🏆 Building with Purpose, A Journey to the New Pac-12

Quashan Lockett is the COO of the Pac-12, helping rebuild and reimagine a 100+ year-old college athletics conference in the middle of a once-in-a-generation reset. He previously built across sports, entertainment, and live events through Aramark, Legends, and On Location during its integration into Endeavor, while also helping stand up On Location’s Olympic business. Outside his day job, he founded Color of Sports, an organizational consulting firm focused on helping sports organizations build with purpose, runs an investment company with his wife and partner called Ten25 Ventures, and serves as a limited partner and venture advisor with The Collectiv, the sports industry’s community-powered venture capital fund that is redefining access and ownership for leaders shaping the future of sports.

Rebuilding From the Ground Up

When Quashan got the call about the Pac-12, he had not been “thinking college sports” as his next chapter. What pulled him in was people, specifically the chance “to directly support and work with student athletes,” and the reality that college athletics was entering a period of rapid transformation and a shift toward greater athlete empowerment and ownership. Then the timing got real, fast. “As I was in the middle of transitioning, the Pac-12 lost two schools. UCLA and USC announced that they were leaving,” he said. “I haven’t even gotten there yet. And I’m like, what is going on?” He chose to lean in anyway. “I know what I’m dealing with. I felt like I was the right person at the right time. Having built organizations and teams across various stages, I knew what the work was going to be ahead.”

Since then, the Pac-12’s scale and structure have changed dramatically. “We went through a full restructuring of the organization,” Quashan said. “We went from nearly 200 employees down to 30 and a full sort of wind down and restructuring of operations. We went from 12 member schools down to two, and now we have seven new schools that are joining this new league. We’re transforming our team, operations, and business model. For some that can feel really overwhelming. For me, it's energizing. I lean into purpose, the opportunity to lead, and the chance to put people and culture at the center of the work.” His framing is simple: it is not just a rebuild, it is a rare build. “We’re very much like a startup,” he said. “In the last 25 years, there hasn’t been a new college athletics conference that’s been built in this way.” The mandate now is modern: “Build the new Pac-12 into a future-forward sports property, built for the modern-day student athlete, and frankly build something that no one has ever built before.”

The Throughline: Purpose, People, and Performance

Quashan’s career reads like a tour across industries, geographies, and job descriptions, but he’s consistent about the why. “My background has always been about purpose,” he said, describing the work as “linked to the purpose between the business, people, and impact.” That idea became more formal when he went back to school for a master’s in organizational psychology, sharpening his skills and focusing on linking “performance, culture, and people to business outcomes.”

It also shaped a key early decision: stepping outside sports to grow faster. “Career development in sports business probably was not a shining point,” he said. “The industry has improved over time, but certainly at the start of my career in sports, in my experience true career mobility and career growth was lacking.” So he left for opportunities to better take ownership of his career and took on roles that sharpened his toolkit and made him more well rounded, including building organizational capabilities and leadership competencies at Giant Eagle, and later running HR for a complex territory at Avis Budget Group. That breadth is part of why he now sees himself as more than a title and approaches his career with more of an entrepreneurial mindset. “I don’t like to be put in a box,” he said. If you looked at my career trajectory you’ll probably wonder how I went from starting my career in HR to becoming COO of the Pac-12. It came through authenticity, perseverance, being intentional with every career move, getting comfortable with doing the hard things, not staying in one lane, executing really well, and caring more about the why behind the work.”

Defining Moments: Building Big Things, Fast

Ask Quashan about proud moments, and he goes straight to the work that forced real operating muscle. On Location and Endeavor: stepping into a fast-moving acquisition while building an Olympics business at the same time. “Everything that kind of goes into that culturally, people, systems, infrastructure,” he said. Then, “at the same time they win this massive Olympics business… probably at that time not at all ready from an infrastructure standpoint… and having to build that from scratch.”

Early career, he got a storybook moment with the Phillies: “I was at the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008 when they won the World Series less than two years out of college.” In his Aramark role, he was close to the engine: “Aramark ran the entire building. This included facilities, hospitality, merchandise, etc. and being part of that team with that championship culture was incredible.” At Legends, few projects match the scale of SoFi Stadium: “Being part of standing up a new stadium from the ground up and operating the platform across sales, sponsorship, hospitality, merchandise, was such a valuable experience.” He also highlighted international experiences, including “Tokyo for the Rugby World Cup,” and time in Spain for projects with Real Madrid, and “supporting various international acquisitions.”

The Pivot Philosophy

For Quashan, each move comes down to intention and integrity. “One thing I told myself at the very start of my career was that I was not going to shy away from opportunity. That extends from my childhood, where I’m from, and how I was raised. You have to bet on yourself and seize every opportunity because you don’t get infinite chances, and no one is going to hand it to you,” he said. Then two questions: “Do I feel like I’ve accomplished what I set out to accomplish,” and “is there more to my purpose to pour into this opportunity?” He’s also blunt about how to handle outside noise: “You have to kind of silence that noise and make sure you’re very clear on being true to yourself.”

If a student tells him they want to work in sports, he starts with one question: “Why do you want to work in sports?” And he is direct about what does not count. “It can’t be because you think it’s cool,” he said. “If that’s your reason, you’re going to fail very quickly.”

His Why

Quashan’s motivation starts at home. “Family is first,” he said. “It’s about setting the right example and being a standard for them,” showing “what hard work and authenticity looks like.”

And it returns to the point that brought him to the Pac-12 in the first place: “Let’s not lose sight of doing things the right way; Focus on the why and take care of the people. That's critical to the process,” and remember, “we are here to serve, support, and empower student athletes. This billion dollar industry doesn’t exist without them.”