Texas football: Longhorn legend to be inducted into Southwest Conference Hall of Fame
WACO, Texas – Former Texas Football All-American defensive lineman and NFL standout Tony Brackens (1993-95) is one of nine inductees in the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame’s Class of 2019, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame (TSHOF) announced Monday.
Brackens, a native of Fairfield, Texas, was a three-time All-SWC selection and a consensus first-team All-American at defensive end in 1995. He was a member of the 1995 American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Good Works team for his community involvement off the field as well. He played a major role in leading Texas to the final Southwest Conference Championship, a 10-1 regular season in 1995 and a Bowl Alliance berth in the 1996 Nokia Sugar Bowl.
He was a second-round draft pick of the Jacksonville Jaguars and played the entirety of his eight-year NFL career in the Sunshine State. He was selected to the NFL Pro Bowl in 2000 before retiring from professional football in 2003.
Brackens was known as one of the quickest and hardest-hitting Longhorns and caused five fumbles in his final collegiate season of 1995. For his career, he was credited with 24 sacks, which ranked eighth among all Longhorn defenders at the time.
Sponsored by the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place at an 11 a.m. luncheon on Monday, November 18, 2019, in Fort Worth at the Brown-Lupton University Union on the TCU Campus.
The Southwest Conference Hall of Fame is one of four separate halls of fame housed within the Texas Sports Hall of Fame’s physical structure. They include the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame, the Texas Tennis Hall of Fame, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and now, the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame.
For more information about the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame or the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, visit www.tshof.org.