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The Minister of Culture

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https://theathletic.com/1174140/2019/09/04/whats-matthew-mcconaugheys-latest-role-with-the-longhorns-the-moc-baby/

From Dana O'Neil at The Athletic. It's a long read but worth the time.

AUSTIN, Texas — It is sweltering hot, the sort of hot where improperly soled shoes have been known to melt when stuck too long to the turfed field. The sort of hot where you walk not the most direct route, but the one that provides even a sliver of shade. All across campus, parents tearfully and sweatily lug their children’s prized possessions into dormitories, performing the rite of passage known as college move-in day. In a few days, those newly minted college students will gather here, inside Darrell K. Royal Stadium, for the first football game of a highly anticipated season at the University of Texas. Right now, the stadium is empty but sizzling, the bowl offers no respite from a sun that has raised temperatures to more than 100 degrees for 18 consecutive days. A bucket of ice sits on the sideline awaiting the Longhorns for a walk-through practice. It has no chance of survival.

On the street outside, a man exits the cool of a black SUV and slips into the stadium through a gate left open just for him. He is a sartorial split screen, the black button-down shirt a remnant of a news conference just finished, the burnt orange pants for the gig about to begin. An assistant trails him, carrying a garment bag over his shoulder. The man checks the spot chosen for a photo shoot and smiles his approval. He ducks behind a gated door atop the entrance to section 30, slides open the bag and changes. The black shirt is replaced with a white one, cuff links slipped through and secured. The assistant pulls out the jacket, but the man stops him and asks for the vest as well. He buttons the vest, slips on the jacket, requests a quick collar check and walks through the gate and into the stadium seats. 

At 12:15 p.m., the high point of heated misery, resplendent in three pieces of burnt orange wool, emerges the Minister of Culture. He is ready for his close-up.

Shirtsleeves rolled up, vest unbuttoned and jacket shed, Matthew McConaughey grabs a bottle of Dasani water, leans over a table inside the much cooler Moncrief-Neuhaus Athletic Center and explains exactly what a Minister of Culture is, why he’s ideally suited for the job, and above all else, why the University of Texas needs one. Last December, the school issued a formal news release that announced its most recognizable alum had been tabbed for the new position. It all seemed, at best, a little extra. The Academy Award-winning, bongo-playing, one-time sexiest man alive is a longtime loyal Longhorn; television cameras often find an exuberant McConaughey screaming on the sideline, cavorting and occasionally grabbing a facemask to inspire a player. 

So the school, it appears, bequeathed the star with a little razzle-dazzle, a meaningless title that David Wooderson might concoct. Except to sit down with McConaughey, to talk with Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte and others on campus, is to find that McConaughey is anything but vacuous about this gig with the vague and amorphous title. He will spend almost two hours discussing it, overruling his assistant’s attempt to put a time limit on this interview.

“How many words can you write?” McConaughey’s wife, Camila Alves, asks jokingly. Taking his wife’s lead, McConaughey warns, “I can go on about this forever. It’s going to be up to you to tell me when you have enough.’’

It is important to remember, of course, that McConaughey is an actor. His job is to make people believe he is someone and something he’s not. But if he’s acting here, he deserves the Oscar more than the one he earned for his role in “Dallas Buyers Club.” His passion and energy ooze from his pores — he leans into the conversation, not just in the figurative Sheryl Sandberg way, but bent over the table until he nearly face-plants on it. He points at and pokes his interviewer to emphasize an idea, slaps the table on occasion and twice bounces up from his seat to demonstrate a point.

Asked to define his job, McConaughey goes on a near 10-minute soliloquy, detailing the position’s European history and background, its importance and how a cultural position suits a decidedly capitalistic endeavor such as the University of Texas athletic department. Ministers of culture, he explains, are common in Europe, and far more than an honorific. Usually cabinet members, they oversee arts policies, cultural works, youth sports and even tourism. Sports, McConaughey believes, are culture and the University of Texas is a piece of Austin art, and where else but a university do the arts, athletics and tourism (in the form of fandom) come together so organically? Of course, someone should oversee this cultural intersection and nurture it, especially in a place such as Austin, known for its artistic, cultural, musical and personal expressions.

