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Back to School Texas Music Magazine Some stories are just too good to be true, and such is the case with the claim by some of the University of North Texas that the legendary band The Eagles was named after the school’s mascot. After all, founding member of the band Don Henley attended UNT (or North Texas State University as it was known at that time) in the late ‘60s before he and Glenn Frey met and formed The Eagles in Southern California. “I don’t know how that got started but that has no grounding in reality whatsoever,” Henley says. “First of all, bands don’t normally name themselves after football teams.” The name of the band was actually derived from American Indian mythology when Henley and Frey spent time with members of the Chumash tribe in Southern California. “We learned a great deal about what the eagle represents to Native Americans.” Henley says. “The eagle is the animal that flies the highest. It is the animal that flies closest to the sun, and in Indian spiritual lore, it is the eagle that carries the prayers of the warriors up to the god. “The other reason we chose the name The Eagles is because we wanted something simple, something very American and something that wouldn’t go out of fashion over time,” Henley’s musical roots were established in his hometown of Linden, Texas. He started a band in high school in 1963 which after many incarnations ultimately came to be known as Shiloh. Henley and members of Shiloh moved on to college at Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches in 1965. But in East Texas in the late ‘60s, the campus climate was not friendly to the musician counterculture. “I left Stephen F. Austin in 1967 because it wasn’t a very friendly environment, especially for long hairs,” Henley says. “I think kids now don’t realize how difficult and dangerous it was for musicians, especially for musicians with long hair, back in those days. We were threatened all the time. Long hair is no bid deal now, but it was a very big deal then. We had to be very careful about where we went, and we had to stay together in groups and it was not pleasant.” Henley found a more accepting home for his music in Denton of North Texas State University, where he enrolled in the fall of 1967. “It was a more welcoming atmosphere. A lot of musicians were in the vicinity on campus. It was much more of a bohemian cultural climate and I felt safe,” he says. As a student at North Texas, Henley originally enrolled in the music program, but soon realized he needed a change of major. “I took one beginning music theory course, and the professor was an asshole. I made an F, the only F I ever made in my life,” Henley says. He switched to the English department where he was impressed by the scholarship of several teachers. “I had a great Shakespeare professor when I was there, her name was Marsue McFadden,” Henley continues. “She and I are still good friends. I renewed contact with her about four years ago. She is living in Arizona now, and she comes to visit my family occasionally. There was another great professor named James Giles who teaches in Illinois now. Both he and Professor McFadden, whose name is now Haviland, came to the opening of the Thoreau Institute, and they were recognized by President Clinton that day.” The Walden Woods Project, of which the Thoreau Institute is a part, was founded by Henley in 1999 and is one of the most successful preservation education endeavors in the US. Henley left North Texas in 1968 to go home to Linden and spend time with his father, who had been diagnosed with heart disease. Though Henley did not complete his degree at North Texas, he says that the liberal arts education he gained there was excellent training for his future as a songwriter. “Although I didn’t do well in the music department, I found a home in the English department, and it has served me well in terms of lyric writing. So, while the UNT Eagles cannot claim to be the namesake of Henley’s legendary musical group, the university can boast a level of inspiration for the man who contributed to the musical poetry of hits such as “Best of My Love” “Hotel California” and the Grammy award-winning “Lyin’ Eyes.
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