Texas Football: Sweeping inclusion changes coming for Longhorns

There are very noteworthy changes coming to the campus of the University of Texas-Austin and the Texas football program in the midst of the 2020 offseason.

The campus of the University of Texas-Austin and the Texas football program saw a successful push for a more inclusive culture amid all of the social activism going on around the country of late. There were a ton of notable storylines coming about from the Longhorns push for social change around the football program and the campus in general in the last couple of months.

And this wish became a reality for the Longhorns, with the announcement of changes to the campus and football program (among other things) on July 13 to make everything more inclusive. The reported changes (thanks to 247Sports) came thanks to a push from “149 student organizations as well as black student athletes at Texas for a more inclusive campus”.

Among the more significant of those changes includes a statue built commemorating Texas’ first black football letterman Julius Whittier. And the field is to be renamed after Heisman Trophy winning running backs Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams. These are notable changes that includes two Longhorn legends still well remembered today in Campbell and Williams, and a player that made history in Whittier.

One significant potential change that was not made amid this announcement was getting rid of “The Eyes of Texas” as the school’s fight song. Here’s what the interim Texas president Jay Hartzell had to say about leaving that as the school’s fight song.

"“The Eyes of Texas, in its current form, will continue to be our alma mater,” Hartzell wrote. “Aspects of its origin, whether previously widely known or unknown, have created a rift in how the song is understood and celebrated, and that must be fixed. It is my belief that we can effectively reclaim and redefine what this song stands for by first owning and acknowledging its history in a way that is open and transparent.“Together, we have the power to define what the Eyes of Texas expect of us, what they demand of us, and what standard they hold us to now. The Eyes of Texas should not only unite us, but hold all of us accountable to our institution’s core values. But we first must own the history. Only then can we reimagine its future, and I look forward to partnering with our campus community to do just that.”"

There were a number of other changes announced on Monday afternoon, including renaming a few of the school’s academic buildings and improved financial investment into finding “outstanding students” in areas like Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. There were more than 13,000 students at Texas that reportedly signed the petition to get sweeping changes to make the campus more inclusive.

The Eyes of Texas remaining as the fight song is the most notable of those changes that were not made since it was included as part of the demand letter made by those more than 13,000 students and nearly 150 campus organizations.

We’ll continue to monitor the ongoing storyline of which players react to these changes and how they view them in the midst of the 2020 offseason. There is a lot going on around the Longhorns football program at the moment, to say the very least, with all of the social activism changes and the impending 2020 season getting called into question during the novel coronavirus pandemic.