A New Mission for Aztec Athletics
SDSU Athletic Director Jim Sterk has launched the Rise to 25 initiative to elevate Aztec football to one of the nation's top 25 programs.
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Audacious? Perhaps.
Achievable? Well, San Diego State University just blew past its goal of raising $500,000,000 and extended its remarkable Campaign for SDSU to three quarters of a billion.
Unquestionably, this is a can-do campus. That’s why SDSU Athletic Director Jim Sterk paid a visit to last month’s Alumni Board of Advisors meeting to lay out his bold plan to elevate Aztec football – and all SDSU athletic programs – to the level of top 25 in the country.
Unveiled late last year, Sterk’s plan is a comprehensive strategy that includes significant investments and improvements on and off the field. Over the next two years, the university and athletic department will focus resources and attention on ensuring financial stability for the football program, addressing stadium improvements, and expanding a solid season-ticket base.
Sterk is also working with The Campanile Foundation (TCF), the group that spearheaded The Campaign for SDSU. A renewed TCF subcommittee on athletics, chaired by Mary Curran (’82) and Kit Sickels (’60), is looking at ways to assist SDSU athletics in growing fundraising, attendance and strategic partnerships.
"Overall with athletics, our message is we are at a high-quality academics institution,” Sterk told the more than two dozen alumni board members during a PowerPoint presentation February 19 at the Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center. “Our national awareness is growing, our fan base is growing, and we are stabilizing our future just like the rest of the university.”
ENGAGING AND ACHIEVING
SDSU running back Chase Price (with ball) puts the Aztecs in scoring position. (Photo by Polly K.)
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To advance its intentions, SDSU aims to actively engage the entire San Diego community to achieve a clearly established series of objectives, including:
- Investing in major enhancements to improve the Qualcomm Stadium experience for fans and players
- Improving the game day experience for fans
- Improving the student-athlete experience
- Increasing attendance at home football games
Reaching these goals is important because the largest opportunity for growth for the entire athletics department is in football, the sport that makes the most money at most NCAA Division I universities. More success translates to more exposure and more ticket sales. SDSU’s goal is to average 40,000 fans per game – up from the current 33,000 - at Qualcomm Stadium, Sterk told the board.
SHOWCASING SDSU
In addition to engaging the community, the athletic director’s plan calls for enlisting the support of corporations and SDSU student leaders. He asked alumni to help by buying season tickets, bringing their company associates or other groups to games, and spreading the word about Aztec success.
"Our job, if we do it right in athletics,” he told board members, “is to showcase what's going on at San Diego State and capture the attention of students and fans across the nation." Sterk’s strategy was largely met with appreciation from the board.
Alumni Advisory Board Member Channelle McNutt ('13) says Aztec athletics successes are an integral part of SDSU's growing reputation as a top-tier academic institution.
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"I personally agree with everything he said and I support and stand behind the mission of Rise to 25,” said Alumni Advisory Board Member Channelle McNutt (’13), a former student leader who now works as a development officer in SDSU’s College of Business Administration. She said she believes the success of the university’s athletics programs is an integral part of the ascension of its academic component.
"When you're talking about having the university rise as an entire entity, the role athletics plays within that is huge,” she said, citing the national top-25 ranking of SDSU’s men’s basketball team in creating awareness of and support for the university. “I think the recognition our university would get from succeeding in athletics, whether it's from football, basketball, or any of our other programs, would give tremendous exposure to the other things that are happening here at the university."
But even after five consecutive post-season bowl appearances in the last five years, can SDSU football reasonably expect to reach and maintain a top 25 ranking in the coming decade?
"I think it's definitely achievable, but I also think anything worth having doesn't come easily,” McNutt said. “Do I think it's going to be difficult? Absolutely!
“But I can't wait for the day it's accomplished because I know we have it in us and I think this plan speaks to the culture happening here at San Diego State throughout the university. This rise is something we and all diehard Aztecs internally know we can do.”
A GROWING GAP
SDSU's softball program consistently challenges for the Mountain West Conference championship and has been to seven consecutive NCAA Tournaments in the past seven years.
