L. Theo Bellmont

Who was L. Theo Bellmont?

L. Theo Bellmont was an Athletics Director, Professor and Director of Physical Training, and men's basketball coach at The University of Texas at Austin.

Bellmont was born in Rochester, New York. He attended schools in Rochester before studying at the University of Tennessee, where he earned his LL.B. degree in 1908. From 1908 until 1913 he was secretary of the YMCA in Houston, Texas.

In 1913, the UT Board of Regents hired Bellmont as the University's first Director of Athletics, a position that included supervision of intercollegiate athletics, physical training, and intramural sports. His decisions as athletics director would have wide-ranging implications for the development of intercollegiate athletics at the University and throughout the state of Texas. Bellmont took charge of a Texas athletics program in debt and had the program producing a profit within three years of his hiring. Seeing a need for the larger colleges and universities of the region to organize to further the interests and development of college athletics, he originated and developed the idea of the Southwest Conference and chaired organizational meetings of various colleges and universities in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas until the conference came into existence in 1915. As UT athletics director, Bellmont co-founded the Texas Relays with Clyde Littlefield in 1925; began the tradition of playing the annual Texas-Oklahoma football game in the Cotton Bowl at the State Fair of Texas; founded the UT Intramural Sports program; introduced the idea of a prepayment plan for UT athletics, securing a stable annual income for the athletics program; and designed and implemented the funding program for Memorial Stadium, which was built in 1924.