Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Each month, Texas State University President Dr. Kelly Damphousse sits down with faculty members, staff, students, alumni, and community members for a conversation about all things TXST — the past, the present, and the bright future of the university.
Part of the TXST Podcast Network: https://www.txst.edu/podcast-network.html
- And a few things were important to me, given the legacy of this conference and the longstanding relationships I had, even with those 10 institutions, I was going to transition them with dignity. I wanted the student-athletes on those campuses to transition out of this league feeling good about the experience they had in this conference and feeling like, wow, that conference supported us and cared about our experience. That was a priority.
- And not all conferences do that. Sometimes when people announced they're leaving, they just shut the door on everything, right?
- I reinforced with our staff, like we are still here to serve students.
- Hey, Bobcats. Kelly Damphousse here, president of Texas State University. And welcome to The Current, where we meet with faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends of the university to find out what's going on at Texas State. And today, I'd like to introduce you to my friend, the commissioner of the Pac-12 Conference, Teresa Gould. Teresa, thank you for joining us for the podcast.
- Absolutely, it's really invigorating to be on campus and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to your community through your podcast.
- And you and I had a brief moment here in JCK where I could take you up to the 11th floor and kind of show you a bird's-eye view of the history of the campus from Old Main to Alkek and the theatre building in the round and football stadium, and all the stuff we got going on here. I think it's surprising to people how big Texas State is not just in population, but just in size.
- Yeah, well, I will say, it might be surprising, but the breathtaking beauty and kind of the impact that this university has had on the region is not a surprise to us. I think that's a big part of why you're a new member of the Pac-12. But definitely awesome to be here and just to see the beautiful, beautiful scenery in this community and on this campus.
- Well, we're happy to have you here. I know you're gonna be talking with students and some coaches and some administrative staff in the athletics department and getting a tour of our facilities later on today as well. But I thought it'd be interesting for our audience to learn more about you, the person. So I know you're from Iowa, so let's go all the way back. And then I wanna talk about your softball experience 'cause I think that's kind of interesting. And then like, how do you get to become a commissioner? So let's go back to Iowa. What happened there?
- So I'm actually a very proud Iowan. I think it's one of those states in our country that a lot of people maybe have perceptions about, but have never really visited.
- One of the flyover states, right? You fly over, you know it's there but you don't know much about it.
- I was born and raised there, and my dad, I was born and raised in a small farming community. And my dad came from a farming family. And I'm actually quite proud of it. It's a place that I absolutely love, not just because it's home but because I think it's a state that really helped form the values that I have as a person. It's a state where community is a big thing. You know all of your neighbors, you have each other's back. There are no strangers.
- You had to be home when the lights went off on the streets.
- Yeah. You know, it's still, to this day, it's just a very different pace maybe than what I have now living in the state of California. And, you know, families still have dinner together every night. And you know, parents really prioritize being at home with their families. So it's a place that I love. So growing up there, my dad went to Iowa State. He decided to not stay at home and farm, which was kind of a big thing at that point in time. And went to Iowa State in Ames. And I ended up going to Iowa State. All my siblings went to Iowa State. We are an Iowa State family through and through, the connection to that and me getting into college athletics is, I can remember from the time that I was probably three being piled into the station wagon with, you know, my four siblings and my mom and my dad, and making the trek up to Ames on football game days. And you know, my dad was one of those proud, proud alums that connected back to the university that he loved through athletics. And he was a diehard, diehard Iowa State fan. And so we would go up there on Saturdays and I got to experience and see firsthand how athletics connects alumni to the universities that they love. And it touched me, it really touched me. I have vivid memories of, you know, in the 1970s being three, four, five, six, seven years old and being at tailgates in Ames. And I remember just thinking, this is a really cool thing.
- You know, I always talk about athletics as the front door to the university, but in many ways it's also the rear view mirror for alumni. And then for, as you said, for the children of the alumni who come back with their parents. And without football, you probably wouldn't go back or without basketball and so on. So athletics draws our alumni back, which, you know, keeps them inspired to, you know, support the university, but also feeds the desire of their children to want to go there as well.
