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S1 - E2: Beach Athletics
322 Plays1 year ago
Bobby Smitheran, exec. dir. of Beach Athletics, discusses his goals, challenges student-athletes face, and the importance of funding.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'At the Beach' Podcast
00:00:17
Speaker
All right, greetings. I'd like to welcome you to another edition of At the Beach. I'm your host, Dan Montoya, Vice President of University Relations and Development. The goal of our podcast is to share news and accomplishments and honors, personal stories and ways that you can become involved with Cal State University Long Beach.
Meet Bobby Smitherin, Executive Director of Beach Athletics
00:00:35
Speaker
My guest today is Bobby Smitherin, our Executive Director of Beach Athletics. He joined the beach in August after a successful stint as Executive Associate Athletics Director
00:00:46
Speaker
for Student Athletics Academic Support Services at San Diego State, where he had also served as Director of Compliance, Director of Football Operations, and Student Athlete Services Coordinator. And prior to working with the Aztecs, Bobby had overseeing compliance at UC Irvine and University of North Texas. Executive Director Smitherin earned his bachelor's and master's degree at the University of New Mexico
00:01:14
Speaker
where it should be noted he played baseball for the Lobos and served as captain in his senior year. Welcome Bobby. Thanks Dan. It's great to be here. It's a great beautiful day here at the beach. I'm excited to be with you. So I want to jump into the conversation and I know your family has ties at Long Beach that stretch over more than a century and your dad is a member of several area athletic halls of fame as a baseball player.
00:01:43
Speaker
Tell us about your love for the beach and why would it, why was it such a natural fit for you and your career?
Bobby's Long Beach Roots and Joining the Team
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, you know, thanks, Dan. Coming from a baseball family, the history of Durvax baseball was something that it was always something that caught my eye. I grew up as a prospective student athlete myself, playing the sport of baseball and Long Beach State University in the nineties was, was, was it was one of the top programs in the country. And so that, you know, that was something that really, uh,
00:02:13
Speaker
gained my attention as a youngster, but certainly the family ties to Long Beach and my grandparents' house that is literally on the other side of campus was something that we visit as a child a lot. And, you know, so just the city of Long Beach and spending time here was always something that was very special to me. So when you put on top of that, as you shared, my dad has been inducted into the Long Beach Baseball Hall of Fame. He's on a plaque outside of Blair Field.
00:02:41
Speaker
And so as I go to Blair field, I have the pleasure of seeing my dad's name every time I step in that facility. And so, you know, that was something that is special. But, you know, as you said, I worked for seven years at UC Irvine and having been on the Big West Conference and seeing the beach from afar. You know, you always knew that that was, that all of the sports here at Long Beach State from a bra based perspective were outstanding. And that is evident today as we think about
00:03:09
Speaker
back-to-back Big West Conference Commissioner Cup champions, we have broad-based success here. We have an extreme number of Olympians. I think the stat is every summer Olympics, since the inception of the university, a Long Beach State University coach or student athlete has participated in the Olympics. So, you know, there's great success here. And then coming from a CSU sister campus like San Diego State University, I was very familiar with the academic strength of
00:03:38
Speaker
the beach of the institution. And so when you put all those things together, it was just it was an exciting opportunity that I there was there was no way I could turn it down. Yeah. And I tell you what, since you've been here, there's been such an energy. So many people in the community I've talked to are so excited to have you here. So you're about halfway through your first academic year.
Memorable Moments and Achievements at Long Beach
00:04:00
Speaker
What have you learned so far and any special memories that you've created already? Well my first memory is driving up the fire freeway the Sunday of the Great Hurricane on August 20th and that was the day before my first day here at the beach and so it was a little bit of an auspicious start but as I've said others there was nothing that was going to keep me from getting here to the beach on that first day, August 21st.
