Welcome to Texas Talk.

I'm Gilbert Garcia, metro columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.

On this show, we bring you in-depth one on one conversations with some of the most fascinating figures in Texas politics, sports, culture and business.

In November 2017, when UTSA announced that Lisa Campos would be the school's new athletic director, University President Taylor, Amy said, by all measures, she's a star on the rise.

Five and a half years later, that glowing assessment looks like a considerable understatement.

Campos, a Colorado native who is one of the few Latino college athletic directors in the country, has, among other things, overseen unprecedented success in the university's still young football program, helped expand community support for UTSA sports and guided the development of a $40 million state of the art athletic facility.

On tonight's show, she'll talk about how she got to this point and where she hopes to take the UTSA athletic program.

Let's get started.

Lisa, thank you so much for being on the show.

Well, thank you so much for having me.

One of the things that fascinates me about your career is that you've had all the success working in athletics.

But my understanding is that, you know, you really got your start working in student affairs at the University of Texas in El Paso.

I don't think athletics was really that was really the path that you had in mind for yourself.

That's right.

I didn't even know about athletics and that you can have a career in intercollegiate athletics.

But because of my background in being a first generation college graduate, I was given so much at Colorado State University and it introduced me to a career in higher education.

And I started a graduate assistantship and student affairs and had a really great opportunity to to work at UTEP.

And I was the assistant dean of students to the Campus Discipline Students Success initiatives and really thought my career path was going to be to be a vice president for student affairs.

And my passion has always been to serve students, particularly higher education students.

And one thing led to another and the athletic director at the time, Bob Stoll at UTEP, offered me a position over at athletics, and I never looked back.

Was it intimidating?

I mean, people in sports, they tend to think, you know, I'm not saying they're not accepting of people who come from outside that sports world, but, you know, people in sports tend to feel like, well, we understand this, and maybe there might be some people questioning whether this was whether you were equipped to do the job.

Did you run into any of that?

Absolutely.

You hit it right on that.

You know, folks and understand why this hire, she wasn't a Division one student athlete.

I played high school sports.

I didn't grow up in the business of athletics.

But what Bob Stoll saw in me was I had already had so many relationships across campus in the role I was in.

He knew I had a strong work ethic.

He didn't have to recruit me to El Paso or to UTEP.

I was already there.

And at the end of the day, it's about serving students.

And he knew that.

That's what I had a real passion for, was to serve students.

And instead of serving the entire student population, it was really serving these 300 plus student athletes at UTEP.

So but certainly especially in a male dominated field, especially when there's you've lived your entire career in athletics.

People certainly looked at me and had a question mark about, well, how did this happen and why is she in this role?

You mentioned doing high school sports and you played basketball and volleyball did track and field and my understanding is that you had a chance to play Division two college basketball, but that's not the path that you chose.

I mean, what what was your thinking at that point?

Yeah, you know what the school I was that we didn't know a lot about the process.

And I look back now understanding how how going to college and playing sports works.

I would remember coming home and my mom would say, X, Y, Z school called you.

They're wanting you to play basketball, but you have to call them back.

They can't call you again.

Well, that was an NCAA rule that they could only make so many calls.

And I was like, Mom, that has to be a hoax, I don't think somewhat.

And I just didn't know how it worked.

And so, yes, an opportunity to play in the local junior college looked at some Division two schools, but I really wanted to focus on college.

And although I loved basketball, I didn't know what a great opportunity it would have been to play Division two.

And looking back, I don't have a lot of regrets in life.

I don't like to think about regrets.

But now watching what sports does for student athlete, I really wish I would have taken advantage of those opportunities.

I wonder, even though you only you didn't play beyond the high school level, the fact that you did participate in sports at that at that time in your life, did did that help you understand the needs of an athletic department or what student athletes know, what they required to be able to to thrive?

What it really showed me was the teamwork.

And what it showed me was making a commitment to something, to putting academics first in order to play sports.

So it showed me all the things that, you know, building self-esteem, all the positive things that sports brings.

I don't think I understood the other side of it and the administration and what that all looked like.

