- This page is about the now defunct Southwest Conference
(SWC). For the unrelated and currently still active
conference abbreviated as the SWAC, see Southwestern Athletic
Conference. For the Ohio High School Conference
abbreviated as the SWC, see Southwestern
Conference
The
Southwest Conference (SWC) was a
college athletic
conference in the United States
from 1914 to 1996. It consisted of
schools in the states of Arkansas
, Oklahoma
and Texas
.
The
charter members of the conference were Texas A&M
University
, the University of Texas at Austin
, Baylor University
, the University of Arkansas
, the University of Oklahoma
, Oklahoma A&M University (now Oklahoma
State University
), Southwestern University
(in Georgetown, Texas
), and Rice
University.
History
Early years
The first organizational meeting of the conference was held in May,
1914 at the Oriental Hotel in
Dallas, Texas
. It was chaired by
L. Theo
Bellmont, who originated the idea for the athletic conference
and was at the time athletic director at the University of Texas.
Originally, Bellmont wanted Louisiana
State University
and the University of Mississippi
to join the conference as well, but they declined
to do so. The Southwest Conference became an official
body on December 8, 1914 at a formal
meeting at the Rice Hotel in Houston
.
Its early
years saw fluctuation in membership; Southwestern (a comparatively
smaller school) dropped out of the conference in 1916, and Southern
Methodist University
joined it in 1918; Texas
Christian University
became a member in 1923. Rice University
left the conference in 1916, only to re-join in 1918.
Phillips University (Enid,
Oklahoma
) was a
conference member for one year (1920). Oklahoma left in 1919
to join the
Missouri
Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association, and was followed
by Oklahoma A&M in 1925.
(However, the intense football rivalry
between the universities of Texas and Oklahoma would continue in an
annual matchup between the two teams held in Dallas.) From this
point on, the University of Arkansas would be the only conference
member not located within the state of Texas.
After its organizational years, the conference settled into
regularly scheduled meets among its members, and began to gain
stature nationwide. The SWC would be guided by seven commissioners,
the first of whom, P. W. St. Clair, was appointed in 1938. In 1940,
the conference took control of the then five-year-old
Cotton Bowl Classic, which further
established the prestige of both the bowl and the conference.
Texas
Technological College (now Texas Tech University
) joined the SWC in 1958, followed by the University
of Houston
for the 1976 season (UH won the SWC football
championship in that 1976 season).
-USA-states.PNG/250px-SWC_(Foundation)-USA-states.PNG)
Southwest Conference, 1915-25
The conference celebrated its glory football years in the 1960s.
Texas won the 1963 National Championship, Arkansas won a share of
the 1964 National Championship, then Texas took another National
Championship in 1969, beating #2 ranked Arkansas (15 to 14) in the
regular season's final game (dubbed the "Big Shootout").
The 1969
Arkansas-Texas game (attended in Fayetteville, Arkansas
by President Richard
Nixon) is usually counted among the greatest college football
games ever played
Beginning in the late 1930s and lasting until 1995, the Southwest
Conference Champion automatically received an invitation as the
"host" team in the
Cotton Bowl
Classic game on New Year's Day in Dallas, Texas.
Opponents usually
were the runners-up from the Big
8 or SEC conference,
although Independents Penn
State
and Notre Dame were also often featured.
From the 1940s onward, the Cotton Bowl Classic was counted among
the four major bowl games, and often had national championship
implications. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, the game declined in
importance, largely because of the decline of SWC prominence.
In 1977,
Notre
Dame
became the last team to win a national championship
in the Cotton Bowl Classic.
The SWC had many legendary players and coaches over the years. In
football,
Dana X. Bible,
Jess Neely,
Paul "Bear" Bryant,
Darrell Royal, James "Buddy" Parker,
Hayden Fry,
Frank
Broyles,
Lou Holtz,
Gene Stallings,
Spike
Dykes,
Bill Yeoman and
Grant Teaff all served as head coaches in the
conference. Some notable SWC players included
Davey O'Brien,
Sammy
Baugh,
Bobby Layne,
Doak Walker,
Kyle Rote,
Tom Landry,
Yale
Lary,
Dickey Maegle,
Jack Pardee,
John
David Crow,
E.J. Holub,
Don Meredith,
Bob Lilly,
Forrest Gregg,
Lance
Alworth,
Tommy Nobis,
Jerry LeVias,
James Street,
Roosevelt Leaks,
Tommy Kramer,
Doug
English,
Earl Campbell,
Lester Hayes,
Wilson
Whitley,
Steve McMichael,
Dan Hampton,
Mike Singletary,
Jerry
Gray,
Eric Dickerson,
Craig James,
Ray
Childress,
Eric Metcalf,
Andre Ware,
Richmond
Webb,
Steve Atwater,
Zach Thomas, and
Ricky
Williams.
