FORT COLLINS — Joe Parker has yet to really sit down and meet the staff he’ll work with at Colorado State, and the same goes with the coaches who will guide his teams.
Yet Parker — named Colorado State’s athletic director on Tuesday — gleaned from his research he is taking over a department where the teams are enjoying an upswing in success, and he would be right.
CSU’s most visible programs are on an upswing, from a football team that cracked the top 25 and won 10 games, to a volleyball program which reached the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament. This winter, the women’s basketball team won the Mountain West regular season crown, the men’s team won a program-record 27 games and cracked the rankings for a spell and both are headed to the postseason.
Parker also has his four main coaches tied to long-term deals, giving those programs stability. As he said, things look good for Colorado State.
The coaches feel that way, and from their initial impression, Parker seems like the kind of leader who can carry that forward, even beyond.
“Just somebody that can lead us. We’re going in a really good direction; things are really good here, and I think there’s a next level to this thing,” said Ryun Williams, the CSU women’s basketball coach as he took a short break from watching game tape. “(We need) somebody that can get us there. He’s been a good leader wherever he’s been. He’s been a good teammate, it seems like, wherever he’s been, and I think that’s important.”
Being a teammate is something Parker knows about. As an All-American swimmer at Michigan, it was there he said his coach taught him the value of putting the group in front of individual pursuits.
It’s been a lesson he said has served him well in his climb through athletic administration to his first journey into being the guy in charge.
“I enjoy creating environments where people have the ability to succeed at the highest level individually and through their efforts of the team,” Parker said Tuesday. “John Urbanchek (his coach at Michigan) taught me you subjugate yourself to the needs of the team, and jointly you can accomplish so much more than you could individually. So I’m going to work hard to create an environment where everyone in our department and across campus can feel that they can leverage their own individual talents for the betterment of the team.”
However, the next level doesn’t stop with Mountain West championships in the minds of the current coaches. Volleyball coach Tom Hilbert feels part of the task is building the brand to a national level, one where the school doesn’t get attached the asterisk of being a Mountain West school outside of the power brokers.
Sunday, the men’s basketball team felt the sting, positive its resume was good enough to make the field of 68 for the NCAA Tournament, only to see teams with bigger names like UCLA, Texas and Indiana gain entrance.
“I still don’t think we have the national respect that I’d like to have,” Hilbert said, referring to his team. “It’s not just conference affiliation. Why couldn’t there be a Power 6? What’s our role in that? Our role is to continue to make us nationally relevant and quit getting people to look at us as the little engine that could. That’s not what we are. We want to be a major player in collegiate athletics. I’m assuming Joe will do that.
“I liked what he had to say. He came across very intelligent and saying all the right things.”
Parker spent his introductory press conference speaking in positives, about the people in the department, the direction of the teams and the athletes on campus. CSU president Tony Frank expects the current trends of high graduation rates of student athletes and the fact the department has never had a major violation to continue. He also expects growth in the area of allowing athletes to be able to take full advantage of the collegiate experience, and he wants CSU to be a national leader on that front.
Parker comes to CSU after a string of successes in terms of raising money for facility improvements and department enhancements, all at Power 5 schools. Last year as the deputy athletic director at Texas Tech, he worked with a budget nearly twice the size as the one he’ll have at Colorado State.
He doesn’t see that as a deterrent, noting that needs have to be differentiated from wants. From the coaching perspective, Williams said that’s all they can ask.
“He seems like a guy that’s going to support every program in regards to what do you need to be successful. I think he said that,” Williams said. “It’s not so much what you want, but what do you need to be successful, and I think he seems like a guy who is going to help you get what you need. The foundation is in place here. We have good coaches, good student athletes. He seems like a guy that will walk right beside you and help you get whatever he can.”
Mike Brohard: 970-635-3633, mbrohard@reporter-herald.com and twitter.com/mbrohard
