The history of Texas Tech football is unfortunately marked by the exploits of freshmen who failed to live up to expectations coming out of high school.
Brad Hastings was not one of those players. The middle linebacker from Arlington Bowie was one of the top 25 recruits in the nation when he signed with Texas Tech in 1983, a shock given that the Red Raiders had suffered four straight losing seasons, making it seven in a row.
He lived up to his stats: Hastings recorded 480 tackles in four years, was a three-time Southwest Conference All-Star, was named honorable mention All-America in 1985 and was named third team All-America as a senior in 1986.
He will be inducted into the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame this summer. The nine inductees, one from each of the nine former Southwest Conference schools, will attend the ceremony at 11:30 a.m. Aug. 13 at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco.
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Hastings died in 2009 at the age of 44, wearing the same jersey number he wore in college.
When Hastings was inducted into the Texas Tech Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011, former Red Raiders coach Spike Dykes called him “the greatest leader I've ever known.”
“He was able to play the way he was meant to play,” Dykes said. “Ask anybody who played with Brad Hastings what kind of player he was. Give me a few minutes to talk to him, because it's not going to be over anytime soon.”
Dykes served as the Red Raiders' defensive coordinator from 1984 until the end of the 1986 regular season. It was during those three seasons that Hastings really came into his own, recording 141 tackles as a sophomore, 171 tackles as a junior and 153 tackles as a senior.
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Tech's defensive tackle records do not encompass the entire history of the program, but Hastings' 480 career tackles are second only to Lawrence Fluegence (1998-2002), who had 500, and Hastings' 171 stops are second-most in a single season behind Fluegence's 193 in 2002.
The SWC Hall of Fame was established in 2013 to recognize those who served in the conference, which lasted from 1914 to 1996. Other member schools include Texas Tech, who joined in 1956;
This year's other inductees are Baylor University football player Alfred Anderson, University of Houston's Jason Phillips, Texas A&M's Tony Franklin, Texas-CU basketball player Janice Jiuk, University of Arkansas' Oliver Miller, Rice University track and field athlete Claudia Haywood Miner, SMU University tennis player John Ross and University of Texas golfer Shelley Steinhauer.