The early 1980s were the glory years of SWC basketball, especially
the
Phi Slama Jama teams at the
University of Houston.Outstanding basketball coaches included
Eddie Sutton,
Guy V. Lewis,
Nolan Richardson,
Tom Penders,
Abe
Lemons,
Shelby Metcalf and
Gerald Myers. Great SWC hoops players
included
Sonny Parker,
Otis Birdsong,
Ron
Brewer,
Hakeem Olajuwon,
Clyde Drexler,
Vinnie Johnson,
Jon
Koncak,
Joe Kleine,
Sidney Moncrief,
Darrell Walker,
Alvin Robertson,
Ricky Pierce,
Todd Day
and
Lee Mayberry.
The Texas Longhorns were the class of SWC baseball, who under
legendary coach
Cliff Gustafson won
national titles in 1975 and 1983. Texas ran into SWC rivals
Arkansas and Texas A&M often at the
College World Series during the
1980s.
Final years
-USA-states.PNG/250px-SWC_(Dissolution)-USA-states.PNG)
Southwest Conference, 1925-91
The 1980s saw many of the conference's athletic programs hit by
recruiting scandals and
NCAA probations.
The only programs to escape probation in the 1980s were Arkansas,
Baylor, and Rice.
Because of repeated major
violations, the Southern Methodist University football program in 1987 became
only the third program in NCAA history to receive the so-called
"Death Penalty" (after Kentucky basketball in
1952-53 and Southwestern
Louisiana basketball from 1973 to 1975). The NCAA
canceled SMU's 1987 season, and limited it to seven road games for
1988. However, nearly all of the school's lettermen transferred
elsewhere, forcing SMU to keep its football program shuttered for
1988 as well. SMU also remained on probation until
1990. At that time, NCAA rules prohibited schools on
probation from appearing on live
television. As a result, the conference's market
share in television coverage dwindled.
The performance in the "money" sport of football declined as well.
The final eight SWC champions lost in their bowl game. After SMU's
second-place finish in most polls in 1982, only two SWC teams were
serious contenders for the national title--Texas in 1990 and Texas
A&M in 1992. Attendance also dwindled at every school except
for Texas and Texas A&M.
The beginning of the end was when Arkansas announced it would leave
for the
Southeastern
Conference in 1990. The death blow came in 1993 when Texas,
Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor accepted invitations to join
with the members of the
Big Eight
Conference to form the
Big 12
Conference. Soon afterward, SMU, TCU and Rice accepted
invitations to join the
Western Athletic Conference,
while Houston joined
Conference USA.
In May 1996, after the completions of championship matches in
baseball and
track & field, the Southwest
Conference was officially dissolved.
Over the course of its 81-year history, teams of the Southwest
Conference garnered 64 recognized national championships in
collegiate sports (nine in football).
In 1997 the official records of the conference from 1914 to 1996
were moved from Dallas to the campus of Texas Tech University,
becoming part of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections
Library. The archive also contains an extensive assortment of
images and memorabilia from each member university.
