Answers from Garry Killgore, Linfield new Athletic Director,
to Questions from Linfielder Rusty Rae, Sports Editor, McMinnville N-R/News-Register.
All three parts.
Part 1 ran June 30, 2017.
Part 2 ran July 4, 2017.
Part 3 ran
July 7, 2017.
1 of 3 parts
Friday June 30, 2017
McMinnville
N-R/News-Register includes the first of a three-part Q&A/question &
answer with Garry Killgore, Linfield’s new athletic director. Asking the
questions is Linfielder Rusty Rae, N-R sports editor.
......
Linfield’s new athletic
director: A conversation with Garry Killgore
In January of this year,
Linfield College named Dr. Garry Killgore to replace Athletic Director Scott
Carnahan, whose last official day is today.
Killgore, a member of the
Linfield Athletic Hall of Fame, is the first AD in more than 60 years not to
have graduated from Linfield.
He was the Wildcats’ head
track coach from 1989 to 2010 coaching nine individual national championships
and more than half of the Wildcats’
He is a six-time NCAA
West Region Track & Field Coach of the Year, a seven-time NCIC/NWC Track
& Field Coach of the Year and was honored as the NCIC Men’s Cross Country
Coach of the Year after leading the ‘Cats to the team title in 1994.
He comes to the Athletic
Directors position from chair of the Health, Human Performance and Athletic
Department at Linfield.
He also founded AQx
Sports, Inc., a land and water-based training and rehabilitation system.
He and his wife, Lisa,
have two children, Mike and Sarah.
News-Register Sports
Editor Rusty Rae caught up with Killgore shortly after the college announced he
would become the new athletic director. This is the first of three parts of a
conversation with Killgore. Parts two and three will follow in the next two
issues of the paper.
==NR: Where did you grow
up?
GK: Oregon, primarily. I
was born in Lebanon and grew up in Albany. We moved around a little bit. My dad
was a mill worker.
And a minister. We grew
up not very well, off as you can guess. We had a big family – five boys, and we
grew up working really hard out in the fields. I think that was a fairly common
thing, actually, for a lot of people back then. I think it’s incredibly
important to have those kinds of roots sometimes.
==NR: Absolutely. Do you
have a recollection of when you first heard of Linfield?
GK: [Laughing] I think
the first time was when I started getting recruited because of my running
ability and then I saw, I had a recruiting letter from Linfield. My high school
coach, though, was a high school champ from Lewis & Clark, so he didn’t
speak very highly of Linfield and I didn’t really think that much about it. And
then, I got recruited by Oregon State and so I wound up going to OSU. That
would have been the late ‘70s.
==NR: When you came to
Linfield you had been coaching at the high school level, right?
GK: High school and then
community college. I was at Linn-Benton Community College for a year.
==NR: So, who hired you
here?
GK: Ad (Rutschman) and
George Oja. I don’t know if you remember George, but he was the chair of the
department and it was really something pretty special to get in at the right
time, the right place, etc. My cross-country team at Crescent Valley High
School, my girls’ team, won state in 1988. I was just finishing my master’s
degree on a graduate teaching certificate at Oregon State in PE. I had done
some research with the track and field team, too. I was the last researcher,
really, to do kind of a project and turned it into my master’s thesis.
==NR: Which was about
what?
GK: It was on the
biomechanics of running on different surfaces. And it had to do with running
kinematics, with running technique and plantar pressure distribution and how it
translates to the bottom of the foot.
==NR: That’s pretty
swoopy stuff.
GK: Yes, sometimes.
==NR: Have you had a
mentor here? Many, I imagine, but is there anybody who particularly stands out?
GK: Yes, most definitely.
First of all, when I got here I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. When I
walk, and I’m not kidding, and I know that sounds kind of old fashioned, a
little bit. People who don’t know me would think, ‘yeah, he’s just, you know
blowing sunshine….’ It’s like you’ll find out pretty quickly there’s no fluff
with me, I’m pretty straight forward about everything I say and I believe in
very much honesty and integrity. That’s why I feel so bad when I mess up, because
I wasn’t raised that way. It irritates me to know that I may have messed up on
that.
Anyway, for sure Ad
(Rutschman), by the time I got here and told people I was going to become the
head coach – some of them I had taught and coached with down in Creswell and
Pleasant Hill. They were Linfield alums.
One was Gary Smith, who
is our school record holder in the 400 hurdles; he was a Pleasant Hill. The guy
I was teaching and coaching with, Dave Nickelsen is still our state school
record holder in the steeplechase, and we were teaching P.E. together down in
that district. They told me stories like crazy about Ad and Ted Wilson.
