Beverly Rouse Lewis served the University of Arkansas as a head coach and an administrator for over thirty years. She first came to the university in 1981 as the head coach of women’s track and field. As head coach, the cross country team became the first women’s team to achieve a national ranking. Lewis served as the director of Women’s Athletics from 1989-2007. During that time, Lewis helped increase athletic participation for women, adding volleyball, golf, gymnastics, and softball to the women’s athletics offerings. In 2007, Lewis assumed the position of associate vice chancellor and executive associate athletic director until her retirement in 2014.

Lewis was pivotal in combining the men’s and women’s athletic departments into a unified program. She helped to bring national attention to Arkansas by hosting numerous SEC Championships as well as the 1994 NCAA Women’s Basketball Mideast Regional, the 1994 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championship, and the 2006 NCAA Gymnastics Regional. She was heavily involved in serving college athletics as a member of the NCAA Management Council, the NCAA Championship Cabinet, and the Southeastern Conference Executive Committee. Under Lewis’s leadership, Women’s Athletics received over $11.5 million in direct support for women’s teams during the University of Arkansas’s Campaign for the Twenty-First Century. During the campaign, Lewis received the honor of having Arkansas’s new athletic facility named the Bev Lewis Center for Women’s Athletics. Her leadership was also key in the construction of the Razorback softball and soccer fields.