San Antonio Spurs
The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio, Texas. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division; the team plays its home games at the AT&T Center in San Antonio. The Spurs are one of four former American Basketball Association teams to remain intact in the NBA after the 1976 ABA–NBA merger and are the only former ABA team to have won an NBA championship; the franchise has won NBA championships in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2014. As of May 2015, the Spurs had the highest winning percentage among active NBA franchises; as of April 2019, the Spurs have won 22 division titles since joining the NBA and have only missed the playoffs four times. From 1999–2000 to 2016–17, the Spurs won 50 games each season, setting a record of 18 consecutive 50-win seasons. In the 2018–19 season, the Spurs matched an NBA record for most consecutive playoff appearances with 22; the team's recent success coincides with the tenure of current head coach Gregg Popovich, who has coached the team since 1996.
The Spurs are the city's only team in any of the four major U. S. professional sports leagues and the only major-league team in the city's history to have lasted more than five years. Spurs players are active members of the San Antonio community, many former Spurs are still active in San Antonio including David Robinson with the Carver Academy and George Gervin with the George Gervin Youth Center; the Spurs set several NBA attendance records while playing at the Alamodome including the largest crowd for an NBA Finals game in 1999, the Spurs continue to sell out the smaller AT&T Center on a regular basis. Since 2003, the team has been forced on an extended road trip for much of February since the AT&T Center hosts the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo; this is informally known as the "Rodeo Road Trip". The Spurs have posted winning road records during this period, including an NBA-record longest single road trip winning streak; when the Spurs have won the NBA title, the team's victory parades have been boat trips on the San Antonio River Walk.
The San Antonio Spurs started out as the Dallas Chaparrals of the original version of the American Basketball Association. Coached by player/coach Cliff Hagan the Dallas Chaparrals were one of 11 teams to take the floor in the inaugural season of the upstart ABA; the Chaps' second season was a bit of a disappointment, as the team finished in 4th place with a mediocre 41–37 record. In the playoffs the Chaparrals fell to the New Orleans Buccaneers; the team suffered from general disinterest in Dallas. In fact, during the 1970–71 season, the name "Dallas" was dropped in favor of "Texas" and an attempt was made to make the team a regional one, playing games in Fort Worth, at the Tarrant County Convention Center, as well as Lubbock, at the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum, but this proved a failure and the team returned full-time to Dallas in time for the 1971–72 season, splitting their games at Moody Coliseum and Dallas Convention Center Arena. While the Chaparrals had been modestly successful on the court, they were sinking financially by their third season because the ownership group refused to spend much money on the team.
After missing the playoffs for the first time in their existence in the 1972–73 season, nearly all of the owners wanted out. A group of 36 San Antonio businessmen, led by Manager/Angelo Drossos, Chairman of the Board/John Schaefer and President/Red McCombs, worked out a "lend-lease" deal with the Dallas ownership group. Drossos and his group would lease the team for three years and move it to San Antonio, agreed to return the team to Dallas if no purchase occurred by 1975. After the deal was signed, the team was renamed the San Antonio Gunslingers. However, before they played a game the name was changed to Spurs; the team's primary colors were changed from the red and blue of the Chaparrals to the now familiar black and white motif of the Spurs. In the first game at the HemisFair Arena the Spurs lost to the San Diego Conquistadors, despite attracting a noisy crowd of 6,000 fans. A smothering defense was the team's image, as they held opponents to less than 100 points for an ABA record of 49 times.
The early Spurs were led by ABA veteran James Silas, the team would get stronger as the season went on as they twice took advantage of the Virginia Squires, acquiring Swen Nater, who would go on to win Rookie of the Year, in November, "The Iceman" George Gervin in January. The ABA tried to halt the Gervin deal, claiming it was detrimental to the league, but a judge would rule in the Spurs' favor, Gervin made his Spurs debut on February 7; the Spurs would go on to finish with a 45 -- good for 3rd place in the Western Division. In the playoffs, the Spurs would battle the Indiana Pacers to the bitter end before falling in seven games. San Antonio embraced the Spurs with open arms. Schaefer, Drossos and McCombs knew a runaway hit. After only one year, they exercised their option to tear up the lease agreement, buy the franchise outright and keep the team in San Antonio for good; the team made themselves at home at HemisFair Arena, playing to large and raucous crowds. Despite a respectable 17–10 start during the 1974–75 season, Coach Tom Nissalke was fired as owners become tired of the Spurs' slow defensive style of games.
