Mavericks in Motion: A History of Diversity in Sports at UTA

The purpose of The Compass Rose is to raise awareness of Special Collections' resources and to foster the use of these resources. The blog series also reports significant new programs, initiatives, and acquisitions of Special Collections. 

Today, Special Collections presents a special guest post from Special Collections' Reference Student Assistants Piper Burchell and Sophia Motyka.

In honor of Diversity Month, celebrated each April, we have assembled a timeline of the history of sports at UTA and how they have evolved and diversified within a school with segregationist history. Throughout the long history of UTA and its many predecessors, there hasn’t always been a diverse athletic program. Unfortunately, due to segregation, the diversity that existed on campus was limited to a few female sports teams—primarily basketball and tennis. In 1962, President Woolf recommended that ASC (now UTA) integrate. The following year, sports were integrated. Later in the 1970s, due to Title IX, the university’s hand was forced to include and fund women’s teams. A few years after that, the UTA Free Wheelers were established on campus as an intramural team for wheelchair basketball. The mid-to-late 20th century saw a lot of change in sports at UTA, serving more of the student body.

UTA first opened as Arlington College, a private liberal arts school, with a staff of 6 teachers and fewer than 100 students.¹ The school taught primary, intermediate, and secondary grades.²

After educator James M. Carlisle assumed ownership of the school, Arlington College changed its name to "Carlisle's School for Boys," which in the following year, became Carlisle Military Academy. Despite its name, the school accepted girls, and at least 8 females graduated during the school's 11-year run.³

The first sports team formed on campus was baseball.⁴

Due to increasing enrollment, Carlisle Military Academy closed its doors to women. As an alternative, the "Carlisle-Smith School for Girls" was established to take in girls from grades 1-10. The school, however, only lasted for a few years.⁵

After financial woes forced the closure of Carlisle Military Academy, the campus re-opened as the Arlington Training School, a co-educational institution.⁶ That same year, the female students organized a women’s basketball team.⁷

In addition to basketball, Arlington Training School also established a women’s tennis team this year.⁸

Grubbs Vocational College was established as a two-year state-supported junior college on the site of the Arlington Training School. It was under the direction of Texas A&M.⁹ Its curriculum emphasized training in agriculture for men, with training in "the household arts" for women.¹⁰ However, in addition to a tennis team, the College also boasted basketball (sponsored by the school for the first time) and volleyball teams for women.¹¹

Grubbs Vocational College was renamed North Texas Agricultural College (NTAC).¹²

The Women’s Athletic Association is established, allowing women to earn "letters."¹³

With the advent of World War II, the war years forced a realignment of the traditional gender roles both in the classroom and in sports, as women were allowed to enroll in engineering classes for the first time, and a young women’s rifle team was also established.¹⁴

NTAC became Arlington State College (ASC) as part of the Texas A&M University System. The college chose the "Rebels" as its team name, with its logo as the Confederate flag and its team mascot a Confederate soldier known as "Johnny Reb."¹⁵

Due to increasing pressure from the NAACP to allow admission of three African American students to the college, ASC President Jack Woolf recommended that the Texas A&M board allow ASC to change its policy to and no longer "discriminate against any person" on a "racial basis." ASC thus became the first school in the Texas A&M University System to integrate.¹⁶

For a more in-depth look on integration at UTA, see Public Services Archivist Evan Spencer’s blog, "Change is Upon Us": The Documents of UT-Arlington's Integration in 1962.

The following year, ASC's athletic teams were finally integrated.¹⁷ Johnny Jones was the first African American to join the varsity football team. A year later, Larry Allen joined the basketball team.¹⁸

For more information on these athletes, see former University Archivist Michael Barera's blog, First African American football and men's basketball student-athletes at UTA.

Arlington State College transferred from the Texas A&M University System to The University of Texas (UT) System.¹⁹ That same year, the school paper, The Shorthorn, urged the school to break its "ties with the past" and change "the Rebel-Dixie motif." However, soon after a referendum was held on the issue, with the vote to keep the Rebel theme winning by a nearly 6-to-1 margin.²⁰ Also, Dashelle Maines competed on the men's swimming team, the first time in Texas that a woman competed against men in swimming.²¹

Arlington State College officially changed its name to The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA).²²

With the integration of the school, students began lobbying to change UTA's Rebel theme. A student government resolution to prohibit flying the Confederate flag on campus and phase out the Rebel theme passed by a vote of 12 to 5 (with 3 abstentions), but this sparked a mass protest which saw nearly 1,000 students marching on campus carrying Confederate flags and singing "Dixie." A second referendum was held, with the Rebel theme once again being upheld, by a vote of 3-to-1 in favor.²³