00:04:24
Speaker
But, you know, as I think about just these three and a half months or so that I've been here at the beach, there's been some incredible and special experiences as I think about the women's volleyball program defeating the defending national champion, the number one ranked University of Texas. And seeing our students section fill up that end zone of the Walter pyramid and seeing how excited our students were, bringing down a team that
00:04:53
Speaker
You know, from a budget standpoint, the University of Texas is one of the most resourced athletic departments in the country. And when you all things being equal and you get on the court, you've got an opportunity to compete and beat them. So that was certainly exciting being with our men's basketball team at the University of Michigan and winning that game.
00:05:12
Speaker
and seeing the excitement on our student athletes faces, our coaches in the locker room afterwards. And what that does for the city of Long Beach, for Long Beach State University. I mean, there was a lot of press and publicity around that win. That's nothing but positive for our institution and for the city. So that's certainly, those are two things that come to mind. But then just the engagement with the city of Long Beach and
00:05:38
Speaker
reconnecting with folks that have ties to my family and to have one of our donors, Barbara Luero, give me an article from 1961 that has a picture of my dad competing for Wilson High School's football team. You know, those are the kinds of special moments that you'd realize, I'm where I should be, I'm in the right place. And that excitement has been reciprocated from people to me as I've just been tremendously excited with the experiences I've had so far.
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, again, I can really relate to what you're talking about because, again, so many people have come in and said, you know, Bobby's just, he just blends in here. He's just a part of us.
The Role of People and Collaboration in Success
00:06:19
Speaker
So CSULB has tallied a number of national titles and turned out alumni who have shined in Olympics and sports, like you mentioned. Many people would like to recreate those memories of old glory days. But where do you think we need to start?
00:06:36
Speaker
in order to rebuild towards that greatness. Yeah. And I said this at my press conference, it starts with the people, right? And then it's, it's the coaches, it's the staff within the athletics department. It's the university and, and, you know, we all have to be on the same page together to move in that direction. And I think my experiences bring to the table of my desire to want to collaborate with folks and, and to get the best out of people and, and to,
00:07:04
Speaker
create an environment that people are excited to come to work. They understand the vision, what they're working towards. And so we have really talented coaches. We have really talented student athletes. We have staff who are committed
00:07:20
Speaker
to wanting to achieve the best in their roles to help support that student athlete experience. So our goal is every year is to compete for the Big West Conference Commissioner's Cup because that tells us that we are having that broad-based success across all of our programs. We want to be in the top three of every sport that means you have a chance to compete for a championship. But beyond that,
00:07:43
Speaker
We strive to compete for national championships. You know, let's not limit ourselves to just our conference. And I'm not going to name the coach that I spoke to yesterday, but they said to me, I believe that I have a team that could compete for a national championship.
00:07:57
Speaker
And they believe that. And so we have the people. I think we certainly have the university. We have the community. It's about bringing all those pieces together to create those special opportunities. And as you said, I hear a lot about
00:08:16
Speaker
the good old days and some of the events and things that used to be done in the past that brought this community together. And so that's the conversation we're having now about how do we bring some of those elements back to bring everyone together and support the beach. So again, so many people have talked about the glory days and I think to your comments, it's a new era. It's a new time. There's so many
00:08:45
Speaker
facets and challenges and opportunities. And so I think, you know, it's a really good time at the beach and it's also a good time to really face a new kind of normal in athletics.
Core Values Guiding Leadership in Athletics
00:08:59
Speaker
So I know that you previously talked about integrity, vision, collaboration and hope being your four core values. How's that all come into play as you oversee this program?
00:09:13
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm going to correct you a little bit on the fourth one of hope is I had shared with folks was winning. We're in the arena of athletics. And so our goal is to compete for championships, as I just shared. So I think when you have those things coming together, one, you have to have that vision. You have to tell people where you're headed, what the goal is, so that they can understand what they're working towards.
00:09:42
Speaker
And then if we do that with great integrity, we're the front porch to this institution. And what we do is a very public component of the institution, of the community. And so we always want to represent those things to the best of our ability.