He would be replaced by Bob Bass, who stated that the Spurs would have an new playing style: "It is my belief that you cannot throw a set offense at another professional team for 48 minutes. You've got to
Texas Tech University academics
Texas Tech University referred to as Texas Tech or TTU, is a public, research university in Lubbock, United States. Texas Tech offers 150 bachelor's, 104 master's, 59 doctoral degree programs through 11 academic colleges, a graduate school and a school of law. Texas Technological College was separated into four schools: Agriculture, Home Economics, Liberal Arts. In 1933 they were designated as divisions before reverting to schools in 1944. Graduate education began in 1927 within the School of Liberal Arts before a separate Division of Graduate Studies opened in 1935 and renamed as the Graduate School in 1954. A Division of Commerce was formed in 1942; the School of Law and the School of Education opened in 1967. In 1968 the agriculture school became the School of Agricultural Sciences. In an answer to student and faculty opinion, the legislature changed the name of Texas Technological College to Texas Tech University on September 1, 1969. Five of the six schools became colleges with only the School of Law retaining its name.
University College, 2008–2012. Named "College of Outreach and Distance Education", "Division of Outreach & Distance Education" prior to 2008. Classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a research university with "high activity", Texas Tech University hosts 60 research centers and institutes; the Texas Tech University Libraries is the 3rd largest academic library system in Texas by volumes held and 91st largest in North America with over 2.6 million volumes and 2.7 million microforms, as of 2004. The library system includes three branches: Architecture Library, Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, University Library. Texas Tech University Official Site
Texas Tech University College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources
Texas Tech University College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources is a college at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. The agriculture program has existed at Texas Tech since 1925 making it one of the original programs at the university; the college contains six departments that offer fourteen baccalaureate, twenty masters, eight Ph. D. degrees. It ranks in the top third in terms of size among universities with agricultural science and natural resources colleges placing it among the top 30 largest programs. Agricultural and Applied Economics Agricultural Education and Communications Animal and Food Sciences Landscape Architecture Plant and Soil Science Natural Resources Management College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resource Water Center Center for Agricultural Technology Transfer Center for Feed and Industry Research and Education Cotton Economics Research Institute Fire Ecology Center International Center for Food Industry Excellence International Cotton Research Center International Textile Center Pork Industry Institute for Research and Education Thornton Agricultural Finance Institute Texas Cooperative Research Unit Wildlife and Fisheries Management Institute Official website
Disney on Ice
Disney on Ice Walt Disney's World on Ice, is a series of touring ice shows produced by Feld Entertainment's Ice Follies And Holiday on Ice, Inc. under agreement with The Walt Disney Company. Aimed at children, the shows feature figure skaters portraying the roles of Disney characters in performances derived from various Disney films. Feld Entertainment licensed the rights to Disney material for ice shows and includes shared merchandising revenue between Disney and Ice Follies. Soon after Mattel's Irvin & Kenneth Feld Productions purchased Ice Follies and Holiday on Ice in 1979, the company approached Disney about doing a Disney-related show on ice. Feld Productions licensed the rights to Disney material for ice shows. In 1981, they began productions under the name Walt Disney's World on Ice. In March 1982, Irvin & Kenneth Feld purchased back Feld Productions from Mattel including Ice Follies/Walt Disney's World on Ice. In 1987, Walt Disney's World on Ice made its international debut in Japan with Happy Birthday Donald.
In 1988, the company had five touring shows. The name was changed to "Disney on Ice" in 1998. By 2008, a new show is launched every year; the show is hosted by Mickey Mouse assisted at times by Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Buzz Lightyear. More the series features segments about the Disney Princesses. A new production is launched every year. Official website
University of Texas at El Paso
The University of Texas at El Paso is a public research university in El Paso, Texas. It is member of the University of Texas System. UTEP is the second-largest university in the U. S. to have a majority Mexican American student population after the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and the university's School of Engineering is the nation's top producer of Hispanic engineers with M. S. and Ph. D. degrees. On January 9, 2019, it was announced that UTEP is now classified as an "R1: Research University" in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education; this designation is reserved for doctoral universities with the highest levels of research activity. UTEP is home to the Sun Bowl stadium, which hosts the annual college football competition the Sun Bowl every winter; the campus is one of the few places in the world outside of Bhutan or Tibet to have buildings created with the Dzong architectural style. It sits on hillsides overlooking the Rio Grande river, with Ciudad Juárez in view across the Mexico–United States border.
