2024 Red McCombs Community Impact Award Winner

When then UTSA Athletic Director Lynn Hickey needed an advisor through the Roadrunners football startup process, she leaned on San Antonio patriarch Red McCombs.  The veteran of fifty years in education and intercollegiate athletics will be recognized as the 2024 Red McCombs Community Impact Award Winner at the FCA Breakfast of Champions to be held February 21, 2024 at the Security Services Event Center.

Hickey ran three candidates by McCombs when she was hiring the first UTSA head football coach.  “When I brought (Larry) Coker in, that was the only candidate that Mr. McCombs got up and left his desk and walked outside to the car with us,” Hickey recently told the Express-News.  “So, I knew this was the guy.”

Serving as UTSA athletic director from 1999 until 2017, Hickey was instrumental in bringing both Men and Women Final Fours to the Alamo City, and was selected as only the second female to serve on the prestigious NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee.  During her half-century career, Hickey was an assistant basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma, and was the head coach at Kansas State and Texas A&M.  She recently retired after five years as athletic director at Eastern Washington University.

The daughter of a hall of fame Oklahoma high school coach, Hickey has been active in FCA throughout her playing, coaching and administrative careers.  “I have been blessed to have been involved in coaching and administration for 50 years,” Hickey said upon her retirement.  “It is time for a new adventure, and I look forward to moving closer to family and finding new ways to continue to have an impact and be of service in this business that I love so much.”