- You know, it was funny because I don't think any of us, I don't think it was ever even a thought or an option to go anywhere else, you know, because it was so entrenched in our family. And my dad's passion for the institution and the relationships that he forged there were people that were in our lives, you know, for decades. And so that campus life and that experience through athletics was something that was really ingrained in me. And I think for me was the start of my passion, not just for intercollegiate athletics, but for the role that intercollegiate athletics plays within the institution. And super fortunate to have had that experience and for it to kind of be the launching pad for me to choose a career essentially in higher education in college athletics.
- So let's talk about your entree into college athletics.
- You know, I went to college the 1980s.
- It's a different time for women's athletics.
- And there were very, very few, if any kind of female athletic directors and female commissioners. And at the time, the NCAA was funding grants for women and people of color to go do internships in conference offices. So there were, you know, 30, however many conferences there were at the time. And the NCAA was funding internships in conference offices. And I had worked in the athletic department, most specifically football at Iowa State when I was a student.
- And what were you doing?
- I was actually doing recruiting.
- Okay.
- So I was doing marketing materials and, you know, outreach to recruits and campus visits and all those things. And I ended up getting one of the NCAA grants. And I worked at a small Division I conference in Indianapolis after I graduated with this internship. So the grants only went to women and people of color. And I received one of the grants and moved to Indianapolis maybe 30 days after I graduated from Iowa State. I had never been outside of the state of Iowa.
- Wow.
- I know.
- That's crazy.
- So it was like, ooh, I'm moving to the big city, I'm moving to Indianapolis. I did this internship and it was just right place at the right time because the year that I went there, we were hosting an NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four. That was then the Hoosier Dome. It's no longer the Hoosier Dome, it's now Lucas Oil Stadium, but it was the Hoosier Dome at the time. So I got a lot of exposure to a lot of people nationally, NCAA staff, CBS staff at the time, all of that. But six months into my internship, my boss left to go take a job at the NBA. And I knew kind of at the time, I'm like, all right, I knew they weren't gonna hire till the end of the academic year, but I thought, you know what, this is an on the job interview for me right now. And I had incredible, incredible mentors who are actually still in the business, which is awesome. And at the end of that academic year, they hired me full-time. And that was the start of what has been 36 incredible, incredible years for me in an industry that I love.
- You know, one of the things about being in the academic world generally is time flies because everything's in seasons, right. Or if you're a football coach, it's just, you know, you gear up, you have the season, season's over, then you're gearing up for the next one. There's no drudgery to it. There's like a, it's just like a cycle to things. And if you're not in any one sport, you have something more broader, like being a commissioner or being in administration somehow, that season is just different because it's the beginning of the school year, then it's Thanksgiving, then it's winter break, then it's spring break, then it's graduation, then you start over again. So time does fly, I think in academics in a good way though because it's always like, it always feels fresh. Like every year you get start over again.
- Yeah, I mentioned that to you this morning when I came onto this campus and saw all the students and drove by the marching band.
- The band was out there marching.
- It's like just got my heart beating really fast. There is a newness to it because every year, you have a new community of students that you get to support and develop and hopefully put on a positive trajectory for the rest of their life. And so it never feels stale. It never feels the same. You know, every year is a new opportunity and a new group of young people. And it's actually kind of daunting when I'm like, wow, 36 years, like, that seems like such a long time, but it's just flown by. Because it's such a fast-paced, fast moving industry. And you always have that kind of refreshing, invigorating feeling at the start of a new academic year.
- So you get this internship that turns into a job in Indy and then how do you get to where you are now? Like there's a pathway, right? And that's always so fascinating about athletics because people tend to move around a lot to move up.
- Yeah, and I kind of have, and I kind of haven't, right? Like interestingly enough, I've probably spent more than half of my career in this conference in one role or another. But I was in Indianapolis for several years and then I got a call to go to work for ESPN Regional, which was a subsidiary company of ESPN in Charlotte, North Carolina. And they were, ESPN was kind of diversifying their business and doing some different things with MMR rights and syndicating different conference rights. And I got a call from a gentleman who was the kind of the head of ESPN Regional and he said, hey, do you want to come down and be the liaison between ESPN Regional and all of our Division I conferences? And at the time there were very few, if any, women kind of working in the media space, the business aspect of college athletics. And I felt like it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to learn that part of the business, to learn about, you know, negotiating TV deals and production and sales and media rights and all of those things. And I was right. Based on where I'm sitting today, I'm glad I got that experience.
