Lessons learned: Travis Goff reflects on his father's Dodge City Community College honor

LAWRENCE — He wasn’t there in person to hear his father, Greg, speak, but Travis Goff did watch it live.

Travis heard his dad, humbly, tell the crowd at Dodge City Community College’s commencement ceremony, “I’m just Greg Goff, from Dodge City.” Travis heard his dad express a love for the local community, saying, “I’m just a regular guy, who loves Dodge City.” This was how Greg, Dodge City Community College’s distinguished alumnus for 2024, opened his speech earlier this month.

But why Travis thought his dad knocked that speech out of the park goes deeper than that. It boiled down to a couple key points, in Travis’ mind, about surrounding yourself with people of character and never getting too comfortable. Two things, especially when it comes to getting out of one’s comfort zone, that have resonated with Travis through the years as he worked his way toward becoming KU’s director of athletics back in 2021.

“For me, I think about my experience, probably the first time I really took that to heart and acted upon it was — I’m working at KU as a 23-year-old, young alum, it’s my dream, I went to school here, passionate Jayhawk, great job in athletics, my friends and everything is right here, and I was uncomfortable,” Travis said. “I was like, ‘I’ve got to break free. I’ve got to leave the nest. I need to get out of the state,’ so to speak. And that was really an important move, and it kind of drove me blindly down to Tulane University — which is one of the better moves I ever made.”

Travis and his father went down two different paths in life, at least when it came to their professions. Travis pursued a life in collegiate athletics, with a stop at Northwestern in between Tulane and KU, while his dad became a businessman after a handful of years of coaching and teaching.

But the mentality through which they approached those industries didn’t deviate.

Greg discussed rejecting complacency, staying aggressive, thinking outside of the box and not looking back on life with regrets. Travis has told his staff at KU to be comfortable being uncomfortable, mentioning he’s comfortable with the discomfort he encounters each day — with respect to the current landscape of collegiate athletics and at KU. Travis watched his dad build up a business, working six days a week for as long as Travis can remember, with a passion toward customers, commitment toward staff and sincere care toward having an effect on the community.

Fundraising, according to Travis, was something Greg always remained involved in. There’s a connection to Dodge City, where Travis’ parents raised the family, that his parents will always be proud of. The message presented to him and his brothers, Travis explained, was to never forget where they came from.

“Never forget the foundation that was laid through your experiences in the community, and with the relationships and the people you were brought up in,” Travis said. “And the older you get, the more and more that resonates, and so I’ve always been proud to be from Dodge City. I wouldn’t change my youth, my childhood, for anything, and the experiences I learned and the friendships and all of those different things that it provided.”

Greg recalled a story about how, as his children were young and growing up, there would be a family meeting each month — much to the displeasure and protest of the kids — when his wife would ask them three questions. They’d focus on if the children were happy with themselves, if they knew where they were going and, again, if they were surrounding themselves with people they can trust. It was another foundational piece for how Travis and his siblings lived their lives.

Travis, himself, will be going into the ring of honor for Dodge City High School in 2024 because of his “professional success, positive impact on student-athletes, and outstanding representation of Dodge City,” according to a release from its alumni association. Travis, reacting to the news, joked they had to create a new category for him because he wasn’t talented enough as an athlete to warrant the honor in the traditional sense.

Regardless, the connection to the Dodge City community remains strong for the Goff family.

“Now, the other guy, Ross Bjork, he was a good enough athlete to have earned it from that pathway,” said Travis, highlighting another honoree going into the ring of honor. “Now, he checks two boxes. I only get to check one box.”

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.