This whole M.O.C. notion had been bouncing around in his head for some time without name or direction, finally crystallizing about a year ago while he chatted with a buddy. McConaughey considers the time when he makes a movie as his season and everything else as his offseason. He has always been, needless to say, fully engaged in season. In the offseason, he felt a bit untethered. “Wobbly,’’ he says. A friend suggested he was ignoring the obvious, that his offseason calling sat at his doorstep. “It was, click. Yeah, yeah. It’s here,’’ McConaughey says, tapping the table for emphasis. “It starts in my house. It’s my family. It’s Austin. It’s Texas. I’ve been the UT and Austin mascot for 25 years, you know what I mean?. That’s great. But I want to dig in. I’m ready to get from the inside out. Let’s build some things. Let’s do some things.’’

And so McConaughey decreed himself the Minister of Culture, a role he was born to play. Except in this case he’s not acting.

Jim McConaughey played college football at Kentucky under Bear Bryant. Alas, the Bear and Jim did not see eye to eye on playing time, so Jim transferred to Houston. A defensive end, he was good enough to get drafted by the Green Bay Packers in 1953, but not good enough to stick, and eventually, Jim and his college sweetheart, Kay, moved to Uvalde, Texas, before heading northeast to settle in Longview. Jim ran a gas station and an oil-pipe yard; Kay, a one-time Miss Trenton (N.J.), taught kindergarten. The couple married and divorced each other three times, the last union leading to a happy gift, a third boy named Matthew.

The McConaughey boys grew up athletes and sports fans, and Matthew remembers parking himself in front of the television, rabbit ears adjusted, to watch the University of Texas stars at the time: Donnie Little and the Jones brothers — Ham, Lam and Jam. After graduating from high school, he spent a year abroad in Australia as an exchange student, a gap year before it became trendy. He wasn’t terribly interested in academics, and a kindly principal set up a sort of rotating co-op for McConaughey. He spent time in construction, as a golf pro, a bank teller and even a barrister’s assistant. When he returned home, he was intent on becoming a lawyer and believed SMU, in the more urban city of Dallas, would suit him. His older brother Pat suggested Texas, explaining that though Pop would never deny him, money was a little tight and tuition at SMU cost considerably more. Besides, Pat told him, the Austin vibe would suit him.

“Dude, let me tell you something,’’ Matthew remembers Pat saying. “You, Mr. Barefoot-walking, you will love it, man. You can go there, in your flip flops, walk in a bar and find a cowboy on your left, a lesbian on your right, a hippie on one side and a Mexican on the other. You will love it.’’ 

McConaughey enrolled at Texas in 1989, still not quite sure what he was going to do. He ultimately ditched the plan to be a lawyer and landed in the film school. He spent his free time bartending at Catfish Station, and one night, while hanging in the Hyatt bar, a fellow bartender pointed out a gentleman seated nearby. He was in the movie industry. At the time, McConaughey’s acting experience consisted of one line in a radio spot for the Austin-American Statesman (“How else am I gonna keep up with my ‘Horns?”), and a role in the Trisha Yearwood video for the song “Walkaway Joe.” Undeterred, McConaughey introduced himself to the man. One vodka led to another, and the two ultimately were told it was time to leave. Before parting ways, the man suggested McConaughey stop by to audition for a film he was in town to cast. His name was Don Phillips. A casting director who’d already helped create “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” Phillips was in town working on “Dazed and Confused.”

McConaughey showed up, did his thing and was handed $325. “The highest tip rate I made was $72 a night, and all of a sudden I’m getting $325 a day and I’m having a ball, and people are saying, ‘You’re good at this,’ ” McConaughey says. The role of Wooderson was meant to be a bit part, but McConaughey was so likable and so believable as the washed-up ex-high schooler, his part became a script staple.

In its initial run the movie made $8 million, but it has since become a cult classic. It also gave McConaughey, only 23, his break, his catchphrase and his direction. He finished his degree at UT, moved to Hollywood and has since made more than 50 films in a career spanning more than 25 years, won an Oscar, been named People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, married a Brazilian supermodel and helped sell a lot of Lincolns. Yet he remains at his core a Texan, and even deeper a Longhorn. 