00:09:56
Speaker
And as long as we are collaborating with folks and using the resources of our institution, of our community, and those things come together, that's where I think you start to see success. And so investing in our staff, our student-athletes, that's where those things really can start to come together. And so, again, I think there's great strength of our university. There's great expertise.
00:10:21
Speaker
And we can't do it ourselves in the athletics department, right? I think, as I've said before, in other settings, we're better together than we are apart. So when we can pull all that together, and as I'm thinking of that, that's our alumni, our former student athletes, the community who call Long Beach home, whether or not they're a graduate of
00:10:42
Speaker
of Long Beach State University, this is their home. And we're, as we think about the professional sports that are surrounding us in Southern California, Long Beach State University competes for the city of Long Beach. That's what's on our chest, on our uniforms. And so that's something that we want to do with great pride and integrity.
Challenges in Funding and Recruiting
00:11:01
Speaker
That's great. So I know we've had many conversations about this and you are
00:11:08
Speaker
really on the pulse of what are the challenges in beach athletics and just division one sports as a whole and really just kind of talking about it on how those things impact our programs and what does that mean for us and what do we need to look for in order to try and navigate those challenges.
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's a loaded question, Dan, because there's a lot in the media these days. And just, you know, having just traveled with our women's basketball team to the University of Texas a couple of days ago, I was with our men's basketball team to the University of Michigan. And when you look at those two institutions who have budgets that are north of $200 million,
00:11:53
Speaker
compared to the beach where we're about $21 million. That's quite the gap. And the beauty of sport, though, is you can get on a court, you can get in the pool in the field of play, and all things being equal, you have a chance to compete against those institutions. And as we've done this past year, this past fall, we can win those games. The challenge with that is that's going to be harder and hard to do.
00:12:21
Speaker
And so, um, you know, without a football program where a lot of these revenues are being generated through media contracts, we've got to really look at how do we, uh, best steward the resources we have, but then find new revenue streams to try to close that gap as much as we can. Because the reality for the rep for our head coaches is that they go out and recruit in the community.
00:12:47
Speaker
They're recruiting against those institutions who can offer things like smoothie bars and barbershops and things that we may not have here at Long Beach State University, but what we can offer is an outstanding education, outstanding environments, and still have a great student athlete experience. And so I'm really invested in that student athlete experience and making sure that that is a quality one where our student athletes feel that they can compete at the highest level.
00:13:17
Speaker
They can get a great education and they can leave our institution with the skills to be successful once they do depart. But we have a lot of challenges. You know, there's deferred maintenance within our facilities, scholarship funding. Certainly, you know, at a base level, you want to make sure that your scholarships, your teams, scholarships are fully funded. And so those are things that.
00:13:39
Speaker
we are working towards so that when our coaches are competing as many things as we can, apples to apples, we're on the same playing field with our competitors. But you know, it's in the news as of late that the NCAA president Charlie Baker has come out with a kind of a new proposed subdivision of division one that will make that just a little more challenging.
00:14:03
Speaker
in terms of those resources and how institutions are allocating those opportunities for their student athletes to compete at the highest level. Yeah, so again, funding is so critical at the D1 level. And you mentioned some of the areas that we really need help with. And so, you know, when talking about this program, how does Beach Athletics truly benefit the campus community?
The Role of Athletics in the University Experience
00:14:33
Speaker
And how are D1 athletic programs so beneficial to student athletes? Yeah, that's a great question, Dan. And as I shared earlier, athletics is the front porch to the institution. We're a very public component of the institution. And so we want to serve to highlight the very best of our institution. And so, you know, things such as championships certainly are a big component of that, but it's also how our student athletes
00:14:59
Speaker
compete in the classroom? How do they excel academically? And so most recently there was a graduation success rate report from the NCAA.
00:15:08
Speaker
that we reported our graduation success rate for, which was 87%. And that's fantastic. That's including transfer students who are coming into our institution. And so we're really proud of that because that demonstrates that they can have a great academic experience. They have the academic support. Our Bicker Staff Center, which provides that academic support, is phenomenal.
