Yes, you would be surprised how often I get asked that question.  The fact of the matter is that the spring sports season is usually the busiest time of the year for an athletic administrator of a program that has all of the spring sports, like we do.  We have more sports competing in the spring than at any other time of the year.

These sports are in-season during the springtime:

Baseball, Softball, Men's Outdoor Track and Field, Women's Outdoor Track and Field, Men's Tennis, Women's Tennis, Men's Golf, Women's Golf, Women's Lacrosse.

Plus, our fall sports teams are in their out-of-season times of practice and limited competition (yes, volleyball and soccer have spring seasons just like football has spring football).  Well over half of our student-athlete population of about 600 is doing something in April and May and thus, it keeps athletic administrators very busy.

An example would be the weekend coming up of April 12-15.  Starting with Thursday's Men's Tennis match with Ferris, we have 12 home events, plus the spring football game at Houseman Field at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, Apr. 14.  You can check out every team's schedule at www.gvsulakers.com.  You can also follow me on Twitter @TimSelgo to get some of my insights on each of our teams and our events.  I would be remiss not to mention that Saturday, April 14 also happens to be my birthday.  Since we have six events that day, I'm probably not going to be celebrating my birthday much that day.  At my age, that's ok!  J

It is our goal of course for our spring sports teams to advance in post season competition as far as possible.  If we are successful with that, our staff will be busy seven days a week through the month of May.  The month of June brings us to our annual coaches two day retreat, departmental meetings, the Irwin Club Golf Outing, the GVSU Football Alumni Golf Outing, the NACDA convention, and year end budget work that keeps us busy through the end of June.  We all hope to get some "R&R" in the month of July to recharge for when the fall sports teams come back in August.  So there's my answer to the question.  The best part of the answer is how much fun we have supporting our spring sports teams on to reaching their full potential!   

My college coach would often talk about the difference between being good and being great. He would hold his index finger just above his thumb and tell us that often times it is only that much that separates the good players from the great players, and the good teams from the great teams.  He would then remind us that it is the little things you do day in and day out that make the difference.  He would always tell us that it is doing the little things well that make you really successful.  It's the little things that add up to big things.  So what does that mean for us in athletics?

Different plays made by GVSU student-athletes over the years stand out in my mind that demonstrate this.  In 2002 Curt Anes threw the winning touchdown pass to David Kircus to allow us to win our first national championship.  What most people didn't know was that Curt changed the play at the line of scrimmage.  He put David in the slot and I was told that was the FIRST TIME all year we ever ran that play with Kircus in the slot.  A little extra film study allowed Anes to recognize what he needed to do.  Also on that play, Mario Locricchio, our other wide receiver on that side of the field, blocked the DB so well that he drove him back enough for Kircus to sneak inside the pylon.  Mario never received much mention for it, but he did a little thing to help his team win a national championship.

In 2010, our women's soccer team won their second straight national championship.   We outscored our 5 opponents in the NCAA Tournament 19-0!  That is a lot of goals scored and as is often the case in sports, the goal scorers received a lot of attention.  One player on that team that wasn't one of our leading goal scorers was Kristen Eible.  Although not a leading scorer, Kristen was a senior leader on that team and did a lot of little things that propelled that team to dominate the NCAA Tournament that year.  She held a weekly study table (even though she didn't need it as she was an outstanding student) for the freshmen on the team to keep them engaged in their academics and to develop a relationship with them.  She was a positive, vocal leader but she wasn't afraid to challenge her teammates when they needed it either.  That isn't easy for some leaders, especially those that are 20-21 year old college student-athletes, but it's a must for a championship team.  She did all of the little things well off the field; proper nutrition, rest, hydration, etc.  Those are all things our coaches harp on and she did them well relentlessly and it paid off in a big way for her and her team!

In a world of SportsCenter highlights and short snippets on Twitter accounts, we rarely get to see the little things that take place to lead one to success.  But it is important to know that every highlight we see is the result of a lot of little things that occurred to make it happen.  We will keep working at the little things necessary for success!

Every year the athletic department's senior administrative staff conducts a retreat at which we set our goals for the upcoming year, similar to how many organizations set their annual goals.  Like many others, we have some goals that remain on our annual list every year because they are priorities for us every year.  For instance, our first goal every year is to:

"Support the mission of the institution through its offering of academic support and advisement which supports/endorses the total development of the student-athlete, offers a positive learning environment, and fosters lifelong learning of its students."

