In our new series SEC Connections, we take a quick look at coincidences, partnerships and parallels between The University of Texas at Austin and our sister schools in the Southeastern Conference. This week, the University of Oklahoma.
Each spring, UT’s Texas Advanced Computation Center helps Oklahoma storm researchers. TACC runs fast forecasts of severe storms so scientists can travel in the right direction to collect observational data. OU’s Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS) team uses TACC systems when contributing model data to the Hazardous Weather Testbed Spring Experiment.
Sooner alumnus Ed Harris starred in “Places in the Heart,” an Oscar-winning 1984 movie written and directed by Longhorn Robert Benton, now 91. UT’s Alan Bean was on the Apollo 12 crew and the fourth man on the moon, while OU’s Fred Haise was on the less fortunate but more famous Apollo 13 crew. Bill Paxton played Haise in 1995’s “Apollo 13,” which also starred — wait for it — Ed Harris.
OU has the No. 1 program in aviation in the country, while one Longhorn alum, C.R. Smith, was the founding CEO of American Airlines and another, Gary Kelly, is the longtime CEO of Southwest Airlines.
The campuses of Texas and OU both have distinctive architecture. UT’s core campus combines Beaux-Arts, Art Deco and Spanish Colonial styles, while Frank Lloyd Wright, on a visit to Norman, dubbed OU’s architectural style “Cherokee Gothic.”
This week marks the 120th time the Longhorns and Sooners have met on the gridiron. Since 1932, the game has been played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