Ted Wilson, basically the
golden gloves kinda guy. And then when I got here, I still remember this: Ted
asked me how things were going. That was my second year. And I told him, ‘You
know, these guys need to learn that we’re not about doing this halfway. There
is no halfway for me. It needs to be you’re all in and you’re gonna move toward
the same goal and be part of our program. We lost a couple of people because of
that.’ And then he smiled at me, and I still think this is one of the most
awesome kind of compliments. He said, ‘You were born a generation too late.’
And then he smiled and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re a part of us now.’ That one,
especially with Ted, you know, recognizing all the great things he had done and
stuff that mattered so much, for someone like that to say that. And then, with
Ad and him saying right from the beginning that as the head coach, ‘You are who
I’m going to hold accountable. I don’t care if your assistant coach did this or
that, your athletes did this or that, that’s on you.’ And I love that. I
thought that old school is so important in our lives and I think too many
people have gotten away from it. I hear people say, You’re so old school.’ I
mean, I usually smile at them and say, ‘Old school doesn’t mean bad school.’
Old school is a good thing.
And then George,
academically – I would count him as a huge mentor, and someone who had already
been through the wars on how do you balance academics and athletics. From that
perspective I would never, ever, want to undersell the role he had, such a
classical good man. In terms of fitting in with him, that kind of ethos with
the rest of them, with Ad and Ted. There’s no doubt he’s right there. I know
how when I finally announced getting this position and knowing Ad’s reaction to
that and how much that meant to him means a huge amount to me.
==NR: So, it’s 20 years
now?
GK: Oh, my God.
==NR: 25 years?
GK: [Laughing] Keep
goin’. I’ve been here 28 years.
==NR: How have you
changed in that 28 years?
GK: You know, that’s such
a funny question because one of the members on the search committee is one of
my former athletes. He ran for me back in the ‘90s. His name is Mack Dressel
and he works for us now over in the admissions office. He’s such a great young
man. Anyway, he came in after the search committee knew that I was getting the
job, and said, ‘You did a really great job in the interview.’ I said, ‘Well, I
did the best I could and I am who I am.’ He smiled and says, ‘True, but you’ve
changed.’ I said, ‘Really. In what way?’ And he says, ‘Well, you’re older and
wiser.’ [laughing] I said, ‘Well, I know I am older for sure.’ And, you know,
as you grow older, you grow as a person. You mature and go through all these
different experiences throughout your life and you’re exposed to so many more
people. Sometimes what happens you tend to truly get to a situation where you
might be a little wiser about some of the things.
I know initially my own
competitiveness could get in the way. Even though you don’t want it to, it’s
still there. Even though everyone who knows me, knows I’m competitive, that
part of me is still there, but through the years you learn how to temper it,
and use it appropriately. And then it helps you with other kids, too, to do the
same.
==NR: So why are you
taking on this role? -- I mean this is a big headache.
GK: Yes, I know it is,
and what a funny question. If I had a nickel for every time I was asked that by
somebody that I’d be a rich man – I’d be able to fund one of the assistant
coaching positions I need to get. The funny thing is, at the core, seriously,
if there were no athletics in my life, there wouldn’t have been any academics
in my life.
I was a first generation
kid, like I said, really poor. As I said early on, we learned how to work. We
had to. Had I not discovered I was a pretty decent runner, I would never have
had the opportunity to go to college. I would have never have had part of it
paid for. All that opened the rest of the story for me. And then, there was a
moment when I realized -- I knew -- I wanted to be a coach and I wanted to
teach, which to me mean the same thing. I don’t think you can divorce the two.
==NR: I agree.
GK: It’s funny because I
don’t see how you can divorce it because they’re so intertwined and they really
do mean the same thing to me. When you think, ‘You know, I had these really
great opportunities and because of this I want to give that back. I want to help
other people unblock that potential.’ And what was funny is that crystallized
into this idea that the same discipline, the same kind of focus you have, the
same kind of drive, the kind of goal setting, should be in the classroom as
well. So all of a sudden I flipped a switch that said, ‘Okay. I want my
master’s degree.’
You’ll have to forgive
this side story, but it’s kind of a cool story. I was going to graduate school
in the summertime. We were living with Lisa’s parents, my wife’s – we’ve been
married a long time – 35 years, working on 36 right now. Anyway, we were on a
college cross-country team at Linn-Benton. I was back from Creswell and we
stayed with my in-laws who lived in Corvallis so I could go to OSU. I started
doing this and then decided I’d go for a graduate teaching assistantship. I’d
been surviving budget cuts in Creswell as a PE teacher and cross-country track
coach, so we committed to that. We ended up living with my wife’s parents in
Corvallis in the summer.
The chair of the department
at the time was Dr. Christian Zonner. He was an ex-physiologist. He was an old
school coach, that’s what he started as, he was a high school PE teacher and
swim coach.