Certainly, the education of our student-athletes is primary to our mission and we want that reflected annually in our goals.  We also have an annual competitive goal.  Intercollegiate competition does involve competition!  Our school's teams compete against other schools' teams to see who gets the most points, runs/swims the fastest, etc.  Therefore, our annual competitive goal is:

"Win the Presidents' Cup.  Advance in national competition to the fullest of each team's potential."

The Presidents' Cup is our conference's all sports trophy.  Many people ask me since we have won eight Directors' Cups (the national all sports trophy) in a row, why don't we have "Win the Directors' Cup" as one of our goals.  Here is my answer.

We have complete control over winning the Presidents' Cup; we do not have complete control over winning the Directors' Cup.  The Presidents' Cup is determined by taking the standings of every GLIAC sport at the end of the year and assigning points for each school's place finish in every sport.  So if you win the conference in football, you would get 14 points because there are 14 schools in the conference competing in football.  Second place would get 13, third place gets 12, etc.  The Presidents' Cup is an entirely objective calculation based each team's finish.

The Directors' Cup however, has some subjectivity to it as you must be selected to participate in NCAA post season competition.  We do not control that.   Certainly we have some control by how successful our performance is during the regular season.  But sometimes you end up on the proverbial "bubble", the term often used when March Madness rolls around for those teams that could get in but might not.  This past football season is a good example of why we set our goals the way we do.  Our team started out 1-3, and then won their last seven games in a row.  Clearly, by the end of the year, we were playing as well as anyone in the GLIAC and possibly DII.  However, our "body of work" included those three losses earlier in the season.  We had control over that, but we didn't have control over the selection process.  Over 30 years ago my college basketball coach used to tell us, regarding close games, "if you leave it up to an official's call late in the game, those guys are human and you never know if the call is going to go your way or not".  The same holds true with selection into the NCAA post season.  We can control how we do once selected for the championship, but until then, it's not completely in our control and therefore, our goal reads the way it does.

Having said that, I am very proud of our football team this year despite not making the NCAA DII playoffs.  Those three losses were all tough losses.  Two of them came down to the last seconds of the game on the road.  One of them was a game we almost won despite having six turnovers.  Nevertheless, after three difficult weeks our team could have folded their tents and gone through the motions for the rest of the year.  But they didn't do that.  They showed great character in sticking together, getting better and better every week, and rattled off seven straight wins.  We must pay tribute to our seniors for their efforts and leadership in finishing out the season the way we did.  And I think it was evident we have a lot to look forward to with the 2011 team being one of our youngest teams in a long time and the talent returning that has now benefitted from this season and the adversity they faced.  There is plenty of motivation to come back in 2012 hungrier than ever and I know many of you are like me in that you are very excited about the future for Laker Football.

That is why we set our goals the way we do.  You can only control what you can control and we can't worry or spend energy on what we cannot control.  That approach has served our athletic programs well over the years and I am confident it will serve us well into the future.  GO LAKERS!

Like all industries, the sports industry has changed dramatically over the years.  Sometime around the late 70's/early 80's, big money started to move in to the college sports landscape.  Although there are probably many reasons for it, three stand out to me as major changes in the college sports landscape:

1.) The creation of ESPN.  The seemingly insatiable appetite we have for sports could now be fed 365/24/7 and all of that programming time needed to be filled.  College athletics was one answer in filling that time.

2.) The NCAA Basketball Final Four exploded beginning with the 1979 matchup between Larry Bird (Indiana State) and Magic Johnson (Michigan State).  We could probably go back to the late 60's when Eddie Einhorn televised the huge UCLA (Kareem Abdul Jabbar, then Lew Alcindor) vs. Univ. of Houston (Elvin Hayes) matchup.  That game caused promoters everywhere to realize they could make big money off of college sports.  The championship game in 1979 spawned the humongous NCAA/CBS (now CBS/Turner) contract for March Madness.

3.) The creation of the College Football Association (CFA) when Georgia and Oklahoma sued the NCAA in 1982 for the rights to televise as many games with their school that they wanted.  Until then, the NCAA controlled all TV schedules for college football and would only let each school on a maximum of two times.  Since that deal, conferences could then cut their own deals and of course, the rights fees and popularity of college football have skyrocketed to this day.

Professional sports, particularly the NFL, fed the sports industry with daily programming as well.  From all of this, the "noise" in sports mushroomed.  What do I mean when I refer to the "noise" in sports?  It started again in the 80's with sports talk radio.  One of the first and legendary sports talk show hosts was Pete Franklin out of Cleveland, Ohio.  Pete was legendary for being obnoxious with callers who disagreed with him, and along with some others 20-30 years ago, began the sports talk show industry.  Instead of talking about sports at the coffee shop, the barber shop, or the local tavern, people could now have the same conversations on the radio to a larger audience.  Following that came all of the TV shows with all of their "talking heads".

