ALPINE, Texas–The small city is surrounded by mountains in the Big Bend region of West Texas, with a population of about 6,000, and the home of Sul Ross State University. Alpine, Texas may not ring a bell in the minds of many in the D-III community, but it’s remoteness has made SRSU one of the more unique institutions in D-III athletics, considering it is the only D-III school within 300 miles.
And yet, despite this seclusion, SRSU represented a place of opportunity for Clif Carroll and Katie Novak-Lenoir upon their hirings several years ago.
For Carroll, who led the Lobo men’s basketball program for five seasons before taking the head job at UMHB in 2020, it was a second chance at a head coaching opportunity, following a challenging two-year run at McMurry.
For Novak-Lenoir, who took over the women’s basketball program at SRSU in 2017 and is currently in her first year as UMHB head women’s basketball coach, SRSU provided a chance to become a head coach for the first time. An opportunity to lead her own program and build something from the ground up.
It is this dynamic, combined with SRSU’s impending departure from the D-III ranks, where UMHB currently resides, that makes Saturday’s doubleheader in Alpine that much more meaningful. It could be the last time the Crusaders and Lobos face off in Alpine as D-III opponents.
“That’s the best part of the country, with unbelievable people,” Carroll said earlier this week. “They were super supportive of me and accepted me with open arms. I’ll never forget that. Alpine will always be a very special time in our lives.”
Saturday’s contest will not be the first time that Carroll has walked into the Gallego Center while leading the visiting team. He has done so in each of the last three seasons, and while he may not be going up against as many of his former players as he has in years past, everything else about the matchup brings back memories.
On the opposing bench is Xavier Webb, in his fourth year as the Lobos’ head coach. Webb was one of the first recruits when Carroll took over the program in 2015 and returned to Alpine as Carroll’s assistant coach in 2019.
“Playing these games is always weird,” Carroll added. “You have a lot of pride in what’s going on on the other bench. You have to snap yourself out of it and say, ‘We’re trying to beat them.’ [Xavier] still has some guys there that I recruited, so this is a pretty cool trip.”
And when he walks into the Gallego Center—the horseshoe-shaped, 5,500-seat arena in which the Lobos play—it would be hard to forget the 2017-18 American Southwest Conference Tournament. The season before Carroll took over, 2014–15, saw SRSU struggle to a 5–20 record. But three years into Carroll’s tenure, the Lobos found themselves hosting the conference tournament in the far reaches of West Texas in 2017–18. The road to the conference title ran through Alpine for the first time, and a 68-65 victory over ETBU in the league championship game sent SRSU to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. Winning the title was big, and doing it in Alpine was even bigger.
“I think back on my time there, and I have so much pride in what we were able to do as a program,” Carroll noted. “I say we…I had the players in the same boat with me. That was really the epitome of ‘Us vs Everybody’.
“The Brock Anders and the Caleb Thomassons and the Rocky Felicianos; that group of guys was a blessing to me, and hopefully, I was a blessing to them,” Carroll added. “Hopefully we all had an experience down there where we can point to it, and say, ‘Yeah, we really did something uncommon out there.’”
Indeed, they did. And for Novak-Lenoir, it was similar, as she took the head women’s job just three years after wrapping up her playing career at Incarnate Word. She spent three years as an assistant coach for Our Lady of the Lake before the opportunity in Alpine presented itself.
Earning a head coaching job is incredibly difficult, regardless of level or program status, and being given an opportunity in Alpine was a massive step forward for Novak-Lenoir. It was a dream she had long before she ever entered the coaching ranks.
“I always felt like I wanted that,” she said recently, of earning the head coaching position at SRSU. “That doesn’t mean I wasn’t nervous for my first team meeting. I was. But I was thinking about being a college coach before I even got to high school. Maybe there were some times where I thought I was more ready than I was, but I also think that helped me take risks when I needed to take some risks.”
And SRSU presented a considerable risk, considering it was a program that had almost no precedent for success. But she saw an opportunity to challenge herself as a coach. That is what makes SRSU’s impact on both Carroll’s and Novak-Lenoir’s coaching careers so notable. They each found success despite plenty of obstacles and, in turn, elevated their skill sets as head coaches significantly.
“I did have a lot of people advise me not to take the job, if I’m being totally honest,” Novak-Lenoir recalled. “They said, ‘It’s going to be bad on your record; you’re never going to get another job after that.’
“But I appreciated what Clif said when I went out and interviewed for the job: ‘You have a chance to try to make something your own if you’re committed to build it, put in the time, and do it the right way. And you’re going to learn.’