And he went on to finish
his PhD in exercise physiology. He had 70 publications to his name and three
text books.
Honestly, I thought the
man walked on water. To me, he was pretty outstanding. It’s sort of thinking of
Ad, or somebody like that, but he was in the academic component. He came into
one of our grad classes and said,‘You know, I get mad as hell at anyone who
doesn’t live up to their full potential.’ I knew he wasn’t talking to me, there
was no way he was, but it clicked. I thought, ‘Oh, my God. Am I really doing
the best that I can be in academics?’
I went into his office.
It isn’t like there was a secretary as a gatekeeper, June, but I knew her
because I was the P.E. major’s vice-president for our club and having been an
athlete, people knew me. So I ask June if I can see Dr. Zonnar. Said, “For you?
Let me see.” She goes in and I over hear them. I hear Zonnar say, ‘Garry? Oh
yeah, please send him in.’He asks me how things are going with the
assistantship. He knew I was coaching at Crescent Valley. He asked what he
could do to help me. I said, ‘Something you said in your lecture really
resonated with me and I want to change.’ He said, ‘Okay, how?’ I said, ‘I want
to change from a master’s of education to a master’s of science. I want to
write a thesis on biomechanics of running.’ He said, ‘Oh, my gosh. Are you
serious?’ I said ‘Yes’. He said, ‘No problem. I’ll help you change. In fact, I
would be honored if you would allow me to serve on your graduate committee.’
This is the chair of the department saying this. It’s a huge department at OSU.
I said, ‘Dr. Zonnar, that would be my honor to have you to serve.’
He came again to my
doctoral defense years later. He was retired for years then. He talked about
mentoring as far as coaching goes. Yes, Ad and folks like that, Dr. Zonnar,
mattered to me just as much. I think that’s cool to think about, how you have
these mentors from athletics and from academics, and they were very similar in
terms of attributes. Very old school, very much about ‘if you stick your nose
in it, you don’t back off, you finish what you say you’re going to finish, and
you do what you say you’re going to do’. I would count Dr. Zonnar in there as
well. And Dr. Wood, he’s another kind of person like that.
=NR: So Garry, why, I
mean, why the A.D. position?
GK: Rusty, I want to go
home. That really, truly is it; I have a call to serve and I know what Ad
wanted, I know what the head coaches wanted, I know what the athletic trainers
wanted. When I decided to be chair, yes, it was to help academics for sure, but
in one department – as you know, we’re still one huge department. I wanted to
make sure that academics would never suffer from whoever served in this
capacity. I feel good about handing the academic component off to another
person. I think we’ve done some good things. Not that the people before us
didn’t. It’s such an honor to be in that same kind of a category, same kind of
ilk. It’s very necessary now because I think the NCAA Div. III ethos about the
student athlete, and I think no one can look at me and ever say, ‘You don’t
know,’ because I have academic awards and I have athletic awards, too. I think
apply applying those same kind of ideals no matter which venue you do that in,
you should be successful. I think I can bridge the kinds of gaps that might be
there with academics and athletics. I don’t see us being divorced, and I don’t
think we need to be. This is a great opportunity.
2 of 3 parts
Garry Killgore interview:
part two:
Fundraising leads the way to Linfield’s athletic future
By Rusty Rae Sport Editor
McMinnville N-R/News-Register
July 4, 2017 print edition
--NR: Today, as we sit
here, are there three or four main issues with which you are going to have to
deal?
=GK: [laughing] Fundraising. Yep, fundraising right off the bat. That’s going
to be incredibly important to us.
I know we need to position all of our coaches to be as successful as they can
be. I know, for example that Joe (Linfield head football coach, Joe Smith) is a
little bit frustrated that they get to the national playoffs, but they’re not
quite there yet.
They want to be there and I don’t blame them. They should want that. Just as
important to me is track, thinking the same thing, that Travis Olson (Linfield
Director of Cross Country and Track and Field)wants to position his team to win
a national title or at least be in that conversation.
The same will be true in tennis or basketball or whatever it is. Recently, I
told Casey Bunn-Wilson, both of us being Beaver alums, ‘Get ready ‘cause you’re
going to be there. Because I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to
take our women right to the national playoffs. I can’t wait to stand on half
court with you one day with tears running down my eyes because you got it
done.’
I think within five years you’re going to see that kind of thing happening. The
same thing is true with Shannon (Rosenberg) in men’s basketball. I think the
same with swimming – Kyle’s (Kimball) doing a great job already. But none of
them have enough to do some of the things we need to do.
We have this beautiful history of doing more with less than anyone out there.
But you can only get so much blood out of a turnip. Some of the turnips need to
have an infusion of blood, so we need to work on that. So that’s definitely
part of it.
