In his 30-minute open forum yesterday afternoon, current Portland State athletics director Torre Chisholm addressed a wide variety of topics. Chisholm answered question after question, anything from facility upgrades, to the reason he is interested in the Cal Poly job. But in every response, one word kept surfacing.
Potential.
“I’ve been able to observe Cal Poly from afar,” Chisholm said. “I’ve already seen a lot of great accomplishments and I already see a lot of great potential as well.”
It’s a reccurring theme in Chisholm’s past as an athletics director. He had no problem finding success for the Vikings. At Portland State, he was able to turn around a school — which had won five championships prior to his time — into a powerhouse which now boasts five conference titles and 10 regular season or conference championships, he said.
“I’ve had tremendous success in the places I have been,” Chisholm said. “And I would think I would have the ability to do some of the same if I was here.”
If he does come to Cal Poly, the Mustangs will inherit a man who has a very diverse résumé. Prior to his current four-year stay at Portland State, Chisholm served as the associate athletic director for Development and Marketing at UC Irvine from 2000-2007. Before that, he worked multiple positions at UC Santa Barbara from 1991-2000.
“The question I keep getting is ‘OK, why are you looking at Cal Poly?’” Chisholm, who graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in economics, said. “And at the end of the day it is because I spent 13 years in the Central Coast area. I love it. I love the people and I felt like I at least needed to look into the opportunity.”
Under Chisholm, the Vikings’ volleyball team tallied its fifth straight 20-plus win season in 2009 and won the Big Sky Conference in 2007 and 2009. A key component of that success is Chisholm’s ability to select the right coaches for the appropriate jobs, he said.
“I feel really good about my ability to hire coaches; I’ve hired nine head coaches at Portland State and five of them have already won conference championships,” said Chisholm, who also had three different coaches earn Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year honors. “I would anticipate trying to do the same thing at Cal Poly.”
But one of the main issues at Cal Poly, some argue, is the lack of attention the smaller programs receive, which may arguably be Cal Poly’s best. Men’s cross country boasts 11 Big West titles, wrestling is starting to compete for Pac-10 supremacy and volleyball was an at-large bid away from making the NCAA Tournament last season.
If Chisholm is the next man in charge, the attention those programs receive will not be lost in the shadows of others, he said.
“You have to do a little bit of everything,” Chisholm said. “In addition to the renovations we did around football (at Portland State), we also renovated locker rooms in softball, women’s soccer, women’s volleyball and improved the locker rooms for track and field … If you give everybody the tools to be successful, then you have done your job as an AD.”
Cal Poly’s final candidate for athletic director — current San Diego State senior associate athletic director Don Oberhelman — will have his open forum March 8, at 11:30 a.m. in Mott Gym.
Are you sure Portland State won Big Sky conference championship in football, 2007 and 2009?
Thanks for pointing that out. The correction has been made.
– Brian De Los Santos, sports editor
Keep him at Portland State. The first thing he did at PSU was drop their wrestling program. Their program had won many D2 National Titles and then moved up into the Pac 10. He said that PSU was not a Pac 10 school. Well, Cal Poly has a wrestling program on the verge of National Prominence and they compete in the Pac 10.
The following comments are not in tune with what he does:
If Chisholm is the next man in charge, the attention those programs receive will not be lost in the shadows of others, he said.
“You have to do a little bit of everything,” Chisholm said. “In addition to the renovations we did around football (at Portland State), we also renovated locker rooms in softball, women’s soccer, women’s volleyball and improved the locker rooms for track and field … If you give everybody the tools to be successful, then you have done your job as an AD.”