Alum’s Early Years at UTD Opened Doors to World of Entertainment

In the mid-1970s the entire University of Texas at Dallas campus consisted of a half dozen academic buildings surrounding the Founders Building, the first structure built on campus. Swift “Sparky” Sparks BA’77 remembers the sterile atmosphere of the school when he enrolled and his desire to do something about it.

“UTD was an interesting place to go to school because it was transitioning,” Sparks said. “At the time, it was basically a few low-slung buildings surrounded by nothing but open fields. I used to go dove hunting between Richardson and Plano. Can you image that today?”

In its early days, UT Dallas originally only admitted graduate students. In 1975, Sparks was a member of the University’s first class of juniors and seniors. During his senior year, Sparks was elected student body president and focused on creating more campus activities to foster student life.

He booked artists, musical groups and lecturers to come to campus, entertaining students in the lobby of Cecil H. Green Hall in the years before the Student Union was built. Sparks said that he and fellow students organized a disc golf tournament that, because of rain, was held indoors in the hallways of Green Hall.

“That’s what I thought to do in my student administration — to build out a little campus life for everybody,” Sparks said.

University administration recognized the need for student activities outside of academics to attract students, especially undergraduates, and Sparks joined an effort to lobby the state legislature to approve the construction of a student union at UTD. As student body president, Sparks testified before a Texas House of Representatives committee considering legislation, and though it took a couple of years to pass, the Student Union was built and then dedicated in 1982 with Sparks in attendance.

Originally attracted to journalism, Sparks’ work with campus programing ignited a lifelong passion. After earning a bachelor of arts in English, he launched the Sparks Agency, an entertainment booking agency based in Dallas.

“While at UTD, when I was doing the student body president thing and booking entertainment for students, I was just bitten by the bug of the entertainment industry,” he said. “When I graduated, I took my English degree and started representing angst-ridden singer-songwriters.”

Now, 48 years later, Sparks has seen his company grow from representing entertainers and fine arts groups to organizing Texas-themed parties and managing special events. He is known across the state for armadillo races, a sideline effort that grew into one of his main attractions after he organized entertainment for the Texas Sesquicentennial in 1986.

Sparks operates his agency from a ranch in Wills Point, Texas, and it’s become a family affair. Jan Sparks BA’79, his wife who is also a UTD alum, has helped manage the business, while his son, Swift Sparks, operates an office in Austin.

Armadillo racing is also big business in Austin, and, in fact, their armadillos have become the official mascots for the Austin-based professional soccer team.

“I see people coming in from out-of-state to conventions, particularly in Dallas and Fort Worth, and they want something Texas,” Sparks said. “I soon realized that the more Texas stuff I had, the easier the sell was.”

Sparks said he is proud of his early involvement with UT Dallas. Shortly after graduating and advocating for an alumni association, he was the former organization’s first chair. He realized at the time that a small university of less than 7,000 students needed all the support that it could get, and encouraging graduates to support the school as alumni planted seeds for its growth.

“The University set them up in their careers, so I figured we could get them to give back,” Sparks said. “That’s one way we could build the University more quickly.”

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