Your RecSports Story: Valentine’s Day
As a part of campus life, RecSports has undoubtedly brought people together in countless ways. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, we asked the RecSports community to share their stories of love and friendship found on the Forty Acres. Thank you to everyone who submitted a story!
Cody Claunch, BS ’17, and Kacey Claunch, BS ’18
Cody and Kacey met while working facility operations at Gregory Gym and quickly became friends working shifts together. Cody knew immediately that he wanted to be friends with her: “Kacey was fun, kind, and hard-working, and she lit up every room she entered. Everyone wanted to be friends with Kacey.”
It wasn’t until a year or so later that their friendship began to blossom into a relationship. Cody was sure that Kacey was the one for him, telling us: “I knew I was going to marry her, and I told her so before we officially became a couple.” Working at Gregory Gym gave the couple the space and time to learn about how their work ethics matched up, how they each handled challenges, interacted with other people, and brought their own kind of joy and fun to everyday life. The foundation of their relationship started with their friendship, and what they learned through that friendship continues to guide them today.
Cody and Kacey stay connected to RecSports through the many relationships they built while on campus. “To this day, my wife and some of our best friends are RecSports alumni. Three of my groomsmen were from our Gregory Gym team, and our officiant was our hiring manager [Ross Rodriguez, Associate Director for Outdoor Satellites] at the time,” Cody shared. The Claunches still maintain a close relationship with Ross and his family. Cody and Kacey attend alumni events whenever they can, including the Friends of RecSports Bob Childress Classic golf tournament (Cody says, “that tournament must be rigged because I’m not that bad [at golf]!”).
Zoe Fisher, BBA ’26, and Natalia Vazquez, BBA ’26
Zoe and Natalia met during the summer of 2022 at Freshman Orientation, where they were both preparing to take their first steps as marketing majors at the McCombs School of Business. During some downtime, they decided to play table tennis at Gregory Gym. While they played, they discovered they clicked well and had much in common. Unfortunately, they would soon fall out of touch as the pace of college life began that fall.
However, the duo reconnected after Zoe began working at Gregory Gym in the fall of 2022. Natalia was considering joining Team RecSports and asked Zoe about her experience. Zoe must have had a great sales pitch because Natalia soon joined the Gregory Gym staff the following summer. Working together helped the pair reconnect and build a lasting relationship. “You could say RecSports is responsible for rekindling our friendship. Since then, we’ve become great friends and a Greg supervisor duo who like to run together and gab about marketing classes,” says Zoe.
Lily Rodriguez, BA ’24, and Sarah Mobley, BS ’25
Lily, a psychology major from the Rio Grande Valley, was a RecSports Ambassador when she decided to try working in facility operations, landing a role as Facility Assistant at the Recreational Sports Center and Bellmont Hall in the summer of 2023. During her new employee orientation, she met Sarah, an electrical and computer engineering major, who had just been promoted to Facility Supervisor at the same facilities. They were scheduled together for Lily’s first shift, and the rest is history. “Long story short, we spent the summer getting to know each other as friends, and somewhere along the way, things changed for the better. I asked her to be my girlfriend in September,” recalls Lily.
Today, the couple continues to work together, and you can often catch Lily cheering for Sarah on the sidelines at her intramural soccer games.
Emma Cohn, BS ’20, and Jordan Stroope, BS ‘20
Emma and Jordan began coaching F45 Training at RecSports during their junior year of college in 2018, and they’ve been best friends since. They share a passion for health and wellness and love to debate different topics and issues within the field. In 2021, they co-presented at TexFit, a collegiate fitness conference. Emma and Jordan enjoy working together so much that they have discussed collaborating on a health and fitness business venture later in life.
Today, Emma still works at RecSports as a Health Coach and Fitness Intsructor, teaching F45 Training and Total Body Strength classes. Jordan now works in campus recreation as the Assistant Director for Fitness at Texas Christian University and collaborates with his teammates at RecSports whenever possible.
Andy Lemons, BA ’03, and Denyse Demel, BA ’03, JD ‘06
Andy and Denyse met in their 6th-grade math class and have spent much time together since then. After attending middle and high school together, they both went to UT. Although they had different majors, Andy and Denyse got jobs at RecSports, starting as intramural officials and scorekeepers for several sports. Both would eventually rise through the ranks to become program assistants.
Andy and Denyse began dating in the spring of 2000, and it made working together very interesting. Denyse’s favorite part of her job was watching Andy call six basketball games per night during the spring 2000 season. By the fourth game each night, he was exhausted and low on patience, and Denyse could accurately predict when Andy would give a technical foul for the remaining games. “It was the beginning of her being able to predict all of my behavior as a married couple,” Andy says.
Nearly two decades later, Andy and Denyse both currently work at UT. Denyse is the Senior Associate Director for Career Services at Texas Law, and Andy is the Director of Programs at RecSports.
They still attend RecSports alumni happy hours whenever possible because, as Andy puts it, “we spent most of our time in college going to class, going to work at RecSports, then spending time with our friends from RecSports.” No matter how many hours they spent with RecSports, both attest that these experiences are what made UT special for them. They loved being able to date and work together.
Andy recalls one exception: during their senior year, Denyse requested never to work a shift with Andy again because she had had enough of him over the last few years. To Andy, that was “a true sign of a couple who knows they’ll be together forever.”
