Q: What about UCSB stood out for you when you were making the decision to come to this university?
A: Both my wife, Kim, and I are from California (Bay Area) so we’ve both been to Santa Barbara before. But I kept telling her every time I returned from an interview how special it was. The campus, university, community, location—everything is just so special. I kept saying that word—special— every time we discussed the opportunity. Plus whether you are a coach, player or administrator, you want to go somewhere where winning is expected. And UCSB wins. Gary Cunningham did a great job of establishing a culture of winning here. That, plus what matters most—graduating our student-athletes. I applaud Gary and Chancellor Yang for that. We will never lose that culture.

Q: What are the keys to success for a university athletics department?
A: Simple. Funding for facilities and scholarships. I'm a firm believer you can achieve great things with amazing facilities and amazing people. The ICA building gives us the start. It is big-time. I mean BCS-level, playing-with-the-big-boys type big time. It gives us the all-important “curb appeal” to recruit top-level players. Now we need to work with the entire campus and do our part to have a wide-ranging venue enhancement strategy.

Q: What are the top two to three goals you have for improvement and expansion of the Athletics Department?
A: Athletics at the Division I level is a flat-out arms race. You’re either going forward or going backwards. There is no standing still. So to go forward and build this thing to last we need to develop an annual giving program for the entire athletics department. Our coaches have done an amazing job in reaching out to the community to invest in their programs. That’s so encouraging. That will continue. But we will have a broad-based fundraising strategy. We are one program and everyone benefits if all sports have the funds to truly attack national championships. Scholarship funding does that. Second is a capital projects plan. My experience is people will invest in tangible things. Kids and facilities are it.

Q: Is there a particular area you plan to focus on first?
A: Marketing. We must do an exceptional job of reaching the local community and the campus to show them how great these young men and women are. How hard they will compete. How special they are. How they can witness them succeed on the playing field. Simply: where, when, and how they can get to our games. We will be on the edge in marketing. We will not "play it safe" in this area.

Q: What do you see as the role of coaches in the success of UCSB Athletics?
A: Recruit tough, hard-working, passionate kids. Then coach them up. Plus invest in them as total students. Socially, academically, and in community outreach. They already do this for the most part.

Q: What strategies from Oregon State would you import to the UCSB Athletics program?
A: Find a marketing angle. Find your position in the marketplace and build a plan of attack. At Oregon State, we created four “hallmark values” to describe the program—tough, grit, passion and determination. We sold that. We recruited those types of kids. We forcibly marketed this concept internally and externally. We made ourselves—our staff and student-athletes—believe no one in the Pac-10 could say those words. It was straight propaganda. If you think about it, anyone can say their program has those values. But we were the first in the Pac-10 to put it to ads, marketing material, media guides, etc. We wanted kids to play there who identified with those values. We wanted our fans to believe in them—to identify with them.

Q: How did initiating Spanish language broadcasts improve the success of the OSU Athletics Department?
A: It was really something I had forced on me. J I had directed Hispanic sports marketing efforts at University of Miami (Fla.) and 49ers radio. So I had experience in reaching out to the Latino community through marketing efforts. But the athletic director at OSU— Bob De Carolis—wanted to beat the Ducks (Oregon) at this. I'm not sure it was on their radar but in marketing being the "first" in something means a lot. So we went for it. And what I discovered was 8 to 10 percent of Oregon's population is Latino—pretty good number. So we started broadcasting football games in Spanish. Then the baseball games in addition to placing ads in Portland's Hispanic newspaper and celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month (parts of September and October). It wasn't a revenue-generating move; it was outreach to a segment of our community. Diversity is important to me. If you think about it culture is the one thing we all have in common. So I believe it's our duty to use the high visibility of athletics to showcase diversity. We also made sure the Spanish language broadcasts had a bunch of information on how to apply to the university, Web site addresses, different cultural events on campus and the like. The best part is in the second year the schools admission office told us the applications by Latinos to the university was up 35 percent! Can't say it was due to the sports marketing we did to the Hispanic community, but we'll take it. And we beat the Ducks to the punch ...

Q: How did your experiencing working with the 49ers influence the work you do with university athletics now?
A: I started in college athletics (at St. Mary's College, Miami) and only worked with the ’Niners in the broadcasting area for three years but I learned a ton about how games, auxiliary programming like coaches shows need to be about more than the XO's. This is a huge platform to weed in the other agenda items. On our level (UCSB), that will be how fans can buy tickets or give to the program and ultimately learn more about our student-athletes as people. With the ’Niners and later at Oregon State, I also learned a lot on how to craft and negotiated broadcast—television and radio—rights partnerships. There is a whole world there of verbiage, multimedia rights that can be very complicated. I now feel I'm seasoned in that area.

Q: In your experience, what part have alumni played in supporting university athletics?
A: Well, it’s their school. Really. Our greatest commodity is the students and alumni. We need to always achieve a sense of investment by the current students in their athletic programs—emotionally as well as financially. This will keep them connected as young alumni, then as they move into the family stage and beyond of their lives.

Q: A large number of UCSB alumni live in Santa Barbara County. How do you plan to appeal to them and encourage them to come to events?
A: Easy. By aggressively publicizing our events with the Alumni Association and vice versa—much like the current students and Gauchos Locos. We need everyone’s noise—students, alumni and fans. We need that “tough place to play” reputation. We have really low prices for tickets plus we will have some new mini-plan and youth ticket plans soon to really entice folks to attend—and attend often. These coaches and players deserve great support. Our alumni and fans also like winning. And we win a lot usually.

Q: Why do you think it is important for athletes to be leaders in their communities?
A: Athletics is one big classroom setting really. Student-athletes learn adversity, success, time management, and teamwork. But what they do now and after they leave UCSB in the community is very important. When you're a student-athlete "the logo never comes off”—meaning you are always in the spotlight. Great. We'll take it. That means we reach out and touch lives, and give back to our community. Being a Gaucho means you will be great in the classroom, on the fields of play, in the community and in life. All four parts are mandatory. If they didn't want to be great, they should have gone to Cal Poly. (Editor's note: Mark Massari adds, "The last sentence made was a light tongue-in-cheek remark in light of our respectful rivalry. I have great respect for Cal Poly and the SLO community.")

Q: We heard your daughter doesn’t like the beach, what’s up with that?
A: Man, that really threw me. She’s this beautiful, blonde 5-year-old girl who loves dresses and flip-flops. But she didn’t want any part of the beach when we came to town for my press conference. We have beaches in Oregon, of course. She’s been on the sand there and loved it, so I’m not sure what was up that day. But check back with me in a year or two from now. She’ll be humming Jack Johnson songs, playing in the sand, and soaking in the rays.