Vote on Vince: Should He Do ‘Dancing With the Stars?’
By now the word is out: Texas’ favorite son, Vince Young, has been invited to compete on Dancing With the Stars.
Vince is 28 now and a quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, but apparently he’s still looking to have a little lighthearted fun outside the NFL.
He’s talking big on Twitter, telling his trash-talking former roommate, Michael Huff, “U know I got them dancing skills.”
And his own steakhouse here in Austin tells him, “YES! You would win!”
Sure, it sounds entertaining, but isn’t there a risk of injury? Or just other pursuits—like football training—to keep him busy?
The blogosphere isn’t so sure. Austin sportswriter Cedric Golden says, “To say his career is at a crossroad would be a massive understatement. A backup quarterback who threw four interceptions in his last real action should be out hustling to regain some credibility on the football field. That’s time better spent than shaking his moneymaker on national television.”
We’ve just got to know what Longhorn Nation thinks: should Vince Young dance in a ballroom the way he dances around tackles on the field? Or should he leave it ’til retirement?
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McConaughey, Dazed and Confused All Over Again
You know the great thing about Matthew McConaughey? We get older, and he stays the same age.
At least the A-list father of two certainly makes it seem that way.
McConaughey, garbed once again in pink (er, salmon) pants and a Bob Marley T-shirt, recently reprised his mustachioed Casanova-like character, David Wooderson, from the 1993 cult classic Dazed and Confused.
In the video, made for Butch Walker and the Black Widows’ song “Synthesizers,” the recently engaged McConaughey hilariously channels Wooderson—the character who launched his career—as he makes his grand entrance into a nightclub.
Despite almost 20 years passing since the film’s release, McConaughey, BS ’93, Life Member, doesn’t look like he’s aged much, and he doesn’t act like it either.
For those who have seen the film, it’s not surprising that Wooderson is still the life of the party, because, naturally, his life still is a party. The trumpet-blasting, DJ-directing, dance-floor-grooving chick magnet still commands attention with every action; he still exudes a palpable sense of cool.
Unfortunately for Dazed and Confused fans, plans for a sequel were scrapped a few years back—so cherish every glorious moment McConaughey gives us in this video.
Plus, it’s not every day McConaughey stars in something where he doesn’t take his shirt off, though female fans would probably like it a lot better if he did.
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UT Alumna’s Short Film Nominated for Academy Award
Can’t see the video? Click here.
It’s not every day that a film you made is a contender for an Oscar nomination.
With that mentality, Time Freak producer Gigi Causey, BS ’95, a graduate of UT’s Radio-Television-Film program, and her writer-director husband, Andrew Bowler, decided to film themselves watching the nomination announcements live at 5:30 a.m. last Tuesday morning.
Clad in bathrobes and pajamas, the film-making duo’s ecstatic reaction to Time Freak’s nomination in the Live-Action Short Film category has since gone viral, even earning a spot on Good Morning America’s “Play of the Day” segment.
And their YouTube video isn’t the only thing generating buzz. The 11-minute story of a neurotic inventor who, consumed with regret, creates a time machine and gets lost traveling in his past, has garnered international praise—even winning the grand prize at the Seattle International Film Festival.
Causey served as producer on the project, while Bowler wrote the screenplay and directed the short. Now based in LA, Causey has previously worked on movies including 2008′s Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and the upcoming Denzel Washington-Ryan Reynolds flick Safe House.
The Oscar winners will be announced at the 84th Annual Academy Awards on Feb. 26.
Can’t see the video? Click here.
Photo courtesy Time Freak: The Movie.
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World’s Longest-Horned Longhorn is an Aussie [Watch]
The world’s longest-horned Texas Longhorn steer lives on a ranch in Australia, Texas Monthly reports.
In November, 7-year-old JR (yes, he’s named after the oil baron of Dallas fame) was awarded the Guinness World Record for longest horns: 109 inches, or nearly three meters from tip to tip.
How does Bevo stack up? His “mama,” Betty Baker, says Bevo’s horns were 78 inches at last measure, though they’ve probably grown a little since. “Some folks breed just for horns,” says Baker, who owns Bevo with her husband, John, at their Liberty Hill ranch, “but we breed for body, too. You can’t eat horns!”
A longhorn’s rack never stops growing, but growth slows down considerably when the animal is about 10 years old, Baker says.
The Aussies may have won this one for now. But let the record show that JR is still a Texas Longhorn. He’s just colonized the outback.
Photo by Horseshoe B. Longhorn Ranch
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Texas Executive MBA Hits Global Top 10
Rankings convey bragging rights, and this latest one is something to be proud of not just nationally but internationally.
The Texas Executive MBA Program is ranked ninth in the world, according to Poets & Quants for Executives’ second annual EMBA ranking.
Penn’s Wharton School leads the list of the 55 global schools; the University of Chicago and Northwestern University are not far behind. The only other public schools to crack the Top 10 were UCLA, Michigan, and McCombs.
The Poets & Quants ranking system, for those of you keeping score at home, was created by John Byrne, a former BusinessWeek executive who was responsible for launching that publication’s influential b-school rankings decades ago.
