Stephen Roach filled the vacant athletic director position permanently as of Oct. 1. Roach replaced David Scott Gines in the Javelina Athletic Department.
Upon filling the position, Roach met with coaches and his faculty and staff members to discuss his goals and duties for the current and upcoming sporting seasons.
According to javelinaatheltics.com, Roach has degrees in Sports Management, certification in intercollegiate athletics administration, and a degree in Criminology.
Roach resigned his position as athletic director at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) and was ready to take on Javelina Athletics right away. IUP is a Division II university in the National Collegiate Athletics Association. His duties there have prepared him for this position at Texas A&M University-Kingsville.
The campus of IUP is similar to TAMUK, so Roach hasn’t experienced any major problems adjusting so far.
“There are a lot of similarities between IUP and TAMUK. The campus is slightly smaller here but the communities are very similar,” Roach said.
Although Roach’s credentials speak for themselves, he has more to offer the athletic department from previous experiences.
“Career-wise, something interesting is that I started in a whole different career field. I used to be a parole officer,” Roach said. “My first job out of college I did an internship. I was a criminology major and I did that for three years. I ran the House Arrest and Electronic Monitoring unit for Indiana in a county of Pennsylvania. Doing that at age 22 was quite the challenge, but it gave me a good perspective. “
Aside from Roach’s work life, he is a family man. Roach has been enjoying the warm Texas weather since. Roach enjoys golf in his free time and feels that living in Texas, he will get to do that a bit more.
Roach and his wife, Molly.
“[My family] are my main hobby right now. I took them golfing last weekend. Golf is my personal hobby that I love and I also enjoy working out,” he said.
Roach then shared his path to finding college athletics.
“It just came to me one day. I was in a bit of a sticky situation as I walked into the middle of a drug deal. I was like I don’t think this is for me. I had some friends who went to get their Master’s in sports [administration]. I got an opportunity to be a graduate assistant and that kind of opened up my mind to athletics. Once I got into college athletics, I fell in love with it, “ he said.
Some of Roach’s major goals for the department are learning about the program and adjusting to the program to see what can be improved.
Steven Tallant, the president of TAMUK, was happy to choose Roach for the position because of his relevant background.