On April 16, 1913, SB 183 was signed by the Texas governor allocating funding for a new educational institution which would become UTEP, making it the second oldest academic institution in the University of Texas system. The school opened on September 28, 1914, with 27 students in buildings belonging to the former El Paso Military Institute on a site adjacent to a former Fort Bliss location, at Hart's Mill; the school was founded in 1914 as the State School of Mines and Metallurgy, a practice mineshaft survives on the campus. By 1916, enrollment had grown to 39 students, including its first two female students, Ruth Brown and Grace Odell. On October 29, 1916, a devastating fire destroyed the main building of the school, prompting its relocation. In 1917, the new school facility was constructed on its present site above Mundy Heights, with the land donated by several El Paso residents. In a period when United States architects were designing in styles adopted from Europe, Kathleen Worrell, wife of the university's dean, was attracted by photographs of the Kingdom of Bhutan in a 1914 issue of National Geographic magazine, which showed the dzong architecture style of its Buddhist monasteries.
The resemblances between the local terrain and mountainous features of Bhutan inspired her to propose designing early buildings of the mining school in the dzong style. Liking its distinctiveness, administrations have continued to choose that style for additional facilities, including the Sun Bowl football stadium and parking garages. Dzong architecture has characteristics such as sloping sides, markedly overhanging roofs, bands of colored decoration; the University of Texas Board of Regents changed the name of the institution in 1919 first to the Department of Mines and Metallurgy and to the College of Mines and Metallurgy of the University of Texas in 1920. The school's name was changed again in 1949 to Texas Western College of The University of Texas. Notable events at UTEP include the training in 1961 of the nation's first Peace Corps class, the construction of Sun Bowl Stadium in 1963, the winning of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship in 1966; when the 60th Texas State Legislature designated the University of Texas as The University of Texas System in 1967, the name of the school was changed to The University of Texas at El Paso.
While the 1967 law designated "U. T. El Paso" as the school's official abbreviated name, the school is more referred to by its trademarked name of "UTEP". Known as the Miners since the school's opening in 1914, TCM's students painted a large "M" for Miners on the Franklin Mountains in 1923; the school has had achievements in academic and sports areas. In 1969, UTEP won the first of seven NCAA Men's Cross Country Championships. In 1974, UTEP's first doctoral degree program in Geological Sciences was approved. In 1974, UTEP won the first of seven NCAA Men's Indoor Track and Field Championships. In 1975 UTEP won Indoor National Championships. UTEP is only one of a handful of universities to win at least 21 NCAA national championships in multiple sports; the campus expanded in 1976 with the completion of the Engineering-Science Complex. That same year, the College of Nursing was founded. In 1977, the Special Events Center was built, featuring a 12,000-seat capacity for sporting events, live concerts, other performances.
An expansion of Sun Bowl Stadium followed in 1982, increasing its capacity to 52,000. The six-story University Library opened its doors to the public for the first time in 1984. In 1988, Diana Natalicio became UTEP's first woman president and is today the longest-serving still sitting president of a major public research university; the next year, UTEP's second doctoral program was approved. Doctoral programs in computer engineering and environmental science and engineering followed in 1991, 1993, 1995, respectively; the university's cooperative pharmacy and nursing doctorate programs began in 1996 and 2000, respectively. A biological sciences doctorate program was started in 1997 and a history doctorate followed in 1999. Doctoral programs in international business, civil engineering, rhetoric and composition were started in 2003. UTEP coach Don Haskins, who compiled a 719–353 record, suffering only five losing seasons, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997 and the special events center was renamed the Don Haskins Center.
He retired from coaching in 1999, died in 2008. The entire 1966 UTEP team was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007. In 1999, UTEP launched its MBA online deg
Lubbock, Texas
Lubbock is the 11th-most populous city in the U. S. state of Texas and the county seat of Lubbock County. With a population of 256,042 in 2015, the city is the 83rd-most populous in the United States; the city is located in northwestern part of the state, a region known and geographically as the Llano Estacado, ecologically is part of the southern end of the High Plains, lying at the economic center of the Lubbock metropolitan area, which has a projected 2020 population of 327,424. Lubbock's nickname, "Hub City", derives from it being the economic and health-care hub of the multicounty region, north of the Permian Basin and south of the Texas Panhandle called the South Plains; the area is the largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world and is dependent on water drawn from the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation. Lubbock was selected as the 12th-best place to start a small business by CNNMoney.com. CNN mentioned the city's traditional business atmosphere: low rent for commercial space, central location, cooperative city government.
