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Gary Borders: 'Hook 'em Horns' Harley made his mark

David Swinney

I met Harley Clark in 2005 while attending a 50th anniversary celebration in Austin of the “Hook ’em Horns” sign. His buddy invented it one night while making shadow figures on the wall of a dorm room. Clark, who was the University of Texas head cheerleader in 1955, introduced the sign to the world at a pep rally. He unilaterally proclaimed the symbol for the Longhorns was now the official hand signal of the university.

Somehow I ended up walking in a parade down the Drag in front of campus the Friday night before the celebration — trailing former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, also a former cheerleader. By serendipity I sat next to Clark at the football game the next day. We talked a bit about the Hook ’Em sign, and how the dean of students confronted him after the game demanding to know why he had proclaimed it the official hand gesture without clearing it through him.

“Do you know what that means in Sicily,” the dean asked angrily.

Clark replied, “Dean, I’m only 19. I don’t know anything.”

As I sat next to him and watched a procession of fans come by to shake his hands, congratulate him and reminisce, something was niggling me.

Harley Clark. Where had I heard his name before?

Finally it came to me. It harkens back to school finance and its constitutionality, that bugbear that continues to plague this state today. A district judge recently again ruled the state’s method of financing public schools is inequitable, unconstitutional and inadequate. That is putting it nicely. It is a disgrace and incomprehensible that the Legislature and the leadership still cannot accept that school financing is a broken system that must be fixed.

Harley Clark became a lawyer and ultimately a state district judge in Austin. He was assigned the first case challenging school financing in 1987. He ruled the system was unconstitutional and inequitable. The Texas Supreme Court unanimously upheld his decision. The Legislature eventually increased funding for education, enough to stave off lawsuits for a while. Now the state is back in court, after the Legislature’s draconian cuts to public education in 2011 led to another lawsuit, with most of the school districts in Texas joining.

“School finance, right?” I asked Clark. “You were the judge in that case.”

He smiled modestly and allowed as how he indeed was that same person.  I wonder what he thought about the state again being embroiled in a lawsuit about the same issue, a quarter-century after his initial ruling. The more things change, the more they stay the same, especially when it comes to the Texas Legislature.

Clark spoke after the game at the Texas Exes center. He again told the story again about the genesis of the Hook ’Em sign and the dean’s classic reply after their confrontation.

“I’m just glad we aren’t the unicorns,” the dean said.

Clark died recently at age 78. He spent his retirement years growing gourmet vegetables and herbs at his 40-acre farm in Dripping Springs for area restaurants. In my sole encounter with him, he came across as a gentle man with a strong intellect and willingness to do what was right for the public school students of Texas.

Besides, he immortalized a hand gesture that still makes me proud to use, while in the stands at the stadium. I received my master’s in journalism at UT, helped pay for two daughters to graduate from there, and — possibly —in a couple years may have yet another daughter headed that way. We’ll see. She is looking at Baylor and SMU right now. Great schools, but they just don’t have that hand gesture UT has.

Hook ’em, Harley and rest in peace. 

Gary Borders has been an East Texas journalist and editor for more than 40 years. He works now as a freelance writer, editor and photographer. You can see his work at garyborders.com. He has written for World Wildlife magazine, Texas Monthly, Texas Observer and Airstream Life.