http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/colleges/topstory/stories/020803dnspoaggiead.adb8e.html Is "haughty" bad? Interesting article. A&M AD Byrne set to lock horns with UT 02/08/2003 By BRAD TOWNSEND / The Dallas Morning News COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The man nicknamed "Builder Byrne" rumbled onto the campus of dear, old, rooted-in-tradition Texas A&M with the subtlety of a bulldozer. Obviously, he wasn't brought in to smooth topsoil. Bill Byrne became athletic director on Dec. 3, and within 72 hours the Aggieland sports landscape had a new foundation in football coach Dennis Franchione. Could steel girders – more new coaches – be far behind? "I will do my very best to make Texas A&M the top athletic program in the nation," says Byrne, looking settled in the office he formally moved into on Jan. 2, replacing Wally Groff. Colleges Who is Bill Byrne? Overheard from – or about – Bill Byrne? More Texas A&M Such ambition should help old-guard alumni excuse the fact that Byrne was hired from the University of Nebraska, did not attend A&M and is a native of Idaho, of all places. He does, however, possess the ultimate Aggie-endearing qualification. He hates the University of Texas. Oh, he's downplaying it, for now. "Ancient history," says the smiling man who has had heated spats with Texas counterpart DeLoss Dodds and who once referred to the Longhorns as "those haughties from Texas." Of course, those who know Byrne don't buy this howdy-new-neighbor demureness. In fact, they're having a chuckle about his seemingly calculated move to College Station, where from 100 miles away he practically can see the whites of his enemy's eyes. "I bet they are," says Byrne, who, judging by his belly-shaking laughter rather delights in his reputation – and in trading barbs with peers. Kidding aside, Longhorns fans should know this: Byrne's friends and enemies alike are certain that he will build A&M into a multiple-sport force and thus a formidable across-the-board UT foe. Peers cite his legendary competitiveness, his know-how from building programs at Nebraska (1992-2002) and Oregon (1984-92) and that A&M president Dr. Robert Gates reportedly doubled Byrne's previous base salary of $225,000, obviously not to maintain the status quo. The consensus also is that, whether he publicly admits it or not, Byrne's fixation on beating Texas whenever possible will fuel his competitiveness and at times shape his decision-making. That often was the case at Nebraska, where Byrne openly coveted the Sears Directors Cup, a national competition based on schools' performance in all NCAA championship sports. Last year, Texas posted its highest finish, second, as Stanford won for the eighth straight time. "His dislike for them [the Longhorns] is probably going to magnify about 10 times," predicts Nebraska volleyball coach John Cook. "Bill has always had a focus about the people from Texas," former Cornhuskers swimming coach Cal Bentz told the Lincoln Journal Star after Byrne left for A&M. "And A&M is the place to go if he wants to get even with them." Certain kind of hate When asked how he feels about the University of Texas, Byrne sounds gracious and complimentary. Last spring, he called Dodds to congratulate him on Texas' impressive athletic year. "It's a wonderful academic institution," Byrne says. "Truly one of America's great universities." Even among those who know Byrne well, opinions vary about his "thing" for Texas. There are, after all, degrees of dislike: pure hatred, fun hatred, feigned hatred and competitive, respectful, on-the-field-only hatred. Most, not all, place Byrne in the last category. "He did get some licks in against Texas up there [in Lincoln], and they were well-placed licks, I'm sure," Dodds, Texas' 22nd-year athletic director, says with a laugh. "So he's going to have to figure out a way to bow out of some of those licks gracefully over there" in College Station. Meaning? Many of the arrows Byrne has aimed at Texas during Big 12 meetings also dinged A&M. For instance, Dodds says, as Nebraska's athletic director Byrne called the Texas schools "soft" because they opposed playing the Big 12 Championship Game outdoors in the North. "You've got to learn to play where it's cold," Byrne would say, somewhat mockingly. "It's going to be harder to say that being in College Station than when you're sitting in Lincoln, Nebraska," Dodds says. "I think the fun begins when we start having Big 12 meetings and his position almost has to be somewhat different on issues he fought pretty hard for. I'm looking forward to it. "And kidding Bill about it." Dodds and Byrne say they're friends, which both acknowledge is a testament to their ability to separate the personal from business. Goodness knows they've had boardroom spitting matches that sometimes left fellow ADs speechless. When the Big Eight schools began talks with Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor in 1995, Texas' Dodds and then-school president Robert Berdahl were perceived as bullies in what initially was a tempestuous marriage forced by financial necessity. Texas and its in-state brethren, with the Longhorns wielding their considerable influence like a mace, prevailed on virtually every issue. The Big 12 Conference office was awarded to Dallas. The Big Eight office had been in Kansas City, Mo., for 107 years. Former SWC commissioner Steve Hatchell became the first Big 12 commissioner. Texas was adamant that Big 12 schools annually admit no more than two Proposition 48 cases – athletes who fall below NCAA academic requirements. Ultimately, Nebraska was the only Big 12 school to vote against the limit, and Byrne questioned how Texas could rationalize being anti-Prop 48 while playing junior college transfers. Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne and Texas' John Mackovic opposed a Big 12 title game because it might rob the conference of an extra spot in the Bowl Alliance (now the Bowl Championship Series). "Hey, we were the 800-pound gorilla" of the Big Eight, Byrne says. "Nebraska fans were saying, 'How come these votes aren't going our way? How come the Texas schools are doing this and that?' "I would remind them that most of the votes were one-to-11, that our friends in the Big Eight were seven against us." Behind closed doors Legend has it that one particularly heated Big 12 meeting produced a classic Byrne moment. Texas officials supposedly informed the rest of the league that they might just pack up and take their gigantic gate revenue and TV audience elsewhere, like, say, the Pacific-10. Byrne, the story goes, sneered, "Well, go ahead and leave!" Fact or fiction? Again, Byrne laughs boisterously. "Oh, I don't want to divulge the privacy of those meetings," he says. "Those are sacrosanct." Asked about the episode, former Kansas athletic director Bob Frederick says that if he were in a court case, he could not testify under oath that he recalls Byrne calling Texas' bluff. By the same token, he couldn't recall otherwise. "Certainly, that feeling was there," says Frederick, who stepped down as AD in 2001 and is an assistant professor in the KU school of education. "I think other people thought that, too, and didn't say it. "But, and I would say this to Bill if he were listening to this conversation, he'd be more inclined to say it than the rest of us." Other current and former officials at Big 12 schools have depicted Byrne as being at the epicenter of most of the league's disputes. "I think that's a fair picture," Frederick says. "He was very territorial about the Big Eight Conference and about the University of Nebraska as it related to the Texas schools. He just wanted to fight for the University of Nebraska, and I respected that." Aggies need not fret about where Byrne's allegiance lies now, despite the crack he made during the 1996 Lombardi Award dinner in Houston: "I've come to the state that thinks it invented football from the state that perfected it." The formal definition of "Aggie" is "student, former student or supporter," and Byrne is immersing himself in A&M culture. He's read Pride of Aggieland, Maroon and Texas A&M Traditions and Spirit . Nephew Jonathan, a student at Trinity University in San Antonio, e-mailed the "Aggie War Hymn." "This is not a job for Bill. This is a crusade," says Hatchell, who has known Byrne since his Oregon days. "He works hard at it. He'll be the No. 1 Aggie even though he didn't go to school there." Byrne says that while mulling the A&M offer, he and his wife, Marilyn, couldn't help but chuckle about the "incongruities." "But that's OK," he says. "You know, athletic directors are much like mercenaries. They represent their schools and they fight like the devil for them." 'Not a vicious person' If you've never met him but heard the stories, it would be natural to surmise that come Saturday, when the Texas A&M men's basketball team hosts No. 3-ranked Texas, Byrne will be a pacing, exhorting, arm-waving lunatic. Actually, he says he's a bore to sit with because he scarcely speaks, his eyes shifting from game to fans to band to ushers, everything that affects the entertainment experience. "He's a balanced guy," says Dallas resident Dan Cook, a close friend of Byrne's and one of Nebraska's biggest donors. "Bill wants to win the game, but he's competitive to the right degree. He's not a vicious person." In fact, even his detractors, those who believe he dreamed and spent too ambitiously at Nebraska, say Byrne is hard not to like. A&M athletic department and 12th Man Foundation employees say that on his first official day, Byrne gathered them for an informal meeting and announced a policy change. Since anyone can remember, employees hadreceived two tickets per athletic event. Byrne ordered that the allocation be based on family size: four members, four tickets. Along with that morale boost, Byrne has made it a point to meet individually with the 300-plus athletic department and 12th Man Foundation employees in 30-minute blocks, a process that consumed most of January. On Byrne's office shelves and the corner of his desk, there must be 50 pictures of Marilyn, sons Bill and Greg, and Greg's sons Nicholas and Davis. "I had no idea I could love someone that small that intensely," Byrne says, showing off another picture of his grandchildren – on his computer screen-saver. Greg Byrne, an associate AD at Kentucky, says the boys think grandpa hung the moon. But sports, and competitiveness, definitely runs in the family. "I remember playing tennis with him," Greg says. "Every once in a while if I'd pop off to him, he'd fire a serve at me that a 7-year-old didn't have any business being able to handle." Kind of like those haughty Longhorns. Aside from the three national championships in football and the one in volleyball that Nebraska won on Byrne's watch, Cornhuskers say they never saw Byrne happier than after the 1999 Big 12 title victory over Texas. Some wondered whether Byrne just wanted to ingratiate himself with Nebraskans after his popular predecessor, Bob Devaney, was forced into retirement. At Oregon, Byrne became the country's first athletic director to have a weekly radio show, which he saw as a way to make himself accessible to fans. He also had a show in Lincoln and plans one in College Station. It won't hurt that he's had practice taking Longhorn-hatin' calls – and often chimed in with his own barbs. "No, no, that was for real, he wasn't faking that," says KLIN's Gary Sharp, who hosted Byrne's Nebraska show all nine years. "He built that rivalry up, made sure it filtered down from his office to all the different sports at Nebraska." This gig's a natural Those who know Byrne are certain that sometime, somewhere, he will say something to fan the A&M-Texas rivalry flames, which if you ask Dodds is like sprinkling gasoline on an inferno. "I think it's about as high as it can get," he says. Byrne should have no problem assimilating Aggie vernacular such as "t.u." or "teasips." Heck, he already may have coined a new one, "haughties," and goodness knows he's gig-started his share of hullabaloos. Saw Varsity's Horns off? Conveniently, Byrne brought his own hacksaw. He just had to change the red handle to maroon. "One of the things I'm stressing to our staff here is we're not going to concentrate on anybody except Texas A&M University," Byrne says. "Other people are going to have to worry about themselves. We're not going to worry about them." One interpretation could be that Byrne is not as obsessed with beating Texas as everyone thinks. Or perhaps his obsession is making dead sure Texas worries about Texas A&M.