Lubbock is home to the sixth-largest college by enrollment in the state. Lubbock High School has been recognized for three consecutive years by Newsweek as one of the top high schools in the United States, based in part on its international baccalaureate program; as of 1867, the land that would become Lubbock was the heart of Comancheria, the shifting domain controlled by the Comanche. Lubbock County was founded in 1876, it was named after Thomas Saltus Lubbock, former Texas Ranger and brother of Francis Lubbock, governor of Texas during the Civil War. As early as 1884, a U. S. post office existed in Yellow House Canyon. A small town, known as Old Lubbock, Lubbock, or North Town, was established about three miles to the east. In 1890, the original Lubbock merged with another small town south of the canyon; the new town adopted the Lubbock name. The merger included moving the original Lubbock's Nicolett Hotel across the canyon on rollers to the new townsite. Lubbock became the county seat in 1891, was incorporated on March 16, 1909.
In the same year, the first railroad train arrived. Texas Technological College was founded in Lubbock in 1923. A separate university, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, opened as Texas Tech University School of Medicine in 1969. Both universities are now overseen by the Texas Tech University System, after it was established in 1996 and based in Lubbock. Lubbock Christian University, founded in 1957, Sunset International Bible Institute, both affiliated with the Churches of Christ, have their main campuses in the city. South Plains College and Wayland Baptist University operate branch campuses in Lubbock. At one time, Lubbock was home to Reese Air Force Base located 6 mi west of the city, it was established in August 1941, during the defense build-up prior to World War II, by the United States Department of War and the U. S. Army as Lubbock Army Airfield, it served the old U. S. Army Air Forces, the U. S. Air Force, after reorganization and establishment in 1947; the USAF base's primary mission throughout its existence was pilot training.
The base was closed 30 September 1997, after being selected for closure by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission in 1995, is now a research and business park called Reese Technology Center. The city is home to the Lubbock Lake Landmark, part of the Museum of Texas Tech University; the landmark is an natural-history preserve at the northern edge of the city. It shows evidence of 12,000 years of human occupation in the region; the National Ranching Heritage Center part of the Museum of Texas Tech University, houses historic ranch-related structures from the region. During World War II, airmen cadets from the Royal Air Force, flying from their training base at Terrell, Texas flew to Lubbock on training flights; the town served as a stand-in for the British for Cork, the same distance from London, England, as Lubbock is from Terrell. In August 1951, a V-shaped formation of lights was seen over the city; the "Lubbock Lights" series of sightings received national publicity and is regarded as one of the first great "UFO" cases.
The sightings were considered credible because they were witnessed by several respected science professors at Texas Technological College and were photographed by a Texas Tech student. The photographs were reprinted nationwide in Life. Project Blue Book, the USAF's official investigation of the UFO mystery, concluded the photographs were not a hoax and showed genuine objects, but dismissed the UFOs as being either "night-flying moths" or a type of bird called a plover reflected in the nighttime glow of Lubbock's new street lights. However, other researchers have disputed these explanations, for many, the "Lubbock Lights" remain a mystery. In 1960, the U. S. Census Bureau reported Lubbock's population as area as 75.0 sq mi. On May 11, 1970, the Lubbock Tornado struck the city. Twenty-six people died, damage was estimated at $125 million; the Metro Tower known as the Great Plains Life Building, at 274 ft in height, is believed to have been the tallest building to survive a direct hit from an F5 tornado.
Then-mayor Jim Granberry and the Lubbock City Council, which included Granberry's successor as mayor, Morris W. Turner, were charged with directing the rebuilding of downtown Lubbock in the aftermath of the storm. In August, 1988, tens of thousands of people came to Lubbock, drawn by an apparition of Mary. In 2009, Lubbock celebrated its centennial; the historians Paul H. Carlson, Donald R. Abbe, David J. Murrah co-authored Lubbock and the South
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus known as the Ringling Bros. Circus, Ringling Bros. or Ringling was an American traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth. It and its predecessor shows ran from 1871 to 2017. Known as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows, the circus started in 1919 when the Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth, a circus created by P. T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey, was merged with the Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows; the Ringling brothers had purchased Barnum & Bailey Ltd. following Bailey's death in 1906, but ran the circuses separately until they were merged in 1919. After 1956 the circus no longer exhibited under their own portable "big top" tents, instead using permanent venues such as sports stadiums and arenas. In 1967, Irvin Feld and his brother Israel, along with Houston Judge Roy Hofheinz bought the circus from the Ringling family. In 1971, the Felds and Hofheinz sold the circus to Mattel, buying it back from the toy company in 1982.
