Texas Longhorns Announce 2025 Texas Athletics Hall of Honor Class

The Texas Longhorns have announced their 2025 Texas Athletics Hall of Honor class, which includes 10 former athletes from the university.

These honorees will be recognized at an induction ceremony on Friday, Sept. 12, at 7 p.m. CT in the LBJ Auditorium and conference center on the Texas campus.

They left lasting impressions on each of their respective programs, and honoring them in this way helps cement their legacies as collegiate athletes.

Men’s Class

The 71st Men’s Hall of Honor class contains five inductees, and their names read as follows: Nate Dusing, Royal Ivey, Kyle Russel, Rodrique Wright and Bobby Mitchell.

Dusing helped the Texas men’s swimming and diving team earn back-to-back NCAA team championships in 2000 and 2001, along with accumulating two NCAA individual championship wins and nine NCAA relay championship wins. He also went on to become a two-time Olympian and earn two Olympic medals.

The other two-time NCAA title winner being inducted is Mitchell, who played football for the Longhorns from 1968-1970 and contributed as an offensive guard to one of the most successful Texas offenses of all time. The team earned two national titles and three Southwest Conference titles while he was there. 

Wright helped lead the football team to their 2005 National Championship victory during one of his four years as a starting defensive tackle, and he was named a finalist for the Lombardi Award.

Ivey started for the Longhorns’ basketball team for four years (2001-2004), played 10 years in the NBA and currently serves as an assistant coach for the Houston Rockets.   

Finally, Russel led Texas baseball to two consecutive Big 12 regular season titles in 2006 and 2007, and he still possesses the program record for career home runs. His number to beat is 57 home runs. 

Women’s Class 

Five honorees will be recognized on the women’s side, too, and the names of the women set to be inducted into the 26th Women’s Hall of Honor class read as follows: Kirsten Wengler Burton, Haley Eckerman, Nicole Devonish Gilmore, Tiffany Jackson and Nancy Ledbetter Ramsbottom. 

Burton swam for the Longhorns from 1983-1986, leading the women’s program to three NCAA titles in a row in 1984, 1985 and 1986. She also earned 21 All-American recognitions, five NCAA relay championships and 11 SWC championships.

Ramsbottom played golf during a similar time frame, from 1981-1984, and she earned recognition as the 1984 SWC individual champion and SWC Player of the Year. She then proceeded to play on the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour for 16 years.

Jackson will be inducted posthumously, as she succumbed to her battle with cancer in October of 2022, but her impact on the Texas women’s basketball program was undeniable. A testament to this is the fact that she remains the only individual in school history to achieve a combination of 1,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, 300 steals and 150 blocks.

Gilmore, a track and field athlete, was an eight-time All-American and eight-time SWC champion in the long jump and triple jump. She also helped the Longhorns earn four second-place and three third-place positions as a team at the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships. 

To close it out on the women’s side, Eckerman played volleyball at Texas from 2011-2014 and earned the title of National Player of the Year twice during his collegiate career. She became a four-time All-American, three-time Big 12 Conference Player of the Year, and she helped her team claim the NCAA title in 2012.

The range of this class' impact can be observed through their various accomplishments, and several of them represent different eras of Texas Athletics in unique ways.

In addition to their ceremony on Sept. 12, this diverse class of inductees on both the men’s and women’s side will receive a special salute at the Texas football game vs. UTEP on Saturday, Sept. 13.