I think all small liberal arts residential colleges are going through the same
kinds of things in terms of enrollment overall.
With our rich history and tradition in athletics, if we are able to clearly
demonstrate to people how close that relationship is between the quality
educational experience you can get in the classroom, whether that classroom is
out on the field or wherever it is, that’s what I can do.
And I know that I can do that. It’s easier to do when you do have extra
initials in back of your name. No matter what, I’ll continue to use that. We
have to work on that relationship.
But, definitely, the fundraising … I want the alums like today, meeting with a
track athlete who was a football alum, but meeting with our alums as much as I
possibly can.
If they haven’t felt as much a part of the family as they needed to in the
past, I want to see what we can do to fix that. I want them to, and this is not
a slam on anyone. Carney has done a phenomenally wonderful job here and Ad
before him.
This will be the first time it’s going to be a person who isn’t a baseball or
football person. To me, in this case, I’m hoping that’s going to be an
advantage. We can actually speak a little more openly, a little more freely to
the Olympic sports, not minor sports.
But still maintaining those hugely strong relationships we have with the
regular team sports kind of people like Scott Brosius (Former Linfield baseball
player, major league third baseman for the NY Yankees, former Linfield baseball
coach and now an assistant coach with the Seattle Mariners). Those are huge.
I know that we need to have an upgrade on our stadium.
--NR: That’s one of my
questions.
=GK: Yes. And everything actually surrounding that, I have a vision for how we
can do that. It would naturally tie together some of the sports medicine
components we have. Our team’s physician, Dr. Rains, is excited about this idea
and it’s right up my wheelhouse because of what I did with research in terms of
aquatics and such.
We are in a position to set ourselves apart from a lot of different people.
If the Seattle Seahawks are calling me, still asking me for help, say, one of
my students or whatever, why are we not tapping into those things and saying
how so we get to make it a little better? I have a lot of work to lay that
foundation of where it goes, but I see that happening.
--NR: On that line,
Scott’s done, I think, an outstanding job, particularly with the facilities
here. Do you have a particular vision for what you would see facilities
changing or being improved?
=GK: Yes. This piggybacks so nicely on what you just asked me. Ideally, and
this may not be that we’re going take this to the current stadium, we may
actually go beyond. We may, and obviously the president is going to see this
and go, what? But we may take HP properties and put the stadium right out in
the middle of that big field we own already instead of getting grass seed
people to farm it and not get very much money.
So, anyway, we put a stadium there and then you put in human performance labs -
biomechanics, tech-phys, nutrition, etc., because all of those labs will
support athletics.
Tell me that’s not going to be a recruiting tool to beat the band. Then, all of
a sudden, high school coaches, community college coaches are going to know if
you really want to be successful, you want it to be done right and you want
people to take care of you, Linfield not only is a great family situation to go
to, but they have the science to back it.
They’re actually going to support you the way you need to be supported so we
can maximize your performance.
As it is, we have one of the country’s best sports psych people for the
psychology of injury. And a lot of people don’t know that. She’s right here in
the department. Dr. Kenow. She was a longtime athletic trainer; she’s our
program director and she’s outstanding at sports psych. We should be tapping
into that and, yes, part of that is the aquatics part that I do. I don’t even
know how many pro athletes and teams I’ve helped.
And some of them have actually done it right here. Jonathan Stewart (former UO
running back, now with the Carolina Panthers) has been here with a football
camp he was doing.
If we can structure that so it shows a natural connection between all those
aspects, you go out and look at pro teams, you look at Div. One teams, they
have that already. We don’t have those supports yet. Now, is it going to be as
big and grandiose as Oregon? No. I don’t have an Uncle Phil [Knight] in my
pocket, so I can’t go to somebody like that.
But the goal is that we could tie that all together, so we make a new stadium,
as an example, that may be football and track to start with, because right now
we’re hurting in terms of the soccer field.
I’m looking at that and thinkin if we did that we could move soccer, lacrosse,
etc., over to the current field. They would have a really good stadium and
field turf they play on.
Football and track can move out to the other area. We can expand the sports
medicine component. And there you go. The good thing is that I still know quite
a few people in those industries.
--NR: So that’s kind of a
long-term vision. What short-term vision do you see? It seems to me, as I’ve
traveled around, one of the issues at Linfield is what I would call the
exercise center.
=GK: Oh, right, absolutely. The way I envision this is to tie all of those
things together. As an example, if you do this stadium, and because we don’t
have a whole lot of real estate right here to work with and we can’t do a lot
to the current building structurally.
If you were to spin this to people in the fitness industry, which is how I’m
going to approach this, and you spin this from the perspective of ‘how would
you like to open a planned fitness or a 24-hour fitness?’ We have several of
our graduates off in management-like jobs in those areas where we might actually
be able to connect with them.
