Athletics Director Torre Chisholm Establishes His "Vision For Viking Athletics"
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First year Portland State Athletic Director Torre Chisholm has set the Viking athletic program on a path which he hopes will let it develop into the Big Sky Conference’ (BSC) dominant program over the next three to five years.
That goal is part of his four-pronged vision statement titled Vision for Viking Athletics “Biggest in the Big Sky” which also includes developing a reputation for superb service to student athletes, having the athletic program become an integral part of the PSU campus culture and having PSU student-athletes leave the university with a strong sense of connection to PSU and a life-long affinity.
Chisholm describes “dominant” as having football, men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, golf, soccer and softball win regular season or tournament championships at least every three to four years.
In men’s and women’s track and field, cross country, men’s and women’s tennis and wrestling, it means having student-athletes make it to their respective NCAA competition at least once every three to four years.
And finally, Chisholm wants PSU athletes’ graduation rates to rank among the top four in the BSC and to exceed the PSU campus average by 15 percent.
All that is a tall order for a program which has been chronically under-funded and often treated as a stepchild to Oregon and Oregon State in the state system.
“I don’t want to be critical of people who’ve gone before me. They did an outstanding job with very limited resources. This is a vision to build on the base they set in place,” Chisholm said.
Getting there requires “taking more pride in who we are and not worrying about who we are not. We’re worrying about strengthening those areas we can control, such things as facilities improvements, internal operations and being more student service friendly. We’re not worrying about the fact that Oregon and OSU have had a head start in building their programs or the NCAA structure which provides greater remuneration to some conferences over others,” he said.
To get things started, Chisholm is taking immediate advantage of the excitement generated by football head coach Jerry Glanville and offensive coordinator Mouse Davis and the basketball team’s BSC regular season and tournament championships and first ever trip to the national NCAA tournament.
Coupled with conference championships from women’s golf and volleyball, as well as strong showings in softball and women’s basketball, and steady improvement in several other sports, that has been enough to increase revenue in the program’s major event fund-raiser, A Night of Wine and Roses, to $204,000. It also has set the stage for a serious run at a largest-ever $600,000 fund raising goal for the Viking Athletic Fund.
It was half way through the 2007 football season before Chisholm had the luxury to step back and look at where PSU’s program might realistically go.
“When I first got here, I didn’t have time to think about the future,” he said, pointing out that he arrived amidst the cyclone of excitement around the Glanville and Davis hirings and spent his first months working to take advantage of the swell of interest which drove football season ticket sales from around 1,000 in 2006 to slightly more than 4,000 for the 2007 season.
When he did get a chance, “it was immediately clear that facilities were a significant issue at PSU.”
Chisholm says Stott Center needs to be updated. The arena needs to be enlarged for the good of sports and to support such other campus related events as concerts, cultural activities and distinguished speaker opportunities. The academic center and sports medicine facilities are really cramped and the football locker room is far below Division I standards (the football locker room is slated for summer renovation and the athletic department recently embarked on a $200,000 fund drive to pay for that).
Specifically, The “Bridge to Dominance” portion of the vision statement calls for “renovation of Peter Stott Center to include a 4,000-4,500 seat events center; improved sports medicine, strength and conditioning and academic service areas, as well as office space to accommodate athletic programming needs.”
His first move in raising the funds to accomplish the vision was to add a full complement of staff. His fund raising staff now includes Associate Athletic Director for Fund Raising Zack Wallace; Deyna Brown, director of donor relations; Dennis Ferguson, director of new business development; Scott Herrin, associate director of athletics and JoAnna Vallery, director of ticket sales.
The vision statement’s short term goals include better funding for athletic scholarships. In the longer term, “we are taking a serious look at how we build endowments and at expanding our corporate support and larger donor base” with such programs as the Viking VIP program aimed at increasing the number of $1,000 donors to the scholarship fund.
“We wanted to strengthen the internal culture to support our view of success and integrity. We strengthened the team approach to projects among the staff. After all, most people working here played team sports. We thrive on a team atmosphere,” he said.
Next, he looked at student service factors because “we want their time at PSU to be a positive experience for athletes, from scholarship issues to academic support and life skills”. To this end, he is adding a full time academic advisor and put a tutoring program in place. He’s also worked with several other departments to remove some of the hurdles unique to PSU student-athletes and has plans for implementing a life skills program for athletes.
It will take the working together of constituencies inside and outside the program to fulfill the vision statement, Chisholm concedes. And that’s why he says the athletic program must foster a stronger relationship with its campus partners, become further engaged in the Portland community and celebrate Portland State’s unique academic, cultural and social characteristics.
“Historically, we’ve had a non-traditional student base. Students at a “commuter school” don’t have as much connection to school and that affects their loyalty and contributions afterward. The important thing is that is changing.
“There are 3,200 campus housing units here. The campus is becoming an integrated unit with downtown Portland on its doorstep and much more intriguing to traditional college freshmen. And at the moment, that’s one of the ingredients we’re poised to take advantage of as we pursue this vision.”