McConaughey long ago decided to make Austin his home base. His mother, now 87, lives just 30 minutes away (his father died of a heart attack in 1992, before his son made his first film) and his two brothers are in the state as well. Austin, he says, is “a place where a mile feels like a mile, and an hour feels like 60 minutes” and where he can live in the country but be in the bright lights in 18 minutes. He also can be near anonymous. “I get asked for an autograph here and I know you’re from out of town,’’ he says. To his point, as McConaughey strolls down Dedman Drive just outside the football stadium, a pack of students walk by and casually say hello, double-taking only after McConaughey has passed.

As his brother promised decades ago, the place suits him. Keep Austin Weird has been the city’s motto since 2000, and more than one person cautioned, “He can be a little out there,” as I prepped for the interview. Back in his naked bongo-playing days, that might have been the case. But McConaughey now isn’t so much out there as he is all over, the laconic all right, all right, all right persona actually houses a whirling dervish of a brain stuffed with ideas that rouse him at 4 in the morning, begging to be written down. “He’s a really deep thinker,’’ Texas basketball coach Shaka Smart says. “I don’t think people appreciate how smart he is. His understanding of culture is extremely advanced — what goes into it, what makes it special, how to transfer it from one person to another. He has really, really good ideas.’’

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Chris del Conte grabs the two spiral-bound books of plans and plops them on the desk. The Longhorns athletic director came to town from TCU in December 2017, after predecessor Steve Patterson had left scorched earth everywhere. Patterson so ostracized himself from fans and alums he got himself canned in 22 months, and although interim AD Mike Perrin did an admirable job, Texas isn’t a place that gets by on admirable. The university, much like the state, prides itself on being the best. “You know Texas has its own independence, right?” Del Conte says with a grin. “The United States is just lucky to have us.’’ Del Conte, a career athletics administrator who still pairs the cowboy boots born of his New Mexico youth with the crisp khakis of his current station, inherited a department wounded by Patterson, a football team that had failed to reach its usual high bar of success and a floundering basketball team. 

He answered the call by fundraising endlessly and pouring money back into the department. He has already constructed a $17 million Hall of Fame, initiated a $175 million renovation of the south end zone in the football stadium and started the wheels turning on a $338 million basketball arena.

It is in the last endeavor that Del Conte first met McConaughey. The university was fielding bids for the construction of the new arena when McConaughey walked in as part of a pitch headed by the Oak View Group, in conjunction with Live Nation, and C3 Presents. McConaughey was there because he wanted to be there. He knew the folks at Live Nation, cares about Texas and wanted to be part of the discussion. Del Conte, whose knowledge of McConaughey began and ended with “Dazed and Confused,” listened to the group’s idea — a unique partnership that would allow UT to own the land but not use university or public money to build the arena. At the end of their presentation, Del Conte looked at McConaughey and asked, “What exactly are you doing here?” 

With this recollection, Del Conte busts out laughing. “He says, ‘I’m the Minister of Culture.’ And then he goes, ‘baby.’ I said, ‘OK, check. Y’all got the bid.’” Del Conte figured that would be the end of McConaughey’s involvement, that he was merely the eye candy for the presentation. Instead, as the planning stages began, there sat McConaughey, a scratchpad full of ideas at his fingertips, interjecting his thoughts during meetings that sometimes lasted upwards of eight hours. Del Conte realized this was no ordinary famous fan, the AD’s phone pinged with voicemails or texts when McConaughey has another epiphany he is eager to share. From behind his desk, Del Conte grabs his phone and plays one such message. “Hey CDC,” McConaughey says in his famed, lazy Texas drawl, “it’s the M.O.C., baby. I got an update on the 40. Holler.’’ Asked to translate the message, Del Conte giggles, “I have no idea. It’s the M.O.C., baby.’’

One night, Del Conte clicked on Jimmy Kimmel to hear McConaughey talk not just about his role as the M.O.C. but also about the new arena, describing it as “the last place a visiting team wants to play and the first place a world-class band wants to play.”

“There are two types of animals involved in breakfast — the chicken and the pig,’’ Del Conte says. “The chicken is involved. The pig is committed. My man, he’s the pig. He’s committed.’’