And then, what you do is you open it on campus. Our students who are in sports
management, which is the largest minor on campus now -- it’s about to become a
major -- and not to mention our own majors within, majors in science, etc., you
put them in there for their educational opportunities, and open it to the
community as well.
And then, all of a sudden, it’s beautiful, because it works for the whole
community, and it works for our students. We can actually get people to get
behind it and fund it, which I think is huge.
For example, Columbia Sportswear. I have some contacts there and one of them is
a former teammate of mine. We go to them and say, ‘You know what, we’ve been
trying to get a climbing wall forever. I want it to be part of this complex.
Will you help us?’
And, all of a sudden, if he sees the grand picture and he sees they’re part of
this huge opportunity for them really, too, because you plaster it with
whatever you need to plaster it.
You make it as beautiful as the rest of our campus, but give them credit for
what they did. There’s nothing wrong with that at all.
Honestly, I think a lot of people are short changing Phil Knight, and they
shouldn’t hold it against him for supporting athletics at the U of O. He’s
given so much to this state overall, and this country overall. Maybe that’s
just a track guy defending a track guy.
--NR: Do you have any
short-term vision for the football stadium?
=GK: The short-term one is that we’re working on the long-term one. The
short-term one is that there will be some of the changes we want to do that
will help a little bit with … now … a little bit of advertising like Dutch
Brothers or different things like that.
There’s a point where you don’t want it to become gauche. You don’t want it to
become so in your face with advertising that you lose the essence of what
you’re trying to do.
To me, like at football games, I want to highlight people at halftime. I want
to highlight faculty who have done so much for our student body here.
All right. Give them a moment in the sun. Give them a moment out here at
halftime and recognize the great works they do, just like we do for our
athletes. Then you go to the military and you do exactly the same thing.
I have a colonel who is in the Marines right now. He’s been stationed in San
Diego for a number of years now. I think he’s lost track actually of how many
tours he’s been on in Afghanistan, Iraq, and all that kind of stuff.
I think back to when he was an outstanding football player, an outstanding
athlete for me. He contacted me a few years ago when I was still coaching.
He said, ‘Hey, coach, I see you’re coming down to Southern California for the
regional championships in cross country. Can I see you?’
I said, ‘Are you kidding?’ And then I see this character walking across the
field with the cut like you’re supposed to have in the Marines. He still has
his decathlete strut, but it’s even better because now he’s a colonel in the
Marines.
The way he carried himself, the way he did that was just fantastic. But what
was even more fantastic was that even though we hadn’t seen each other in quite
a few years, because he was here when I first got here, so this would have been
about 20 years after that, we hugged in the middle of the football field that
was in the middle of a track at Pomona like we had seen each other yesterday.
That to me is what Linfield is about.
When you recognize the family kind of situation in conjunction with that young
man’s service to this country, that is what we should be about. Then you think
about Steve Rex here in town; he’s been a longtime friend, he’s a retired
assistant fire chief. He’s a Linfield alum.
And his brother, Mike, is in our Hall of Fame. They’ve been great friends
forever. But they should be recognized for the contributions they’ve made to
this community. So we’re going to try to open up a little bit more of that kind
of stuff.
In fact, I want to have more of a family atmosphere on the street, something
we’ve not been able to do because of things, but we’ll see turning it into more
of a fun, party atmosphere and make it so people really, really want to come
and fill the seats every time we do anything – basketball, volleyball, all of
that stuff across the board.
We have to do more of that kind of thing. Make the kids hooked on athletics.
The earlier we get them in here for camps, the earlier we highlight them.
Like doing free throw contests at halftime, or whatever we do, all of that
stuff to me is fair game.
I still have the physical educator in me; I still want kids to want those
things to happen. Anytime anybody tries to pigeonhole me as, ‘oh, now he’s
going to be the athletic director, he’s going to act like this, and, well, good
luck with that because it’s all still the same.
--NR: I’ve read that
Linfield is going to have a new marketing focus. I haven’t seen a whole lot
yet, but I’m sure it’s coming. I would assume that you traveled down that road
with AQX?
=GK: I did.
NR: So, what are your thoughts with respect to marketing this program? There’s
obviously a great value proposition with Linfield athletics.
=GK: Oh my gosh, yes. The wonderful thing is that Scott Nelson, our new
director of communications, is right on board with this.
Part of my role is to be the evangelist. My dad was a minister and it comes
pretty naturally to me. The interesting thing is that kind of marketing style,
AQX, and every single time I’ll do a workshop, a clinic, whatever, I had 100%
sellout, or at least 85 or 95%, depending on where you go. It was because, if
you truly believe in what you’re saying, people feel its power. I’ve told
coaches already, I’ve told people across campus any time you can use me, any
way you can use me, spread the word and I’m there. I’m not alone.
