SPORTS: Hearts and Hoops: A Valentine’s Day athletics event
By Kaily Olivo
Editor-in-chief
Published Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026
The Student-Athlete Advisory Committee hosted Hearts and Hoops on Feb. 7. The event celebrated Valentine’s Day with mini bouquets, offering students and other attendees their choice of flowers to create their own mini bouquet.
The first 25 fans at the women’s basketball game against St. Edward’s University received free caricatures in the Kinesiology-Convocation Building.
Dustdevils women’s basketball players, including junior Jayden Smallwood (21, next to right), wear pink uniforms and watch from the bench during the game against St. Edwards University as part of the Hearts and Hoops event on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026, in TAMIU’s gymnasium.
Even though the event celebrated Valentine’s Day, SAAC President Janize Castillo shared the committee’s goals of creating these events that comply with Title IX.
“The month of February is also [about] Title IX, it’s consent, and making sure everyone feels included and what not,” Castillo said. “So, I just think it’s a fun event, and it’s important to give back to our community and show support for consent and Title IX, and overall just the month of giving, the month of love.”
Athletic Development and External Affairs Assistant Director Marilyn Bautista explained that their aim is to give back to the community while also showing support for TAMIU’s student athletes.
“So, we want to start creating more events that cater more to the campus community and also the Laredo community,” Bautista said. “We wanted to do something to inspire healthy friendships, and also sports related, so we have our girls actually wearing their pink jerseys.”
She shared the goal of bringing in the TAMIU athletic community.
“I think … We want to start bridging the gap,” Bautista said. “I feel like we’re missing that component of the community being here in the athletic department or supporting our student athletes and I feel like the student athletes … a lot of their families are not here; their friends are not here [and] they moved to Laredo to represent our community.”
Bautista shares past events: including Youth Days, bringing in kids from the community, and kick off parties, bringing out the athletes to the community.
Unidentified students create bouqets of flowers as part of the Hearts and Hoops event on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026, in TAMIU’s Kineseology-Convocation Building.
“In these Youth Days, we give all the kids that register … a little goodie bag, we give them a T-shirt, kind of make them feel welcome, like ‘Hey, this could potentially be your home too,’ and they get to meet our athletes; so, we have autographs at the end,” Bautista said. “We just are starting to do kick-off parties out in the community. So, we’re taking our athletes out in the community … [and] we are hoping to continue to do more.”
As more events are put into place, feedback and collaborations are welcomed for future events in support of TAMIU and TAMIU athletics.
“We’re open to feedback, anything from the student body that they want to share … we’re also open to collaboration … that’s really what I want to share with everybody, if they ever want to do something with us, we want to support our student athletes,” Bautista said.
