Texas, Texas A&M; to Stay in SWC

Texas and Texas A&M; announced Friday that they intend to stay in the Southwest Conference, the league the schools helped form 76 years ago.

The announcement by the schools’ presidents was made after weeks of speculation that they would leave. Speculation began when Arkansas, the only non-Texas school in the nine-team conference, announced it would join the Southeastern Conference next year.

Presidents William Cunningham of Texas and William Mobley of Texas A&M; said they “are committed to doing everything possible to strengthen the conference and make it successful.”

But their statement left open the possibility for expansion of the SWC or an alliance with non-SWC schools.

“We need to be flexible, we need to be careful, we need to be thoughtful and we need to be creative--more creative than anything else,” Cunningham said in a radio interview.

Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds said SWC schools are losing Texas high school recruits to other states, and one major reason is the lack of network television.