Del Conte starts flipping through the pages of arena plans. He stops when he gets to the suite drawings. There are several traditional-looking spaces, the walled-off enclaves for the high rollers who like to enjoy a game with a cocktail and without the riff-raff. But there are a collection of suites with no walls — “kind of like cabanas,’’ Del Conte says — and in front of each, written in the perfect print of an architect is the word PORCH. This, Del Conte says, is all McConaughey’s idea. Determined to keep the unique vibe and communal feeling that Austin is noted for, he wanted suites that were more happy hour than stuffy cocktail bar. It’s a space where people can roam freely and talk, where the bar is at the front and near the action, instead of tucked in the rear for privacy, and where a person can sit in seats that overhang the arena, giving spectators a feeling that they are on the front porch with a basketball game unfolding out front.

“Austin is a city of lakes, so a porch or a deck, it makes sense,’’ McConaughey says. “I want it to be, you’re looking up at the guy in the row above you. ‘Hey, what’s up?’ Not like you’re in some place by yourself.’’

The Porch, however, is merely one piece of McConaughey’s vision. Pressed to explain in more detail, he goes off in 20 directions in rapid succession. He discusses the pitch of the place, how important it is to make the arena feel intimate and without a bad seat. He talks admirably about AT&T Stadium, the Dallas Cowboys’ palace, not so much about its grandiosity but its messaging. “You’re a mile from the stadium, and it’s already clear,’’ he says. “The information coming at you, you know where you’re going and what’s important here. What does it say? We’re going to be world champions.’’ That’s what he wants for the Longhorns. He wants to cut down on the relentless neon advertising and branding that make kaleidoscopic visual assaults, so that on game days just two primary colors dominate this house — burnt orange and white. He wants an in-house DJ to work in conjunction with the pep band, so the sounds co-mingle in an inherently Texas way. He wants a rowdy student section. Call it, he says, The Corral, and surround it with gates meant to replicate those that contain a real-life Longhorn. No seats, he insists. Make it standing room only. “That,’’ he says, his eyes bulging and his voice deepening, “should be a dangerous area.’’

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Yet the arena also has to be a cultural mecca. Austin bills itself as the Live Music Capital of the World, and the city of almost 1 million is booming: Apple is building a $1 billion campus in town, and Google and Amazon are already here. Yet for as popular as Sixth Street and the South by Southwest and Austin City Limits music festivals are, the city is still a flyover for most big-time acts en route to Dallas or Houston. With Live Nation’s involvement and a state-of-the-art sound system, the arena will belong to Austin as much as it does to UT. Austin’s tech vibe brings opportunity but also a danger. The city is attractive because of its authenticity, and as a local, McConaughey wants to ensure that spirit is preserved. “I’m coming at this as a shirt-off, paint-on-my-chest rabid UT fan, but I also understand this is an investment. This is a business,’’ McConaughey says. “My hope is we build a place that’s a classic and not a place that in 15 years you have to say, ‘Oh it’s getting old. We gotta turn it over.’ No, it’s a classic. It lasts.’’

All of these plans, of course, could remain the fanciful musings of an actor with too much time on his hands. McConaughey can talk and dream all he wants. School officials don’t necessarily have to listen. Except as Del Conte continues to pore over the plans, he sees McConaughey’s imprint everywhere. “I’m like anyone else, in that I listen to other people’s ideas,’’ Del Conte says. “He’s another voice in the room, and he’s a unique voice in the room.’’

Midway through our conversation, the Minister of Culture stops to address The Answer to the Longhorns’ Prayers. In the few steps it takes Sam Ehlinger to walk from the locker room to McConaughey, the real estate value of the tiny round table skyrockets. Ehlinger might be the only person on campus more popular than McConaughey, for while McConaughey can preach to the Longhorns faithful, Ehlinger has the ability to deliver them to the promised land. An Austin native and a Heisman hopeful, the quarterback decreed after Texas upset Georgia in the Sugar Bowl last January that the Longhorns are back. This year he intends to prove it.

That, however, will be the subject of the next four months of Saturdays. Right now, Ehlinger is trying to coordinate a breakfast with McConaughey. The two discovered they attend the same church, and McConaughey invited Ehlinger to meet up sometime. There’s a hiccup in the schedule for this upcoming Sunday, though, and Ehlinger hopes they can make other arrangements. McConaughey steals a piece of paper, borrows a pen and scribbles down his email, apologizing that he doesn’t remember his cell phone number. “Gotta change it a lot?” Ehlinger asks. “Nah,’’ McConaughey says with a chuckle. “I just never call myself.’’ The quarterback promises to get in touch and then saunters off.  McConaughey smiles. “I love that,’’ he says. 