But playing sports really had an impact on my life, a very positive impact.

As you said, you went to Colorado State University.

One thing I was really curious about, I think Becky Hammon was playing there at the time that you were a student there.

Did you know her at all or did you know?

I knew her?

She didn't know me.

Okay.

Well, she's pretty bizarre, I imagine, for sure.

And I just loving the game of basketball.

I probably went to every one of her games at all to watch the trajectory of CSU basketball.

Me starting as a freshman, Becky was a freshman as well.

I can remember going to the arena.

There was hardly anyone in the stands.

You could sit wherever you wanted to.

The by the time I became a senior and they were going to the Sweet 16 and having a lot of success and she was all-American, you know, three times over that all of a sudden now we were having to pay for parking the front row seats.

As a student I sat in, I couldn't sit any more, so I really saw that trajectory.

But I followed her and I actually did not ever have a chance to meet her until I moved here to San Antonio.

And I was at an event and someone introduced me to her.

And what did she say when you told her that?

Oh my gosh, she probably thought I was a stalker because I could recite all her stats and talking about just following her career.

And I might have scared her a little bit.

Well.

So instead of I know in 2017, you were the athletic director at Northern Arizona.

And at the time there was an opening for the athletic director position at UTEP, where you had worked in the athletic department for nine years.

And I think a lot of people thought you were the front runner for that position, but you ended up taking yourself out of consideration for that that job and ended up deciding to come and take the same position at UTSA.

What was your what was your thinking at that time?

Because I mean, you had you know, you had the history at UTEP, you were familiar with it.

What made you decide to come.

To UTSA, say was really aggressive in the recruitment?

You know, when I met with Dr. Amy, I went from not really knowing if I wanted this opportunity to telling my husband I will be devastated if I don't get this job because he was someone that you're just going to learn from and you're going to love working for.

And so he really sold it.

But then I also Uber and over to the campus and I didn't want to run into anyone I knew.

So I put out a bottle cap and some jeans and just walked the campus and I would stop and talk to students and they loved their experience at UTSA.

And so those were the things that sold me.

And the story is that Dr. Amy knew that UTEP had been pursuing me, and as soon as I landed back in in Arizona, he called me and said, I'm going to get a contract together, call you to tell them you're not interested because I'm going to get a contract.

And he was true to his word.

And things went really quickly and he presented a contract to me.

And I think over that first year you came up with what you called the Roadrunner Game Plan, which was basically a series of ideas for creating a culture of excellence in UT's athletic department.

What made you decide that this was something you wanted to do?

Yeah.

So when we when I got here, of course, I did a listening session with our student athletes and our coaches.

I listened to our supporters, I listened to our community and then kind of got a little bit of our infrastructure put together and said, okay, we need to have a plan.

And it's basically our strategic plan.

But we made a commitment.

This road game plan was going to be something we were going to be very intentional about.

It wasn't going to be planned and then put on a bookshelf that we wanted to make sure we worked this plan.

And so it's based off of all that feedback I've received from all those constituents about what is it that we need to focus on to move this department forward?

And that's what we did.

And of course Facilities was a number one driver in that, and that's the result of that is the Road Warrior Athletic Center of Excellence.

I mean, that really came through putting that plan together through the foundation and finding the resources to do that.

Yeah.

Now in 2018, you wrote an open letter to the community saying that the football team had not performed up to expectations and basically talked about how know the hope was to turn that around.

A year later, you find yourself in the position of having to hire a new coach.

And Jeff Traylor was someone who had had a lot of success at the high school level.

He had been an assistant coach in college, but probably wasn't the most obvious selection at that point.

What was it about the I know the two of you met and I know that had an impression on you.

What was it that you saw in him?

Because this is a hiring decision that has really transformed the UTSA football program with the conference championships national rankings.

What did what did you see in him at that point?

Yeah, that was a really fun and interesting search.

So in my mind, I love always being able to hire coaches who have had head coaching experience that they've sat in the scene.

So as I was going through the search process, you know, that's what I sort of had in mind.

And all the candidates we brought in and kept talking about Jeff Traylor.

Jeff Traylor, who to your point, wasn't on our radar.

