| Larry Coker |
LAKE CHARLES, La. — First-year head coach Larry Coker met with members of the media on Wednesday at the annual Southland Conference Media Day.
Below is a transcript of his press conference.
2009 Southland Conference Media Day quotes
Wednesday, July 29
L'Auberge du Lac Resort
Lake Charles, La.
“It has been and will continue to be a challenge to build a program from the ground up. However, we have outstanding leadership at UTSA in our president, Dr. Ricardo Romo, and our athletics director, Lynn Hickey. Most of what we’re doing right now, besides beginning our recruiting processes, is fundraising. We have plans for a multi-million dollar athletics complex, so we’ve been out in the community speaking about what we’re building at UTSA.
“It is different building something from scratch. Everywhere I’ve been before, the program was already established, but it’s been a fun challenge. It’s neat in that you can do things how you want to. One of our assistant coaches, David Ross, has built two programs from scratch before, including Bacone College in Oklahoma. He’s been through this before, so he’s obviously been a valuable member of our staff.
“We’re going to build this the right way. We’ve visited with other start-up programs like Florida Atlantic and South Florida and I have good relationships with Howard Schnellenberger and Jim Leavitt. Those schools had a good plan in place and have been successful. We’ve modeled some of our plans after them.
“We also have a great recruiting base right on our front porch in San Antonio. There are some great high school football programs in that area and I think it’s been under recruited. We have a fantastic stadium in the Alamodome that is in a great location in downtown San Antonio. With all that and our great leadership, I really feel like UTSA can be a very successful program.”
For a complete transcript of the league's coaches and selected student-athletes, please click here.