30 years ago if there was one word to describe what was going on in Commerce, Texas and on the campus of East Texas State University, it would be uncertainty and change. Those two words never go well together. There is nothing worse in life that having a situation leads you into change that is…
The 1980’s were the definition of up and down for the East Texas State football program. In the first 4 seasons, the Lions went 29-13 with a top 3 finish in 1980, where they finished as national semifinalists, Winning Records in 1981 and 1982, their first season after moving from the NAIA to NCAA Division…
From 1990-1996 in the State of Texas, Texas A&M University was the top college football program in Texas. Who was the second best? The East Texas State Lions, and 1992 showed that. From 1990-1996, The Lions went 51-29 with 3 NCAA playoff appearances and a conference title in 1990. Commerce, Texas was playing great football.…
2 decades can be a long time. For the 2017 Texas A&M-Commerce LIon Volleyball team, not a single member had even been born the last time that Lion Volleyball had been to the NCAA Division II postseason. It had been a long and trying time. After 7 seasons and 185 wins, Coach Kathy Goodlett decided…
For 17 seasons, Sam Walker roamed the sidelines of The University Fieldhouse in Commerce, racking up wins, winning conference championships, and taking teams to the NCAA tournament. Walker was a mainstay in the University community. He had broken Jim Gudger’s record, he had become the standard as far as most wins in a career, but…
After Sam Walker and his Lion squad had the enormous success of the 2004-2005 season, Lion Basketball appeared to be in a rut regarding postseason play. From the 2006-2014 seasons, Walker and his program had done quite a lot. They had 5 winning seasons, 2 second place LSC North finishes, 5 third place finishes and…
The late 1990’s were a rough time for Texas A&M-Commerce in athletics, but during the Fall and Winter, Men’s Basketball was heating up the campus and keeping fans on the edge of their seats, and Paul Peak had built a program that had duplicated the success that the Jim Gudger era teams had. Heading into…
For East Texas A&M Lion Basketball in the late 1990’s, it was a time of change for the Lion program. After 2 years of positive momentum and winning the Lone Star Conference and making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history in 1996, Paul Peak & his Lions the change and went…
1991 was the end of an era for Men’s Basketball. Jerry Matthews, who had been a vanguard of the Lion Basketball program and guided them to 2 conference titles, decided to ride into the sunset after a Hall of Fame Career as a Football player and Head Basketball Coach at ETSU and also a hall…
First, a congratulations to the ET Men’s Basketball team for winning their first invitational in the DIvision I era under Coach Jaret Von Rosenberg! Jerry Matthews had been coaching in Commerce for 7 seasons and was heading into his final season, needed something to help him and the entire athletic department at ET. The transition…
Every sport at East Texas A&M has had their “Golden era.” For Football, it was the 1950’s, and to a lesser extent the 1990’s and 2010’s. For Men’s Basketball, it was the 1950’s and 1970’s. For Women’s Basketball it was the 2010’s. For Men’s track, it was the 1960’s. For Men’s Golf, it was the…
With the end of the Volleyball season near, I thought it would be a help to celebrate our history of past successes in the Volleyball program and inspire these ladies as they look to wrap up the regular season as well as hosting the Southland Conference tournament. After Kathy Goodlett’s first championship, her 1987 Lion…
After Donna Tavener helped establish a volleyball program and tennis program for Women at East Texas State, the University saw that the success both programs had accomplished was worth the investment in trying to hire some new coaches. They did that in 1983 when they hired Kathy Goodlett. Goodlett was a young, smart, and intense…
“Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.” Those immortal words, spoken by the great Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, speak of the nature of life…
When people think about the fall of 1980 at East Texas State, most people think about the Lion football team that rode the arm to future NFL quarterback Wade Wilson to the NAIA National Semifinals that finished 3rd in the nation and almost won their second national championship in 8 years, but in that time,…
When Jim Gudger took the head basketball coaching position at East Texas State, he had a tall order, which was to turn around a team used to winning that was not winning, and turn them into winners again. After his first 4 seasons resulting in a 35-68 record, Gudger recruited and brought winning basketball back…
The 1970’s were a really good time to be an ETSU Lion. The Football team won a conference and national title in 1972 and posted a successful decade record, Men’s Basketball won 5 conference titles and went to the NAIA tournament 4 times, Track continued it’s dominance, and Women’s sports were starting to grab a…
After a challenging first four years at East Texas State University, Jim Gudger had gotten the Lions back to where they had been in the previous decades. He had them winning conference championships, making the NAIA postseason, making deep runs, and winning the conference tournament championships. He had the program among the elite in the…
I did not live through the 1970’s, but ask anyone who was there, times changed, and the ways of doing thing had changed. One thing had not changed, and that was Jim Gudger’s powerful East Texas State Men’s Basketball team. 1975 had been gotten the Lions a conference title, but not a chance to get…
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