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Shumard directs The Beach well
He is the $7-million man at Long Beach State.
LBSU Athletic Director Bill Shumard has
earned this nickname because he makes the most of the athletic departmentís
financial budget.
Eric Boyum
Shumard operates 18 Division I athletic
teams at LBSU on this budget. He is responsible for all of the teamsí expenses,
schedules and makes all hires and fires.
His decisions have paid off for LBSU.
This summer, his athletic department was
ranked No. 1 out of all athletic departments for schools that donít have
Division I football in the Sears Directors Cup. This award recognizes a
school's overall athletic performance collectively and tabulates each team's
overall results on a sliding scale.
Shumard has traveled a long road in order
to be in his position.
It all started when Shumard worked as
a sports reporter at the Daily Forty-Niner in 1970-72.
In the mid-70s, Shumard flew the coop
and took a job at Cal State Los Angeles in their sports information department.
It didn't take him long to join the Los
Angeles Dodgers in their media relations department, where he remained
until 1988.
Shumard then returned to the college scene
and served as the assistant athletic director at USC (1988-1991) and then
as athletic director at Cal State Fullerton (1991-94).
Then things, which were out of his control,
led Shumard to make the most difficult decision of his career.
"We lost three-quarters of a million dollars
in state funding in three years at Fullerton," Shumard said.
As a result, Shumard announced that Fullerton
had to drop football in 1993, followed by dropping womenís volleyball and
men's gymnastics. This led to Shumard resigning, which ultimately brought
him back to The Beach as assistant athletic director under Dave O'Brien.
"I resigned in the spring of 1994 as athletic
director at Fullerton," Shumard said. "Frankly, the stress at Fullerton
became too much."
After Shumard resigned, the NCAA launched
an official investigation in 1997 about violations by the basketball
program that took place while he was the athletic director at Fullerton.
"I didn't know of anything illegal going
on in the department under my tenure," Shumard said.
When O'Brien left the LBSU A. D.
post and took another job in 1996, the university conducted a search for
a new athletic director.
Shumard was one of 50 applicants for the
job from around the nation.
President Maxson said: "I felt he was
perfect for the job."
The field of applicants was cut to five
finalists -- Shumard was the only one from California. Shumard admits this
helped his cause.
"I knew the system and I knew the ins-and-outs
of being an athletic director," Shumard said. "In addition, I'd had a life
long career in sports in the Southern California market place."
However, after the difficult experience
at CSF, Shumard said he wasn't sure if he wanted to take the job.
But LBSU offered a very nurturing atmosphere
and the program had great potential, Shumard said.
Maxson claims he did not have to beg Shumard
to take the job. Maxson said he did background research on Shumardís past.
"I talked to some people that I knew,
as well as with O'Brien" Maxson said. "He (O'Brien) was very honest with
me and said he believed none of the problems (at CSF) were Shumardís fault."
After that, the decision became an easy
one. Maxson summed up why he and the committee chose Shumard as the man
for the job.
"I think my desire here is that I want
us to win within the rules," Maxson said. "He (Shumard) brings honor and
pride to the university without any embarrassment."
Maxson said Shumardís intelligence and
rapport with his coaches set him apart from the other candidates.
"He gets along great with the coaches,"
Maxson said. "They (coaches) must have confidence in the A.D."
And the coaches do. The results speak
for themselves. Shumard describes winning the national championship in
womenís volleyball as "one of the biggest thrills of my life."
However, Shumard is not satisfied with
his success and said he has many goals that he wants to accomplish.
"I'd like to see better facilities for
our other sports, in soccer, in softball and improvements to the track
and to the pool," Shumard said. "But we can't do that until we retire the
debt on The Pyramid."
Shumard said he is looking to land a
corporate sponsor for The Pyramid. If he can do that, he may just look-up
and find his own name on The Pyramid someday.
Eric Boyum is the sports editor of the
Daily Forty-Niner. |
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