“I had a conversation in my head of, ‘Do I want to go be a Division I assistant right now or do I want to go be a head coach and get my feet wet?’ I learned how to be a better recruiter. I learned how to get the right people around me under the circumstances. I felt like it made me have to confront my weaknesses. You’re always going to have your weaknesses as a coach, but man, it exposed them right away. It helped me find out who I was as a head coach early.”
Four years after she took the reins of the program, the Lobos went 7-5 in the ASC, reaching the conference tournament semifinals, as postseason basketball returned to Alpine. And in 2021–22, Novak-Lenoir led SRSU to its first winning season since 2003, posting a 14–11 record.
“When you’re in it, sometimes I don’t think I appreciated it all the time,” Novak-Lenoir said. “That was important to me—to leave it in a spot where it was better than I found it.”
What both accomplished in Alpine has more than carried over to their successes in Belton, especially in the recruiting side of coaching. Because of SRSU’s location, and the absence of a staff of assistant coaches, recruiting was made more difficult. But it also made both Carroll and Novak-Lenoir better recruiters, as they figured out how to attract quality talent to Alpine in an effort to turn both programs into winners.
“Just going to see a high school game, you were pretty routinely driving 3 hours one way to watch a game for an hour and a half, and then driving back that night,” Novak-Lenoir said. “I always felt like if I could get a kid to campus and get them to understand the vision we were going for, get them around the team, and once we got the culture right, we’d be able to get some people out there.”
Carroll had a similar take when asked about his recruiting efforts in Alpine. While UMHB is easier to recruit to in a sense due to the location, past success, and being a high-level university, his experiences on the recruiting trail at SRSU still factor into his approach today.
“You had to be smart. You couldn’t waste resources. Time was our biggest resource. I couldn’t waste a trip to Dallas to see a kid who had no intention of coming to Sul Ross. It made you focus on, ‘Who can you get? Who can help you win?’ Honing in on that taught me some valuable lessons in recruiting that I’ll take with me my entire career.”
When he arrived in Alpine, he did so after several months of being unsure if his future was even in basketball. Without an opportunity at SRSU, it is possible Carroll would’ve never become the head coach at UMHB. His time in Alpine certainly made a lasting impact, as Lobo basketball was elevated to new heights as Carroll gained more experience and confidence as a head coach.
“After being let go at McMurry, I was looking at working in the construction field or maybe going back to the Ag sector. Sul Ross gave me an opportunity. I’m forever grateful to Bill Kibler, the president, and Bobby Mesker, the AD, and Butch Worley, the vice president, who gave me a chance to revive my career. I didn’t know if I’d ever coach again after what happened at McMurry. I’ll always be grateful to Sul Ross.”
For Novak-Lenoir, Saturday’s matchup will be her first time back inside the Gallego Center for a game since the 2021-22 season, and with many of her former players still on the roster, there is an increased sense of familiarity.
“It’ll be nice to go back, and I’ll always appreciate that being my first start,” Novak-Lenoir said. “It seems like the last seven years have gone really quickly.”
In different ways, the time at SRSU shaped both of their careers, and improved their skill sets as coaches. But more than anything, being in a challenging position with the remoteness and resources available in Alpine has made both appreciate their opportunities in Belton that much more.
“I don’t think I could’ve appreciated the little things as much because I didn’t have those things before,” Novak-Lenoir said. “This seems like a small thing, but we have our crew [at UMHB] who helps with gameday setup and getting the gym ready, the floors, the benches, and tables. We had to wear a lot of hats when I was there [at SRSU]. There were a lot of times that me, and my GA and/or my assistant coach were sweeping the floors, setting things up, and helping take stuff down.
“I always think you have to do that to be able to appreciate everyone else putting in the work too. There was a lot of time you had to put into doing things besides just coaching. I think that helped with work ethic from the mentality of, ‘I want to make this succeed, so I’m going to do whatever I have to to help the program and university as much as I can to go in a better direction.’”
Said Carroll: “I had a conversation with [UMHB AD] Randy Mann recently, and we were reminiscing about the time at Sul Ross that we had to play home games in Odessa because of graduation, so it was a home game in Odessa with a two-hour drive [from Alpine]. And the bus broke down. I was the one who ended up having to fix it, replacing some coolant lines, and I told him, ‘If I’m ever complaining about something here, just remind me of that.’
“You had to work so hard to win there. You had to fight so many external factors, which stem from being in a remote area and not having many resources. It was hard. But it was so rewarding.”
Saturday’s doubleheader in Alpine tips off at 1 p.m. with the women’s matchup, followed by a 3 p.m. men’s matchup. Follow the action live at srlobos.com.
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