Since the death of Irvin Feld in 1984, the circus had been a part of Feld Entertainment, an international entertainment firm headed by Kenneth Feld, with its headquarters in Ellenton, Florida. With weakening attendance, many animal rights protests, high operating costs, the circus performed their final show on May 21, 2017 at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum and closed after 146 years. Hachaliah Bailey appears to have established the first circus in the United States after he purchased an African Elephant, which he named "Old Bet", around 1806. With it as his star attraction he formed the Bailey Circus, which included a trained dog, several pigs, a horse and four wagons; this was the impetus for what in time evolved into the Bailey component of what became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. P. T. Barnum, who as a boy had worked as a ticket seller for Hachaliah Bailey's show, had run the Barnum's American Museum from New York City since 1841 from the former Scudder's American Museum building.
Besides building up the existing exhibits, Barnum brought in animals to add zoo-like elements, a freak show. During this time, Barnum took the Museum on road tours, named "P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling American Museum"; the Museum burned down in July 1865. Though Barnum attempted to re-establish the Museum at another location in the city, it too burned down in 1868, Barnum opted to retire from the museum business. In 1871, Dan Castello and William Cameron Coup persuaded Barnum to come out of retirement as to lend his name, know-how and financial backing to the circus they had created in Delavan, Wisconsin; the combined show was named "P. T. Barnum's Great Traveling Museum, Menagerie and Hippodrome"; as described by Barnum and Coup "had a show, immense, combined all the elements of museum, variety performance, concert hall, circus", considered it to be "the Greatest Show on Earth", which subsequently became part of the circus's name. Independently of Castello and Coup, James Anthony Bailey had teamed up with James E. Cooper to create the Cooper and Bailey Circus in the 1860s.
The Cooper and Bailey Circus became the chief competitor to Barnum's circus. As Bailey's circus was outperforming his, Barnum sought to merge the circuses; the two groups agreed to combine their shows on March 28, 1881. Named "P. T. Barnum's Greatest Show On Earth, And The Great London Circus, Sanger's Royal British Menagerie and The Grand International Allied Shows United", it was shortened to "Barnum and Bailey's Circus". Bailey was instrumental in acquiring Jumbo, advertised as the world's largest elephant, for the show. Barnum died in 1891 and Bailey purchased the circus from his widow. Bailey continued touring the eastern United States; that tour started on December 27, 1897, lasted until 1902. Separately, in 1884, five of the seven Ringling brothers had started a small circus in Baraboo, Wisconsin; this was about the same time that Bailey were at the peak of their popularity. Similar to dozens of small circuses that toured the Midwest and the Northeast at the time, the brothers moved their circus from town to town in small animal-drawn caravans.
Their circus grew and they were soon able to move their circus by train, which allowed them to have the largest traveling amusement enterprise of that time. Bailey's European tour gave the Ringling brothers an opportunity to move their show from the Midwest to the eastern seaboard. Faced with the new competition, Bailey took his show west of the Rocky Mountains for the first time in 1905, he died the next year, the circus was sold to the Ringling Brothers. The Ringlings purchased the Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth in 1907 and ran the circuses separately until 1919. By that time, Charles Edward Ringling and John Nicholas Ringling were the only remaining brothers of the five who founded the circus, they decided that it was too difficult to run the two circuses independently, on March 29, 1919, "Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows" debuted in New York City. The posters declared. World's Greatest Shows and the Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth are now combined into one record-breaking giant of all exhibitions."
Charles E. Ringling died in 1926. John Ringling had the circus move its headquarters to Sarasota, Florida in 1927. In 1929, the American Circus Corporation signed a contract to perform in New York City. John Ringling purchased owner of five circuses, for $1.7 million. In 1938, the circus made a lucrative offer to Frank Buck, a well-known adventurer and animal collector, to tour as their star attraction and to enter the show astride an elephant, he refuse
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