And of course when the internet came into our lives, the "noise" got a lot louder when anyone creating a dot.com became an expert on sports.  I am like many sports fans.  I like to listen to these shows and talk sports with anyone who wishes to.  But there are times I shake my head in amazement on some of the things I hear.  When you think about it, NONE of the talk shows on radio/TV/internet have anything to do with the actual playing of sports themselves.  They just talk about them like you and I do in our living rooms or coffee shops.  But these people get PAID BIG MONEY to do it!  Isn't this a great country?  Some of these people try to act like real experts when in reality, they don't and wouldn't have a clue what to do if they were actually employed by a sports organization (for those of us who live in Michigan, Matt Millen comes to mind).  I can't believe some of these shows actually get good enough ratings to survive, but somebody must watch them (I have to believe most of the people that watch the seemingly endless pre-game shows HAVE to be gamblers; there is no other valid reason to watch them unless one has no life).  Some of the most comical discussions I hear on TV and radio are when they are covering various coaching searches.  Well over 50% of what is discussed is not even close to reality.  There are moments when you want to just tap the so-called media experts on the shoulder and say "you know, this isn't fantasy football, this is real life and some of those names you are tossing around have as much chance of being hired at such and such school as I do of being elected mayor of New York City!"

On our end, we have to be mindful of the "noise" and do our best to ensure that we, and our student-athletes, don't get caught up in it.  With the internet, anything can mushroom into a distraction.  We must instruct our student-athletes on keeping their focus on where it should be.  They are here to get an education, compete and have fun in their sport.  Paying attention to any "noise" that is out there regarding them or their team is a waste of time and effort.  If they stay focused on doing their best each day in their school work and in their sport, they will make their own "noise" and give the sports world something to talk about in a good way! 

In previous blogs I had mentioned the 3 major goals we have as an athletic administration for all of our 550+ student-athletes and 20 varsity sports teams.  We refer to them as our Fundamentals for Success.  The first two, I have already written about.  They are:

1) Create the Best Learning Environment Possible

2) Challenge Our Teams to Competitive Greatness

Our third fundamental is a simple one:

Create the Energy Necessary for Success!

Nothing good comes easy and it takes a lot of hard work and commitment by a lot of people to be successful in all 20 varsity sports.  I am proud to say that we have that here in GVSU Athletics from our outstanding staff.  Our coaches of course put in countless hours to develop their programs to be as successful as they have been.  Behind the scenes, there are a lot of people at Grand Valley that go above and beyond to give our student-athletes the best chance at success.

I get asked by a lot of young people, "I want to do what you do.  What do I need to do to become an A.D.?"  I have a wonderful job, as does the entire support staff for intercollegiate athletics here at GVSU.  I certainly understand where these people are coming from who ask the question.  After all, they see me at games all the time.  Wouldn't that be a cool job - you get to go to games all the time and I love sports!  It's not quite that simple and easy.  The first question I ask those that tell me they would like to be in athletic administration is "are you ok with working nights and weekends?"  After all, that is when sporting events take place.  In our world, we work the normal 8 to 5 like everyone else, but also work every weekend from the end of August to the end of May and usually work at least one night per week.  For one stretch this year during the fall sports championships, I believe there were 4 straight weeks in which our staff put in 40 hours, from Thursday - Sunday.  Sixty and 70 hour work weeks are not unusual in intercollegiate athletics.   Due to the success of our Laker teams, I assure you we have something going every weekend throughout the year except for maybe one weekend around the Christmas and New Year holidays.  I am proud of the hard working staff we have here at GVSU and our success can be directly attributed to their efforts.

We also must accomplish our goals with the NCAA rules and regulations, our conference bylaws, and our school's mission.  We also must do this within a finite budget.  To be successful, everyone needs to be willing to go the extra mile in effort and we have to get the most bang for our buck with every dollar we spend.  You see examples of this all of the time when traveling with our teams.  Our coaches try to arrange their teams' travel schedules as best they can so they miss the fewest classes.  For example, when our men's and women's basketball teams played at Northwood in Midland, MI (2 and half hour bus ride) on Thursday, Dec. 9, we left our parking lot at 2:15 p.m. for the 6:00 (men) and 8:00 (women) games.  We left at that time so our student-athletes would miss as few classes as possible.  Our men ate their pre-game meal on the bus as we were traveling!  That is probably not something you see DI teams do, but again, this is a good example of the balance we try to maintain in Division II.  Both teams, by the way, committed the energy necessary for success that night and were victorious.

