TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY-TEXARKANA JOINS CONFERENCE,
A&M-Texarkana joins conference
WACO, Texas—Texas A&M University-Texarkana is the 13th member of the Red River Athletic Conference.
In an announcement Monday, the conference said its presidents and athletic directors last month unanimously agreed to accept the Texarkana school, which started with women’s soccer and men’s and women’s tennis in 2014, added baseball this year, and will add men’s soccer this fall.
The conference affiliation is a homecoming of sorts for Athletic Director Michael Galvan. He was a three-time winner of the conference’s AD of the Year award at the University of Southwest in Hobbs, N.M., before being
hired to build the Texarkana program from scratch.
“We’re excited to welcome Texas A&M-Texarkana to the RRAC,” Commissioner Tony Stigliano said. “Michael Galvan showed great leadership previously in our conference and he has exhibited the same trait while developing TAMU-T’s athletic program. The Eagles’ teams will be competitive on day one and they will continue to grow. We look forward to working with President Dr. Emily Cutrer, Michael and their coaches.”
Conference affiliation is a logical next step for the athletic program, which competes in the NAIA, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, a governing body of small athletics programs that are dedicated to character-driven college sports.
As a conference member, scheduling becomes much easier, Galvan said.
“Our schedules now will be loaded heavily loaded in the middle and ends, when conference play occurs,” he said. “We’ll just have to fill in at the beginning, before other teams start conference play.”
In its selection process, the university focused on the Red River and Sooner Athletic Conferences, and chose the Red because five schools were nearby: LSU-Shreveport, LSU-Alexandria, Wylie College in Marshall, Jarvis Christian in Hawkins, Texas and Texas College in Tyler.
Langston University, in Oklahoma and Southwest are the only two Red River members not in Texas. The rest include the University of St. Thomas, Houston; Our Lady of the Lake, San Antonio; Paul Quinn College, Dallas; Houston-Tillotson University in Austin; and the University of Houston-Victoria.
A&M-Texarkana had postseason success this year in both women’s soccer and baseball, and promises to be a formidable competitor in both sports in the Red River Conference. LSU-Alexandria, the regular season champ in baseball, split its four-game series with the Eagles, who finished 33-20 and reached the semifinals of the Association of Independent Institution tournament, one game from playing for a berth the NAIA World Series.
The Lady Eagles soccer team, 20-8-4 in its first two seasons, this year lost to Wiley, 2-1, and beat Jarvis Christian, 1-0, in overtime.
Facility development has been key to establishing the program. The university created an on-campus, artificial turf soccer field with lights in October of 2014. The baseball team plays at nearby George Dobson Field at Spring Lake Park, and the tennis teams play at Northridge Country Club. A week ago, the school broke ground on a new recreation center and training facility that will open in August of 2017.
More growth is in the cards, since NAIA rules require a minimum of six sports by the fourth year of a school’s membership. With the addition of men’s soccer, the school will have five.
“We’re learning to crawl before we walk, but the future at A&M-Texarkana is bright,” Galvan said. “As the institution grows, so will our athletic offerings. We’re grateful to Commissioner Stigliano, the presidents and the athletic directors of the Red River Athletic Conference who see our university as an added value to the conference.”