A TOMBOY NO MORE

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

Her friends back in Charlotte, N.C., might not recognize the young professional lady that Alexis Keane has become. They remember the neighborhood tomboy who wouldn't have been caught dead wearing a dress and makeup.

Give her jeans, or maybe gym shorts and a T-shirt, and she was a happy girl.

"Growing up, I was a huge tomboy," said Keane, who was promoted this summer to Assistant AD of the Bear Foundation after two years as Director of Donor Relations, "which I feel like that would surprise people about me because of the makeup and the dress and all that. But literally, I did not become that person until college. I was such a tomboy. My mom forced me to do piano because I had to do something that was a female activity.

"The running joke in my family was, 'Oh, Alexis, you're the son we never had.'''

A point guard on her high school basketball team, Alexis was getting some recruiting attention, including Meredith College, an all-girls school in Raleigh, N.C., across the street from North Carolina State.

"I played AAU basketball from sixth grade and that's what my life revolved around. That's where my identity was," she said. "I just got really burned out in high school. My parents went to N.C. State, and they wanted me to go to Meredith College for a year and then walk on at N.C. State. But, Meredith didn't have a football team, it was an all-girls college, which was not me at all."

Instead, she moved five hours away to Marshall University in Huntington, W. Va., where she was shocked to find out that Matthew McConaughey is not really the football coach. (Just kidding.) It checked all the boxes, though – a decent-sized school, a football team. You know, all the important stuff.

"I just randomly applied. I went up there and looked at it. And I was like, 'OK, I'll just go there. And if I don't like it, I'll transfer.'''

Initially a speech therapy major, Alexis joined the Alpha Xi Delta sorority, trading in her tomboy attire for dresses.

"I was in a sorority all four years, lived in the sorority house, the whole thing," she said. "They're still my best friends today."

Realizing that there are career possibilities in sports, she changed her major to sports management and did internships with the sports information and sports marketing departments at Marshall.

"Basically I was headset on, telling the band when to play, doing some of the things Carson (Bowers) and (fan engagement staff do)," she said. "I knew those two paths were not the way I wanted to go, but it opened my eyes to see the opportunities you have in this industry."

Instead of staying to walk the stage at graduation, Alexis took an internship with the Nashville Predators hockey team in Tennessee, working in the fan experience area with customer service, renewals and retention.

"I didn't know anything about (hockey), but I was like, 'Oh, Nashville!''' she said.

Offered a sales job with the club after about two months, she took a job instead with Legends Global Sales at Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. At 22 years old, she was moving for the seventh time in her life.

"Legends partnered with Notre Dame to help drive additional revenue while adding on to the iconic Notre Dame Stadium," Alexis said. "The job was really focused on customer service, creating marketing plans, sales initiatives, setting up donor events before football and basketball games, and really responsible for being the liaison for Legends' relationship with Notre Dame on a daily basis."

Starting her professional career at Notre Dame was "unbelievable and a dream," she said. "I don't even know how I got the job, but it was awesome. It was such a big learning opportunity, and I worked with fantastic people that taught me so much."

With the project at Notre Dame coming to an end, Alexis pulled out a map, highlighted potential destinations for her next stop and found Waco appealing because of its closeness to bigger cities like Dallas, Houston and Austin.

"I wanted to get out of the Midwest. I don't do the cold weather," she said. "I didn't know much about Baylor, at all. I remember we actually hired a guy from the S3 program here, Colby Conner. He ran our database CRM system. He's with the Texas Rangers now, but he came from Baylor and he would always watch Baylor on his computer. That was the year the men's basketball team was No. 1 in the country at one point. That was when I was like, 'Oh, OK, Baylor.'''

Alexis Keane

With a new Bear Foundation leadership in place, Alexis was brought to Baylor 2 ½ years ago as Director of Donor Relations.

