The most impressive aspect of intellectual life at Trinity, aside from the close relationship with professors in small classes, may be the guest lectures that bring extraordinary resources to the campus. The Trinity Distinguished Lecture Series, and Arts Enrichment Series, Nobel Economics Lecture Series, and the Cameron lecture on Politics and Public Affairs lecture Series have brought people such as former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Rudy Giulianni, Benazir Bhutto, and Bill Cosby to the campus.
About seventeen percent of students are involved with fraternities and sororities, and the wide array of social and service opportunities seems to occupy a happy student body on campus, although road trips to the beaches and the mountains are not uncommon. Trinity Tigers compete in Division III of the NCAA against traditional rivals in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference – Colorado College, Austin College, and Southwestern University to name a few. Trinity’s men play football, soccer, cross-country, basketball, swimming, baseball, tennis, track, and golf. The Lady Tigers compete in soccer, cross-country, volleyball, basketball, swimming, tennis, track, and golf. Although all sports do well (Trinity is frequently at the top of its conference) the two nationally recognized programs are in tennis and baseball. A recent hard-fought football game against Millsaps resulted in a YouTube sensation – fifteen seconds of lateral passing resulting in a Trinity victory. One has to assume that LeeRoy the Tiger, the sidelines mascot lost all control in those fifteen seconds. Fortunately, the university’s mascot is now played by a student; A Bengal Tiger, was the actual mascot for some period of time in the nineteen fifties, but sanity prevails in San Antonio today. An active program of Club Sports offers lacrosse for men and women, trap and skeet shooting, equestrian, volleyball, and ultimate frisbee. Trinity’s women can also engage in fencing and water polo.
Peter Arango has been working in the field of college admissions for forty years, during which time he has counseled hundreds of students and families. He is an editor of the Houghton Mifflin Guide to U.S. Colleges and Universities, a contributor to numerous publications, and a frequent presenter at workshops on preparing for the college search. Currently, Peter Arango lives in Carpinteria, California where he holds the Littlefield Chair in Humanities at Cate School.