For the first installment of the new Dispatch Q
&
amp;A series
”
Catching up With…,
”
the Dispatch sits down with Gavilan College athletic director
Ron Hannon, who talks about the current state of Rams
athletics.
Dispatch: This year a lot of things happened: The new women’s volleyball program, women’s basketball was brought back, two new coaches. Do you view 2005-2006 as being a busy year for Gavilan?
Ron Hannon: Slightly (laughing). There was a lot going on this year. If you go back to the beginning and volleyball starting, getting that up and running and juggling schedules and practice time and the gym and all that stuff, up until this year we were kind of in our routine and bringing in a new sport really does change a lot of what happens. I think in the five years that I’ve been here that this might be the most fun year. And people say, “Well, look at your win/loss record and tell me how that’s fun.” Yeah, that part of it wasn’t fun. But I think personnel-wise, we had some coaches turn corners and really connect with our student athletes. We had the addition of a part-time academic counselor, which we haven’t had in years. And we’re starting to address different things within our department. Personnel-wise, project-wise, we’ve got a lot of construction, projects and plans that are going on right now. The bond (Measure E) is about to come online in a big way this summer. So there’s going to be late this summer a lot of infrastructure. The campus is going to get turned upside down for the next few years, but it’s starting. That, and budgets are good. There’s more money to spend. Just a lot of planning stuff that’s going on right now. Seemed like there were a lot more meetings this year.
Disp: What are some of the things that can be expected for next year, either with the construction or different programs, things like that?
RH: Well, sport-wise, volleyball is going into its second year. (Head women’s volleyball coach) Stephanie (Pascucci) has had some time to recruit and she’s got some young people coming in that we’re excited about. We’re coming off of a year where softball and baseball had, for different reasons, successful seasons. With softball, (Head coach) Nikki (Thompson) being named Coast Conference Coach of the Year and having three players named to the all-conference team was a major accomplishment, with all of the other road bumps and things that have gone on with the program. It was exciting to see the enthusiasm in that. With baseball, having a full-time baseball coach this year is something long overdue. Having full-time coaches in all of our programs is long overdue. But we finally have one more. People are excited to know that Neal’s (baseball head coach Neal Andrade) our guy and he’s going to be here long-term and full-time and so I think that’s really going to help baseball in this next year. Football has just had a great recruiting season. We don’t expect anything less than winning a conference championship and going to a bowl game. And the addition of (new men’s basketball head coach) Tito (Addison) and (new women’s soccer head coach) Jorge (Espinoza) to the staff. We’re expecting great things out of men’s basketball right away. The recruiting that’s gone on in the three weeks (Addison) has been here has just been phenomenal. We’ve got some young men that are coming in, we’ve got some transfers coming in from 4-year schools that are going to be impact players not just for the team but for the conference. We don’t see a lot of Jorge right now because this is club soccer season, which he is heavily involved in. We’re just going to sit back and see what’s going to happen. It really feels like the work that we’ve been doing over the last five years, we’re going to start to see the results and we’re going to see them in a big way. And I think all the coaches really feel the same way. Each coach thinks that they have got an opportunity to win this year and that maybe hasn’t been the case over the past few years. That brings a different energy to the next school year.
Disp: Kind of going back to the recruiting, football and baseball have traditionally had strong roots in the area. But I’ve heard some complaints from supporters of other sports that Gavilan doesn’t recruit enough within the local schools. Is that something you see as a problem or something you feel these new coaches can pick up?
RH: When you bring in new coaches, obviously they bring in new connections from different areas and having two new coaches in men’s basketball and women’s soccer, a lot of their ties are to the San Jose/Santa Clara area. So you know there’s going to be some students from that area that are going to make the commute and come down this way. Baseball and football have done a good job of staying local. And that’s something we feel really strongly about. That’s part of our philosophy as a department. In talking with the two new coaches and finding out about their philosophies and their goals, they also too believe that locally, they’ve got to be able to recruit. But they also know to take the programs to the next level, they’re going to have to bring other talent in. Football is no different. So as much as we want local kids to come here, we also need people to know that to win and take the programs to the levels we want to be at, there’s not enough players in this area to be able to do that. And that’s not knocking our local talent, because we have some excellent local talent here and we want those kids here. And we want their families to enjoy their kids competing and experiencing the college experience as a student-athlete. But we also want them to know that our recruiting area is large. There’s 108 high schools in our recruiting area and I expect coaches to tap into that.
Disp: What are your thoughts on what can help make women’s programs more stable here at Gavilan?
