Football
- Title:
- Head Equipment Manager
- E-Mail:
- mwatson@athletics.tamu.edu
Matt Watson serves as Assistant Athletic Director for Equipment and Apparel at Texas A&M. He has overseen the Aggies’ equipment staff since the spring of 2000 after serving as the assistant equipment manager since 1997.
Watson, who has been on the sidelines of 25 Aggie bowl games, maintains oversight of 4 assistants within equipment operations that is responsible for ordering, maintaining and performing inventory of equipment and apparel for all Texas A&M sports, the supervision of football student managers, and the packaging of all football equipment for road games, among other duties. He also serves as the primary liaison between the athletic department and adidas.
In 2012, Watson was instrumental in adidas’ complete redesign of the Aggies’ football uniforms, which included the creation and incorporation of the Lone Star TAM logo as well as an all-black alternate uniform that was unprecedented at Texas A&M. In the fall of 2014, he helped spearhead the highly successful 1939 throwback uniforms that the Aggies wore against ULM. Watson was also heavily influential in the most recent 2020 football uniform redesign with adidas.
Under Watson’s guidance, the equipment staff was presented the 2014 Partners in Learning Award of Excellence at the Texas A&M University Diversity Awards for “actively removing barriers for students with disabilities on campus” by “providing an example to others of inclusion through education, collaboration, and/or innovative practices.”
In the spring of 2015, Watson assisted the men's basketball team in honoring the late father of an Auburn student-athlete by getting ribbons created and sewn on the Tigers' jerseys hours before tipoff at Reed Arena. For the efforts, A&M was honored with an SEC Male Sportsmanship Award for the 2014-15 season.
The 2017 season saw Watson spearhead a logo for relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey which was worn on team helmets and on shirts by staff on the sidelines.
Prior to returning to A&M, he worked for the Dallas Cowboys in a similar capacity in 1996-97. A 1995 sports management graduate from A&M, Watson works closely with representatives of adidas, regarding the ordering and sizing of adidas equipment for the entire athletic department.
Watson served as an A&M student football manager from 1990-95, before interning in the Media Relations Office in the Fall of '95. Watson was also a summer intern equipment assistant with the Houston Oilers from 1991-93 and with the Cowboys in '94 and '95.
Watson, the son of Bronny and Ruth Ann Watson of Corsicana, Texas, is a certified member of the Athletic Equipment Manager's Association, and a member of the American Football Coaches Association, the Sons of Texas Genealogical Society, and the Texas A&M Lettermen's Association.
He married the former Christine Dennard ’01, daughter of Texas A&M Hall of Fame honoree Mark Dennard and Donna Dennard, in 2014. The couple has three sons, Wesley, Wyatt and Walker.
(1/22)