And they're going to they.

Sort of put him on your radar.

They did.

And the search committee we use, Ted Turner, he was very familiar with Jeff because he had done the search of SMU when Jeff was the interim head coach.

And so he had some familiarity with Jeff.

And so we said, all right, let's see what this Jeff trailer's about.

And I tell people within 5 minutes and whether this is right or bad, you know, a lot of things come from my gut.

And within the first 5 minutes of meeting him, my gut told me this is the guy.

I mean, it was not just his energy and his presentation, but we were both aligned in the same way.

We both care about 18 or 22 year olds.

And his high school mentality of caring for kids and growing kids is always been with them.

And he's so authentic with that.

So that alignment really mattered.

And then after that, he's been successful.

He has had the head coach experience.

Although at a high school level, you just raise it up a level and it's all about relationships.

It's about, you know, developing kids.

And then he already won the Big 12 recruiter of the year.

So he had a proven success record of being able to recruit.

So all of those things just aligned.

And we knew right away he was our guy.

We surprised at how quickly things turn around.

In the first year was a difficult one because of COVID, and he's talked about the challenges he had.

But really by the second year, we started to see a major impact on the UTSA football program.

Were you surprised just obviously you had confidence in him, but you just how fast this happened?

Yeah, I actually was especially coming out of COVID.

I mean, he was dealt a really bad hand with getting hired in December, starting to put his staff together, getting his football team in January, February and then March.

We send everyone home.

And I mean, to be dealt that and to have a great season in his in year one.

After that, we reset.

We actually resigned his contract in that year because we said, okay, let's reset, let's just put this year behind us.

But watching him in that year, I knew he works tirelessly.

He is always putting his students in a position to be successful and the way he's interacted with the community.

I mean, in year one, I, I knew how special he was.

And I wasn't surprised after that point of what he was going to do in the next couple of years.

One of the things that you did that was really interesting was in 2019, UTSA put in place a rule.

I think this was the first college athletic program to do this that banned individuals who had a verified history of violence or sexual abuse from participating in the athletic program.

It was known as the Tracy Rule.

If you talk a little bit about what what made you decide because as I said, you were the UTSA was I mean, this was I think was a great decision, but it was something that other schools hadn't done.

And what made you decide that that you wanted to do that?

Yeah.

So I was really fortunate to meet Brenda Tracy when I was at Northern Arizona University and I heard her speak twice and she has such an impactful story.

And immediately when I got to UTSA, I told our staff we need to get Brenda Tracy here.

I want her to share her story with our student athletes because it will have such an impact.

At that time, she was really trying to get NCAA to, you know, as all universities to pass that and they were working through all of that.

And we said, you know what, let's be the first school who ties eligibility with behavior.

And it was really easy.

And I had such support from Dr. Amy and the leadership, which is really important, but it really helped set our culture and what we're about.

And and just making sure that we're bringing in, you know, quality student athletes.

And so that that's how that came and it really spread throughout the whole campus.

Our SGA, our state government association, they declared a day of Brenda Tracy.

The there were some fraternities and sororities and fraternity actually who signed the first pledge.

And again, it was just about what her tagline is, is set the expectation and let's help solve sexual violence.

You talked a little bit about the the the facilities issue and this new athletic facility that I still think of as new that UTSA has is a $40 million facility.

Can you talk about what what this is providing for athletes at UTSA versus what existed before and why this is is making a difference?

Yeah, we are so proud of the word our Athletics Center of Excellence race for sure.

It's the hub of UTSA athletics.

Now it is where everyone gathers, where every, you know, the student athletes have a home.

And before that, you know, I've told the story where my very first day at UTSA, I'm driving thinking I'm coming to the campus and my jeep's is taking me off campus.

And I call a colleague and say, okay, I must have the wrong address.

He says, Oh no, we don't work on campus.

And I had no idea that all of our administrative offices were in an office park off campus.

And can you imagine trying to create culture when you don't see the student athletes that you serve?

Would you don't see the coaches that you serve?

And then on campus, all of our coaches were all over campus in trailers.