If the arena plans are the cultural part of his job, this is the ministry. Talking to athletes and students, encouraging them, using his fame to get their attention but delivering a message that has nothing to do with being famous, or becoming famous. “I believe you need to study. I believe you need to theorize. I believe you need to know your history. I believe you need to read,” he says. “But experience, that’s where it is. That’s where you learn. The quicker we can get kids to get out in the world, quit talking about it and do it? Man, that’s it. Fail. Fail again. But do it.”

There was a time in his life that McConaughey fancied himself a college or pro athlete — he jokes he only gave up the dream about eight years ago — and he believes if he hadn’t found the acting thing, he might have become a coach. He has discovered a parallel between his chosen profession and the one not taken, how preparedness leads to instinct, and how reaction trumps thinking. “It’s knowing the playbook backward and forward,’’ McConaughey says. “I go on set, you throw me anything, I’m loaded. If I don’t study my script, if I’m not prepared, then I’m thinking instead of just behaving. It’s second nature, and when it’s second nature, you don’t lose that half step because that half step, that’s the difference between success and getting beat.’’ He pantomimes a quarterback dropping back for a pass and making a read before plopping back in his seat to mimic himself performing for a director. 

He revels in the chance to speak with, influence and encourage college kids, recognizing that in the sweet spot of being the Matthew McConaughey and being real, the M.O.C. does his best work. Four years ago he started teaching a course, Script to Screen, in which film students receive a script from a film he’s working on and follow through all of its edits and iterations until production. Just last week, the Moody College of Communications elevated his position, naming him a professor of practice.

There are, of course, dozens of videos capturing McConaughey at games. Last year, just after getting the M.O.C. gig, he sat on the bench during the Longhorns’ basketball game against Oklahoma, at one point encouraging the players to stand and cheer on their teammates. And he and USC superfan Will Ferrell memorably rallied their alma maters in a pre-game ad for the Rose Bowl in January 2006. But it’s behind the scenes where the M.O.C. excels. During that Oklahoma game, what the cameras didn’t catch was McConaughey asking the guys on the bench to explain the terms they were using, and then shouting them out by game’s end himself. He’s a regular at all sorts of Texas athletic events, not just football and hoops, and a frequent visitor to practices, always asking if there’s a player who needs a push or an assist.

Two years ago, McConaughey dropped by basketball practice the day before the Longhorns were leaving to play at Oklahoma. He asked Smart if there was anyone he’d like him to speak to. Smart requested he spend some time with Dylan Osetkowski. The Tulane transfer had struggled in the two games prior, and Smart believed McConaughey could deliver a pep talk. McConaughey arrived 15 minutes before practice, and he and Osetkowski headed off to a small office inside the practice facility, shutting the door behind them. “Practice is about to start and one of my assistants says, ‘Want me to get Dylan?’” Smart says. “I said, ‘Nah, let them go.’’’ An hour and 15 minutes later, after practice had ended, the two emerged laughing. The next day, Osetkowski scored 21 points and grabbed six rebounds as Texas upset the 23rd-ranked Sooners. “There aren’t a lot of people who can come in and do that,’’ says Smart, who still has no idea what the two discussed. “But that’s exactly what that kid needed that day.’’ 

Just last week McConaughey popped in on the football team before their season opener against Louisiana Tech. Wearing his cap backward, baggy shorts and a green pinny over his orange T-shirt, he stressed to the players the difference between owning and renting their moment. “Do you rent your house or do you own your house?” he asked. “Send ’em on with their eyes big and wide saying, ‘I didn’t know what we were getting into.’ Own ’em, man. Own ’em.’’

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At his core, McConaughey operates from the fandom of the little kid who sat in front of the rabbit-eared television watching his Texas heroes. He wants the best out of, and the best for his Longhorns, and he is tickled to be a part of it all. Before this year’s spring football game, coach Tom Herman invited McConaughey to ride the team bus and walk through the phalanx of fans lining Bevo Boulevard. “I’m walking next to him and he’s like, ‘This is awesome. This is the greatest thing ever,’’’ Herman says. “All the things you’ve done in your life, and this impresses you?” The coach shakes his head. They first met four years ago, when Herman was the coach at Houston and McConaughey delivered the commencement address. Afterward, Herman presented McConaughey with a jersey in the family’s name and his father’s number 88. Herman never figured on more than that singular brush with Hollywood royalty, but then in late 2016 he took the Texas job.

