It was the morning of a critical Big 12 opener against TCU, and Texas officials had a problem.
“Aloe Blacc’s flight has been canceled,” senior associate athletic director Drew Martin remembers a colleague frantically saying. The artist you probably remember as the one doing all the vocal work on Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” was due in Austin early Saturday afternoon to play Longhorn City Limits, one of a series of gameday initiatives Martin and first-year athletic director Chris Del Conte cooked up to help make Texas fans actually excited to attend Texas games. Martin, who arrived only two months ago from TCU—where he worked alongside Del Conte for five years—didn’t panic.