Texas Tech was not a college softball powerhouse prior to last season. The Red Raiders went all-in on NIL to lure some of the best players in the country to Lubbock with the promise of oil money.
It worked!
Not only did Texas Tech reach the college softball championship series in Gerry Glasco’s first year as head coach, the roster is just as loaded for year two. Anything short of a trip to Oklahoma City is a bust.
How did Texas Tech get here?
It is no longer a secret that petroleum was the primary catalyst for the success of the Red Raiders in recent years— in all sports. During a conversation with Justin Williams of The Athletic, head football coach Joey McGuire said that black gold played a large role in his decision to take the job.
“I always tell people, oil money is real,” McGuire said. “I knew the backing was here (when I took the job). But quite honestly, I didn’t dream of what it would be.”
I would imagine it also played a role in Glasco’s decision to leave Louisiana for Texas Tech. He knew his program would be well-funded.
Texas Tech is the only major college and/or university located on the western half of the Lone Star State. As such, it can tap into the Permian Basin, located about 140 miles to the south. The Permian Basin is the largest oil-producing field in the United States of America. There is a lot of money down that way.
Cody Campbell, a former offensive lineman for the Red Raiders, is among those who profit from the oil. He and former teammate John Sellers co-founded Double Eagle Energy Holdings.
Campbell and Sellers’ company, essentially, builds drilling operations on rented land and then sells those build to other energy companies. Developments have sold for as much as $3-6 billion— with a b.
Campbell later spearheaded Texas Tech’s top Name, Image and Likeness arm, the Matador Club. The Matador Club is one of the most wealthy NIL entities in college sports. Money drives success in the modern era of collegiate athletics and the Red Raiders are the perfect example.
College softball flipped upside down.
Texas Tech barely finished the 2024 college softball season above .500 at 29-21. It lost twice as many conference games than it won and lost in the second round of the Big 12 Tournament.
And then the Matador Club decided to go all-in on softball with the hire of Glasco.
Maren Angus-Coombs of Softball on SI detailed how an NIL loophole turned a floundering Texas Tech program into a softball powerhouse. She spoke with six Division I programs about the overnight transformation, which raised concerns about morals and ethics within the sport.
“NCAA rules prevent head coaches from recruiting players actively on opponents’ rosters, but there aren’t rules in place to prevent a third party from approaching those players. This loophole has opened the door for All-Americans to join head coach Gerry Glasco’s program. The Matador Club, Texas Tech’s Name, Image and Likeness collective, and coach Nathan Nelson of Hotshots Fastpitch, a travel organization based in Texas, have reportedly been heavily involved in this process.”
Everybody knew what was happening. Texas Tech, through the Matador Club, was tampering. Tampering is a crucial component to success in the modern era of college sports. It’s happening everywhere but the Red Raiders have more money for softball than most other schools.
Gerry Glasco is ignorant to the Matador Club’s tampering.
As detailed by Angus-Coombs, Texas Tech added Mia Williams from Florida, Taylor Panell from Tennessee, Jasmyn Burns from Ohio State, Kaitlyn Terry from UCLA, Jackie Lis from Southern Illinois, Desirae Spearman from New Mexico State, and Lagi Quiroga from Cal. Most of those players were not already in the transfer portal and some of them entered with “do-not-contact” tags when they did.
Volunteers head coach Karen Weekly did not specifically address the Red Raiders but she made the following post about tampering on the day after Panell committed:
Morals aside, the strategy worked.
Texas Tech made the College World Series Championship Series last season. It is again in position to compete for a national title in 2026 and we all know why.
Glasco said the quiet part out loud at Big 12 Softball Media Days. The Matador Club did what it had to do.
“They came in my office last year in January, the legal team and the compliance team, and told me how they were going to do this and how they wanted to be in a position to win the national championship this year with NiJa Canady in her senior year,” he said. “That wasn’t (the) coaching staff, that wasn’t the athletic director, that’s the compliance and The Matador Club and the booster club.”
The head coach was specifically told not to get involved.
“They had lawyers advising us, and the advice to me was to go coach softball,” Glasco said. “Stay out of it, don’t contact anyone, you’ve got to go quiet […] They’d handle building the roster for us.”
There you have it. Texas Tech spent whatever oil money necessary to poach players from other teams while its head coach sat back and watched. We already knew. Now it’s confirmed.