February 18, 2026

Building the Future: Tommy McClelland's Vision for Rice Athletics

42 minutes

How do you balance elite academics with athletic success? How was Rice able to expand the field of women’s sports at Rice? What’s the broader vision of how to transform Rice University into a hub of athletic and community engagement, while staying true to its academic integrity?

Tommy McClelland is the Vice President and Director of Athletics at Rice University, a position he has held since August of 2023.

Tommy discusses his personal journey from a walk-on football player to becoming the youngest Division I Athletic Director at 26. He shares insights into his leadership style, shaped by early career challenges and advice from his father. Tommy also shares his experience at various institutions, including Vanderbilt. Tommy explains to host David the vision for Rice Athletics. This includes the ambitious $120 million Gateway project, aimed at modernizing Rice's athletic facilities and integrating them with the local community.

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Episode Guide:

01:01 Tommy McClelland's Early Life and Career
03:10 Lessons Learned as a Young Athletic Director
06:54 The Appeal of Rice University
10:59 Balancing Winning with Academics
15:23 The Gateway Project: Transforming Rice Athletics
22:54 Future Vision for Rice Stadium
24:39 Concert Opportunities and Local Community Impact
25:46 Changing Landscape of College Athletics
27:08 Adapting to One-Year Curricula
31:16 Women's Sports Expansion at Rice
33:55 Vision for Championship Success
37:07 Engaging Alumni and Supporters
39:19 Rapid Fire Questions

Beyond The Hedges is a production of Rice University and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Balancing elite academics and athletics success

11:49: When you say you’re a coach and you reach out to recruit a kid and you say, “Hey, I’m Coach so-and-so, and I’m with Rice University.” Immediately there’s a filter that happens and it you’re not for them, or it is, if you’re at any other school in our conference, that filter doesn’t really exist... [12:28] When the 17th ranked university in the country says, “I am interested in recruiting you to play high-level sports at the Group of Five,” which, by the way, we sit on an island in that, and I think we need to lean into this further... [13:09] We sit very isolated, but in this unique position where if you want high academics and you want to compete at the Group of Five, there’s only one choice. That’s a beautiful filter.

Rice community stadium is more than just a football stadium

17:30: It’s not Rice Football Stadium, it is the Rice Community Stadium and football is going to be the primary tenant. But we need to expand the things that we do in it on a yearly basis... We should not look up in a given year and say, the only thing that happened there was our conference slate, a graduation.

On making a year count

29:17: I only have them for one year, how am I going to influence them the most in their entire life? Through the professors they meet. Because they will be introduced to that through the network of people that they get to meet in the alumni, in the external network. And then through how I am going to build a relationship and challenge you athletically.

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