Southwest Conference Baseball History
This article was written by Bo Carter
This article was published in The National Pastime: Baseball in Texas and Beyond (2025)
From left, Coach Buck Bailey of Washington State, Umpire Jim Tobin of National Association of Professional Baseball, Umpire Lon Warneke of National League, Coach Bibb Falk of Texas, and Umpire Hank Soar of American League. (Author’s collection)
The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I conference, 1914-96, which included colleges from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. With the way Texas Longhorns baseball has dominated the SWC diamond throughout much of the conference’s existence, with 64 baseball championships over 82 seasons, one might think that’s the whole story of the SWC. However, programs such as Texas A&M, Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech (in the 1987-96 final years), Arkansas (which dropped varsity baseball from 1931-47 due to financial and weather considerations, but roared back), and even outmanned Rice have had their moments.
In fact, then-seventh-seeded Rice, led by future Hall of Fame head coach Wayne Graham, figured largely in the final days of the SWC.1 In May 1996 at Lubbock, Texas, fireballing right-handed reliever David Aardsma blew a 97-mile-per-hour fastball by a Texas hitter to seal a 16-8 win in the SWC postseason championship finals and an NCAA Championship berth. Rice began its ascent to college baseball’s elite in the conference’s final years under Graham, head coach of the Owls 1992-2018.2
Intercollegiate baseball in the Lone Star State traces its roots back 112 years to 1884, when traditional archrivals Texas and Texas A&M first met in Austin sometime in March or April (the exact date is not known). That rivalry has continued beyond the SWC days into competition in the Big 12, Western Athletic, American Athletic Conferences as well as Conference USA. Before it was dissolved in July 1996, the famed SWC was a major factor in college baseball, with dozens of major league players listed among its alumni and solid representation in the NCAA trophy room and NCAA World Series.
Despite the outsized score, 16-8, of the final game of any SWC sport in 1996, the SWC was regarded as a solid, pitching-dominated circuit for nine decades.
The Texas Longhorns baseball program under Hall of Fame coach Cliff Gustafson won national titles in 1975 and 1983, as well as titles under Bibb Falk in 1949 and 1950 with Gustafson playing on those teams as an infielder. The SWC Arkansas Razorbacks also fielded fine teams that advanced to the College World Series in 1979, 1985, 1987, and 1989, before leaving for the Southeastern Conference in July 1991 in all sports (except football during the ‘91 campaign).
Behind Texas, Texas A&M was a factor in the next most conference races, with 15 regular-season crowns 1931-93 and three visits to the NCAA World Series in 1951, 1964 and 1993. The Aggies won a combined 1,536 contests 1959-2005 under coaches Tom Chandler (660 victories from 1959-84) and Hall of Fame coach Mark Johnson (school-record 876 wins from 1985-2005) with 20 NCAA tournament bids during those years.
TCU made its presence known with seven SWC crowns 1933-94 but advanced into NCAA postseason play just twice, in 1956 and 1994.
Baylor also had its heyday with a pair of SWC tournament titles in the first two years of the postseason meet in 1977 and ‘78, and eventual treks during those seasons to the NCAA World Series.
Texas Tech made its late run into SWC competition (after dropping baseball 1930-53) with NCAA appearances in both 1995 and 1996 and near-misses at at-large NCAA bids in the early 1990s under Hall of Fame coach Larry Hays.
Who would be crowned SWC champion, and receive the automatic berth into the NCAA Championship since it began in 1947, has not always been clear-cut. A prime example came in the 1966 season when Baylor, TCU, Texas, and Texas A&M all closed with 9-6 league records. There was no playoff plan or SWC postseason tournament at that time, so a conference call was arranged with the four teams’ head coaches and directors of athletics, and SWC commissioner Cliff Speegle. They used a series of coin flips to determine the circuit’s NCAA representative.
As fate would have it, the ever-present Longhorns won the tosses, advanced to the NCAA District 8 tournament, and eventually to the NCAA World Series where they finished 1-2 and tied for fifth nationally.
Wally Moon played college ball at Texas A&M. (SABR-Rucker Archive)
Yet another peculiar instance was the tenth SWC postseason tourney in 1986 at College Station, Texas, with the top four teams competing for the meet title and the league’s automatic NCAA bid. Weather and fate played major roles in the final decision. The tournament began on Friday, May 16. The number 4 seed Baylor upset number 1 Texas, 13-5, and 2 seed Texas A&M edged Arkansas, 4-0.
Then came the deluges Saturday and Sunday. Play was impossible. Conference officials, including tournament director and SWC coordinator of umpires Art Blair, conferred Sunday night as rain continued. Gustafson and fellow Hall of Fame coach Norm DeBriyn of Arkansas spoke by phone with members of the NCAA Baseball Selection Committee. They were told that both of their teams were in line for two of the 15 at-large berths in the 40-team NCAA field (with 25 automatic conference winners) due to NCAA Rating Percentages Indices among the top nationally.
