How
rare is Pat Chun’s path in college sports? ‘You’d have to be an Asian American
to understand this.’
By Gene
Wang, Washington Post, June 22 2018 at 9:45 AM
PULLMAN, Wash. — From the time he began playing sports as a
young boy with neighborhood buddies, Pat Chun stood out as the only Asian
American on the block. It’s no different professionally for Chun, who has grown
accustomed to being the only Asian American in the room since his start in
athletics administration.
The pioneering athletic director at Washington State frequently
deploys humor as a way to address that distinction. He may offer an amusing
anecdote about growing up as the only son of Korean immigrants, with a father
who taught taekwondo — “talk about stereotypical,” Chun said, chuckling — and a
mother who worked as a grocery-store clerk.
Or he may elicit laughter by mentioning some of the travails
linked to a career in which Asian Americans have been underrepresented to such
a degree that, through 15 years as an understudy at Ohio State, his alma mater,
he had no one of his or any other Asian ethnicity to count as a mentor.
“Let me put it this way,” said Chun, 43, who arrived at
Washington State in February following 5½ years as Florida Atlantic’s athletic
director. “It’s not lost on me the significance of being the first Asian
American athletic director at a Power Five.”
Like many Asian American children of his generation, Chun’s
parents pushed him to be a doctor or a lawyer. But Chun knew neither of those
occupations was for him after taking a liking to sports as a child in the
Cleveland suburbs where his family had settled.
Athletics served as a vehicle for Chun to assimilate. His
friends were white, and Chun shared a love of sports with them. They collected
and traded baseball cards together and gathered to watch football games on
television. His closest friends remain those with whom he played football in
junior high and high school.
Still, his peers occasionally reminded Chun that he wasn’t
exactly the same. He hasn’t forgotten the slanty-eye gestures or teasing in a
mocking Asian accent.
“The joking comments that were made to you growing up would not
be tolerated today,” he said.
Even as Chun immersed himself in sports, his mother, a
classically trained pianist, was far more concerned with him practicing the
violin. Eventually, she relented, allowing Chun to drop violin lessons in the
sixth grade to concentrate more on sports. All the while, she remained skeptical
about his career choice, even as he began moving up as an administrator at Ohio
State.
“You’d have to be an Asian American to understand this,” said
Chun, whose parents divorced when he was in the eighth grade. “Like a lot of
Asian parents, they put this crazy emphasis on college and dreams of Ivy League
schools and things like that.”
When Chun and his wife, Natalie, a former Buckeyes softball
player, were discussing starting a family, his mother didn’t hesitate to offer
more advice.
“This is 2002, 2003, and I’m already well into my athletic
career, and we were talking about having a baby, and my mom pulls me aside and
says, ‘Hey, if you guys are going to have kids, you really need to start
thinking about getting a real job,’ ” Chun said, laughing. “At that point, you know you’re not going
to win that debate with your mom. It’s like: ‘Mom, just trust me. I’m on a
great path here.’ ”
'He's just a modern success story'
When the news of his hiring at Washington State became public,
Chun began receiving emails from Asian American administrators and coaches from
other schools congratulating him.
Much of that correspondence came from well-wishers he had yet to
meet in person. Still, Chun indicated, he couldn’t help but feel an unspoken kinship
given his position of prominence within the small community of Asian Americans
involved in college athletics.
“Pat, like a lot of successful people, he’s so focused on doing
what he needs to do that I think he sometimes maybe isn’t as proud of that as
he needs to be,” Washington State President Kirk Schulz said. “Pat’s a little
bit humble that way. He’s just a modern success story.”
Chun gained a reputation as a skilled fundraiser at Ohio State,
having overseen record contributions to the Buckeyes’ athletic department that
included $42 million in 2012 and $41 million the previous year. A “relationship
builder” was how former Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger, who gave Chun
his first job as an intern, described his budding protege.
He became athletic director at Florida Atlantic in 2012, and
three years later, the school announced the largest single gift in its history,
$16 million. With Washington State’s athletic department facing a budget
deficit of $67 million, according to a recently released internal audit, Schulz
made hiring a candidate with a deft fundraising touch his priority.
As an added benefit, Chun had hired Lane Kiffin to be FAU’s
football coach in December 2016. Chun’s experience dealing with the
occasionally controversial Kiffin reassured Schulz and other Washington State
officials that he could forge a fruitful working relationship with the Cougars’
colorful football coach, Mike Leach.
Chun flew to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport for an
initial off-campus interview in January, volunteering to be the first of eight
candidates to meet with the search committee. Six of the semifinalists,
according to Schulz, were sitting athletic directors. The other was a top
deputy Schulz said would be an athletic director in the near future.