Was this this had to be a recruiting challenge as well.

I mean, when you when people who are considering UTSA look at maybe the lack of facilities.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so did Brant bring race facility in and we have had people from all over the country visit it from you know, the power five schools and we are aligned with with the big schools and how we did this facility.

And to your point, it was two fold.

It well three fold really, it was to bring us all together and have a hub.

It was to give our current student athletes the best training facilities, academic centers, sports medicine areas, you know, weight room.

And then it was for our recruits.

And so that it's really solved a lot of issues for those three areas.

One way in which the college athletic landscape has changed, I think, really since you came to UTSA has been the changing rules in the NCAA that allow players to benefit financially from their name, image and likeness.

I would think that this it just complicates the situation.

I mean, there are opportunities in there for every school like UTSA, but also some, you know, some challenges there.

How have you tried to to navigate this?

Because I would imagine that you have a lot of players, particularly really elite athletes, who are are looking and thinking this is now part of their their calculus, now looking at ways in which they can their name, image and likeness can be something.

That we actually UTSA, we embraced it from the very beginning and I think we were the very first program in Conference USA that rolled out what our initial program would look like.

And of course, following Texas law there, we couldn't get too involved, but we could provide resources to students, we could provide education.

And so we embraced it right away.

And we have a ton of local kids.

So the local businesses really supported that.

And it's something that's not going away.

It's going to be changed.

We've been at it for a little over a year now, so we know it's going to go through some changes.

But right now it is something that's important to students.

We're building it.

We have a couple of collectives that are just local supporters who are really managing that and, you know, but to your point, it is something that is on the radars of prospective student athletes.

And what that might look for them as a package.

Is UTSA athletics.

Obviously, we're seeing a lot of success.

One challenging area that I'm sure you're focusing on is the men's basketball team.

You had two straight ten and 22 seasons.

You had some players enter the transfer portal.

When you as you look ahead, I mean, what do you envision for the basketball program and what do you what do you would you like to see happen?

Yeah, So basketball, we've we have focused really on football and made that announcement, which is really important.

And now, you know, we're looking at building and fundraising for a new basketball and volleyball practice facility and being able to give those student athletes and the recruits the facility that they really need.

That's going to be comparable to the other schools in the American.

One thing that I know that you've probably heard about since since you took the job is the Convocation Center, where the basketball team plays.

It's a pretty small arena, I think I've heard I've heard people defend it and say that, you know, that they find that there's an intimacy that they find really appealing.

But I'm sure you've had some people say, well, we need a new basketball arena.

Where do you where do you fall on that?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, we want to give our student athletes and our fans, quite frankly, the best experience in those facilities.

And there is definitely some pros and cons of the Convocation Center.

It is very intimate.

When it is packed, it is loud.

And but then there's also some like fire safety issues where we can't completely pack it because of egress.

There's some concession issues.

So there's some real pros and cons about that.

But at the end of the day, we want to be competitive in the American and we know that there's a lot of opportunity on the men's and women's basketball side of things, and it's going to take resources and that's not going to happen overnight.

But we're going to start with the practice facility for the basketball programs and volleyball, because that is something when you think about student athletes and when they're looking at schools, they want to be able to train all the time.

And right now they don't have that that option because the complications that are is used night and day with all sorts of activities going on in there.

How much of your time is spent on community engagement, just sort of building the fan base and building support within the community?

Yeah, a ton of time.

You know, in my first two years we were out, we were building also focused internally and then COVID hit and then we had no opportunity to engage the community and get out there.

So I feel like we're back at it now and we're you know, it's funny, some people say, Oh, you're the new athletic director, And I go with it because, you know, I've been here for five years.

It doesn't feel like that because of the two years that we were able to get out and about.

So there's a ton of community engagement right now.

And this community has really supported and bought into the vision of what we're trying to accomplish.

Last year we saw the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title nine, which I think is one of the most transformative pieces of legislation in the United States in the last, you know, my lifetime.

And I wonder which which really enabled women's sports at the college level and high school level to to to flourish and created so much more opportunity.

When you think about what what you experienced growing up versus what young women participating in sports are now able to do, I mean, how do you assess the impact it's having?

