Assistant athletic director opens new doors for excellence on the soccer field

Ever since Marisela Lopez was a teenager, she knew she someday wanted to be an athletic director. She now finds herself in that role at Dallas ISD, where she has worked for the last 18 years. 

Lopez, who is the assistant athletic director who oversees all soccer and cross country programs for the district, has created opportunities for student athletes—opportunities she sought when she was a student athlete. 

This summer, Dallas Athletics Club, a soccer club that she founded, traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lopez first got the idea to start this organization in 2019 when she was at Sunset High School. She took her soccer girls team to Spain and France, and, when Lopez became assistant athletic director, she created this club to offer this opportunity to excel to boys and girls in the district’s high schools.

 This summer, Lopez took two different soccer teams composed of 17 girls and 17 boys to Argentina, along with chaperones. The students and chaperones, some of whom are soccer coaches, toured the city and had the opportunity to play three friendly games against teams from Argentina. They even got to see the iconic stadiums where Club Atlético Boca Juniors and Club Atlético River Plate play. 

 “The main goal was to give our kids an opportunity and a chance of a lifetime to go and play in another country,” Lopez said. “One of our boys got scouted from one of the Argentina professional teams, so we were hoping also for the kids to get recognized or even scouted.”

Lopez mentioned that two of the chaperones, Gabriel Valles and Miguel Valles, who are brothers and teachers at W.W. Samuell High School and Piedmont Global Academy, had had the opportunity to visit Argentina through another organization, when they were students. She said the brothers knew first-hand what this experience was like for the students and how it could be life changing. 

Approximately 68 persons attended the trip, including students, parents, and grandparents, which contributed to the students’ experience. This was the inaugural trip for the Dallas Athletics Club, and plans to expand the opportunity to more students. She and assistant athletic director Cinnamon Sheffield are taking volleyball girls to Italy, and Lopez is planning to take the soccer students to England next year. 

“I was very proud of myself. It took me four years just because I was new to the assistant athletic director position and a lot of people would ask me, ‘Lopez, what are you going to do? Are you going to create your own team?’ Because they knew what I wanted to do,” she said. 

Two of Lopez’s goals were to start the Dallas Athletics Club and a senior showcase for soccer seniors, which Lopez has accomplished. Last April, seniors participated in the inaugural soccer senior showcase, playing friendly games against each other, for the chance for local colleges and universities to recruit talent. 

This was the first time that Lopez had done this and turnout and the support was incredible, she said. She said what sparked the idea was a similar program in her hometown of El Paso, where she worked in athletics before coming to the district 18 years ago. 

Lopez always knew that she would assume a leadership position in athletics, something she had dreamed about since she was a sophomore in high school. She said that it was an athletic director who talked to her and other teens after she had gotten into a little trouble at school.

“When she went around the table to ask us what we wanted to be when we grew up, I told her I wanted her job. I knew this was my dream job,” Lopez said.  

She knows the challenges that student athletes face in balancing schoolwork, life, and sports as she played several sports—volleyball, basketball, soccer, track, and club softball. When she graduated from high school, she was a teen parent, who had several scholarship offers. While being a parent at an early age was challenging, Lopez admits, she continued with her studies and never lost sight of her dream. 

She credits her father and the mentors Patty Mullaney and Roger Velazquez who inspired her along the way. She also credits various coaches who assisted her with the project, including Veronica Ulloa, assistant principal at Hillcrest High School and teacher Gerald Solorio at Moises E. Molina High School.

Lopez never forgot about the community she came from in El Paso, where she was a student in the Ysleta Independent School District. To give back to her community, two years ago, she established the Marisela Lopez Soccer Scholarship at her alma mater. While Lopez has achieved various milestones in her career already, she said she’s just getting started and has more goals she wants to reach.

“It’s all about the students,” she said. “I want students to have as many opportunities for them out there as possible. I’m thankful to be in this position to be able to continue to open new doors for them.”