“When you start getting more involved, then it hits you: ‘Wow,
no one really looks like you,’ ” Chun
said. “You never really quantify these things until you start competing
for jobs and you’re trying to get to different levels of your career. It’s like,
‘Wow.’ It does hit you.”
The conversation with Chun left such a positive impression,
Schulz recalled, that one member of the search committee, minutes after Chun
left the room, said with the utmost sincerity, “I think we’re done.”
'I think it means a little bit more'
Chun was to be introduced at Washington State on Jan. 17, but
university officials pushed the ceremony back a week because of a tragedy that
had left the campus reeling. The day before Chun’s originally scheduled news
conference, Tyler Hilinski, a redshirt sophomore quarterback on track to start
for the Cougars this season, committed suicide in his Pullman apartment.
The sensitivity with which Chun navigated those horrific
circumstances endeared him to the football program, the athletic department and
the Washington State community as a whole, colleagues said.
In more recent weeks, Chun and Leach have had frequent
discussions regarding how best to honor Hilinski’s memory, beginning with the
Cougars’ home opener Sept. 8.
“That was a tough time, and also of course he hadn’t been here,”
Leach said of Chun. “There really wasn’t a great deal he could have done beyond
just offering support, which he did and continues to do.”
Chun has been the recipient of the same from his new co-workers
over his first four-plus months — he officially started Feb. 5 — while
continuing to champion diversity and inclusion.
One of his first speaking engagements after being named athletic
director was to a campus multicultural group. He’s also scheduled to address
other Asian American administrators during the National Association of
Collegiate Directors of Athletics annual convention later this month at
National Harbor.
“I think it means a little bit more because I don’t know the
world my daughters are going to grow up in,” Chun said. “But I know as the
world changes, and there’s more equality in society and more acceptance of
different races and genders, I think it’s cool that something that may have
been perceived as a glass ceiling to some Asians no longer exists.”
……………..
Tom
Jager and Washington State University Cougars Part Ways
22 June
2018, 10:47am Swimming World/ (Press release posted by Swimming World in
conjunction with WSU Swimming.)
Washington State University Director of Athletics Patrick Chun
announced Friday that the university and swimming head coach Tom Jager have
mutually agreed to part ways.
“We thank Tom, appreciate his years of service to Washington
State University and wish him great success in his future endeavors” said Chun.
Jager, hired prior to the 2011-12 season, guided the Cougars for
the past seven seasons, leading them to 32 dual victories while coaching 67
student-athletes to Pac-12 All-Academic honors.
A national search for WSU’s next head coach will begin
immediately.
:::::::
Record
enrollment expected at WSU Pullman
June
22, 2018 By Will Ferguson, WSU News
Preparations are underway for what could be a record-breaking
number of first-year students at Washington State University’s Pullman campus
this fall.
Additional sections of core freshman classes have been added.
Work crews are currently refurbishing Waller Hall, a men’s residence hall that
was closed in 2015, while rooms in Orton Hall that typically are used for
single occupancy are being converted to doubles. Plus, the Alive orientation
summer sessions required for all new students are being expanded to accommodate
the estimated 4,300 or more new Cougs enrolling for the 2018-19 academic year.
“The size and academic achievements of our incoming class is
really reflective of the value of a WSU education and the effort we are putting
into recruiting top students,” said Michelle Henley-Lewis, director of
recruitment. “Overall, we had a much larger number of students applying early,
completing applications and confirming their attendance at WSU before the
deadline.”
The incoming new class also features an unprecedented 186
Washington Regent Scholars, students who were nominated as being one of the two
most distinguished seniors in their high schools.
While enrollment at WSU’s Tri-Cities, Vancouver, Everett and
Global campuses remains open, WSU Pullman stopped accepting new first-year
admissions applications on May 4, and confirmations were closed as of May 14.
The application priority date and confirmation deadline had gone
unenforced in prior years because enrollment had not reached capacity.
Previously, WSU Pullman’s two highest enrollment years were 2011
and 2015 when 4,176 students and 4,220 students enrolled for their first year.
In 2017, freshmen enrollment at WSU Pullman was 3,939.
“The opportunity to serve a larger number of students is consistent
with our land-grant mission and our mandate from the State of Washington” said
Provost and Executive Vice President Dan Bernardo. “While we understand that
some students and parents may have questions about the resources available to
accommodate a large incoming freshman class, rest assured WSU’s administration,
academic colleges and other units are planning ahead to ensure that the
incoming freshman class has access to convenient on-campus housing, finds it
easy to get into the classes they need, and can be involved in a diverse range
of campus activities, including undergraduate research.”
