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Looks like that is what they are doing. What a shame. Considering all the work Coker put into starting that program, UTSA needs to pay up what he is owed. Very sad. http://blog.mysanantonio.com/utsa/2016/0...rry-coker/ SAN ANTONIO — The Larry Coker story has taken a few odd twists in the last several hours. Here is the latest: UTSA’s former football coach said in an interview earlier this week that he is due a buyout after being fired, noting succinctly, “They let me go.” He also said his exit from the university fell under a “termination without cause” section of his contract, which would trigger the payments. “I had a buyout,” Coker said. “They had to pay me to make a change. Just whatever my contract said, that’s what they had to pay me. It was only fair. They knew that when they let me go.” UTSA isn’t commenting on Coker’s assertion that he is scheduled to receive the payments. But university officials are disputing an Express-News calculation, based on language in the coach’s contract, that his buyout could reach $1.56 million over three years. Here is a give-and-take that between the E-N and spokesman Joe Izbrand Friday afternoon: Izbrand: “What you’re reporting is not accurate.” E-N: “What specifically is wrong with it?” Izbrand: “The numbers that you are quoting as a payout to coach Coker.” At this point, Izbrand side-stepped a question about what the payout numbers are. He suggested that the newspaper file an open records request to get the information.

read more: http://www.expressnews.com/sports/college_sports/utsa/article/UTSA-facing-huge-challenge-in-attracting-head-6738949.php

SAN ANTONIO — UTSA athletic director Lynn Hickey dodged a question Thursday night about whether she believes the university needs to pay its next football coach as much as Texas State will be paying newly-hired coach Everett Withers. “I’ve got to hire a coach first,” Hickey said. “I’ve got to hire a coach first and then we’ll see what we can do.” Withers was introduced to the media in San Marcos earlier Thursday afternoon. At the news conference, Bobcats athletic director Larry Teis said Withers will be paid $650,000 in the first year of a five-year deal, with $25,000 raises each year. UTSA hopes to hire a replacement for Larry Coker within the next 10 days. Coker stepped down Tuesday after seven years, including the first five seasons for the Roadrunners’ football program. Coker was making $425,000, the same as the previous Texas State coach, Dennis Franchione, whose retirement was announced on Dec. 22. The UTSA contract for Coker was scheduled to pay $450,000 next year, $475,000 in 2017 and $500,000 in 2018. UTSA plays in Conference USA, and Texas State plays in the Sun Belt Conference. But the two once shared a long rivalry in the Southland Conference in sports other than football. Since UTSA started playing football in 2011, the teams have played once, with the Roadrunners beating the Bobcats 38-31 in the 2012 season finale at the Alamodome. The two schools will start an eight-game series on Sept. 23, 2017, in San Marcos. They will play each year except for 2019 through the 2025 season. Read more: http://blog.mysanantonio.com/utsa/2016/01/hickey-says-well-see-what-utsa-will-pay-its-next-coach/

SAN ANTONIO — The “Original 18,” as they’re called, still get discussed with reverence around here. They were the ones who signed on to play for the University of Texas at San Antonio before there were even uniforms or facilities or a schedule. They were the ones who did nothing but practice for an entire year before playing the program’s first game in 2011. And they were the ones who guided UTSA from unlikely start-up to a team that was beating the likes of Houston in last fall’s season opener and nearly upsetting Arizona. But they were also, in reality, overachievers who largely wouldn’t have projected to be Football Bowl Subdivision players under normal circumstances. And now, they are gone, which is both the good news and bad news at UTSA. The departure of 36 seniors — the Original 18 and the class that came in behind them to field UTSA’s inaugural team — has given way to a new group that signed on to be part of a real Division I program, not a start-up. They are bigger, faster and more talented. They are also completely unproven, leaving UTSA as one of the nation’s youngest teams just a year after they were the most experienced team in FBS. “We moved up with guys that were recruited to play Division II and Division III,” senior cornerback Bennett Okotcha said. “They were great guys and they played well for us, but now we’re recruiting D-1 athletes to come play D-1 football and they’re doing a great job. Our talent keeps getting better. Sometimes it’s good especially for young guys to come in and play with no expectations. I feel like we’re really talented and we’re going to shock a lot of people.” Since UTSA football came into existence, almost everything has been a new experience, including the high expectations going into last season and the disappointment of going 4-8 after such a promising start. But this, in many ways, is a familiar spot for coach Larry Coker, who certainly wasn’t oblivious to the notion that he would essentially have to start over for a second time once his first group of recruits cycled out of the program. Just like back then, when UTSA announced its presence with an 8-4 record in its first year as an FBS member, there’s pretty much a clean slate and a big-time underdog vibe. Read more: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/08/utsa-football-original-18-coach-larry-coker

