Austin College football kicks off its 2023 season under the lights! New lights have been installed at Jerry Apple Stadium; Kangaroo football will be playing its first ever night game on campus in the sport’s long 127-year history.
AC hosts Nebraska Wesleyan on Saturday, September 2nd at 7pm. AC Athletic Director David Norman reports that he and his Nebraska Wesleyan counterpart agreed to move the game to the evening to avoid the hot Texas summer sun. Kirk Hughes, the “Voice of the Roos,” will be on the mic with the call; Blake Hyde will be providing color.
I was slated to join Kirk in the booth for this first night game, but family plans will keep me away from Sherman. So instead of doing color alongside Kirk’s play-by-play, I’m offering a “Rivals” Roo Tale about music & lights. You’ll find many Roo stories about rival Texas schools in my book “Roo Tales: The Rivals & Legends of Austin College.” Trinity, Southwestern, Tarleton, TCU, SMU, Rice, Baylor, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, & the Longhorns of Texas all have tales. This tale is about the University of North Texas (UNT).
If you know only one thing about the UNT Eagles, it is probably their College of Music. UNT’s music program is a “Texas Julliard,” one of the finest in the nation. Music undergrads in Denton frequently head to graduate school and careers in the field, often winning awards at the national & international level and achieving fame known to even the casually music lover.
UNT College of Music graduates include Norah Jones, Don Henley, Roy Orbison, Maren Morris, Meatloaf, Steve Fromholz, John Ford Coley, Michael Martin Murphey, Gary Nicholson, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Pat Boone, and all members of the Eli Young Band. Music alums can also be found in bands from Toto & Dave Matthews to Sixpence None the Richer, Ten Hands, Counting Crows, & Elvis Presley. UNT grad Ron Tutt? He was the drummer for Neil Diamond.
Are there ties between UNT Music and AC? You bet! The UNT Band Brave Combo not only has a big Texas following, they have also performed in the Austin College pub! Just a few years ago, UNT’s Mike Tuck Trio performed at Claude Webb Jr.’s unofficial AC beer joint “The Gar Hole.” UNT’s Emily Pulley is one of 43 accomplished alums listed on the College of Music website. Emily is more than just a nationally recognized Opera singer who has performed for U.S. Presidents alongside Luciano Pavarotti; she’s also a high school buddy of mine from College Station whom I have written about in one of my non-AC books (see the comments).
The UNT College of Music sits at the corner of Chestnut & Avenue C, not far from the Administration building. The artists mentioned above all walked the halls of this building of music, built on the site of UNT’s original athletic field: Eagle Park. Before the construction of (the recently demolished) Fouts Field in the 1950s, Eagle Park was the home of UNT football. It was also the site of many Kangaroo victories over the Eagles. Between 1918 and 1929, AC won four out of five matchups against UNT.
The sixth meeting in 1930 at Eagle Park in Denton, however, was going to be special.
Lights were still something of a novelty in 1930. FDR’s rural electrification campaign during the New Deal had yet to begin. Cities were lit at night; however, electrification was too much of a priority to waste on frivolous activities such as collegiate athletics. In fact, the first professional football game under the lights had not taken place until 1929.
But UNT Athletic Director Theron Fouts (for whom Fouts Field would be named) was bound and determined for UNT to play a night game. He was committed to seeing it happen on Friday, October 3rd, 1930, at Eagle Park against Austin College. That night game would be the first for both UNT & Austin College football. In fact, it would be the first college football game under the lights in all of north Texas.
Fouts got to work. He secured the approval of administration, acquired the lighting, and wired the stadium. It was all done in time for the arrival of the Roos. Except for one glitch. The week of the game, Fouts was informed that the arrival of the light poles would be delayed by a few days. Fouts called AC Athletic Director Cecil Grigg to see if Austin College might agree to move the game to Monday to accommodate the delay; Grigg responded that missing class for a football game would not fly at an academic minded college like dear ol’ AC.
And so, Fouts sadly announced to the community that the almost historic 1930 AC-UNT clash would happen under the sun after all; that first night game would come later:
“Theron J. Fouts, AD of [UNT], was all fussed up Wednesday morning when he learned that it would be impossible to have their next football game with Austin College played at night, under the electric-spot light system which was supposed to have been installed for that game Friday night, October 3. He said ‘it’s a great disappointment to all of us at the College, as I am sure it is to the people of Denton County, and other places, since many people in this section of Texas had planned to see the first lighted-game. The steel poles have not arrived, so it is impossible to get the lights ready. But they will be installed soon. The game this week with Austin College will be played Friday afternoon [at Eagle Park].’”
That Friday afternoon, AC defeated the UNT Eagles 6-0 on the back of a second quarter touchdown pass. UNT tried to respond in the second half, but every drive came up short of the end zone. With the win, AC held a 5-1 all-time record against UNT. It would be the last Roo win against the Eagles, however, as the growth of public higher education during the New Deal rocketed the Denton school into the largest NCAA collegiate level of competition. The last AC-UNT football game took place in the late 1940s at Eagle Park in Denton, just before the construction of the UNT School of Music at that same location.
The first night game planned for Roo football on the road didn’t happen in October of 1930. Hopefully, the first night game for Roo football on campus this Saturday will have better luck. Good luck Roos and go get ‘em under the lights. A night win at Jerry Apple stadium to start the 2023 campaign will be “music to my ears.” Keep fightin’ all night long under the lights, even if it means a victory is delayed until a [UNT Norah Jones] “Sunrise” on a [UNT Ron Tutt/Neil Diamond] “September Morn.”
https://northtexan.unt.edu/notable-alumni/music