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And none too soon. Recent changes in NCAA rules are increasing the competitive gap between schools in the so-called “power conferences” and institutions like SDSU that belong to a tier of conferences dubbed the “Group of Five.” Sterk explained to the board how SDSU’s $42-million annual athletics budget may be competitive in the Mountain West Conference, but comes up woefully wanting compared to the $160-million annual budgets of Southeast Conference schools like Alabama and Florida.
He knows the only way for a Group of Five school to ensure its athletics’ survival is to make itself attractive enough to garner an invitation to one of the power conferences. Such invitations are few and far between and will never be extended to most schools in San Diego State’s position.
So SDSU’s teams compete with the power programs as best they can. They earn places in the top 25 more than programs from most other Group of Five schools.
A graphic Sterk showed board members highlighted 29 total SDSU championships since 2009, with nine different Aztec programs finishing in the top 25 just since 2010. Among them was the Aztec softball team, leading the way with seven consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances over each of the last seven years.
HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS
After 20 years on Montezuma Mesa, head coach Kathy Van Wyk has seen SDSU athletic directors and presidents come and go along with more coaches than she can count. She understands better than most the changes going on in collegiate athletics.
Aztec Softball Head Coach Kathy Van Wyk supports the Rise to 25 plan to help SDSU battle the so-called "power conference" schools.
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"The gap right now between the haves and the have-nots has grown immensely and the haves are trying to widen that gap,” Van Wyk observed as she sat in her fourth-floor office in the Fowler Athletics Center preparing for practice. “The only way to keep up with them is to get your football and basketball programs up to the level of the top 25.”
The south-facing window of the coach’s office looks out over the construction site of the new Jeff Jacobs JAM Center, the soon-to-be-completed practice facility for Aztec men’s and women’s basketball. Although her players won’t be using the facility, she understands its importance to them and all of the other scholarship athletes on campus.
“I think everyone in this department understands that for us to keep up means (football and basketball) getting out there and rising to that level so that, financially, the rest of us can do it,” Van Wyk said. “They are the ones that bring in the dollars for this program and we are not going to do it the same as the other conferences because we don't have a (huge) television contract.”
GOING THE EXTRA MILE
But if programs like hers at SDSU are already claiming spots in the top 25, how difficult, really, is it to compete? "Honestly, it is next to impossible,” the coach said.
A new clubhouse is expected to boost the SDSU softball team's success and help with recruiting.
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Van Wyk said she and other SDSU coaches often have to work much harder to attract talented athletes to The Mesa than coaches from the power conferences. Most often, they sign less gifted players and “coach them up” to the level of competing on a championship team.
“We just have to go out there and out-work people,” she said. "I think we’ve got a great set of coaches up-and-down here who are very willing to work, love what they do, have pride in the university and have pride in the achievements of their players. And I think they're willing to go the extra mile that a lot of coaches (from power conferences) maybe don't have to at this point because their (school) name or their conference recruits itself.”
Van Wyk believes there’s no resentment by other coaches that football is the focus of the Rise to 25 initiative. “Everybody understands it. Everyone gets the big picture of, 'Hey, they've got to do it in order for us to do it,'" she said.
RANKING PRIORITIES
Aztec softball players relax and study in the team's new clubhouse lounge.
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In addition to the new basketball practice facility and other athletic department improvements on campus, the softball team recently got a new clubhouse that the coach believes will boost the team’s success and help with recruiting. It includes a kitchen, locker room and lounge area for players – all attached to the dugout right next to the field.
Players can study there, analyze game video on an 80-inch television screen or just hang out together. “It’s beautiful,” said Van Wyk, “but it was much needed.”
Also needed are a new softball press box and some additional seating, but the new clubhouse was her priority. Van Wyk understands that with just a fourth of the budget of some of the power conference schools, the SDSU athletic department, just as she had to do, must rank its priorities. For the next two years, at the top of the list for the entire department will be the football team’s Rise to 25.
Check out this video to learn more about how Aztec athletics are rising!