"For me, sports have always been such a huge part of my life," she said. "No matter what's going on in the world – politics, national disasters, whatever it may be – you can always find somebody to talk to about sports. It's just a positive thing that connects everyone, even if you don't know that much about it. That's why I've always loved the fundraising side, because I love developing relationships with people over their love and passion for their university's athletic teams. I can talk to you about sports all day long."

Coming in at a time when donor retention was a difficult task with all the negative publicity surrounding the football program, Board of Regents and Title IX investigations, Alexis said initially there were a lot of hard conversations with the donor base.

"You just have to get back to the root of their love for Baylor and Baylor Athletics and focus on that," she said. "What kept me going during some of those tough times was, obviously, the student-athletes and getting to learn a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here, because I didn't get a lot of that at Notre Dame."

The first two years with the Bear Foundation, the top of the priority list was trying to get donors back on board with different incentives like "getting extra points if you want to win a free helmet."

But like any school, "when you win, donors want to be a part of that."

Although she was obviously excited about the promotion to Assistant AD, overseeing the annual fund drive for the Bear Foundation, Alexis said there was also a nervousness, "because you're responsible for hitting numbers. So much of the Athletics Department depends on the revenue the Bear Foundation brings in. We provide scholarships and life-changing opportunities for 500-plus student-athletes."

"It was definitely intimidating," she said. "If this was any other school, if I was taking this job anywhere else, I don't feel like I would be ready. But, because of the people that are here to support me and help me, I felt somewhat more confident. If this job opened up somewhere else, I would be like, 'Whoah!'''

Jovan Overshown, Senior Associate AD for External Affairs, said she recognized very early on that "Alexis would be one of those exceptional individuals that would quickly rise."

"She's very humble – and honestly, I'm not sure she even recognizes the value that she adds to this team," Overshown said. "I'm just grateful; for her trust in me, and for her willingness to be stretched. Because of it, we are far better."

Alexis says she treasures an extended family in Waco includes Courtney Scrivano, Associate AD for Marketing and Fan Engagement, who worked closely with her in the Bear Foundation until her own job change this year.

"From day one, Alexis made a great partner," Scrivano said. "She is sharp, driven, hard-working, team-oriented, kind and just a fun person to be around. It's been a joy to see her grow in her role at Baylor.

"Not only is Alexis a fantastic colleague, but she has also been a great friend to our family, and both of my little guys (sons, Nico and Luca) love her."

From the depths and struggles of where Baylor Athletics was just two years ago, Alexis has enjoyed a ride that's included national championships in acrobatics & tumbling and women's basketball, volleyball being ranked No. 1 and football playing in Saturday's Big 12 Championship.

"We've had success, obviously, in other sports," she said, "but I feel like now with football, volleyball, women's basketball, men's basketball, all our sports are literally at the top of the top. Baylor Athletics is now known. Because it's a smaller Christian school, I don't know if people really knew Baylor on a big-time scale until 2011. But now, I think it's back on people's radars where it's like Baylor is a big-time program doing great things. Just to be a part of that is so unique and awesome."

Living in five different places before her 13^th birthday, and moving three more times since college, the question Alexis gets asked constantly by her friends living throughout the country is "What's your next move?"

"Just because I've moved around a bunch to further my career, and I came here to further my career, doesn't mean I have plans to leave anytime soon," she said. "I'm committed, I love Baylor, the vision, the mission, all of that. I believe in what Mack (Rhoades) and (Jeramiah Dickey) are doing, all the standards they've set. The relationship they have with people in the department is very unique."

Chasing a career is something "that's been instilled in me by my parents of how important it is to get a job and be able to afford your rent and have a savings account, those kinds of things," Alexis said. But at 27, "I have to start valuing my personal life."

Now that she's added a role as secondary sport administrator for track, Alexis hopes to eventually have more contact with coaches and student-athletes outside of donor relations. "I'm not sure what the next five years looks like, but I hope to continue on this path in the sports industry."

Alexis Keane

A TOMBOY NO MORE

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