- It's amazing how those things you do early on, you think about why am I doing this? And then you're like, oh, I can lean on that experience to serve me now.
- And it was a great opportunity, number one for me to move to a different part of the country. Like that sounds like not a big deal, but it was a big deal for me having been in Iowa really my entire life. And so living in the Southeast was a great experience and I learned a ton. And I worked with all the different Division I commissioners at the time. And then I moved west and I laugh about it now when my father was still living, he didn't think it was very funny because I said, oh dad. 'Cause he's like, you're going to California? Like what are you talking about? Are you crazy? And I remember saying, and this was in 1994, I remember saying to him, I was young and single at the time and I remember saying, oh dad, I'm just gonna go out for four or five years. I'm just gonna go experience the California lifestyle. I didn't even know what that meant actually. I'm just gonna go experience the California lifestyle. I'll come back home in four or five years, well 31 years, a husband and two kids later, like I've never come back. But I went then from ESPN Regional to the West Coast Conference, from the West Coast Conference to Cal, from Cal to UC Davis, and then to the Pac-12. So when you look at the 36 years, I've been so blessed because I've worked in three different conference offices, three different Division I institutions and then had the ESPN Regional experience. So I've been super fortunate to be able to do a lot of things that have kind of shaped and contributed to who I am now I think.
- You know, it's interesting. There are people I think sometimes that come from outside the industry in, and it must take them a long time to like get up to speed to being a commissioner or being in the president of a university. If you've never like been through it, but you've been through it. Like from being a student worker in a football recruiting operation, you know what those students are going through. They're trying to, you know, balance their studies, you know what the football coaches are going through. They're trying to recruit these young men that are coming in. And then you go to work in media for a while and then have all these experiences, that gives you a really well-rounded approach I would think as a commissioner to understand what the ADs are thinking and what the presidents are thinking 'cause you've been on a cabinet before and what's going on in the media operations and what those people are thinking. So as your job as a commissioner has evolved to be much more encompassing, it's not like a super AD anymore. It's actually running a huge organization with a huge budget, with a lot of complicated parts to it. All those experiences have piled up to put you where you are today.
- People ask me often if I felt prepared for this role. I'm not sure given what we've gone through that I could have ever really prepared myself. But I would say I felt prepared because I was very intentional and I think I had a lot of luck and a lot of great mentors along the way. I was very intentional to not stay stagnant and not specialize or pigeonhole myself into one area of higher education or the sports business. So I went back and forth between conference office work and campus work. I was primarily in college athletics, but I did step out for a while and work on campus outside of athletics in higher education. I did the ESPN Regional work, which was more private sector, multimedia business. So I feel like I kind of have the whole spectrum of experience and vantage points to kind of understand where college athletics fits from a university president's perspective, from an athletic director's perspective, from a media rights partner's perspective. And even within all of those jobs, I really diversified the roles that I had to make sure that I was versatile.
- You weren't just a marketing person all the time.
- I did not pigeonhole myself. And I tell young people that all the time, like try different things, get different experiences, you know, that will qualify you for more different types of roles and give you a broader perspective on the entire business.
- Now sometimes people in your position are married to someone who doesn't understand their life and their world, but you are, you're married to someone who understands athletics pretty well. He's actually a football coach and you all were actually on the same campus for a while.