After two more referendums, a new theme, the "Mavericks," was proposed to replace the Rebel theme. However, a third student referendum once again upheld the Rebel theme over the Mavericks by a 56-44 percent margin. That same year, Dickie Fears became UTA's first African-American cheerleader.²⁴

With the Rebel theme controversy refusing to die and under mounting pressure, the UT regents voted 7-2 to abolish the Rebel theme.²⁵ That same year, yet another vote was held to decide the new mascot, and the "Maverick" theme was chosen.²⁶

Following the enactment of Title IX prohibiting sex-based discrimination in any school that received federal funding, UTA began its women's sports program by placing, for the first time, a line item in the university's budget specifically dedicated to funding women's athletics.²⁷

The UTA Freewheelers was established, the precursor to the "Movin' Mavs."²⁸

The "Movin' Mavs" Wheelchair Basketball team began intercollegiate play.²⁹  During this year, UTA became the first school in the nation to offer full scholarships for adapted sports.³⁰

U.S. President Bill Clinton invited the Movin' Mavs to the White House to congratulate them in honor of winning their third consecutive national championship.³¹

The Lady Movin' Mavs Wheelchair Basketball Team was established.³²

The UTA Wheelchair Tennis Team won the 2014 Intercollegiate Wheelchair Tennis Team National Championships.³³

UTA currently participates in 15 intercollegiate sports as a member of NCAA Division I and the Western Athletic Conference. The Movin' Mavs Men’s and Women’s teams have won a total of 13 national championships thus far.³⁴

¹ Gerald D. Saxon, "Transitions: A Centennial History of the University of Texas at Arlington, 1895-1995," (Arlington, TX: UTA Press, 1995), 3.

² Saxon, "Transitions," 1.

³ Saxon, "Transitions," 9.

⁴ Saxon, "Transitions," 13

⁵ Saxon, "Transitions," 13.

⁶ Saxon, "Transitions," 16, 21. 

⁷ Saxon, "Transitions," 24. 

⁸ Saxon, "Transitions," 25. 

⁹ Saxon, "Transitions," 36. 

¹⁰ Saxon, "Transitions," 40

¹¹ Saxon, "Transitions," 42-43.

¹² Saxon, "Transitions," 53. 

¹³ Saxon, "Transitions," 72. 

¹⁴ Saxon, "Transitions," 62-63. 

¹⁵ Shaji, Ayesha Hana. "Historic Hues: The Evolution of UTA's School Colors."  The Shorthorn, 10 November 2022. https://www.theshorthorn.com/news/historic-hues-the-evolution-of-uta-s-school-colors/article_a383d3a8-615c-11ed-9d28-9fe7362d7a26.html. Accessed 21 March 2023.  

¹⁶ Saxon, "Transitions," 87-88.

¹⁷ Saxon, "Transitions," 88. 

¹⁸ Michael Barera, "First African American football and men's basketball student-athletes at UTA," Compass Rose, February 22, 2021,  https://libraries.uta.edu/news-events/blog/first-african-american-football-and-mens-basketball-student-athletes-uta. 

¹⁹ Saxon, "Transitions," 97. 

²⁰ Saxon, "Transitions," 113. 

²¹ Saxon, "Transitions," 103. 

²² Saxon, "Transitions," 100.  

²³ Saxon, "Transitions," 114.

²⁴ Saxon, "Transitions," 116. 

²⁵ Saxon, "Transitions," 117.

²⁶ Saxon, "Transitions," 118.

²⁷ Saxon, "Transitions," 132.

²⁸ University of Texas at Arlington. UTA Adaptive Sports Program. "Milestones." https://www.uta.edu/student-affairs/movin-mavs/about. Accessed 22 March 2023; UTA Libraries. "Building a Barrier-Free Campus: The History of Accessibility at the University of Texas at Arlington." Curated by Trevor Engel and Sarah F. Rose. https://library.uta.edu/barrier-freecampus. Accessed 29 March 2023.

²⁹ University of Texas at Arlington. "Milestones."

³⁰ UTA Libraries. "Building a Barrier-Free Campus."

³¹ Saxon, "Transitions," 131

³² UTA Libraries. "Building a Barrier-Free Campus."

³³ “Movin Mavs - The University of Texas at Arlington,” December 22, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221222204538/https://www.uta.edu/student-affairs/movin-mavs.

³⁴ University of Texas at Arlington. "Milestones."