Meeting students’ needs
In addition to adding class sections in the UCORE curriculum
that incoming freshmen are expected to take during their first year, many academic
departments plan to hire additional faculty members to maintain WSU’s 15:1
student-to-faculty ratio and meet the needs of incoming students.
WSU Housing and Residence Life is taking action to ensure there
will be affordable housing available to all incoming first-year students. In
the event that bed spacing in Orton and newly reopened Waller Hall fills up,
the University will consider giving students the option of a triple-occupancy
room preference on their housing application, or by emailing the housing
office. The option will only be implemented if necessary after all additional
beds are filled and will include discounted pricing.
WSU’s Alive! orientation is seeing a record number of early
registrations and each program is accepting 30 more students than last year.
Also, the new Hawaii Alive! session served about 100 additional students who
otherwise would have attended a Pullman session, opening up more available
spaces.
……………..
WSU
bringing back historic Waller Hall to help house record number of Freshman this
Fall
Source
Pullman Radio, 6/22/2018
Washington State University is working to accommodate an
expected record number of freshman on the Pullman campus this Fall. Officials
are predicting a 10% increase in the class compared to last year. About 4,300
freshman are expected to arrive in Pullman in August, up over 300 from 2017.
That would break the previous record by about 80 students set 3 years ago.
To accommodate the influx in students, WSU is bringing back
Waller Hall. The legendary men's dorm was built in 1935 and was closed in 2015.
WSU had initially planned to renovate the hall 10 years ago but officials said
the project got too expensive and the 150 bed dorm was closed. Campus crews are
currently refurbishing the historic hall that has been sitting dormant next to
the new SPARK Building. The Orton Hall dorm rooms are being converted to double
occupancy.
Orientation sessions this Summer are being expanded, while
additional faculty are being hired to teach the record number of freshman. If
WSU runs out of dorm rooms, officials will consider giving students the option
of a triple occupancy room at a cheaper rate.
Freshman applications for the WSU Pullman campus ended last
month. The university is still accepting freshman applications for its other
campuses.
……..
Pullman
City Council paves way for new sidewalk rules
Developers
will have a month to adhere to approved regulations
By
CARMEN JARAMILLO, Evergreen, June 21, 2018
The Pullman City Council discussed several issues at a meeting
Tuesday, including electric buses, a public mural and sidewalk construction.
The council addressed a city policy about the completion of
sidewalks in new developments. Currently, developers are required to construct
sidewalks within three years of the approval of the development.
Concerns have arisen that this three-year rule has not been
enforced and has left some areas in Pullman without adequate sidewalks, Kevin
Gardes, director of public works, said.
Councilmember Al Sorenson said developers have been aware of
this rule but haven’t been complying and something must be done.
“This is the line in the sand as far as I’m concerned,” Sorenson
said, “I want this done. I want them to know we mean business.”
The council discussed the possibility of lowering the three year
rule to just one year, effectively requiring sidewalks be built in developments
before construction begins.
Many council members were in support of this change, saying it
would ensure sidewalks were placed in adequate time and would increase
neighborhood appeal and walk-ability.
Kevin Kirkman, principal of KIP Development, spoke against the
move because it could create waste.
Kirkland said if sidewalks were put in first, heavy machinery
could crack or destroy them during construction. Kirkland estimated that if
sidewalks were put in first, by the end of a project, 35 percent would have to
be replaced and could cost an additional $3,000 to $4,000, which would be
absorbed by homeowners.
Most councilmembers were in support of the change, citing that
it was already implemented in Moscow and seemed to be effective.
A notice has been sent to all developers who have failed to meet
the three-year rule informing them they must comply within one month. If the
developers in violation do not put in sidewalks after the one month period, the
city will move forward with a foreclosure on security.
Another topic discussed was the possibility of moving Pullman
Transit toward an all-electric fleet of buses, which has been a topic in
Pullman Public Works since 2016, Pullman Transit Manager Wayne Thompson said.
Thompson presented his recommendation for a transition toward
electric buses and councilmembers showed support for the movement. Pullman
Transit will be applying for grant funding for electric infrastructure and one
35-foot all-electric bus in July.
State legislation in 2010 and 2016 requires local governments to
begin planning a full transition from traditional buses to electric or biofuel
by 2018. Pullman Transit began replacing buses with electric hybrids in 2012.
A financial analysis by Pullman Public Works said even with
startup costs to buy new buses and build electric infrastructure, the lifetime
cost of all-electric buses was lower than both diesel and hybrid.
“The time has come when it’s just shown that [hybrid] is not the
most cost effective option,” Thompson said.
The analysis estimates one all-electric bus would be about
$20,000 cheaper in lifetime ownership than one diesel bus.
