ETAMU's Lady Lions Basketball made a run at a national championship in 2006–07, finishing in the NCAA Division II Elite 8.

The Lions play their home games at Ernest Hawkins Field at Memorial Stadium in Commerce, Texas.

Sikes returned to Commerce, coaching from 1954 to 1963, winning 5 conference championships and two more Tangerine Bowl games in 1957 and 1958.

The 1972 team featured future NFL professionals such as Harvey Martin, Autry Beamon, Kenneth Parks, and Will Cureton.

Hawkins was quoted in 2011 as saying he believed that with the amount of talent on the field he had that Lions could "have beaten any Division I school that year, especially that day we won the national title."

The Lions made another run at a national title in 1980 behind future NFL-All Pro Quarterback Wade Wilson.

[2] Hawkins retired at the end of the 1985 season, and Eddie Vowell, the defensive coordinator, was named head coach.

However, the Lions faced off with PSU in the NCAA quarterfinals again, and the Gorillas avenged their loss 38–28 en route to a national championship.

The Lions received a tough first round draw against a Tim Walsh led Portland State Vikings team.

However, in the next to last game of the year against a very weak Angelo State University team, A&M–Commerce lost a shocker and were left out of the playoffs.

Since 1996, the Lions have not won a conference championship outright nor gotten to the playoffs, leading the student body to calling it the "A&M Curse."

After Vowell retired, the school hired Eddie Brister, the former offensive coordinator at Stephen F. Austin State University as the new head coach.

Brister's first two years saw the Lions play Division I FCS schools and Division II powers, but finishing above average in the Lone Star conference, then the next two years, Brister scheduled smaller schools and the Lions rolled to a 7–4 season, but did not finish well in conference play.

In his final two seasons, the Lions won 3 games combined and for the first time in school history went winless in LSC play in 2003.

Conley's first season was a rebuilding year, but was made easier by the incoming transfer of Buster Faulkner, an All-American Quarterback from Valdosta State University who led the Lone Star Conference in passing, throwing for almost 3,000 yards in a 10-game season.

The Lions started the 2007 season and visited old playoff nemesis Pittsburg State in front of a national television audience and almost upset the Gorillas in a hard-fought 28–14 loss.

After the Lions final 2012 game, a 45–14 loss to West Texas A&M, Morriss announced his immediate resignation and that he would stay at Commerce working in the athletic department to raise funds and also enhance alumni relations.

In January 2013, University President Dr. Daniel Jones and new Athletic Director Ryan Ivey announced the hiring of Colby Carthel as the new head coach.

[3] Carthel had great success in his first season, winning seven games, defeating two ranked teams, and playing in the Live United Texarkana Bowl.

Despite missing out on the playoffs, the Lions were invited to the CHAMPS Heart of Texas Bowl where they soundly defeated the East Central University Tigers.

The team finished off with an 8–4 overall record and won the Lone Star conference title for the second year in a row.

The ETAMU athletic department finished the construction of John Cain Family Softball Field, which features state of the art safe play turf, and is colored blue in the infield and has a Lion Head in the middle of the center field, identical to the logo in the middle of Memorial Stadium and the game court at the University Fieldhouse.

It will also host UIL Texas State Softball playoff games and high school tournaments.

John Carlos, a world class sprinter ran at ETAMU as a member of the ETSU track team in the late 1960s and went to the Olympics in Mexico City where he, along with Tommy Smith, made the famous silent protest while accepting their medals.

[4][5] Ernest Hawkins Field at Memorial Stadium is home to Lion Football, and the Men's and Women's track teams.

The Cross Country program also hosts a dual collegiate and high school meet during the fall at Centennial Park in Commerce, the Dr. Margo Harbison Invitational.

These are High School Regional tournaments that decide who will compete in the State Championships in Austin, Texas.