The Clyde Rabb Littlefield Lecture Series

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Clyde Rabb Littlefield, son of famous UT track and Field coach Clyde Littlefield, first met Center directors Jan and Terry Todd in approximately 2006 when he visited them in their offices at Anna Hiss Gym to discuss his father, Coach Littlefield, and to ask for help with some research on the history of his father’s career. From that initial meeting, a friendship evolved over cheeseburgers at Huts and discussions about Longhorn sports history, which resulted in the Center’s exhibition on the 1914 football team’s called “The Perfect Season” and a $3+M estate gift to the Center.

A photograph of Clyde Rabb Littlefield, an elderly man with a bald head and glasses, in front of a portrait of his father, who looks especially similar, around the same age.

Clyde Rabb Littlefield graduated from Texas in 1953 with a bachelor’s degree in government and then earned a master’s degree in 1958. After graduation, he served in Korea as a military historian for more than twenty years and then returned to Austin and began investing in real estate. Upon his death, Mr. Littlefield left his entire estate to the University of Texas and which has been used to help Texas Athletics, The Briscoe Center for American History, The College of Liberal Arts and the Stark Center. (Link to brochure PDF) The gifts to the Stark center have been used to create two new endowments: The Clyde Rabb Littlefield Endowed Excellence Fund for the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center and The Coach Clyde Littlefield Endowed Excellence Fund for the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center. Mr. Littlefield’s gift allows the Center to begin The Clyde Rabb Littlefield Lecture Series and our archival storage areas are now named in his honor.

Check Out Past Lectures:

2025 – Michael Joseph Gross, the official release of Stronger: The Untold Story of Muscle in Our Lives
2024 – Tolga Ozyurtcu, “Forty Acres, Five Rings: A Historical Celebration of Longhorn Olympians”
2022 – Ron Smith, “Amateurism and Lawsuits: The Downfall of the NCAA”
2021 – Playing the Long Game Conference, Jim Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers and former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue
2019 – Asher Price, “The Legacy of Earl Campbell,” Earl Campbell: Yards After Contact