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By: Stephanie Valderrama

Photo by: Stephanie Valderrama

Student Jade Jacobo listens to Kick recount his days growing up in her shared hometown of Houston, Texas.

It’s the mid-80’s and the youngest NBA producer to-be is writing sports at the University Star newspaper at Southwest Texas State. The Meadows Center is a small theme park called Aquarena Springs. The student population is roughly 18,000. The Star is being printed twice a week. A young college student named Mike is on a 1 a.m. deadline to publish his Bobcat sports stories for the Star. Hours later he would arrive late to Larry Carlson’s 8 a.m. class to write more. This was the beginning of the the NBA’s youngest producer.

Meet Mike Kickirillo, a Southwest Texas alumnus, and the director of broadcasting for the San Antonio Spurs. He’s been with the Spurs organization since he was 23 years old, shortly after graduating from Southwest Texas University, as Texas State was then known. He’s been with the Spurs 31 years, and has 5 NBA championship rings.

Student Hunter Mansuco, picked his brain during class on Tuesday, “what is it about a job, but more so your job that makes it worth staying with one team?” Kickirillo highlighted the uniqueness of his role: “This is one of 30 jobs. They aren’t easy to come by, and once you get one, you don’t want to let it go. Around the league, you see people who are in legacy positions or retiring from them. It’s a fun, great job. The hours can be tough, and the politics aren’t always great, but there’s way more good than bad. I have to remind myself of that sometimes.”

Kickirillo’s passion for his work was evident as he discussed the rarity and rewards of his role with the Spurs, but his journey to this point had humble and, at times, controversial beginnings. Reflecting on his days as a student journalist, he recounted one of his most memorable—and infamous—moments writing for The University Star.

“When I look back over the years, I was working for the Star, and you’re not going to believe this, but the Bobcat football team sucked, and I wrote they lost in nickels, 28 to nothing…and the lead to it was something along the lines of… Head Coach John O’Hara pulled aside his captains and proceeded to shoot them, dot, dot, dot, with blanks. This week you might want to consider using real bullets to exterminate the already half-dead Bobcat team,” wrote Kickirillo.

It still made Sports Illustrated that he (Coach O’Hara) had done that. Kickirillo speculates jokingly there might have been a hit put out on him by the football team. “I got harassed. I got called in my dorm room, and the coach was to my face ‘I did it,’” said Kickirillo.
However, he had heard that the coach told the team if you see the little f*****, you kick his ass. So he learned a lesson, what writers do has a big impact, and you have to be really careful.

Kickirillo still laughs about it, “I thought it was clever as hell. But what we do has an impact on people… maybe not be as sharp or snarky.”
Kick, as his former professor has nicknamed him, has come full circle working with the San Antonio Spurs organization from his snarky writing days at the University Star. In his role with the Spurs organization, he hires and fires people.

“I’ll tell you this much when we hire we look at social media accounts. So if I see that…you’re bad mouthing the Clippers, you’re bad mouthing Kawhi Leonard, and you’re out there and it’s out there for the public to see. Like, is that really what we’re about as the Spurs organization?” said Kickirillo.

Kickirillo also worked for the Austin American Statesman covering Bobcat sports. He had an internship at KSAT TV in San Antonio. Instead of partying the day of his college graduation, he reported to work. Mike is married and has a daughter named Robin. “Yea, she’s a Bobcat also,” he said.

He visits the university renamed Texas State University and the professor’s class he often was late to and shares with students what his job duties are in the NBA both on a game day cranking out the broadcast and on the a day in between. Kickirillo is holding a position that only about 30 other people hold nationwide.

The basketball season has barely just begun and Kickirillo is looking forward to it. The Spurs will have a game in Paris. “I think Sean Elliott and I will go, we’ll produce some elements to send back to incorporate during the course of the game,” said Kickirillo. “I’m going. My daughter also lives in Paris. Yea, She’s a Bobcat, too.”

Kick, once a student in Larry Carlson’s class, visited campus on Tuesday as a guest speaker and answered questions so students could practice gathering information.

BY: STEPHANIE VALDERRAMA

Photo by: Stephanie Valderrama

Cedric Golden, columnist for the Austin American-Statesman, listens to Texas State students Jacob Punch and Ava Gibson while answering their questions and sharing insights from his extensive writing career.

The NIL Era: Opportunities and Challenges

Cedric Golden, columnist for the Austin American-Statesman, is “all in” on college athletes cashing in on Name, Image, and there’s (NIL) deals. Spoke to a sports media class at Texas State University on Tuesday “the current environment as a “free-for-all,” where powerhouse programs dominate the competition, said Golden.

While he praised the financial opportunities for athletes, Golden cautioned that many of these players will never make it to professional leagues. “Man, if I knew I wasn’t going to get drafted, I’d stay in school for eight years if they let me,” he said. “I’d walk out of there with a medical degree. There’s money to be made, and it’s great to see these kids finally getting paid.”

Golden also highlighted the progress of female athletes, pointing to Texas volleyball star Madisen Skinner. Skinner has secured NIL deals with Fairfield Inn and H-E-B, earning significant recognition. “She’s doing great,” Golden said. “This is as good as it gets for her financially. She might make the Olympic team maybe, but that doesn’t pay what she’s making now getting national commercials.” 

