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The Texas Book – Featured Essays
From "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Chairman Frank"
by Richard A. Holland
[Way #1]: 1969
Baby boomers who packed the Texas campus during the fall of 1969 retain two vivid memories of that dramatic semester. The first is Texas' football win over Arkansas in the "game of the century." This unlikely come-from-behind victory matched the number-one-ranked 'Horns and the number two Razorbacks—the game was played in remotest Arkansas, where multitudes of hog-hat-wearing fans bayed "Soooeeee Pig." Texas was behind in the last quarter, but everything turned on an improbable fourth-down forward pass called by Coach Darrell Royal and executed by Texas quarterback James Street and receiver Randy Peschel. The game is thought to have had the biggest viewing audience in the history of college football—50 percent of the reporting television watchers. When the struggle was over (Texas prevailed 15-14), President Richard Nixon appeared delighted to present Royal and Street with the national championship trophy.
The other riveting contest during that fall was the "Battle of Waller Creek," a bizarre confrontation that pitted environmentally committed students and other concerned citizens against the most vivid and divisive character in the long and tumultuous history of the University: the bigger-than-life
chairman of the Texas Board of Regents, Frank C. Erwin Jr. The outcome of this battle was never in doubt—in those days
Left: Frank Erwin at Waller Creek.
Right: Protester being pulled from tree. Prints and Photographs Collection-UT Demonstrations, CAH; DI 01352 and DI 02388
Chairman Frank always won; it was later that he did himself in. Love him or hate him, Frank Erwin was inescapable and his legacy to the University is still very much alive. During his glory days as chairman of the Board of Regents (fewer than five years—December 1966 through February 1971), he dominated events at the University like no one had before or has since. No one could deny the intensity with which he advanced his goals for the Austin campus and burgeoning UT System; however, his detractors have questioned his overall legacy and everyone has questioned his methods, which were a combination of subtle strategy based on hard-earned
knowledge and execution about as subtle as a bulldozer.
Faced with potential rebellions similar to those at other prestigious universities in the late 1960s, Erwin took on all comers, respecting no boundaries when it came to questions of University governance, faculty review, student affairs, or campus architecture. He seemed to glory in the spotlight but was widely perceived as a belligerent, red-faced bully who in his last years was seen flamboyantly drunk in public, sometimes weaving up the wrong side of Guadalupe Street in his orange and white Cadillac—a cartoon image of the unbridled, powerful Texan. At the same time, no powerful figure in the state had more loyal friends—even many of the students and faculty who opposed his actions grudgingly admitted his intellect and charm. Frank Erwin was, in the words of the old song, devil or angel—or perhaps more aptly, devil and angel. [. . .]
Lyndon B. Johnson looking over Regent Frank Erwin at dedication of Sid Richardson Hall, January 21, 1971. Prints and Photographs Collection-Frank Craig Erwin, CAH; DI 02387.