Winning big is nothing new for Trinity athletics, and the Tigers built much of their winning culture under the leadership of its athletic director Bob King over the past 32 years. This year, King was named NCAA Division III Athletic Director of the Year for the fourth time, the second person ever to do so.
After competing in high school and graduating from Millsaps College, King became a coach and teacher at a college prep school. He quickly realized he wanted more, completing a masters in athletic administration and returning to Millsaps as the athletic director. In four years leading the Majors, his programs earned seven SCAC championships. During his time in the conference, he first encountered Trinity — specifically, the newly opened William H. Bell Center, where he attended SCAC meetings and met then-Trinity President Ron Calgaard.
“We hit it off,” King said of Calgaard Gym’s namesake. “The [athletic director] job opened up. I applied and got it, and here we are, 30 years later.”
When King arrived at Trinity in 1993, he became the first full-time athletic director in school history who didn’t also coach. That meant starting from scratch in many ways, but King wasn’t deterred.
“We were new in the SCAC … we had very little recruiting going on … and we’d had very little success,” King said. “We had very few sports … The goal was to create a broad-based program where you have 18 sports all trying to win nationally at the same time.”
The 300-pound railroad bell in the lobby of the Bell Center attests to King’s success. Though it might seem like a nod to the building’s name, the bell is actually the SCAC’s President’s Trophy, awarded each year to the top athletic program in the conference.
Before King’s arrival, the bell never came to San Antonio. That changed in his very first year. Now, it would be easy to assume the bell belongs to the Bell Center — it’s spent 24 of the past 32 years here, currently on a 13-year streak with a 14th all but certain.
“It took a lot of recruiting and a lot of PR work with alums,” King said. “We’ve kept in tune with national issues, supporting men and women the same way. We’ve been flexible … and changed our management style through the years. Early on, we were heavy-handed, and we would yell … now we delegate … see what matters to people and support them.”
King emphasized that the more he’s stepped back and taken on a manager role, the more his staff has thrived and the better he’s become at supporting them.
“They’ve done a good job of making sure I know what motivates them,” King said. “We treat everybody the same in one regard, but in regard to motivation, you have to treat people differently. The style of management that is successful for each person is different.”
King avoids the spotlight and doesn’t seek credit. He jokingly denied having anything to do with Trinity winning the trophy in his first year, and his staff noted how rare it is for him to do a solo interview. But with how dramatically and quickly Trinity sports transformed under his leadership, his impact is hard to ignore.
“We’ve maintained this same production level for 30 years,” King said. “That’s hard. It’s great to do it the first time, but then to do it over and over and over, it’s a real challenge. That’s why we’ve got great people in positions.”
Great people in great positions, starting with Bob King as Trinity’s athletic director. And he’s not done yet.
“The goal is to take our sports onto a more national level, across the board, and the [Southern Athletic Association] is going to be a huge challenge for us,” King said. “But it’ll also take the Trinity name into different geographical locations in the conference and with the U.S. News and World Report rankings that are now out. It’ll allow us to play against schools that are more like us academically, and I think that’ll be a lot of fun.”
