Fort Collins – After one week in his new job as Colorado State athletic director, Paul Kowalczyk said his head is spinning. Perhaps it’s because he has gone around and around with the department’s fiscal numbers and realizes there’s so much work to be done.
“I feel like I’ve got a million things to do – before 5 p.m.,” Kowalczyk said Thursday.
Kowalczyk (pronounced Co-wall-check) hasn’t fired anybody, hired anybody or come up with a new slogan to replace the “Let’s Go Rammin”‘ marketing campaign, the takeoff of the old Beach Boys surfing tune that became something of an embarrassing irritant to landlocked CSU boosters.
And because May is an important recruiting period for most sports, Kowalczyk hasn’t met all of his head coaches. But he has determined Colorado State ranks last among the nine schools in the Mountain West Conference in athletic department budget ($18.3 million) and fundraising ($1.7 million for 2004-05 toward scholarships and operations).
“We need to play catch-up with our peers in the conference,” Kowalczyk said. “Certainly we’re going to plot a course to do that.”
Kowalczyk, 48, looks like an accountant and understands he must act like one.
Although he did play a year of small-college football at Denison (Ohio) and knows his way around athletic fields, Kowal- czyk always has been better with people and ledger sheets. He was best known for his fundraising and promotional successes during the past six years as athletic director at Southern Illinois and in supportive roles before that at Northwestern, Kansas State, Portland State, Youngstown State and Kent State.
“Paul’s credentials and background really got the attention of everybody around here,” CSU assistant athletic director Gary Ozzello said.
Kowalczyk intends to place more emphasis on soliciting support from the 80,000 CSU alumni residing in the Denver area. Kowalczyk needs them to open their wallets, and also make the drive up Interstate 25 to fill seats.
“Some people think it’s a long way (to Fort Collins), but it’s 60 miles. It’s not far,” Kowalczyk said. “Think of people’s commutes in Denver. It may take them 45 minutes to get to work and they may have gone only 20 miles. What’s another 15 minutes to get to a basketball game or a football game?”
Kowalczyk will get his first chance to schmooze Denver-area donors during a June 19 golf outing at Vista Ridge Golf Club in Erie.
“I’m going to ask our coaches to spend more time in Denver, and I will be doing that as well,” he said.
Kowalczyk said he is “not coming in with guns blazing” to make immediate personnel changes.
It isn’t fair to evaluate coaches without watching them do their jobs, he said. In addition to won-lost records, Kowalczyk is certain to keep a keen eye on graduation rates.
“My dad worked 30 years in a steel mill (in Warren, Ohio), and I’m the only one of four kids to go to college,” Kowalczyk said. “Education got me to where I am. That’s what we’re all here for.”
Tom Kensler can be reached at 303-820-5456 or tkensler@denverpost.com.