He was slightly starstruck. He remembers the first time McConaughey and his family came to his house for dinner. “OK, what are we supposed to make the world’s sexiest man and his Brazilian supermodel wife? What do they eat?” Herman says with a laugh. But part of McConaughey’s charm is his genuineness. He puts people at ease by being surprisingly normal. Before heading out to pose for pictures for this story, he asks me to adjust his collar, and when our 93-minute interview is finally over, he concludes by insisting that we “hug it out.” As football players file out of the locker room, he doesn’t let a single one pass without a hello, and he calls out to assistant coaches as if they were old fraternity brothers. Ehlinger is not the only Longhorn who can claim a real relationship with McConaughey. He and former Texas hoops star Mo Bamba still talk frequently, a holdover from when Bamba and McConaughey spoke frequently during Bamba’s tenure in Austin . “When Matthew McConaughey speaks on a topic, it takes on a different level of coolness than when a coach says it,’’ Smart says. “But he never big-times anyone. Not once.’’

These days Herman counts McConaughey and his family as friends. The two are close in age, with compatible wives and children around the same age. They live just a mile apart, and those family dinners are normal, not nerve-wracking. Especially now that Herman knows what to cook. “Hamburgers and hot dogs,’’ he says. “Same as anybody.’’

McConaughey’s Friday morning begins downtown, where he’s introduced as one of the lead investors of Austin FC, an MLS expansion team set to debut in 2021. The news conference is held in a trendy spot, complete with a bar and nightclub-like lighting. Men in skinny jeans and women in pretty heels stuff the place, and when McConaughey walks out, he’s wearing all black — pants, jacket and open-collared shirt — and he’s juggling a soccer ball. He slides casually onto a stool for the Q&A, charming people with his quick wit and smart answers. 

By the time he arrives on campus, he is in mid wardrobe transformation, as if he’s shedding one skin and putting on a new one. Yet the longer he talks, the longer he explains his affinity for the University of Texas, and as he expresses his passion for this M.O.C. thing, it becomes clear he was not putting on a new skin at all. He was getting back into his own skin. The burnt orange pants are far more than an article of tailored clothing. They are him — his roots, his home, his family and Matthew McConaughey, not Matthew McConaughey the movie star — and they feel as natural and as comfortable as a pair of faded blue jeans.

At one point I ask, ‘Why now?’ He’s been a movie star for decades and a Texas fan even longer, so why create the M.O.C. now? It’s the longest he pauses before responding, admitting that he has asked himself the same question and that the simple answer is that he is a Texas fan, and like any Texas fan, he wants to give back. But if the simple answer is all there is to it, McConaughey would have simply written a check and had his name slapped on a building. There’s much more going on here, so much more that even the deep-thinking McConaughey is momentarily stumped for an answer.

He is not one for age-inspired introspection but acknowledges a date with a 50th birthday in November, and watching his children grow up (they are 11, 9 and 6) has affected him. Except that’s not it, at least not entirely. Yes, he thinks about their futures and about a legacy for all of the McConaugheys. But he also thinks about his own past, about his father and brothers, the Hyatt bartender and Don Phillips, the movies he’s made and what he’s learned along the way, the person he was and the person he has become. The burnt orange of Texas weaves right through it, through his past and into the future, and he wants to give it all back in a way that is uniquely and powerfully his own.

“This ain’t no midlife crisis,’’ he says finally. “It’s an evolution. I’ve been here. It’s my backyard. I don’t need to go away to seek anything. It’s all right here. The things I naturally think about, the things I write notes about at 2 a.m., it’s all right here. Austin. Texas. Culture.

“The M.O.C., baby.’’

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SuingToGetAMessageBoard?

SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861

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No, what do you do? You get another brilliant idea, a special idea. Another situation, another stock to reinvest his earnings and then some. And he will, every single time. Cause they’re fucking addicted. And then you just keep doing this, again, and again, and again. spacer.png

2 hours ago, Machinator said:

Instead, as the planning stages began, there sat McConaughey, a scratchpad full of ideas at his fingertips, interjecting his thoughts during meetings that sometimes lasted upwards of eight hours. Del Conte realized this was no ordinary famous fan, the AD’s phone pinged with voicemails or texts when McConaughey has another epiphany he is eager to share.