Members
Membership Timeline
DateFormat = yyyyImageSize = width:750 height:auto
barincrement:24Period = from:1915 till:1996TimeAxis =
orientation:horizontalPlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50
top:5
Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb(0.99,0.7,0.7)
id:line value:black
id:bg value:white
PlotData=
width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s
bar:1 color:RED from:1915 till:1919 text:Oklahoma (1915-1919)
bar:2 color:RED from:1915 till:1925 text:Oklahoma State
(1915-1925)
bar:3 color:RED from:1915 till:1991 text:Arkansas (1915-1991)
bar:4 color:RED from:1915 till:1996 text:Baylor (1915-1996)
bar:5 color:RED from:1915 till:1996 text:Rice (1915-1996)
bar:6 color:RED from:1915 till:1996 text:Texas
(1915-1996)
bar:7 color:RED from:1915 till:1996 text:Texas A&M (1915-1996)
bar:8 color:RED from:1918 till:1996 text:Southern Methodist (1918-1996)
bar:9 color:RED from:1920 till:1920 text:Phillips (1920)
bar:10 color:RED from:1923 till:1996 text:TCU (1923-1996)
bar:11 color:RED from:1956 till:1996 text:Texas Tech (1956-1996)
bar:12 color:RED from:1971 till:1996 text:Houston
(1971-1996)
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1915
TextData =
fontsize:L
textcolor:black
pos:(175,30) # tabs:(0-center)
text:"Southwest Conference Membership History"
Where are they now?
* TCU left the WAC, joined C-USA, then joined MWC.
Conference commissioners
- P.W. St. Clair (1938-45)
- James H. Stewart (1945-50)
- Howard Grubbs (1950-73)
- Cliff Speegle (1973-82)
- Fred Jacoby (1982-93)
- Steve Hatchell (1993-95)
- Kyle Kallander (1995-96)
Conference football champions
Houston's 1976 conference championship
trophy
- Texas (27 titles, 21 outright): 1916, 1918,
1920, 1928, 1930, 1942, 1943, 1945, 1950, 1952, 1953*, 1959*,
1961*, 1962, 1963, 1968*, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975*,
1977, 1983, 1990, 1994*, 1995
- Texas A&M (17, 15): 1917, 1919, 1921,
1925, 1927, 1939, 1940*, 1941, 1956, 1967, 1975*, 1985, 1986, 1987,
1991, 1992, 1993
- Arkansas (13, 7): 1936, 1946*, 1954, 1959*,
1960, 1961*, 1964, 1965, 1968*, 1975*, 1979*, 1988, 1989
- SMU (11, 9): 1923, 1926, 1931, 1935, 1940*,
1947, 1948, 1966, 1981, 1982, 1984*
- TCU (9, 7): 1929, 1932, 1938, 1944, 1951,
1955, 1958, 1959*, 1994*
- Rice (7, 4): 1934, 1937, 1946*, 1949, 1953*,
1957, 1994*
- Baylor (5, 4): 1922, 1924, 1974, 1980,
1994*
- Houston (4, 1): 1976*, 1978, 1979*, 1984*
- Texas Tech (2, 0): 1976*, 1994*
- Oklahoma (1, 1): 1915
"*" -- Denotes shared title
Conference men's basketball regular-season champions
- Arkansas (22 titles, 14 outright): 1926, 1927,
1928, 1929, 1930, 1935*, 1936, 1938, 1941, 1942*, 1944*, 1949*,
1950*, 1958*, 1977, 1978*, 1979*, 1981, 1982, 1989, 1990, 1991
- Texas (22, 12): 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919, 1924,
1933, 1939, 1943*, 1947, 1951*, 1954*, 1960, 1963, 1965*, 1972*,
1974, 1978*, 1979*, 1986*, 1992*, 1994, 1995*
- SMU (13, 8): 1935*, 1937, 1955, 1956, 1957,
1958*, 1962*, 1965*, 1966, 1967, 1972*, 1988, 1993
- Texas A&M (11, 9): 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923,
1951*, 1964, 1969, 1975, 1976, 1980, 1986*
- TCU (10, 2): 1931, 1934, 1951*, 1952, 1953,
1959, 1968, 1971, 1986*, 1987
- Rice (10, 4): 1918, 1935*, 1940, 1942*, 1943*,
1944*, 1945, 1949*, 1954*, 1970
- Texas Tech (6, 4): 1961, 1962*, 1973, 1985,
1995*, 1996
- Baylor (5, 2): 1932, 1946, 1948, 1949*,
1950*
- Houston (3, 2): 1983, 1984, 1992*
- Oklahoma A&M (1): 1925
"*" -- Denotes shared title
Quote
President
John F. Kennedy referenced Southwest
Conference with the question, "Why does Rice play Texas?"
in his September 12 1962 "Moon Speech" delivered at Rice Stadium
.
See also
Further reading
References
External links
Top topics
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search