RH: The first thing that comes to mind is full-time coaches and that’s no secret. Every single one of our sports do. Our men’s programs need to have full-time coaches as well. When coaches are done teaching, they are here and their student-athletes have access to them all day long. Having those coaches here full-time is the key thing to have to one, stabilize the program. But two, you’ve got to have the right part-time coaches in place. It takes a special person, personality-wise, character-wise to go out and basically do what we’re asking them to do as a full-time job on part-time pay. And we really expect and still want them to accomplish those things. That’s tough to ask. Attracting women to our programs has to start with that coach and that’s where they’re going to make their connection. You’ve got to have the right person in that place. The other thing is our female student-athletes in particular need to know that if they’re going to come to Gavilan College there’s somewhere else they’re going to go afterward. Gavilan is just going to be a stepping stone. So I think a key ingredient to help stabilizing our women’s programs is (female student-athletes) knowing that there’s the ability to transfer and earn a scholarship. The other thing is we’ve got to take a really good look at the programs we’re offering. We may not be offering the right athletic programs. Women’s basketball is one of those programs that in the last couple years has really opened our eyes to the fact that maybe the interest just isn’t there in women’s basketball. Right now, those students out there thinking of Gav are thinking, “The last two years they’ve canceled their season, I don’t want to go there.” You can put the best coach in place but that stigma is still there. But I don’t want to necessarily go away completely from women’s basketball.
We’re also going to look at water sports. Part of our renovation project over the next four to five years is that the swimming pools are all being remodeled. So our goal is to create a facility that we can compete in water polo and in swimming. We’re looking and I’m hopeful that in this next year we can find that there is enough interest to go that route. I think women’s soccer in this area has the potential of being a successful program. If we’re meeting our obligations to the community as far as interest and with Title IX and the Office of Civil Rights looking at what were doing, obviously we want to put our best foot forward. That also means we’re going to look at our men’s programs. Men’s soccer is the first thing that comes to mind.
Disp: When you look back at your five years, what are you most proud of being a part of improving here at Gavilan College?
RH: Sometimes when you’re in the middle of it, you really don’t see what you’ve done. I think one of the things that I’m proud of and obviously, this is a team effort, is that we’ve gotten the foundation down. A lot of times when people are looking in, they’re looking for wins and losses, championships and all those types of things and they forget that there are other things that have to happen first. The (Gavilan athletic) program was broken for a long time and I think we’ve made strong headways in getting that turned around.
When I look at our budgets, across the board they’ve increased which is important because you’ve got to provide the resources. It’s not where we want it to be, but reaching out to the community and being able to make a connection with the community has been instrumental in allowing us to get there.
I see the success of our student-athletes in the classroom. The number of units they’re passing, grade point averages are increasing, so that tells me that they’re understanding, hey, my college career’s important. I think they understand that real clear. And facility improvement and the renovations that are currently underway – expanding the soccer complex so that we can put a permanent outfield fence and scoreboard on the softball field. Phases coming up down the road here include bleachers, a scoreboard, all those things for the soccer field. This facility here is going to be under renovation in the next few years and its going to be absolutely beautiful finally to have state of the art facilities. Our weight room is going to increase to almost twice the size of what we’ve got now. Its one of if not the largest class on campus. We’ve got over 500 students taking that class. But yet our facilities don’t accommodate that so were going to expand our facilities.
Disp: I know you knew (women’s volleyball coach) Stephanie (Pascucci) from your days at San Jose State. Did you know (new men’s basketball coach) Tito (Addison) from there?
RH: Yes.
Disp: So that’s been a nice pipeline for you.
RH: Yeah. And that’s not uncommon in this line of work. Obviously, you network. I finished up playing at San Jose State when we were recruiting Tito out of high school. So I remember being involved in the recruiting process as a player. He was someone with very high integrity, cares a lot about the game of basketball, cares a lot about student athletes, was an excellent student himself, was a top-notch basketball player who played overseas professionally. His enthusiasm and his network when it comes to basketball is ridiculous. He’s connected to everybody and everyone. The kids that he’s able recruit are kids that West Valley is hot after and we’ve created competition with West Valley and that’s exciting. I want the West Valley’s and the San Jose city’s and some of these other schools that have traditionally been the powerhouses, I want them upset with us because we’ve taken kids that they’ve wanted in their program and Tito has that ability recruiting-wise. People say, ‘Why all these San Jose State people?’ and I say because San Jose State is able to attract great coaches. One of the challenges is keeping them because of the resources and the facilities. But they get quality people to come in.
Disp: Where do you see Gavilan in another five years from now?
RH: I see a lot more banners in the gym. I see a couple more full-time coaches on staff, which I know is going to happen. We’ve got one more full-time position that’s part of our five-year hiring plan that’s being approved in two years. Once our softball situation is finalized, we will have a full-time softball coach and so we’ll have three full-time coaches. When department chair Sue Dodd retires, which looks like about three years, were going to have another full-time position come up so that would be a fourth full-time coach. If we stay in that eight to 10 sport range, half the staff is going to be full-time, which the college has never had in the athletic department.
Facility-wise, I see all of our facilities upgraded. The gym is going to be absolutely beautiful. We haven’t seen color renderings; we’ve only seen blue prints. We’ve redesigned the entire facility with office space and locker room space. We’re going to have team rooms. The big project that is on the radar is a multi-use stadium (that would house football and soccer). I see the college not only competing and having all its facilities on campus for once and for all, but I see us attracting high school all-star games because they’re going to want to use our facilities. I see us hosting state championship events for high school. Part of the stadium is a track. Right now, there’s no plan to move forward with the track and field program, but that’s potentially something down the road. I see us tearing down the baseball field and starting over again, much like we did with the softball field. Every aspect of what we do here is going to be improved and I see it being improved significantly. But the long-term goal is that every program has a full-time coach. That’s the driving thorn in my side.
