It’s a Women’s Sports Renaissance at TCU

As the sports world is caught up in football, women’s sports at TCU are quietly dominating
their fields and making their place in the TCU record books.

For starters, one of the hottest, freshest teams in women’s college basketball, is
TCU. The program was recently ranked No. 9 in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll, the
highest rank in program history. 

The ranking followed several impressive early-season wins, including the recent victory
over No. 3 Notre Dame.  

The fast start to the 2024-2025 season says plenty about the upward trajectory coach
Mark Campbell’s program is riding, but the recent success, punctuated by the Notre
Dame win, was also just the latest significant triumph by one of the 13 women’s sports
teams at TCU.

TCU Rifle is the reigning national champion. TCU Equestrian team was the national
runner-up. TCU Soccer just completed play in the NCAA Tournament after winning the
Big 12 Conference regular-season title, and TCU Volleyball clinched a third straight
berth to the NCAA Tournament.

TCU Beach Volleyball could open its season in the spring ranked No. 1 in the country.
Triathlon finished sixth in its debut season and placed fourth this year. Cross country
had its most successful season with three first-place finishes. Women’s tennis doubles
team of Jade Otway and Isabel Pascual were the first Horned Frogs to reach the NCAA
tournament quarterfinals since 2007 and the first duo in 17 years to be named All-Americans.
And the list goes on. 

Together, the programs are leading a renaissance of women’s sports at TCU and potentially
have only cracked a large window of future success that could include more high-profile
victories, conference titles and competing for national championships.

“For some of those sports, it’s been a long time coming,” Jeremiah Donati, director
of intercollegiate athletics, said. “We’ve felt for a while that we could do better,
so it’s fun to see.”

The women’s Horned Frog teams were buoyed by the jump to the Big 12 more than 12 years
ago and more recently have used the NCAA transfer portal to pump talent into rosters.
But coaches still scour the high school ranks to find quality student-athletes as
teams seek a balance between prep recruits and transfers.

Campbell took over a team that won only one Big 12 game in 2022-23 and infused the
roster with transfers. Among them were Sedona Prince and Madison Conner, and they
helped the Frogs jump into the top 25 before a rash of injuries took their toll. 

The Frogs added more players from the transfer portal after last season to ensure
they could withstand another bout with injuries and play an up-tempo brand of basketball.
This time, they landed, among others, Hailey Van Lith from Louisiana State University,
Maddie Scherr from University of Kentucky and Donovan Hunter from Oregon State.

In addition to being an All-America candidate, Van Lith brought with her an Instagram
following of more than one million. She competed in the 3-on-3 competition at the
Paris Olympics, winning a bronze medal with Team USA.

“She’s put TCU women’s basketball on the national stage,” Campbell said. “When she
decided to come here for her last year of eligibility, it put a stamp of approval
that TCU is elite.”

Jason Williams orchestrated a quick turnaround with TCU Volleyball after he was hired
as coach in 2021. This year, the Frogs cracked the Top 25 for the first time in program
history and qualified for a third straight trip to the NCAA Tournament, again with
help from the transfer portal. One of the best players in the Big 12 is Melanie Parra,
who came to TCU last season from Texas.

One key, coaches said, is getting prospective student-athletes to Fort Worth. The
campus sells itself, from the construction that has taken place the past two decades
to the immaculate landscaping to the nationally recognized degree programs.

“Mark and I had those conversations,” said Scherr, who met Campbell when he was an
assistant coach at Oregon. “He talked about how much he loves the university and Fort
Worth. When I came on my visit, I was like, ‘Wow, this is such a great town and a
great little school. That just adds to the layers of why it was such a great fit.”  

The portal, though, runs both ways, as players have left TCU. Not only do departures
create holes in rosters, they threaten to disrupt team chemistry. Players have also
run away from adversity – either at TCU or before coming to TCU – when things weren’t
going their way rather than working harder to regain playing time.

Creating a winning culture with so many new student-athletes is a new challenge for
coaches. Following two fall tournament wins and a No. 23 ranking for women’s golf,
coach Angie Larkin-Ravaioli isn’t going to discard her long-held belief that culture
breeds success.

“I just want to really focus on our culture, on what we’re growing, our core values,
what do we stand for, and how players come in who really want to be a part of that,”
she said. “And I want to see you here for four years. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Teams still need quality coaches and ample support, and the Frogs have both. TCU found
beach volleyball coach Hector Gutierrez at Florida State, where he was an assistant
coach, and wooed him with the promise of the athletic department’s full support to
get a program up and running.

That was in 2016. Eight years later, TCU is one of the best teams in the country with
players from across the world. Gutierrez has traveled to Europe and South America
to piece together the Frogs’ roster.

He found All-Americans Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno in Spain, Lina Khmil in Ukraine
and Hailey Hamlett in … San Antonio. The trip down I-35 aside, recruiting isn’t cheap
in beach volleyball, but Gutierrez always has what he needs to put together a competitive
roster.

“To be on top, we need to be equally comparable with the scholarships with other schools
in the country, especially the Big Ten and the SEC,” Guiterrez said. “Recruiting is
what is the key to all of this.

“We can develop players, and we do. But if you don’t have the talent, it takes time
to develop them. But if you have the talent and the players from Day One, you maintain
it.”

Soccer coach Eric Bell built the Frogs into a perennial contender in the Big 12. Ravaioli-Larkin
is the longest-tenured coach at TCU, now in her 31st season and on her fifth athletic director. She has guided the Frogs to 27 NCAA Tournament
appearances, including a school-record 21 straight from 2003 to 2023.

She said TCU women’s teams have always had support since she was hired 1994, beginning
with the Title IX-minded Frank Windegger, who passed away in March. But the support
increased when Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr. assumed office in 2003.

He recognized that athletics is the front porch to a university, opening the door
to academia to the whole country. Football led the charge, but Boschini supported
conference realignment and has green-lighted facility improvements for all sports
and the formation of new women’s sports.

“He’s amazing,” Ravaioli-Larkin said. “He’s one of the biggest reasons I’m still here,
quite frankly, just the support and the loyalty.”

Overseeing athletics is Donati, who made some difficult decisions to part with coaches
in an effort to jump-start women’s basketball and volleyball. He felt that those programs
were bubbling cauldrons of potential.

He and his predecessors, though, also showed patience with coaches as programs were
trying to gain traction. 

“I think it comes down to coaching and back to talent acquisition in the cases of
coaches, assistant coaches and staff,” Donati said. “We’ve been fortunate to provide
the resources to attract good coaches, retain them, but also give them the ability
to hire the staff they need.”

Campbell said that Donati is the common thread in the success of women’s programs.

“He’s the one that’s putting this whole thing together,” Campbell said. “He is an
amazing leader. I’m very thankful that he found me and gave me the opportunity to
come here, and he followed through with everything he said he’d do and provide for
us.” 

The result is a renaissance in not just women’s basketball at TCU, but all women’s
sports.

“You look around and you see those humongous schools with a lot of resources and more
athletes and more student bodies,” Gutierrez said. “You see us that, and we’re not
that big but we’re still so competitive and can be on top. Every women’s sport here
is being super successful.”

Catch the TCU Women’s Basketball Team at Dickies Arena Dec. 8. Faculty and staff can purchase discount tickets through Ticketmaster and a special offer is available for Student Frog Club members while available.