Golden emphasized that the NCAA could have implemented more guardrails on the portal to prevent big-money schools from dominating NIL deals, saying, “The schools with the most money are winning.”

Speaking of image, Golden’s observations about NIL deals naturally tie into a broader discussion of athletes’ priorities, as he noted a growing trend of players focusing more on their public image than their on-field performance.

Athletes are more preoccupied with their image

Today, I think athletes are more concerned with how they are portrayed rather than how they play,” said Golden. His remarks came after Dallas Cowboys star Trevon Diggs went viral for an exchange with a reporter following the team’s loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

The controversy began when Cowboy’s reporter Mike Leslie posted a critical tweet on X (formerly Twitter), asking, “What is Trevon Diggs doing on this play?” Diggs responded 

aggressively, reportedly telling the journalist, “You can’t go out there and do nothing. Stay in your lane, buddy. Talk about these nuts.”

Golden criticized the incident, suggesting Diggs should’ve been in the film room instead figuring out why the Cowboys got beat again he said. It reflects a broader trend where athletes prioritize their social media personas over the fundamentals of their sport.

While some athletes in the U.S. seem increasingly focused on their image, Golden contrasted this with European sports programs, which emphasize mastering the fundamentals over cultivating a public persona.

European Advantage in Sports Fundamentals

“They develop their guys better than we do,” he said. “There’s a reason the Europeans shoot 3’s better than us. Because they grew up shootin’ 3’s.” 

Golden noted that European coaching techniques often surpass those in the U.S., particularly in basketball and baseball. He emphasized that European programs tend to prioritize teaching the fundamentals, giving their athletes an edge.

Golden used Luka Doncic, a Slovenian player for the Dallas Mavericks, Golden said they were taught the sport the right way as an example.

“The Europeans are better at the fundamentals with baseball and basketball that’s why they’ve kinda taken over the sport and the L.A Dodgers discovered that a long time ago. I’m sure the Yankees are going to be in for whoever the next great Japanese player is,” said Golden. 

Cedric Golden’s thoughts on modern sports highlight how money, image, and skills are all playing bigger roles. While NIL deals offer financial opportunities for athletes, they also create challenges, with wealthier schools gaining an advantage. The focus on personal portrayal, seen in incidents like Trevon Diggs’ viral outburst, shows a shift from focusing on athletic performance. Golden also pointed out how European sports programs focus more on mastering the fundamentals, giving athletes an edge in passing and shooting versus just dunking. As sports evolve, balancing money, image, and skill will be key to the future of athletics.

Welcome to Texas State Web Pages  to read my posts. This semester I started blogging!

BY: STEPHANIE VALDERRAMA

PHOTOS BY: Stephanie Valderrama

When University of Texas running back Billy Dale scored the winning touchdown for the Longhorns to secure a national championship more than five decades ago, he had no idea he’d be involved with TLSN (Texas Legacy Support Network).

Billy Dale, former UT Longhorn football player, discussed the motivation behind starting TLSN (Texas Legacy Support Network) during his campus visit to Texas State University. On Tuesday, he spoke to the Sports Comm class with teacher Larry Carlson. TLSN is to support former student-athletes who fall through the societal safety net.

“It’s not just the University of Texas. It’s all, all major division one of the top universities. It’s like the players are there to help build a brand, a Longhorn brand, in this case, and then when they leave, they’re on their own, some, a few, get in a position that they fall…,” Dale said.

He believes the University of Texas, and other schools should support them to some extent. He started TLSN In 2017 and it became a 501c non-profit. “The hardest part of starting that organization was working through NCAA compliance and UT compliance,” Dale said., “Because no one in the history of college football, had asked for a 501c from the NCAA to help a former student athlete, and NCAA was very suspicious that we would be using that to recruit athletes.

Dale, who grewup in Odessa, told class members that his parents raised him in a religious home. “I still have a strong faith, very strong, I think with my faith is one of the reasons I wanted to start LSN to try help former student athletes that need assistance,” Dale said..

They’ve raised and distributed about $220,000 to former student athletes. “We just wrote a check today for a teammate, he’s it looks like he’s going to have CTE and he’s about to pass away, “And his wife called and said, ‘I’m broke’…so we wrote her a check, and asked her what she wanted, and she told us, so we wrote it today,” he said.

One athlete Billy has assisted through the TLSN foundation is Tyres Dickson, football signing class of 1997. Dickson was coming back from Houston for spring training in ‘98 and was paralyzed in a serious car accident. “The University of Texas did come back and help him start but out of the last 25 years Tyrese Dixon has been in the hospital 12 of those years, he’s in a wheelchair,” Dale said, “We just bought him a new bed, because the bed he’s in gives him bed sores.”

The foundation has 6 board members and Dale working up to nine. “We still need to get board members for basketball, baseball we wanna get softball involved. It’s six in our board now that represent different sports, Dale said.
Photo: On next page

Billy Dale, Former UT Longhorn Football Player, holding a photo he took of his late teammate Freddie Steinmarck after his surgery. The photo was taken after they both had competed had won the National Championship. Billy emphasized the importance of winning the national championship in the 100th year of college football.