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Ten years after Texas A&M University announced it was leaving the Big 12 and joining the Southeastern Conference (SEC) with no intervention or public scorn from Texas lawmakers, the Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, appointed a Senate Select Committee on the Future of College Sports in Texas to hear testimony on the impact of The University of Texas’ (UT) decision to leave the tenuous ten-team conference led by scorned Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby.  This, a show of force by a self-proclaimed conservative state government, not even two weeks after the leak from the Aggies to the Houston Chronicle’s TAMU sports beat reporter about the former rival’s rumored move.   
The alma maters of committee members span Texas but most noticeably the ire toward Texas’ decision was fired from Baylor, Texas Christian University and Texas Tech alum and their respective representatives.  While the Chair, Senator Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound), and Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston), publicly commented that college athletics would not be intertwined with state funding decisions for UT, Senators Charles Perry (R-Lubbock) and Brian Birdwell (R-Waco), along with State Representative Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock), were unequivocal in their disdain for the Texas flagship’s decision and that funding implications would be entertained in future Legislative Sessions.   
Notably, asked to testify but declined, was Texas A&M University.
Complaints from the remaining Big 12 schools and their legislators ranged from acting in secrecy and complete betrayal to their brothers, diminishing local revenue from losing powerhouse schools playing in their communities, harming bond ratings necessary to build infrastructure to their now inability to become Tier 1 research institutions and recruit top students and athletes.  Who knew the Texas Longhorns' athletic program had so much power?  Power to shutdown emerging universities and small towns across Texas with one decision. 
The irony is these same lawmakers run on platforms and pass laws to ensure less government intervention. Protesting the freedom of personal responsibility and championing capitalism to allow those who work hard to succeed and not be held back to a common denominator.  Yet, they are asking the State’s one and only Constitutionally deemed university of excellence to stray from a clear business decision, that doesn’t violate any law or rule, they believe most prudent in light of the changing collegiate athletic landscape to preserve their own future.  
The Texas Legislature cannot stop UT from joining the SEC but after today’s theater, it is clear some will dangle the small portion of state funds appropriated relative to the total $3B annual UT operating budget in front of them as a threat to coerce their behavior moving forward.   
Since we have the luxury of Monday morning quarterbacking and hypocrisy is all too common in politics to serve one’s self-interest and preservation, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see recent patterns of government overreach into local and institutional decisions.  COVID-19 infection rates in Texas are soaring to previous deadly surge levels but local schools, public health systems, cities and counties have their hands tied behind their backs by the state and are prohibited from implementing public health measures that could save lives in their communities. Moreover, the Legislature squandered a 140-day Legislative Session that the public expected would result in meaningful power grid and supply reform to ensure millions of Texans have access to electricity and clean water unlike they did for weeks in February.  But the Legislature didn’t and won’t – and, that is okay because they need to protect those free-market energy companies that fund their reelection coffers instead of 30M Texans.