There are other evangelists just like that and we need to tap into that, and to
not be embarrassed to say, “Gosh, we’re pretty darn good at this, and why don’t
you come and give us a shot, because you’ll find most of the time is this is
such a good match for most people. You think about the community, about the college
itself, about sports within that context, and it’s just a great kind of
scenario.”
--NR: Let’s go back to
fundraising. I have a background in motor sports. We have a saying, ‘Cubic
dollars beats cubic horsepower.’ Part of the issue … I think of your friends up
north in the county are spending money like drunken sailors and it seems to me
that’s something with which Linfield must compete.
=GK: We have to do that too. And whether some people … I’m not sure what the
reticence is, not really sure where they are, but …. Now, the hardest part is
that you look at NCAA DIII to some respect, and you know, in terms of putting
on uniforms and things like that. Okay, we got that.
But, that doesn’t stop us from doing the huge billboards, getting some airtime
on TV or social media. And we have to not be afraid of exploring any kind of a
marketing advantage we have and to get our word out -- I think we should
explore that.
Now, do you do that willy-nilly? No. You don’t do it that way, but you do need
to explore the options and then try to get more and more of those
opportunities.
……………….
…Correction: In our first
installment, due to a transcription error, we identified a former student and
current Assistant Director of Admissions at Linfield as Mack Dressel, he is
actually Matt Dressel.
…Photo (by Rusty Rae)
cutline: Garry Killgore, Linfield’s new Athletic Director, decked out in his
Hawaiian shirt at Ted Wilson Gymnasium on the Linfield Campus. Killgore and
other members of the athletic department wear Hawaiian shirts on Friday in
tribute to the many Hawaiians who attend Linfield.
::::::::::::::
3 of 3 parts
Q&A with Garry
Killgore, Linfield new Athletic Director. Interviewed by Linfielder Rusty Rae,
Sports Editor, McMinnville N-R. Part 3 of 3 part interview.
New Linfield Athletic
Director Garry Killgores is called to serve a greater good at the college.
By Rusty Rae McMinnville
N-R/News-Register Sport Editor July 7, 2017
(Photo of Garry Killgore
by Rockne Roll, McMinnville N-R)
Part three: Garry
Killgore: Serving a greater good!
This is the third and
final installation of the News-Register’s interview with newly appointed
Linfield Athletic Director Garry Killgore. The first two segments were found in
the June 30 and July 2 editions.
--NR: I think the process
is doing psychographic, demographic surveys, focusing and understanding these
components you have target those particular elements so you are making a wise
investment.
=GK: Absolutely.
--NR: This is more about
the finance part: Linfield has been, as you point out, really competitive in a
number of sports… there’s really no sport where sometime or another Linfield
hasn’t been the best, but there are some disparities out there now you
mentioned. Is there any hope of a short-term cure? I would point to, for
example, funding of scholarships for athletes, recruiting budgets, and paid
assistants.
=GK: Yes, first of all, as a reminder, we can’t offer athletic scholarships. So
we can’t do it that way. So what you have to do is make sure the infrastructure
is right in terms of athletic trainers, administrative people who support the
teams.
This goes back to old version where Mitch Barnhart was over at OSU as athletic
director. He was young, he comes in and he pulls everybody together in the
department. He tells all the head coaches to stand up. He says, ‘Your job is to
be successful. If you’re not, you’re not going to be here. Now you can sit down.
Now, everybody else stand up.’ That would be, you know, trainers and strength
conditioning folks, SID, everybody else. ‘Your job is to support them in
getting there. And if you don’t do that, then you’re not going to be here.’
Obviously, you can do that more easily in a DI school. The point is that we
will do this together. We will be one cohesive unit. To steal something from
Jim Collins’s book (Good to Great), we’re going to get everyone on the same
dang bus, and we’re all going to go the same way.
The point is that you have to marshal the troops toward the same common goal,
and you have to help them understand and appreciate your time will come; you
need to be a little bit patient, but you need to help me. You need to help me
help you.
Don’t come and tell me we need to have all this money and not give me any
options like: do you have a group of alums I should be targeting, do you have
ideas about how we can get there? And I think by that kind of collaborative
process, too, we really will go places.
I want to pat Joe (Smith, Linfield head football coach) on the back because
right now he’s been so good at trying to share a bit, and trying to help the
other teams understand.
Like, doing our renovation up here (in the athletic department), we got some
pretty good donations.
Scott (Carnahan) and I collaborated. He used academic funds and athletic funds
because the recruitment of students and, obviously, student athletes, is
incredibly important to the college.
