Answers from Garry Killgore, Linfield new Athletic Director, to Questions from Linfielder Rusty Rae, Sports Editor, McMinnville N-R. June-July 2017

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.
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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.’