texas, and will ultimately impact the national collegiate sports scene, with their departure from the Big 12 Conference for the Southeastern Conference.

But this isn’t about UT and OU. It’s about Texas Tech and Baylor and a big political power play back in 1994. The key players weren’t on the gridiron back then. Nope. They were in the State Capitol -- Gov. Ann Richards and Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock.


Without going too deep into the weeds, all you need to know for this discussion is that the now-defunct Southwest Conference and Big 8 conferences were merging. As usual, UT (SWC) and OU (Big 8) were the 800-pound gorillas in this exercise. Well, left on the outside looking-in were SWC members TT and BU. They weren’t initially going to be included in what was to become the Big 12.


Hold on just a minute. The sports guys didn’t take into account the most powerful politician in Texas – Bullock – and one of the most popular politicians of the time – Richards. Oh yeah, those two heavyweights controlled state purse strings.

And, apparently, no one checked their bios. Bullock got his undergraduate degree at Texas Tech and his law degree at Baylor. Richards got her bachelor's degree from Baylor. Ouch!


Bullock was the big arm-twister here. And make no mistake he was a master arm-twister. (He solely was responsible for forcing the creation/funding of the Texas History Museum that, fittingly, bears his name today.) Can you just imagine the phone calls, the back-room dealings? When the smoke-filled rooms cleared, surprise!, Texas Tech and Baylor were included in the merged conference.


Now that TT and BU are once again left sitting in an uncertain situation as far as their collegiate sports programs are concerned, can they count on a Bullock to come riding to their rescue. Don’t place your bets yet. Gov. Greg Abbott got his undergrad degree at UT and law degree at Vanderbilt and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick got his undergrad degree from the University of Maryland (when he was known by his birth name, Dannie Scott Goeb).


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Photo: baylor.edu





The Memorial

  • 2 min read

August 3, 2021, is two-days-and-five years after UT – finally – dedicated a campus memorial to those killed on campus. This is what I write about the Memorial in my memoir, With The Bark Off, A Journalist’s Memories of LBJ and a Life in the News Media, due to be published by the UT Briscoe Center for American History in September.


Photo Daily Texan Joshua Guerra


"At the dedication ceremony, fifty years after the bullets had rained down on campus, UT President (Greg) Fenves said, ‘We will never eliminate the memory of the horror that consumed this campus on August 1,1966, nor should we try. But by focusing on the good and the stories of the heroes and the lives of the survivors that are with us this afternoon, we can finally begin to remember and endure our burden of the past.’

"I was enormously happy that my alma mater had finally memorialized the names of the victims. The same ceremony also acknowledged and honored the students and others who’d risked their lives to rescue the wounded, as well as the brave police officers who’d put an end to the violence. Recognition and gratitude were long overdue. It was a great healing day in Austin, Texas

"I walked over and read the names on the granite monument, and I felt a rush of memories and emotions from that day when I’d sweated through my shirt and suit jacket while reporting live on the air from Red Rover. As the memorial ceremony unfolded, I was content to stand quietly in the back of the audience and savor the moment. And to remember my courageous colleagues in the news profession – many of them no longer with us – who had thrown themselves into harm’s way by rushing onto campus that day to cover the story while bullets were flying all around them: Joe Lee, Phil Miller, Gary Pickle, Joe Roddy, David Swope, John Thawley, Charles Ward, Gordon Wilkison.

“I will remember their names and their remarkable fearlessness for as long as I draw breath. Their actions were an inspiration to me and can serve as an inspiration to every journalist who scribbles notes in the line of fire or focuses a camera lens on the face of danger. Every day in this country and around the world, dedicated reporters from a new generation, cut from the same cloth as my old friends and colleagues at KTBC, hunker down in danger zones and halls of power to cover stories we need to hear about. They are all my heroes. They put their lives on the line to ensure that as a nation, we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free.”



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The Anniversary of the Tower Shooting

  • 2 min read

Updated: Aug 3, 2021


From the Texas Standard


Life was dramatically changed in the USA following an event in Austin, Texas, fifty-five years ago on August 1, 1966. That was when the nation’s first mass school shooting took place from atop the University of Texas Tower. Here’s how I described it while reporting from the UT campus, within range of the sniper’s gunshots:


“Another shot! The sniper fired three quick, successive shots. Apparently in the length of time it takes to cock the weapon and then …. Another shot! He just fired another shot and this time …. Another shot! That’s the fifth shot now in about 20 or 30 seconds.”


Don Carleton, Executive Director of University of Texas’ Briscoe Center for American History, writes this in his preface to my memoir, to be published in September 2021, With the Bark Off, A Journalist’s Memories of LBJ and a Life in the News Media:

“Neal Spelce’s riveting on-the-scene reporting of a sniper murdering fifteen people and badly injuring thirty-one others was quickly hooked into the national radio and television networks and broadcast across the nation in real time. Neal covered an incident that was, up to that time, the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in American history.”




This, sadly, was a harbinger of things to come across the nation and in other parts of the world. Since then, our lives have changed significantly. Security checkpoints have been set up in public places, video cameras are everywhere, SWAT teams were created to combat similar acts, EMS units were beefed up, and in many cases, created from scratch. One survivor of the UT Tower tragedy told me: “we lost our innocence that dreadful day.”




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