SAN ANTONIO -- There are home runs and then there are grand slams. UTSA hit the latter in 2009 when it hired Larry Coker, who guided Miami to the 2001 BCS national championship and came within a controversial call of leading the Hurricanes to another title the next year, as its first football coach. The Roadrunners have gone 19-15 in three seasons under Coker and came within one victory of advancing to the Conference USA championship game last year. On Thursday, the University of Texas System Board of Regents rewarded Coker with a new five-contract and raise that will run through the 2018 season. The new contract, effective Sept. 1, guarantees Coker $2.25 million over the next five years. He will be paid a base salary of $400,000 this year, with a $25,000 increase each subsequent year. Read more: http://www.kens5.com/story/opinion/contributors/david-flores/2014/08/22/coker-contract-extension/14432683/

According to the Associated Press, the major conferences could address issues such as providing money to students above the traditional scholarships and expanded insurance. The “next five” FBS leagues waiting to see what happens in the power conferences are the American Athletic Conference, C-USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt. After adding football and moving into C-USA, UTSA's athletics budget has increased by more than 100 percent during the past five years, according to the university. UTSA has covered the costs, largely with the use of a student athletics fee, bringing in a projected $24.3 million this year, compared to $23.4 million in expenses, according to university records. Whatever new NCAA legislation is enacted, Hickey said C-USA members will need to respond with “good judgments.” “We definitely want to be competitive at the highest level,” she said. “But at the same time, we're going to have to make decisions based financially on what we can legitimately handle so that we're not running a bad business.” Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/college_sports/utsa/article/Power-conferences-increased-autonomy-could-5435419.php

UTSA is working to sign head football coach Larry Coker to a long-term contract extension, athletic director Lynn Hickey said Tuesday night. Coker’s contract runs through the 2015 football season. Hickey declined to comment on financial terms or the duration of the proposed deal. “Just say that we’re working on the details and that we need to move it to the (UT System) Board of Regents before we release any of those details,” she said. ”But we are working toward that and certainly want him to be with our program for several more years.” Read more: http://blog.mysanantonio.com/utsa/2013/11/hickey-says-utsa-coker-in-contract-extension-talks/

UTSA set an attendance record of 56,743 against Northeastern State, has averaged 35,521 for home games through two seasons and has a coach with a national championship on his resume. All of this in just two seasons. "It is almost like this was meant to be," said UTSA athletic director Lynn Hickey. "All of it, from the first time we talked about football, has been the greatest experience. "This move up to FBS football (and into Conference USA) has been much faster than any of us expected. We are ahead of schedule. I don't know if we realize the magnitude of everything we've already accomplished." From no football to crowds that would make several dozen FBS schools jealous, including much of the current C-USA, UTSA's story is one of the most inspiring in college football. College football takes center stage on Monday when the Big 12 Conference media days, including Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, kick off a two-day press frenzy in Dallas. Conference USA, featuring defending champion Tulsa, will hold its media day on Wednesday in Dallas. The Roadrunners will play their first BCS home game when Oklahoma State goes to the Alamodome on Sept. 7. It is part of the toughest non-conference schedule any FBS team in Texas will play this fall. UTSA also plays Arizona and New Mexico before jumping into its first season in C-USA. Okemah native Larry Coker, hired to build UTSA football from the ground up, begins his third season there this fall. "To see where we are now and to remember where we were when Larry got to San Antonio are two different worlds," said Hickey. "It has been quite a ride. "Larry has coached a national championship team (at Miami) yet never complained once when he got here and his office was in a trailer. He's been great. He's worked so hard to make sure we've done everything the right way and he's gone to every event we've asked to try to build our fan base from nothing." It is apparently working. UTSA apparently has a very strong fan base and growing. Hickey, a native of Welch, Okla., said when she first went to UTSA as athletic director she was asked what she thought about the school adding football. "I told them at the time I thought it was very expensive and bad idea," said Welch. "I just thought it was cost prohibitive at the time for us to think about it. Obviously, I've changed my mind. Read more: http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/UTSA_not_just_another_school/20130722_203_B1_CUTLIN606551