00:15:32
Speaker
in supporting our student athletes because it's like a full-time job. There's that level of commitment to compete at the highest levels of Division I. It's great to see that support for their academic achievement as well. But we are also a training ground for our students here. An example, I'll give you Beach Vision is our ESPN Plus production center that we produce games out of for streaming services.
00:16:01
Speaker
And we hire students to serve in those production roles, whether it's behind the camera, whether it's in the production truck. And that's hands-on experience that they can't really get elsewhere. And we really have done a phenomenal job.
00:16:15
Speaker
I believe within our last fiscal cycle, we spent over $300,000 on student salaries towards beach production, beach vision production. So there's great opportunities there. And then certainly the intangible school spirit feeling that hopefully our students have when they come to games that better connects them to one another, to the institution. I think that just serves to enhance the experience they have as a student
00:16:45
Speaker
and hopefully bring value to their degree for the rest of their life. Yeah, I think that's great. When I can't make a game or I'm interested to see what program is playing, it's so great to go to ESPN Plus and be able to watch it. And they do a great job. It's a quality production. It is. It really is. And certainly while we have staff that are
00:17:10
Speaker
Directing that it's the students who are playing a large part of this. So And we think about students assisting in our facilities in terms of operations and putting on events You know, they're there are our students are our greatest investment into our athletics program, but then it's also the other ancillary experiences and contributions that they make to Beach athletics that it's just so critical right yeah, and and so, um
00:17:39
Speaker
If you can ask the community to engage and be participating in the athletic programs, both in attendance and fundraising, what do you tell
Engaging the Community: How to Support Student-Athletes
00:17:48
Speaker
them? You know, because you interact with so many different people. Like, how do you, you know, when they ask me, hey, Bobby, how can I help? Or what do you need? Or what do you need from us? Like, you know, can you share with us what you tell them? Or how you would love to see our community come together and engage and support our students? I'll call them the three T's. Time, talent, and treasure.
00:18:09
Speaker
And those are really people have a capacity in different areas to whether it's to give their treasure or their time or their talent. If it's and I say talent from the perspective of maybe it's mentoring a student in an area of that individual's profession if you're
00:18:26
Speaker
real estate agent and we have a student athlete who you know their dream is to become a real estate agent there's an opportunity hopefully to to mentor that student athlete and I think our student athletes have such unique skills that they bring to the table in terms of resiliency, grits, they're competitive, they have those innate leadership skills that
00:18:47
Speaker
you know, I think people are naturally drawn to. And so, there's those opportunities. There's the opportunity to spend time with our student athletes. Just, you know, I think providing that mentorship, it's a tough experience our student athletes can have in terms of the pressures of being a Division I student athlete. So, you know, that mentorship as well. And then the impact of their treasure, you know, those philanthropic gifts
00:19:16
Speaker
really enable us to compete at a high level. As we think about what goes into the operating expenses of a Division I program, that's travel, that's meals, nutrition, strength and conditioning, academic support, all those things really seek to provide a better opportunity for our student-athletes to really compete at a high level. Because as I said earlier, those student-athletes at Power Five institutions
00:19:42
Speaker
have all of those resources and sometimes then, you know, additional resources as well. So, you know, scholarship is really just such a critical component of that. So that philanthropic giving that helps us
00:19:58
Speaker
meet our NCAA maximum allowables that we can distribute to our student-athletes as we think about cost of attendance awards. There are things known as Alston awards, which are additional monies on top of the cost of attendance award that allows for educational expenses to be covered. As we think about this world of name, image, and likeness, and the opportunities out there for student-athletes, maybe it's helping them identify those opportunities in our community as well. So I think there's a lot of
00:20:29
Speaker
opportunities it's what what are people interested in doing what what helps them feel like they are getting back to our institution and advancing our students. Yeah we're grateful for our our donors and our community members who really support athletics you know we I like to think of them as you know silent superheroes because a lot of our students may not know the gifts that they make and the impact that they really make into the students lives and all that but we're so grateful for all our donors and the great things they do and so if
00:20:59
Speaker
You know, I'm inspired at where the program is going. And we just invite people to come out and watch the games and watch our athletes in action because they're pretty amazing. And the other thing too is there's opportunities to interact with our students in different points, you know, throughout the year. But when you talk to them, they're just so pleasant, so poised. And sometimes we forget that they're still 18, 19, 20, 21, right? We expect them to
00:21:27
Speaker
to be amazing and like flawless, right? But they're humans, just like the rest of us. Well, I think like you just were saying down there, they're so appreciative of people's time. Just coming out to attend a match, a game, to root for them, to take the opportunity after a game to shake their hand or congratulate them. The smiles I see on their face, that intrinsic reward they get from that.