- Absolutely. I'm gonna give him a massive shout out on this podcast. I know you're married to a VIP as well, Kelly. So you get this, but my husband currently is the running backs coach at the LA Rams. But he spent 38 years coaching in college. We met on campus at Cal, got engaged on campus in the basketball arena. And he's incredible. And I would say what drew us together was the fact that we both have a common shared passion for utilizing college athletics to lift up and support and develop young people. We're both so passionate about that. And it's really allowed us for decades now to juggle my career and his career and having a family and all those things. And you know, we get it. I get his life, he gets my life. We're supportive of each other. We're engaged with each other's worlds I guess. But yeah, we were on the same campus together. An interesting story, I'll probably write a book about it one day, but I had a two year stint as athletic director at UC Davis at a time that he was the head football coach. It was a very unusual situation 'cause they were in a transition and they were going from DII to DI and it was a short term appointment. I was not going to be the long term permanent. And I knew that. And they knew that. It was really challenging. I will say that, obviously there were a lot of boundaries that we needed to put in place. But I will also say it strengthened our marriage because, you know, while we had worked in the same athletic department before, that was a different dynamic with me being the athletic director and him being the head football coach. But, you know, one of the things that he and I, I think have done during our marriage and during our careers is create community. And we did that there. And I think we changed that institution and that athletic department by the way we handled that situation. And it definitely made an impact on a lot of people in a way that I'm really proud of. And I'm really proud of him and really lucky to have him as my husband.
- I think that people don't understand the responsibility and the pressure of our jobs. And the only people who do understand it are our spouses I think because that's when we come home, we talk about what's going on and it's such a complex, you know, thing that we're doing and you're changing your hat every hour. It's a different meeting and you got a different mindset. You have to think differently because presidents think differently from athletics directors who think differently from coaches who think differently from student-athletes and so on. But without someone like that, this job would be so much harder. So shout out to both our spouses.
- Absolutely.
- So fast forward now, you end up becoming the commissioner of the Pac-12 in a very tumultuous era for the Pac-12. So talk about what you all were thinking when you were down to two and it's just you and two presidents in the Pac-12. What's going on there?
- Yeah, well Kelly, I was brought in five months, six months before 10 of our member institutions were departing. So at the time I had a number of things that were on my mind that were really, really important to me personally and ultimately led to why I said yes to step into this 'cause there were certainly a lot of people around the country that were like, what are you doing? Even my youngest son actually said, wait a minute, you're gonna be the commissioner of what? Right? And a few things were important to me, given the legacy of this conference and the longstanding relationships I had, even with those 10 institutions, I was going to transition them with dignity. I wanted the student-athletes on those campuses to transition out of this league feeling good about the experience they had in this conference and feeling like, wow, that conference supported us and cared about our experience. That was a priority.
- And not all conferences do that. Sometimes when people announce they are leaving, they just shut the door on everything.
- I reinforced with our staff, like we are still here to serve students. And those 10, the student-athletes at those 10 schools did not make this decision. They're gonna have a great experience until the day that they leave this conference. So that was priority for me. Secondly, I knew I was going to have to transition staff. On June 30th a year ago, I had to transition 170 staff, colleagues I had known for decades, people that I loved. I didn't want anybody else to come in and do that. I wanted to do it with care and love and dignity and put those people on a path for the next chapter of their life. And then most importantly, I had two universities left that had gone through a horrible, horrible situation who their student-athletes did not deserve to be put in this situation. Those young people in Pullman and Corvallis came to those institutions with dreams and aspirations of competing for national championships. Many of them did compete for national championships. And I was bound and determined that I was going to stay in the foxhole with those two schools and figure out the best path forward. Luckily, not long after, we found a path forward. And it's a really exciting, great path forward. But it certainly was an experience, you know, unlike anything I've ever navigated during my career.
- It probably has to be, I think most people look back on their time in the past decade or so about COVID being really hard. But this falls on the heels of COVID and then this thing just, it had to be one of the most complicated jobs for a commissioner to do, to hold everyone together, serve the people who are leaving and but then also be thinking about the future and then like, how do we move on from here? And you've done something pretty masterful, I think you and the two presidents getting able to cobble together what I think is a very strong conference now, I think it's gotta be seen. You know, you think about things sport by sport, it's hard to think of them all at one time. But sport by sport, the conference now is either top four or top five in many of the sports that we've been competing in now. And so what you've done has been pretty remarkable thing. And we're really proud to be part of that. You know, it was exciting for us to even be considered. And then when it, boy July 1, 2025, will be a red letter day for us that we were able to, well actually it was June 30. We actually were able to get approval to do this and make the announcement. And then next July, will be unbelievable for us to be part of this great conference. So congratulations on what must have been tremendously hard work to do. So what's the future now? Maybe think about future of Pac-12, but then future of college sports generally. You got five minutes to see if you can pull that together.