When Lynn Hickey interviewed for the Texas-San Antonio athletic director job in 1999, UTSA President Ricardo Romo asked her if the school should consider adding football. Hickey told him no. “It was cost prohibitive,” Hickey said. She told Romo, “Be good at what you've got.” Hickey got the job. And a year later realized she had said the wrong thing. The top-selling T-shirt in the university bookstore proclaimed “UTSA football still undefeated.” The largely commuter school of 16,000-17,000 students had no identity and little campus life. On Sept. 7, Texas-San Antonio, in its third season of football and its second of Division I-A, hosts Oklahoma State in the Alamodome. Football is part of a Roadrunner success story. The Texas Legislature has declared UTSA an emerging Tier I university. Enrollment is up to 31,000, with many of those students now living on campus. The school has almost as many students from Harris County (Houston) as Bexar County (San Antonio). And UTSA football, while nowhere near undefeated, has drawn as many as 57,000 fans to the Alamodome for a game. “We didn't have any identity,” Hickey said. “Football has helped us change our persona. In Texas, kids grow up with football.” Hickey said UTSA once was a “but” school. As in, I go to UTSA, “but” I'm saving up to go somewhere else. And it was a bunch of Oklahomans who made the buts disappear. * * * When UTSA played its first game ever, Sept. 3, 2011, the city of San Antonio got quite emotional. Sports radio callers were moved to tears as they discussed the launch of the program. As Hickey walked through the pregame tailgating, she got marriage proposals. When UTSA's spanking-new marching band, 250 musicians strong, took the field, “people were blown away,” Hickey said. “It's been fun. It's a dream thing. How many people get a chance to build this? We've established a game experience for these students.” The Roadrunners won that inaugural game 31-3 over Tahlequah's Northeastern State, their coach's alma mater. Such symmetry seemed fitting. Hickey, 62, grew up in the Green Country town of Welch, where she was Lynn Sooter and scored 2,654 points in high school basketball. All four of her siblings were collegiate athletes, including brother Mark, who played basketball at OU. Hickey went to Ouachita Baptist, then got into coaching. She was on the OU women's staff in 1977-79, then Hickey became head coach at Kansas State (hired by DeLoss Dodds) and eventually Texas A&M (hired by John David Crow). Hickey became an associate athletic director at A&M. Hickey's Oklahoma ties are deep. When Hickey's mother was 19, she was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in Hitchita, halfway between Henryetta and Checotah in eastern Oklahoma. Among her students were Bill Self Sr., who became a longtime executive director of the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association and father of the Kansas basketball coach. Bill Sr.'s brother, Jeff, rented a pasture outside Hitchita from the family of Brad Parrott. Parrott grew up in Midwest City, went to then-Central State University and became a sports writer for the Oklahoma City Times. Parrott entered the corporate world, eventually made vice president at Southwestern Bell and retired from what is now AT&T, joining Hickey's staff as an associate athletic director for external affairs. Parrott spearheaded the fundraising and corporate/civic partnerships that made football possible at UTSA. When Parrott was with the Times, he once covered a Luther-Fairfax playoff game. Fairfax that night was coached by Larry Coker, who had grown up in Okemah, just down the road from Hitchita. Today, Coker is head coach at UTSA. His career has included stops as offensive coordinator at Tulsa U., OSU and OU, and six years as head coach at Miami, where his Hurricanes were 60-15 overall and 2001 national champions. Coker's defensive coordinator is Neal Neathery, who grew up in Stillwater and whose father was an OSU professor and Coker's Sunday school teacher during his Cowboy days. More OSU ties for UTSA: both Roadrunner basketball coaches are OSU graduates. Rae Rippetoe Blair was a Cowgirl player and assistant coach. Brooks Thompson was a star under Eddie Sutton. And Coker's defensive line coach, Eric Roark, played at OSU from 1979-82 for Jimmy Johnson. Read more: http://newsok.com/article/3864477

