Nov 22, 2019
With the days winding down before Little Rock wrestlers take to
their home mat at the Jack Stephens Center for the first time,
there’s been a change at the top.
One of the men instrumental in making Little Rock’s wrestling
program a reality, Chasse Conque, left Little Rock in late August
to accept the role of Athletic Director at the University of
Texas-Rio Grande Valley, which came into being after a
consolidation of three separate colleges. You might have heard of
Texas-Pan American. You probably haven’t.
Conque also brought Molly Castner with him as she assumes the role
of Deputy AD and Senior Women’s Administrator. This left Little
Rock searching for a person to lead the department, not just into
the launch of its new wrestling program, but to the lead during a
time of great growth within the school’s athletics programs as a
whole.
They turned to George Lee, the standing Senior Associate Director
of Athletics and Chief Financial Officer. This is a man who’s job
was to make sure things were financially viable for anything to
happen within Little Rock Athletics. Lee is a Little Rock alum
who’s had an association with the school for over 30 years. His
wife works at the school and he previously served as an interim AD
in the past. Today, we learn more about Lee.
Welcome to Rocked Up, the story of the foundation and formation of
the first Division I college wrestling program in Arkansas,
starting in November of 2019 at the University of Arkansas at
Little Rock. This is the 11th edition of this story. We started the
journey developing the foundation of wrestling in the state of
Arkansas and now we’ve moved on to the formation of the team,
because to tell the full story of this program, you have to start
at the very beginning.
Lee’s background is on the financial side. While a fan of sports,
he’s always been one of those administrators who didn’t have to
make all the public appearances and address the people. Lee’s role
is a requirement in college sports. If no one’s managing the money
or asking “How do you expect to pay for that,” then you have
balance sheets in the red and athletes potentially out in the
cold.
First, Lee explains how the campus has changed in size and stature
since he attended in the 1980s.
Rocked Up is a presentation of the Mat Talk Podcast Network and can
be found on the web at GetRockedUp.com or at MatTalkOnline.com.
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