But you’ve got to make this place pop. And so we’ve got to be able to make
those kinds of changes. Ideally, even though we’ve got this huge picture of
what we’re after, we also have to see that this is where I can see where the
focus is and I can still see this, and I know this needs a little more attention,
this needs a little more attention, but I’m still focused on this. This is
where we have to start.
--NR: The example I would
use, Garry, is, let’s assume I’m out and I see some young man who is 6’7”, he’s
from Lebanon, his father’s a minister, okay? And he qualifies for … let’s just
say $50,000 of aid. I don’t know the formula; it doesn’t really matter. But, my
understanding is the basketball program in this case is somewhat limited in
terms of what the college actually is able to give him as a scholarship.
=GK: Yes. It really boils down to what their family situation is financially.
--NR: I understand that,
I understand the formula. But when we come up with the bottom line number, my
understanding is there are some limitations about what a coach can actually
give to …
=GK: Yes, they can’t give anything.
--NR: The college gives
them the money, right?
=GK: Right. The coach can’t have any input about what their financial aid
package is. That’s the hardest part. It’s a huge change from NAIA days.
In NAIA days, when I first started, we were able to influence the amount of
total package they got. All it meant was, if you had more need than I did, and
it didn’t matter that I might be a 5’5” high jumper and you’re a 6’6” high
jumper, you can get more aid than I can.
It didn’t matter about influence, either. I mean, it’s just how it worked out.
So, the hardest part is now the athletic contribution can’t be counted into
whatever their aid package is. So I can’t go raise the money specifically for
scholarships for student athletes. Can’t do that.
--NR: But my
understanding is from a competitive perspective, there are schools in the
Northwest Conference that are able to give better packages to student athletes
than Linfield. I don’t know if it’s true or not.
=GK: That question is kind of a difficult one because I don’t want to throw
anyone under the bus, and I won’t give any specifics, but there are ways
colleges can allow for student aid.
I didn’t say athletic aid, student aid. And one of those is you can earmark
more percentage of your endowment, as an example, for student aid. And make it
so you can have more available for grants.
That’s one of the ways we can influence that. But, we can still help them raise
money for the endowment, which would make sense.
--NR: My thought is,
Linfield needs to be as competitive with the packages it is giving, and I’m not
sure if Linfield is at this point.
=GK: Yes, right. Part of this, too, is that many of the colleges have earmarked
more money specifically for underserved populations. That’s one of the ways
that they’re able to offer more aid because, just by happenstance, if, for
example, you’re an African American kid who plays basketball, you might be able
to get more aid at Pacific. I noticed the other night when the ‘Cat basketball
played, how many more African American kids were on the other team than what we
have. And that’s a college-wide decision.
--NR: So, in the release
the college put out, there was a quote that said something about (Linfield)
needing to continue to build on the culture here, but we also have to have
opportunities to grow. Are you speaking about anything outside of what we spoke
of with respect to the football stadium?
=GK: Yes, I think so. I think the main reason I wanted to say that is just because
I come in here and just because I’ve been in this culture and been a part of
this culture, does not mean that I’m necessarily OK with the status quo.
I don’t think you can do that. But, on the one hand, one of the things you
don’t want to violate is your code of conduct in terms of integrity, honesty.
Those kinds of things will never change while I’m here. No way. I won’t allow
that to happen because that is what we were built on. And I love that part.
That’s beautiful.
But, social media has changed the way we have to approach marketing,
recruitment, etc. Well, does that mean we have to earmark more money toward
getting someone who can manage nothing but that?
Well, maybe, and that may be one of the things I really have to go after. Do I
need to go get a social media manager for the athletic department?
Because right now, I’m afraid our coaches are being driven nuts by the 24/7
they have to be available with texting and stuff. But if we could take off a
little bit where Twitter and Facebook and all … I know Facebook is almost going
to the side, and a little bit more now it it’s more our age people than it was.
And I have to push myself and this is exactly what I want everybody to think
about: Don’t get comfortable. I don’t care how good you get, there’s always
someone better.
We owe it to ourselves to incessantly push ourselves to constantly try to reach
our own potential and enhance that potential as much as we possibly can.
And I still believe that’s why I keep reinventing and keep moving to get new
challenges. It’s the same reason why I went back over to athletics. Because I
know right now, in the trajectory for Linfield, they need to have somebody like
me, who can do that kind of thing in that role. So that’s an exciting part.
--NR: Is it difficult to
give up coaching and …
=GK: Oh, dear God. Honestly, it kinda tore my heart out. I don’t know how else
to say that. Because the thing I missed the most was the relationships,
especially the relationships you build with your student athletes.
Like tonight, Lisa and I are going to dinner at the house of two of my former
athletes. They’re married. They met right off the team. Chris Miles does a lot
of our work and helped me with my company. His wife is Dani, it used to be
Bielenberg. She’s our school record holder in discus and … anyway, we’re going
there to dinner at their house and then tomorrow night we’re meeting two of my
other athletes who are together. Tim France, who was a football athlete … I
guess that you’ll notice that there’s a trend here – football-track guys.