 

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C-Man

C-Man 27285

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The two discovered they attend the same church, and McConaughey invited Ehlinger to meet up sometime. There’s a hiccup in the schedule for this upcoming Sunday, though, and Ehlinger hopes they can make other arrangements. McConaughey steals a piece of paper, borrows a pen and scribbles down his email, apologizing that he doesn’t remember his cell phone number. “Gotta change it a lot?” Ehlinger asks. “Nah,’’ McConaughey says with a chuckle. “I just never call myself.’’


So awesome!
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Scooter Monzingo

Scooter Monzingo 821

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I apologize, but I’m not the fan of MM in the same way some of you are. I have met the guy a few times, and by most accounts he is a decent guy, and I get his ties to the university. But egregious and constant self promotion is verboten in my playbook. Especially in this case where he has consistently hung his hat on his efforts of philanthropy in Louisiana. Yesterday was one of the few times he didn’t throw out all he has done for New Orleans. And why he takes the kids there.

Now, had he actually “played” football at Texas it would come across a little different. As it is, he simply looks like a kid (albeit wealthy) with nothing else to do but show his self proclaimed spirt. And do a lot of “look at me”.

 

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GreenspointTexas

GreenspointTexas 9685

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5 minutes ago, Scooter Monzingo said:

I apologize, but I’m not the fan of MM in the same way some of you are. I have met the guy a few times, and by most accounts he is a decent guy, and I get his ties to the university. But egregious and constant self promotion is verboten in my playbook. Especially in this case where he has consistently hung his hat on his efforts of philanthropy in Louisiana. Yesterday was one of the few times he didn’t throw out all he has done for New Orleans. And why he takes the kids there.

Now, had he actually “played” football at Texas it would come across a little different. As it is, he simply looks like a kid (albeit wealthy) with nothing else to do but show his self proclaimed spirt. And do a lot of “look at me”.

 

He’s said as much, multiple times. His latest write up as MoC has him basically saying “i wish i could have played football at texas”

 

Dude is a good guy (sure, hes strange) but hes a better fan and alum than almost anyone on here

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LTtxfan

LTtxfan 49378

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SEC Shorts - McConaughey Hijacks Stadium Speaker After LSU Game

bby TD Staff Reporter.   September 9, 2019
quote:
It was a busy day for the Texas Longhorn Minister of Culture, Matthew McConaughey. First an appearance as the guest picker on College Gameday, then the all important role of sideline cheerleader for the Longhorn's massive game against LSU. Unfortunately, Joe Burrow made sure the Tigers left Austin with a win. They also left a broken in spirit McConaughey who decides to hijack the stadium loudspeaker at 2 in the morning
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Lhorn

Lhorn 4970

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he can't be bragging too much, i've never even heard him talk about work in Louisiana?
quick google check... are you talking about that Just Keep Living foundation? seems legit. 

Same here. Not sure it’s egregious. I’ve never heard him say a word. Didn’t know it was a thing.
Not an Uber fan but I love him for his love of The University.


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TrashMaster G

TrashMaster G 17630

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On 9/8/2019 at 8:12 AM, Scooter Monzingo said:

I apologize, but I’m not the fan of MM in the same way some of you are. I have met the guy a few times, and by most accounts he is a decent guy, and I get his ties to the university. But egregious and constant self promotion is verboten in my playbook. Especially in this case where he has consistently hung his hat on his efforts of philanthropy in Louisiana. Yesterday was one of the few times he didn’t throw out all he has done for New Orleans. And why he takes the kids there.

Now, had he actually “played” football at Texas it would come across a little different. As it is, he simply looks like a kid (albeit wealthy) with nothing else to do but show his self proclaimed spirt. And do a lot of “look at me”.

 

Did you read The Athletic story at the top of the thread?  It paints a pretty thorough portrait of his love for and engagement with The University.  I will not begrudge anybody who clearly cares for UT as deeply as he does, and he comes across as very genuine in that respect.

As for the Louisiana thing, like others, I have never hear him mention it once.  I think you might be suffering from a bit of confirmation bias on that front.

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