Beth Morrisett    Sherri Bilson    Ralph Phipps    Chase Brown    Bill Barowski    Jennifer Barnett    Betty Williams    Bobby Bernard    Skip Gilkerson   

Betty Williams: The Super Fan Secretary

Call her Miss Betty.

“Everybody does.”

Betty Williams, 78, has been Texas State football’s biggest fan for years.

“I’m going to be the next quarterback,” she said.

Williams volunteers at the front desk at the football office in the End Zone Complex at Bobcat Stadium two days a week, and she’s been there since she retired from the university six years ago.

“It’s just fun working here. The coaches are all real neat. I just enjoy it,” she said.

But she’s not just a desk jockey, she comes to every game - both home and away - and tailgates in the parking lot beforehand.

“We tailgate big time during football season and all the kids come, so I get lots of hugs,” Williams said.

The team gave her a championship ring last season when the Bobcats won the Southland Conference championship.

Williams was born in McAllen and moved to San Marcos with her mother after her father passed away. Her mother finished her bachelors and masters degrees at the university the same day that Williams graduated from high school.

Williams attended college in San Marcos, but never finished.

“I’ve had enough hours to have a masters degree, but I never did graduate,” she said. “I haven’t decided what I want to do yet.”

Before becoming an employee at Texas State, Williams spent 12 years in Louisiana working for an oil company.

“In 1981, when the oil prices started going down and everything kind of went to pot, I moved back here and I was going to play golf,” she said. “I told my mother I was just going to play golf. She said, ‘I don’t think so.’ So I went up to see Dr. Bang, who was the geography chair then, and he said, ‘Well, you’re going to hear some kind of bad language,’ and I said, ‘You want to hear some bad language, I’ve been in the oil field, honey.’”

The geography department hired her as a secretary and she later moved to the Alumni House. She said she liked working at the university because she loves kids.

“You know, you stay around the young, you stay young,” Williams said.

She has three children, including one son who died in a motorcycle accident in 1978, 19 grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and lots of cats.

“I’ve got a 22-and-a-half-year-old cat. I think she’s getting ready to retire from her life,” Williams said.

When she’s not cheering on the Bobcats, she’s volunteering at City Park at the Lions Club Tube Rental.

“Oh my goodness, I’ve been an active Lion for a long time,” Williams said. “I volunteer down at the river almost every Sunday during the summertime.”

She said she admires the Lions Club because it doesn’t keep the money from tube rentals. Everything goes back to the community.

“They do good for people and that’s what I love,” she said.

Betty Williams' story was originally published in the San Marcos Daily Record on August 13, 2009.