Thompson said biofuel options were considered but harsh winters
can cause biofuel to gel. The option of renewable diesel was also considered,
but Thompson said supply could sometimes be unreliable.
“I think the public support is definitely there,” Councilmember
Eileen Macoll said. “I’ve had several people talk to me just today and say that
the future is electric.”
Councilmember Dan Records said he sees switching to electric
buses as an easy decision.
“This is pretty much a no-brainer,” Records said. “This is where
we’re going to have to go eventually and the battery technology is only going
to get cheaper over time. I don’t see any way around going in this direction.”
The application for the Transit Rural Mobility grant is
tentatively scheduled for approval at the July 10 city council meeting.
Also discussed was the High Street Mural. The council approved
the mural’s design last October and discussed revisions. Some members, although
in support of the project, felt it was necessary for a set of criteria to be
created for future projects which outlined the decision making process for
approving donated pieces.
In its current form, the design features a variety of winged
creatures on a blue background and the WSU Center for Civic Engagement tagline
“Be The Change” written in crimson and gray.
The mural project is sponsored by the Pullman Chamber of
Commerce, the WSU Museum of Art and the CCE.
Macoll and Sorenson expressed concerns allowing the CCE to
effectively advertise their organization through the mural.
“I think we need to get on the same page as a council and decide
what we’re going to allow and what we’re not going to allow,” Sorenson said.
Joanna Bailey, interim chair of the Pullman Arts Commission,
said supplies and man-power for the project had added up to an in-kind donation
of about $2,000.
Bailey said the mural is expected to be completed by the end of
this month.
The next city council meeting is July 10.
:::::::::::::
Little,
Teigen Named to Google Cloud Academic All-America National Teams
From
WSU Sports Info
PULLMAN, Wash. -- Washington State student-athletes Kyler Little
and Chandler Teigen have been named to the 2017-18 Google Cloud Academic
All-America Men’s Track/Cross Country national teams, selected by the College
Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) for their combined
performances athletically and in the classroom.
Little, named to the national second team, is a junior from
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, majoring in Mathematics. He has achieved a 4.00 grade
point average. Little placed sixth in the 3000m steeplechase at the 2018 Pac-12
Track & Field Championships and has a lifetime-best time in that event of 8
minutes 59.85 seconds.
Teigen, named to the national third team, is a junior from
Anatone, Wash., majoring in Biological Systems Engineering and has achieved a
3.96 GPA. During the 2017 cross country season, he earned All-Pac-12 Second
Team and All-West Region honors, and led the No. 27 WSU men's team to a 24th-place
finish at the NCAA Championships. Teigen was 11th in the 1500m at the 2018
Pac-12 Track & Field Championships, eighth in the NCAA West Region
quarterfinals and 24th in the NCAA Championships. His lifetime-best 1500m time
is 3:43.13, run at the Stanford Invitational earlier this year.
Little and Teigen are the fourth and fifth Cougars male track
and field student-athletes to be named to one of the three national academic
teams and the 32nd and 33rd time a WSU male student-athlete has been honored.
……..
Cougs
playing baseball across the Northwest this summer
There
are plenty of opportunities to root on Cougs the next couple of months
By Chet Broberg Coug Center Jun 22, 2018,
WSU’s baseball season may have ended but for the players,
another has just begun. Collegiate summer baseball is upon us and the Cougars
have spread around the country for the next few months, with an abundance
staying in the Northwest.
Over the next couple of months, 12 WSU student athletes will
play in the West Coast League, which has teams all over Washington, Oregon and
British Columbia.
The season started the first week of June, and a few Cougs have
made a positive first impression. Davis Baillie is pitching for the Bellingham
Bells and has the fifth lowest ERA among qualified WCL players. Baillie has
only allowed one run and 8 hits in 15 innings of work this summer.
Michael Newstrom has been a force on the mound for the Portland
Pickles. Newstrom has a 1.20 ERA and 25 strikeouts in just 15 innings. Also on
the Pickles is fellow Coug Brody Barnum, an outfielder who is hitting .286.
Infielder Jack Smith is playing north of the border for the
Victoria HarbourCats and has hit the ball well so far. Smith is batting .273
with a pair of stolen bases. Pitcher Connor Nantkes has also made the move from
Pullman to Victoria for the summer.
Also playing in the WCL from WSU is Isaac Mullins and Mason De
La Cruz for Cowlitz, Corey Meyer for Wenatchee, Grant Delappe for Yakima
Valley, and Robert Teel, Danny Sinatro, Bryce Moyle, and Nick Strange for Walla
Walla.
There will be plenty of opportunities to watch some baseball and
root on some Cougs across the Pacific Northwest this summer.
#