And I hope that we’ll get back to those kinds of relationships again. Tim
France, who is the principal at Willamina is with Mariza, the widow of one of
my other former athletes.
Those relationships are incredibly important. So, yes, it was incredibly hard.
But I also knew, when I really had to step back and think through what was best
for the department, what was best for academics and athletics at that time
together, it was best for me to do that role.
And I didn’t want to walk down that hallway and look at someone like Joe or
Doug or somebody and say, “Well, I could have led you, but, sorry.” You know
that’s just not the best service component. I mean, you know you need to serve
a greater good.
--NR: So, 20 years
between your undergraduate degree and your Ph.D. Was that a planned thing?
=GK: No. Heck no. No. No. So I get here, and I go back and do the master’s as I
said, and then I get here, I start the biomechanics program – we didn’t have it
at the time -- and that’s one of the reasons they hired me.
And then, things changed. Technologically and all that kind of stuff and I
thought I wasn’t at the level that I needed to be. I was doing great in classes
…
--NR: I understand that.
=GK: It wasn’t enough. Then somebody made the mistake of saying, ‘You can’t
possibly do that’ on top of being head cross country and track coach. And I was
teaching all these classes and division chair at the time, and our son was just
going into high school and our daughter coming into middle school.
I knew they were old enough by now that they could handle it and it was a huge,
huge family commitment and I respect my family a great deal for that.
But it was more or less those lessons you’re supposed to get out there. To me,
they are true. And they should transfer over to whatever realm they (student
athletes) go into.
Well, if I don’t model that behavior for them, then how do I look them in the
eyes and say, ‘This is what athletics is supposed to do for you’?
To me, bottom line was, you should live up to what you’re sayin’. And then the
AQX stuff came out of that. I didn’t plan to do that, either. And then, you
know, somebody is sayin’, ‘Well, I’m not sure if that’ll work.” So you make it
work. And … so, yes.
--NR: So is AQX still a
major enterprise of yours?
=GK: No. We closed the company. The hardest part was I was trying to do that on
top of everything I was doing here. We tried to find other people to run the
company and do that kind of stuff that. You have to find the right fit as you
can imagine, and … At the end of the day I didn’t have a very good business
model because -- Vince Jacobs will tell you this -- I didn’t require anybody to
pay me and I would help them. I mean, if Vince called me and asked for help,
and he did, and I would be helping. The athletes here, the coaches would send
them to me and I would help them and not charge them for that. I charged some
of the pros … but even then I didn’t charge them as much as I probably should
have. Because ultimately I was just trying to leave this place better than when
I got here, which is really what you’re supposed to do.
--NR: I know fishing is
one of your passions, so what’s your favorite fishing hole?
=GK: Oh no, I’m not sure I’m going to tell you this (laughter). Well, I can
give you this, I don’t fish around here much. In the wintertime I like Heart
Attack Hill on Three Rivers. I like it because you have to crawl down one steep
embankment with ropes attached, no kidding, and when you haul a fish out of
there or two, you … it’s aptly named, Heart Attack Hill.
--NR: Where is that?
=GK: It’s near the hatchery. Near Hebo.
--NR: Okay.
=GK: And in the summer I used to fish the South Santiam for steelhead quite a
bit. But I absolutely love the Deschutes trip that we have, that all the
coaches take, a lot of coaches take together. That is a fantastic trip and I
love fly fishing there. I love fly fishing the Upper McKenzie way up high.
--NR: I’m going to end
this a little bit strangely perhaps, for a sports editor guy. I’m going to use
the 10 questions from the Actors Studio James Lipton uses. What’s your favorite
word?
=GK: My favorite word? Integrity.
--NR: What’s your least
favorite word?
=GK: I can’t….
--NR: What turns you on
creatively, emotionally, spiritually?
=GK: Ultimate performances.
--NR: What turns you off?
=GK: When people give up.
NR: What’s your favorite
curse word?
=GK: (Laughter) You can’t publish this. It’s the f-bomb. (More laughter)
--NR: What sound or noise
do you love?
=GK: When the starter's gun goes off.
--NR: What sound or noise
do you hate?
=GK: That’s a hard one. I don’t like people moaning, kind of whining. Yes. Whining
is the right word.
--NR: What profession
other than your current one would you like to attempt?
=GK: There were several years where I wanted to be a policeman.
--NR: What profession
would you not like to attempt?
=GK: (laughter) Being a lawyer.
--NR: If heaven exists,
what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
=GK: I know exactly what I want to hear, ‘You left it better than when you got
here.’