- Well, look, I would say, you know, the future of this industry, like, we're at a really, really critical crossroads right now. You know, we're all spending a lot of time in DC trying to figure out federal solutions to try to normalize things in the NIL space. And you know, I think we're making great progress in that area. There's certainly a lot of change in terms of the role of the NCAA. There's changes with CFP. There's change everywhere around us. I actually think we are better positioned than any conference in the country to figure out how to navigate that because of where we are in launching the new Pac-12. You know, and I say this publicly all the time and it's true. Like we have a blank whiteboard. We can make it whatever we wanna make it. And I think, you know, it's easier to kind of start over when you're launching a new league and modernize it to the environment that's around us. And I think we just have a once in a lifetime opportunity versus other leagues that have been in existence for a century. It's hard to recreate yourself.
- And it's hard to unpack the legacy programs, procedures, 'cause people have ownership of those things. When you're actually creating them with an eye towards the future it may be easier for us.
- Yeah. I think we have an opportunity for two reasons. We're creating something new at a time that everything around us is changing. So we can be responsive to that and be proactive in what we should be in that space. But we also have the benefit of like, we handpicked these schools. Right? And we handpicked them with intention behind like who do we wanna be? And we have tremendous, tremendous alignment in our room in terms of what our aspirations are. I don't think any other conference in the country can say top to bottom they're really all on the same page about the vision. 'cause that's hard to do especially when you've got 15, 16, 18 schools. I like the fact that we're starting off small with nine because it will keep the alignment in the room really strong for us to build it the way that it should be built in 2026.
- Teresa, one of the fun things we do is that when the podcast gets sent out, we always ask people to submit questions for me. So you get to be the podcast host here and you get to ask a question. I've not seen the question.
- I love this Kelly, I love being on the other side of the microphone.
- Yeah, there you are. You have to ask me the question.
- Oh, this is a fun question. What is your favorite travel destination?
- Oh my goodness gracious. You know, I will say, if I'm gonna get away from town, I love to go to the lake house. You know, you and I have had several conversations while I was at the lake house. Beth and I bought a house there before we moved to Texas and we just kept it when we left. And that's my retreat place. But if I was gonna go somewhere, I've grown to become very fond of Scotland. We've gone a couple times and going there in the heat of the Texas summer to go to Inverness or to Edinburgh. And I'm Scottish by heritage and so I love to go back there. I love the food, I love how slow things are there when you go to a little Scottish village. Like they've been doing the same thing for a hundred years or 200 years there and everything just slows down there. So it's cooler. They got the hairy coos, which I love. I love the accents, I love the, you know, pub tradition. So it's a lot of fun, what about you? Where do you like to go?
- My husband and I like Hawaii.
- Oh yeah, yeah.
- And it's such an easy trip.
- Are you a like a specific island or?
- We love the island of Kauai.
- I've never been.
- And it is the, it is one of the smallest, I would say more authentically Hawaiian islands. It is super, super friendly. Your stress level just goes down considerably as soon as you set foot on the island. Some of the friendliest, warmest people, great weather, good food, fresh air, a breeze that'll just like put you to sleep. It's so relaxing. So that's kind of our favorite getaway place.
- I think it's interesting, both of us want to go somewhere where you can just relax a little bit because, you know, 'cause the grind can be pretty tough. Right?
- Absolutely.
- Well exciting times ahead for the Pac-12. Exciting times ahead for Texas State University and their involvement in the Pac-12, an historic conference. The Conference of Champions. We couldn't be more proud to be part of the conference and so grateful to have you here today. Thank you for joining us and thank you for joining us here in the podcast as well. This is always a great time for us to learn more about what's happening at Texas State. And there's a lot of excitement around college athletics generally, but especially here at Texas State. Our athletes are excited about joining this new conference. Our students that are just joining us here at Texas State, our faculty and staff, our alumni are super excited about this. And I can't wait for July 1, 2026, when we're officially part of the Pac-12. Until next time, folks, States Up and see you next time at The Current.