Search Results

Oral history interview with Lisa Kelleher conducted by Stefani Evans, Claytee D. White, and Bethany Dayton on August 22, 2025 for Game On! The Oral History of Las Vegas Sports project. In this interview, Kelleher recalls growing up in Ohio, where her father owned the local sports store that she helped run from an early age. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in education in 1979, she got a master’s degree in physical education from the University of Arizona in 1980. This led her to her first athletics job at Oregon State University. Kelleher moved to the University of Central Florida where she met one of her future mentors, Jim Weaver. Meeting Weaver led her to eventually come to UNLV, where she worked with the athletic department to expand women's sports including women's volleyball, soccer, and golf. Kelleher also recalls watching Title IX pass nationwide, and the transition from gender-separate sports administrations to those that were more equitable. It was a difficult time that came with a lot of resistance, and she recalls witnessing segregated sports programs all the way until the 1990s. Eventually, Kelleher was let go from her athletics position at UNLV but came back as a part-time instructor, moving her way up to associate visiting professor, she now teaches first and second-year seminar classes for the college of education. She is looking forward to seeing how sports progress locally, and at a nationwide university level. Digital audio available; no transcript available.