Both teams packed their gear and headed back to campus despite pleas from Blair, and Baylor and Texas A&M coaches and administrators. The semifinals and loser’s bracket games were canceled and Baylor and Texas A&M would have to play each other for the guaranteed slot. Texas A&M officials began working on the diamond at A&M’s Olsen Field, and gasoline burn-off and local helicopters were arranged to get the field playable. The result was a two-game sweep by the homestanding Aggies over the Bears, 8-0 and 7-6.
And both Arkansas and Texas made the NCAA field, tying the record (3) for the most SWC representatives among the 40-team NCAA bracket. None of the trio advanced to the World Series, though. It was the middle season for Arkansas’ three CWS appearances in five years.
SWC-based and SWC legacy program college baseball players also have been prominent in winning the Dick Howser Trophy, voted upon by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association, as well as the Golden Spikes Award given annually since 1978 by USA Baseball.
Dick Howser Trophy winners with Texas ties include: Scott Bryant (Texas, 1989), Brooks Kieschnick (only two-time winner of the Howser Trophy, Texas 1992-93), Jason Jennings (Baylor, 1999), Brad Lincoln (Houston, 2006), Anthony Rendon (Rice, 2010), Taylor Jungmann (Texas, 2011) (also Big 12 Conference Male Athlete of the Year), and Ivan Melendez (Texas, 2022). Jennings and Melendez doubled with the Golden Spikes Awards in those years.
Former TCU head coach and pitching star Lance Brown also had the distinction of becoming the only person in SWC history to earn Player of the Year (1963), Coach of the Year (1991 and ‘94), pitch on a SWC championship team (1963), and coach a SWC title team (TCU 1994).
Eddie Dyer pitched a no-hitter for Rice and made All-SWC 1919-21, but left college just shy of graduation to sign with the St. Louis Cardinals. He would later manage the Cardinals 1946-50. (SABR-Rucker Archive)
Many other notables wore SWC uniforms in the Lone Star State or Arkansas. They include Texas’s Roger Clemens, Greg Swindell, Keith Moreland, national championship quarterback James Street, two-sport star Bobby Layne, Burt Hooton, and the Howser Trophy winners from the UT program, Baylor’s famed player and coach Mickey Sullivan and National Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Teddy Lyons, Houston’s Doug Drabek, Rice’s Lance Berkman and Eddie Dyer, Texas A&M’s Wally Moon, Chuck Knoblauch, Doug Rau, and Michael Wacha, TCU’s Jim Busby, Carl Warwick and Jake Arrieta, and Texas Tech’s Josh Jung, Mike Humphreys, and Stubby Clapp.3
1948 Heisman Trophy winner Doak Walker and teammate Kyle Rote also starred on the diamond and gridiron for SMU, while record-setting TCU and NFL quarterback Sam Baugh originally attended Texas on a baseball scholarship before transferring to TCU to star in two sports.
Gustafson as both player and coach helped the Longhorns to an NCAA-record 63 appearances in the NCAA Championship (which began in 1947) and 38 College World Series treks prior to 2025. He became the NCAA Division’s winningest head coach with 1,332 victories, all at UT. He was eventually passed for this record by coaches Mike Martin of Florida State and Augie Garrido, who finished his career with 20 seasons (1997-2016) at Texas and NCAA championships in 2002 and 2005. Current Texas Longhorns head coach Jim Schlossnagle just recently guided Texas A&M to its highest finish in school history, coming in as runner-up to Tennessee at the CWS in 2024.
Interestingly, despite the many seasons of SWC national college prominence and the many future major-leaguers who honed their skills in the SWC’s competitive environment, only Baylor’s Lyons has a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, though UT’s Clemens has garnered multiple votes through the years with his MLB lifetime record of 354-184, 4,672 strikeouts, and seven Cy Young Awards.4 This pitching-rich (with occasional home run power) history continues to be celebrated as fans recall the glory days of the Southwest Conference.
BO CARTER joined SABR in 1993 and was the media relations director for the Southwest Conference from 1986-96 and Big 12 Conference from 1996-2006. He also has served on the SABR College Baseball Committee for 20-plus years and is a member of the College Sports Communicators Hall of Fame. He has been executive director of the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association since 1998.
Sources
Stats and scores from Baseball Reference, Southwest Conference Baseball Media Guides (1987-96), SWC Facebook History Page (1914-96), and University of Texas Baseball Guides, (1982-97).
Notes
1. The term Hall of Fame in this paper refers to the College Baseball Hall of Fame unless otherwise specified. The National College Baseball Hall of Fame is located in Lubbock, Texas.
2. Rice would eventually reach the CWS in 1997 for the first time and win the NCAA crown in 2003.
3. “Associated Press 1969 College Football Polls,” Sports Reference, https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/1969-polls.html, accessed May 19, 2024.
4. It is largely understood that Clemens has not been voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame because BBWAA voters are reluctant to vote for any player implicated in the Mitchell Report or performance enhancing drug scandals, although Clemens never tested positive for PEDs and was found not guilty of false testimony to Congress.