Published: July 12, 2008 03:27 pm            

On the Road to Success

College Athletics

San Marcos — If you walk through the Darren B. Casey Athletic Administration Complex, you will get the feeling something big is about to happen. There’s a certain excitement flowing through the air.

Boxes are piled high with packets containing information about “The Drive” and 2,600 more are scheduled to be mailed next week. Smiles grace the employees’ faces like laughing gas is pumped through the air-conditioning ducts. The talk is palpable to a university seeped in tradition, ready for another winning year.

The fervor is high because there is a feeling of anticipation. It’s centered around one two-syllable word, not before uttered within the athletic department until Dr. Larry Teis took over in 2004 — progress.

Before Teis gained control, even though the End Zone Complex was built, it was one step forward, two steps back. Athletically, the programs were advancing, but academically, Texas State was collected numerous violations.

While the football team emerged on to the national radar with its 2005 season, the men’s basketball team crumpled while Greg LaFluer was in charge. Former head coach Dennis Nutt drove the program into the ground. The Bobcats’ wins dropped, as did their grades.

So Teis came in and immediately went to work. He allowed Nutt one more season, then went on the prowl for a new coach. He hired Doug Davalos and said the two saw eye-to-eye at the start. Both knew what needed to be done.

“We let the men's basketball team slide too far,” Teis said. “When I hired Coach Davalos, we had a mutual understanding of had to be changed. We’ve quadrupled our win total, but most importantly, we cleaned up the academics.”

As he cleaned up the academic mess, Teis looked toward the future like a progressive visionary. He knew the department need more money to do what they wanted, so he teamed with Denise M. Trauth, university president, to push the issue.

Slowly, the operating budget for the athletic department rose. In 2004, Teis’ first year as Director of Athletics, the budget was $8.3 million. The next year, they had $8.7 million, the following, $9.9 million and in 2007, $10.4 million. The budget for 2008 is $11.2 million.

“We’ve been able to add $5 million to the budget since I arrived, so we are making things happen,” Teis said. “We are looking at a projected budget of $13 million in 2009. We know what we need to do to make the next move and we’re putting the pieces in order.”

The pieces are beginning to fall in place for the next move — a trip into the Football Bowl Subdivision. Texas State added brand new scoreboards to the baseball, football and softball fields, as well as a jumbotron inside Strahan Coliseum.

If the school is to move into the FBS, other improvements need to be made and Teis is working toward rectifying those issues. Demolition of the baseball and softball complexes begins in August and by February, the fields should be presentable to the public and playable.

Should Texas State move up in five years, it needs a collective idea of where it wants to go. Not necessarily the conference in which it ends up, but from what team to model its move. For every Marshall, there is a Louisiana-Monroe and North Texas, willowing in the cellar.

“You need to pick out things you see with every team you want to follow,” Teis said. “But, I really don’t know if we want to model ourselves after somebody from the past, since times have changed. We just want to get ourselves in a position to look like a University of Houston, a UTEP. I say look like because they are state schools and that's what our budgets will look like. We want to be able to compete in that arena.”

Under his watch, not only have budgets increased, but so have charitable donations. Most recently, Jerry and Linda Field gave Texas State $100,000 to go toward “The Drive.” Only three months removed from the single-largest donation in the history of the athletic department, Darren B. Casey’s $1 million gift.

Teis knows the importance of collecting these donations as Texas State needs as much help as it can get with the upcoming move. He’s not a stranger to success, as he was named 2005-06 General Sports TURF Systems AD of the Year Division I-AA West Region winner.

“We are going to do our part,” Teis said. “We need others to help us do the same. Us doing our part is winning and getting people in the stands and letting others see it. We need people to come at the start and help us move to that level. There are schools right now that don’t win, but still sell out their stadium. We just need a passion and a belief in it to keep moving forward.”





Teis believes in progress, do you?

        

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