Eyes on Texas: Strong Medicine for the Horns

A roundup of news, columns and features about the state, from media around the world. 

UT football coach Charlie Strong is not allowing his players to throw up the ‘Hook ’em Horns’ sign just yet, according to ESPN. The new coach has brought about a slew of changes to the underperforming program as a way to “Put the ‘T’ back in Texas,” Strong said. He’s requiring players to walk to the practice fields rather than being bused the half-mile, as they were under former coach Mack Brown. Strong also works out with the team and shows up to 5:30 a.m. practices sweaty from his own workout, said defensive end Cedric Reed. “He’s real. He’s really real,” Reed said.

Twenty-three Garland schoolteachers are facing deportation after an administrative mistake six years ago thwarted their chances of gaining residency, Fox News Latino reported. Facing a booming Spanish-speaking population and few Spanish-speaking teachers, the school district recruited 260 bilingual teachers from outside the state including some from Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. Now some teachers can’t convert their work visas to residency status because the law firm the district hired to handle the paperwork asked the teachers to pay the $20,000 cost. Federal law mandates that employers pay for the sponsorship. The school district is reimbursing the teachers. The teachers say they don’t care about the money and would rather stay and work.

A Fort Worth teen is suing his former science teacher, Rachelle Heenan, for initiating a sexual relationship and ruining his plans for a career in the Marines, the New York Daily News reported. The relationship started in February 2012 through text message and eventually led to them having sex multiple times, said police Sgt. Pedro Criado. Heenan, 34, agreed to a plea bargain in February 2013 in which she relinquished her teaching certificate. The lawsuit alleges the relationship caused the student, 17, emotional distress and led him to destroy $24,000 of school property. The suit asks Heenan to pay for the damage.