It's just opportunity.

You know, like I was saying, when I grew up, we didn't have softball, we didn't have soccer.

And those sports now are just flooded with little girls and from the youth level all the way to the professional.

And so it's just opportunity.

And I think it's really important for our current student athletes to know it wasn't always like that because we don't want to take for granted what those before us were able to accomplish and to build and to provide that opportunity.

So are there any.

Other sports that UTSA would be looking to add at this point?

I mean, I know that you only have everybody's limited resources and but are there are there any when you when you came here, I guess I would ask, were there were there any areas we thought, well, we maybe we should be doing what we should be involved in some other sport that we're not doing right now.

Yeah, that's a great question.

So we always look at what our club sports are doing.

Are there any sports that are really emerging to to be elevated to division one?

To your point, we also want to very much take care of our current student athletes.

And we have a lot of work to with facilities and some infrastructure, but we continue to look at at the trends, what's happening in the state of Texas, what sports are merging.

So we'll always continue to look at those sorts of things.

As a as a former basketball player and someone who is really valued sideline in your own job, I was wondering what your reaction was.

We saw a couple of weeks ago, the final the NCAA women's basketball championship game.

We had nearly 10 million people watch LSU play Iowa.

You're this is very different than what that you probably experienced when you were, you know, young person playing.

Playing basketball.

Absolutely.

I mean, that what has happened over the last couple of years and I was really fortunate to chair the the NCAA Women's Basketball Oversight Committee.

So I've been highly involved in the strategy to elevate women's basketball.

And you saw that this year.

You know, it was the most highly watched sporting event with the final the final game this year and with LSU.

And it has really put women's basketball on the map.

And it's a hot item right now.

And of course, the players have recognition.

You know, I was telling our women's basketball coach when my son is that my eight year old son is out there shooting and he's shooting long shots saying.

CAITLYN Yeah, that's had an impact.

He knows women's basketball.

What did you make?

I'm just I'm just curious what your takeaway is, because, as you know, there was a controversy in LSU.

One angel, the star player for LSU.

There was a taunting going on, which was kind of a response to something that I was a star player Caitlin Clarke had done earlier in the tournament.

And I don't think there's a they really had there's really a problem between the players themselves.

But, you know, the media kind of took hold of the story, whether this was, you know, appropriate or not.

Right.

Just as a as a fan and somebody involved in athletics, what did you.

Want to be at that level to be in a national championship game?

I mean, those women are competitors.

And I think that's what you saw was a lot of competition.

And, you know, just that they were are just very competitive and wanted to win.

And is there a double standard?

Because I don't think I think people people respond that way or get bent out of shape if men do some of that.

So and to your point, I mean, when you listen to what Caitlyn said after the interview and how she didn't seem to be offended by it just was, hey, that's all part of the game.

And then you listen to Reese's interview.

I mean, it was just part of the I don't think they thought much of it, as opposed to how others in the media were thinking about it.

Yeah.

You talked a little bit about the conference change.

UTSA is moving from Conference USA to the American Athletic Conference, and that's a big step for the for the program.

What are your what are your hopes and expectations?

You know.

We are so excited right now.

You know, we've known this for almost two years now when we got the invitation.

So work started two years ago about what this transition would look like.

What how do we not just be in the American, but how do we be competitive in the American?

And it's going to take the support of San Antonio and all of our supporters and businesses that we want to continue elevating.

But it's an exciting opportunity.

It's going to give more visibility to UTSA and to UTSA Athletics.

It's a more recognizable conference.

It's going to be great for all of San Antonio.

Our university, our student athletes, our coaches.

And so everyone's really excited.

And right now, because UTSA athletics is on such a upward trajectory, there's so much momentum.

It's the right time for this change.

And, you know, last night we had an event where coaches were on a panel and they just talked about how their student athletes were energized by one another.

And success breeds success.

And it's just a really exciting time right now.

Lisa, thank you so much for being on Texas Tech.

Really appreciate.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate you.

Thank you.

That's all for this episode of Texas Talk.

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Until then, take care.