SAN ANTONIO – UTSA Athletics has established itself as a national leader in serving first-generation student-athletes. As an institution, UTSA’s first-generation student population comprises approximately 45 percent of the total student body, while more than one-third of the Roadrunners’ student-athletes are first-generation college students.
Beginning with the 2025-26 season, UTSA student-athletes who are first generation college students will wear special patches on their uniforms recognizing their accomplishment of being the first in their family to attend college. Last year, 113 UTSA student-athletes were first-generation college students.
UTSA provides a wide variety of programming and resources supporting first-generation students as part of the UTSA First-Generation & Transfer Student Center. In 2019, the Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NAPSA) named UTSA a top university for its programming efforts to create a supportive and empowering campus for first-generation and transfer students.
“Athletics plays such a huge role in supporting first-generation college students,” said Lisa Campos, UTSA Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics. “As an institution and as an athletics department, we are committed to providing comprehensive support for our first-generation students. We are proud to honor our first-gen student-athletes with this unique uniform patch.”
Throughout the 2025-26 academic year, UTSA Athletics will also be spotlighting the stories of its first-generation student-athletes as well as coaches, administrators and staff members who are first-generation college graduates. Many of the staff members serving UTSA’s student-athletes are first-generation graduates, including four of the 10 members of the department’s senior staff.