00:21:51
Speaker
exchange as well is invaluable and it just helps to inspire them to achieve greater heights and to keep working hard in their sport.
Staying Informed: Resources and Social Media
00:22:02
Speaker
So if people don't necessarily know about all the scheduled events, where can they find that? Yeah, our Long Beach State Athletics website is certainly the place to go. There's a composite calendar on there as well to see all of the different events. There's a link to our Beach Athletic Fund
00:22:20
Speaker
which is a great space for people to look at the different ways to give back and how that enhances the athletic program here at Long Beach State University. So our website is a great one-stop shop for all the information that they may need. And certainly our staff, myself, are always out there at events and willing to speak to folks about different ways that they can engage in our program. Yeah, I know you have strong social media as well. So, you know, Instagram is one of the key tools where you'll see
00:22:50
Speaker
You know, you're posting about some of the, you know, like the win in Michigan or some different highlights. So AD smithereng, get me that AD smithereng on Instagram. That's right. We need more followers for smithereng over here. So, you know, before we end, I just want to kind of pare it down to you as an individual.
Personal Motto and Focus on Student-Athletes
00:23:08
Speaker
And do you have a personal mission statement or motto that you live by and that you kind of, you know, when you wake up every day, that's kind of how you go about doing business.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think I have always operated in terms of the respect you get as a respect you give. And so how I conduct myself and engage people is paramount. I think I was raised the right way by my parents in terms of looking people in the eye, shaking their hand and being appreciative for the day that we have and working hard. I was always a undersized,
00:23:45
Speaker
uh, student athlete. And I always knew that I had to work harder than the person next to me. So work ethic, integrity, collaboration, and just, you know, trying to, uh, do the best for our student athletes. I think at the end of the day, we're here for our student athletes. That's who we work for. And so as long as we're doing our best for them and doing a smile on our face and uplifting their experience, then I think we're doing our job. Right.
00:24:11
Speaker
Well, Bobby, it's been a pleasure to have you. Any closing thoughts before we wrap up our podcast?
Closing Thoughts and Community Gratitude
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah, we're in the holiday season, right? So it's a time of giving and giving thanks. And so, you know, I'm just so appreciative of this beach community and how welcoming people have been to me and
00:24:32
Speaker
I'm hoping to repay that with, as I just shared, great work ethic and bringing this Beach athletics community together for some great moments ahead of us. So excited to be here. Appreciate your support and everybody here on campus. Last thing to say is Go Beach. Go Beach, yeah, for sure. And again, Bobby, it's been a pleasure. I've known you for a while, but it's so nice to see you here at the beach doing some amazing things.
00:25:01
Speaker
We look forward to all the successes that you'll have and not only that, but joining you on that journey. So we're excited about that. Well, that is a wrap for our At the Beach podcast. It's been a pleasure speaking with Beach Athletics Executive Director, Bobby Smitherin. Thank you for listening for Cal State Long Beach and the Division of University Relations and Development. I'm Dan Montoya. See you again and Go Beach. Go Beach.