File photo by Valerie Cook
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Baby Panda Escapes!—Almost [Watch]
Is there anything cuter than baby pandas? This video, from the Chengdu Panda Base, is strong evidence that there is not.
In our January|February issue, we told how 10 lucky alumni travelers got to cuddle with baby pandas at the base on a Flying Longhorns trip to China and Tibet.
We’re guessing none of them held the furry star of this “aww”-inducing video, because he doesn’t seem like the type to just hang around in a crib all day.
Located in southwest China, the base is a world-class research center working to protect the endangered species. Only about 1,600 giant pandas remain in the world.
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Why Texas Is Like a Fine Scotch
Hey, they said it…but okay, we’ll take it!
A funny website, Total Frat Move, has a story this week comparing each Big 12 school to a type of liquor.
Each school took its digs, but The University of Texas came out pretty well, we’d say, by being likened to The Macallan, a fine scotch whisky.
Like a taste for scotch, UT too is an acquired taste, writer Roger Dorn says. “They’re still distinguished, sophisticated, recognizable, and the hallmark of scotch,” he says. “They also boast a rich history and are not afraid to tell you about it. Arrogant…really.”
Other schools got compared to everything from club soda to Captain Morgan to trashcan punch.
A couple hit us as all too apt, including Oklahoma as tequila (“Like tequila, Oklahoma football is a force to be reckoned with. They don’t just beat you down. They humiliate you, make you look stupid, run up the score, and you wake up feeling violated the next day.”)
And then there’s poor Iowa State as bottom-shelf vodka. (“Iowa State is just happy to be at the party. No one knows who brought them or how they got there, but dammit they are in the building.”) Aww, we still love you, Cyclones!
Some of the language in the original story is too hot for us to print, but if you’re interested (and have a good sense of humor), check out the full deal here.
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UT’s Chief Commercialization Officer Abruptly Resigns
It’s a classic American scenario: dynamic private-sector professional is recruited to a public entity, with high hopes he can slice through red tape and get things humming. After a too-brief stint, he leaves, often frustrated.
At UT, Richard Miller just became the latest official to make that classic play.
Miller had joined the University just over a year ago, in September 2010, as its first chief commercialization officer. A physician, medical scientist, and veteran entrepreneur, he’d come as a hot recruit from Silicon Valley to UT’s Office of Technology Commercialization.
He resigned effective Dec. 31 after being told he could no longer have a personal or financial involvement with companies that might license technology from UT, the Austin American-Statesman reports.
UT’s VP of research, Juan Sanchez, said that while there had been no active conflicts of interest, those seemed to be coming down the pike. Miller, he said, ”was setting up a scenario in which he would be negotiating with himself, and that would have been a conflict of interest, which we would not allow.”
Sanchez added: “It was clear that he would have to divest his interest. The resignation was his call. I would have liked him to remain as chief commercialization officer, but he chose not to.”
At The Alcalde, we wrote a major feature last year about Miller and the OTC, which aims to amp up the money and jobs emerging from the academic hub that is a major research university.
“It’s not just about being excellent at academic tech transfer,” Miller said then. “We have a more important mission. We have to create jobs, companies, businesses, technology, and leadership, and it’s going to have to start coming out of our universities. We have to figure out ways to start doing that. It’s not going to happen by sitting around and waiting for other people to do it.”
A bright spot in what could otherwise be a loss for UT: a constellation of other key players is also in place to continue that work. Here’s hoping they can keep it going.
Photo courtesy UT Public Affairs
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UT Grad Struts the Catwalk on Project Runway
If you see a beautiful blonde on TV tonight who looks like a girl you used to see around campus, there’s a reason why.
UT grad (and recent Alcalde cover model) Taylor McCausland, BS ’11, is a model on the new season of Project Runway. The show’s “All Stars” season premieres tonight at 8 p.m. CST on Lifetime.
McCausland got her start at UT by modeling in the Fashion Design program’s annual fashion show. The show draws a crowd of 5,000 to the Frank Erwin Center each spring.
A few days after graduating, the RTF major moved to New York City to chase her dreams, and she’s since modeled everywhere from New York Fashion Week shows to Mexican fashion magazine covers.
But she credits UT and its fashion show with giving her a foundation in the business.
“The 2010 show was a major event that made me realize this is really what I want to do, even if just for the time being,” she says. “It also helped me realize what I needed to work on, and by the time the 2011 show came along, my walk and confidence had improved so much that I was asked to help a few new models learn how to walk for the first time.”
Photo courtesy Taylor McCausland
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Texas Tops Cal 21-10 in Holiday Bowl
The Texas Longhorns beat the Cal Bears 21-10 in the 2011 Holiday Bowl to finish the season 8-5. The win improves Coach Mack Brown’s Texas bowl record to 9-4 and will likely provide some precious momentum for his young team as it heads into the off-season.
Freshman quarterback David Ash threw for a touchdown and caught one on his way to being named the game’s MVP. For Texas, though, the real star was the defense, which forced five turnovers and bedeviled Cal’s athletic quarterback.
Check out some of the best images from San Diego, courtesy of UT Athletics.
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