Texas Relays kick off at UT

The country's top high school, collegiate and professional track and field athletes have converged at the University of Texas' Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays .

Why it matters: The four-day event is one of the country's most competitive track meets, and the adjacent programming of Urban Music Fest and the Texas Relays Car Show make it a key gathering for the African American community in Austin in particular.

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By the numbers: Tens of thousands of visitors head to Austin for the event, and city leaders have previously estimated that the weekend generates as much as $30 million in economic impact.

What to watch: The relays began Wednesday with the decathlon and heptathlon and conclude Saturday with the Sanya Richards-Ross women's 4x400-meter relay.

• This year's field includes the Longhorns' own indoor 60-meter world champion Julien Alfred and NCAA 400-meter outdoor champion Rhasidat Adeleke .
• High school students use the relays as an opportunity to get recruited. Westlake, Bowie, Vandegrift, Anderson, Dripping Springs, Leander's Rouse and Bastrop high schools are among the Central Texas schools represented at the Texas Relays this year.

Between the lines: The way the competition has been both embraced and shunned by Austin reflects the city's own troubled history with race.

• In 2009, Highland Mall, whose parking lot had been home to an informal car show during the Texas Relays, and some Sixth Street nightclubs closed the weekend of the race — a move that many saw as motivated by the African American crowds the competition draws.
• Then-Austin City Council Member Sheryl Cole called the business closures "offensive."

On closer inspection: UT athletics were long segregated, with the university first allowing Black student-athletes in track competition in 1964 — a decade after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling that separating students in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional.

Children watch athletic events at the Texas Relays at Texas Memorial Stadium in late March 1958. Photo: John G. Zimmerman/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images

📍 If you go: Tickets to the Texas Relays and Urban Music Fest are still available online.

• You can track event results on the Texas Relays website , and watch some events through their livestream .

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