of Texas are perpetuated through several school symbols and mediums. At athletic events, students frequently sing "Texas Fight", the university's fight song while displaying the Hook 'em Horns hand g

partment of Rhetoric and Writing also hosts the Blogora, a blog for "connecting rhetoric, rhetorical methods and theories, and rhetoricians with public life" by the Rhetoric Society of America.[107]
The university has a yearbook. In the 1980s it annually sold 14,000 copies. In 1997 it sold 1,700, an all-time low. Kathy Lawrence, the media adviser at UT Austin, said that yearbook sales declined once the school switched from in-person registration to telephone-based registration. During in-person registrations, the university often asked students to buy student yearbooks. Lawrence said that other factors leading to a decline in yearbook sales at UT Austin included increasing student numbers and declining participation in campus life. As of 2008, about 2,500 copies sell annually. To salvage the yearbook, Lawrence introduced personalized pages. When Lawrence concluded that social networking sites lead to a decline in yearbook sales, Sarah Viren of the Houston Chronicle said that Lawrence "eventually opted to hold off on the personalized pages."[108]
Traditions[edit]


The Texas longhorn is the university's mascot.
Traditions at the University of Texas are perpetuated through several school symbols and mediums. At athletic events, students frequently sing "Texas Fight", the university's fight song while displaying the Hook 'em Horns hand gesture—the gesture mimicking the horns of the school's mascot, Bevo the Texas longhorn.
Athletics[edit]

Main article: Texas Longhorns
The University of Texas offers a wide variety of varsity and intramural sports programs. As of 2008, the university's athletics program ranked fifth in the nation among Division I schools according to the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.[109] Due to the breadth of sports offered and the quality of the programs, Texas was selected as "America's Best Sports College" in a 2002 analysis by Sports Illustrated.[110] Texas was also listed as the number one Collegiate Licensing Company client for the second consecutive year in regards to the amount of annual trademark royalties received from fan merchandise sales. But this ranking is based only on clients of the Collegiate Licensing Company, which does not handle licensing for approximately three-dozen large schools including Ohio State, USC, UCLA, Michigan State, and Texas A&M.[111][112]
Varsity sports[edit]


Texas Longhorns football playing against Oklahoma in the 2007 Red River Rivalry
The University's men's and women's athletics teams are nicknamed the Longhorns. A charter member of the Southwest Conference until it dissolved in 1996, Texas now competes in the Big 12 Conference of the NCAA's Division I-FBS. Texas has won 50 total national championships,[113] 42 of