Courtesy: UTSA Athletics Release: 07/09/2013 Share on facebook Share on myspace Share on google Share on twitter General information Location: Denton, Texas Founded: 1890 Enrollment: 36,305 Nickname: Mean Green President: V. Lane Rawlins Athletics Director: Rick Villarreal Football Facility: Apogee Stadium (30,850) Basketball Facility: Super Pit/Coliseum (10,500) Media Market: No. 5 Dallas-Fort Worth (2,571,310 TV household) Sponsored Sports: 16 Men (6) — basketball, cross country, football, golf, indoor & outdoor track & field Women (10) — basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis, indoor & outdoor track & field, volleyball On the Web University: unt.edu Athletics: MeanGreenSports.com Facebook: MeanGreenSports Twitter: @MeanGreenSports Fans: GoMeanGreen.com Prominent facts · The University of North Texas has 12 colleges and schools that offer 214 degree programs. It also boasts the first jazz studies and undergraduate emergency administration and planning programs in the United States. · The Fall 2011 student body included the most academically talented and largest freshman class, as well as the largest enrollment of doctoral students in school history. · UNT is one of nine public universities in the nation with more than 5,000 Hispanic students and 4,000 African American students. · North Texas has developed 15 collaborative, cross-disciplinary research clusters and six strategic research areas to carry out innovative, high-impact research to address scientific, environmental and societal problems. There are 68 research centers and institutes on campus. · UNT is a 900-acre campus that includes Discovery Park, a 300-acre research park that is one of the largest university research parks in the North Texas region. · North Texas has been named a top Military Friendly School by G.I. Jobs and a Best for Vets School by Military Times EDGE two years in a row. More than 2,500 members of the military community and their families attend the university. · UNT has more than 1,300 students in its Honors College, which is the largest in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. · North Texas' alumni network includes more than 336,000 members, with more than 216,000 living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. · UNT was the first comprehensive training and research center for Spanish language media. · North Texas boasts the first and only Ph.D. program in art education and only accredited professional journalism master’s program in the state of Texas. · The medical librarianship graduate program ranked third nationally by U.S. News & World Report. · UNT has been named one of America’s 100 Best College Buys for 16 consecutive years. · North Texas was named a Green College by The Princeton Review two years in a row · Since 2003, North Texas has developed more than 12 new athletics facilities as part of a 200-acre Mean Green Village. Competition venues, training facilities and meeting space have been upgraded for all 16 intercollegiate sports since then, including the crown jewel, the brand new $78 million state-of-the-art Apogee Stadium, which opened in 2011. · The North Texas men’s golf program continued its historical success by winning its 29th conference championship in 2013. The team has made 31 NCAA Tournament appearances. · Mean Green women’s soccer never has had a losing season since its inception in 1995. The team has advanced to eight of the last 12 Sun Belt Conference Championship Games and made two NCAA Tournament appearances since 2000. · The UNT men’s basketball program has won at least 20 games in five of the last seven seasons and made two NCAA Tournament appearances during that time. Notable alumni · Pat Boone — Singer and actor · Thomas Haden Church — Actor · Bob Dorough — Jazz musician, composer and music director of Schoolhouse Rock · Michael Faircloth — Fashion designer to First Lady Laura Bush · Phyllis George — 1971 Miss America and former broadcaster with The NFL Today · “Mean” Joe Greene — National Football League Hall of Famer and five-time Super Bowl Champion with the Pittsburgh Steelers · Don Henley — Grammy Award-winning singer and musician, member of The Eagles, environmental activist · Norah Jones — Grammy Award-winning singer · Tom “Bones” Malone — Trombonist, member of the original Saturday Night Live band, currently serves as the principal arranger and trombonist for the Late Show with David Letterman · Kerry Gammill — Cartoonist who created Superman, Indiana Jones and ROM comic strips · Larry McMurtry — Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who shared the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay and an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay of Brokeback Mountain · Bill Moyers — Television journalist, former chief correspondent for CBS Reports and senior news analyst for CBS News, former press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson · Dr. Phil McGraw — Self-help expert · Sam Moon — Owner, Sam Moon Trading Company · Jane Nelson — Texas State Senator · Roy Orbison — Singer and guitarist · Ron Shanklin — Former National Football League player · Mary Suhm — City Manager, City of Dallas · Brian Waters — Former National Football League All-Pro offensive guard and 2009 Walter Payton Man of the Year · Peter Weller — Actor who starred in Robocop and Buckaroo read more: http://www.goutsa.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=208476363&DB_OEM_ID=13100

May 4, 2012. That was the day UTSA officially announced their agreement to join Conference USA. Fast forward to July 1, 2013 and the Roadrunners are now an official member of that conference. Athletic Director Lynn Hickey shares her thoughts. General thoughts on joining CUSA: “It’s a great opportunity. If you go back the feasibility study conducted in 2006, we determined the ideal conference was Conference USA, not knowing that we would ever have this opportunity this early. It’s huge for our program, not only for football but for our other sports. On the football side, it gives us access a good FBS conference with bowl opportunities and national visibility. We’re just very fortunate to have been in the right place and the right time.” The Journey to get to this point: “It’s definitely been a team effort. It’s been a huge collaboration, not only on our campus but with the City of San Antonio. I think the other way you would characterize it is that it’s been pretty fast. We’ve started football and moved to the FBS faster than anybody in the history of the NCAA. I’ve been very very proud with the way our student athletes and coaches have handled the transition steps. We have thrown a lot at them without giving them more resources. And they have handled the competition and have performed at high levels. Winning the Commissioners Cup in the WAC this year was an outstanding accomplishment for our kids and our coaches.” Read more: http://idaho.scout.com/2/1304173.html

UTSA officials on Tuesday expressed surprise that both Tulane and East Carolina from Conference USA have accepted invitations to join the Big East. “The soap opera continues,” UTSA athletic director Lynn Hickey said. UTSA will be affected by the moves because it is joining Conference USA in 2013. Tulane and East Carolina are both headed for the Big East in 2014. Tulane is moving in all sports. East Carolina is moving in football only. “I was very surprised,” Hickey said. “I had no idea anything was going on. But I have a lot of confidence in (C-USA commissioner) Britton (Banowsky). He’s great (thinking) on his feet.” UTSA coach Larry Coker said he thinks Conference USA will be fielding calls from schools seeking membership. Read more: http://blog.mysanantonio.com/utsa/2012/11/utsa-officials-surprised-at-c-usa-defections/