Our goals are not complicated.  We keep it simple as it has been a successful formula for us.  We are confident that if we continue to bring the energy necessary for success each and every day, good things will happen for Laker Athletics!

In my last blog I referred to GVSU Athletics' Three Fundamentals for Success, which are:

1.)    Create the best learning environment possible

2.)   Challenge our teams to competitive greatness

3.)   Commit the energy necessary for success

Today I will focus on fundamental #2, challenging our teams to competitive greatness. 

Student-athletes come to college to get an education and continue to participate and compete in their sport.  We believe it is our responsibility to teach them and help them reach their full potential as a student, a citizen, and as an athlete.  We want them to be able to look back on the college career and know they became the best student and the best athlete they could possibly become.  This is not easily achieved.  We let them know in the recruiting process that it will not be easy to achieve success here and in fact, it will be very hard at times.  We define competitive greatness as the late John Wooden did, "coming through with your best effort and best performance when it is most needed".

Two examples of teams that demonstrated competitive greatness from last year that I always like to give are our 2009 Football and Women's Soccer teams.  Competitive greatness does not always mean winning the game, or winning a championship, or getting the trophy.  As you can see from the definition, it says nothing about any of those things.  It does speak to one achieving one's potential!

Our 2009 football team got hit by injuries harder than any other season I can remember.  We made it to the national championship game vs. Northwest Missouri State and were getting beat badly at halftime, 21-0.  NWMS had dominated the first half.  We had several more injuries in the first half and by the start of the second half, we had 12 players from our original two-deep roster in September that were no longer playing for us!  It was in the second half that our team demonstrated competitive greatness, even though we did not win the game.  I might also add that we should have been down 28-0 at the half, but James Wojciechowski, a backup linebacker and straight A engineering student, made a great play to prevent the Bearcats  from scoring again by stripping the ball.  We started the second half by getting an interception and taking it in for a score.  Our defense rose to the occasion and stopped Northwest and we went down and scored again.  You could sense the momentum shifting.  Unfortunately, NWMS blocked the extra point and scooped and scored 2 points to make it a 23-13 game.  However, the Lakers kept competing and scored again to make it 23-20 and the Laker Nation was going crazy.  The Bearcats had a 4^th and inches in our territory, faked the run, and made a great pass just over our outstretched hand to score a TD and win the game 30-20.  The point is however, they had to make a great play to beat us, which they did and deserved to win the championship.  But I was as proud of our team in this defeat as I have been of any of our championship teams for the courage, heart, and competitive greatness they demonstrated when it was most needed!

My other example is our 2009 Women's Soccer team, who did go on to win the national championship.  However, along the way, they had to win 5 NCAA Tournament games and 4 of those 5 came down to the last 10 minutes of the game before the game was decided.  Two of them were in overtime.  That is how hard it is in Division II and how little margin for error there is to win a national championship!  We talk to our teams a lot about overcoming adversity.  You cannot predict when it will hit, but every team during every season will face adversity and there will come that moment when they have to decide to fight through and hang in there, or give in to adversity.  Prior to our NCAA semi final game, our leading scorer, Ashley Botts turned her ankle.  In addition, within 3 minutes of the semi final game, St. Rose scored two goals and we were down 2-0 in no time.  Our team never panicked, got settled down, and kept playing hard.  Eventually, we scored a much needed goal in the first half to cut the lead to 2-1.  In the second half, we kept the pressure on and you could see it start to wear out our opponent.  The ball pretty much stayed in their half of the field the entire second half and with 7 minutes to go, Jaleen Dingledine made a great play and scored to tie the game in regulation.  We continued to keep the pressure on and scored early in the overtime to win.  Again, our team didn't panic and fold, they just hung in there until it started going our way and came through when it was most needed.

In the finals in a very close game throughout, GVSU scored with less than 10 minutes to play to win the national championship.  The player with the bad ankle, Ashley Botts, scored after her teammates put the ball in front of our net for the tap in goal.  The point here is that there could have been many instances along the way that this team could have caved in and they didn't.  They kept competing throughout and were rewarded with a national championship.  They too demonstrated competitive greatness.

One of the best parts of our jobs in athletics administration is to watch young people grow and develop and reach their full potential.  We have had many examples of competitive greatness over the years and I am confident we will have more.  It may not mean a championship, but when you can come through with your best effort and best performance when it is most needed, you are a winner regardless of the outcome!

We have three major goals as an athletic administration for all 20 of our varsity sports and roughly 550 student-athletes at Grand Valley.  We refer to them as our fundamentals for success.  They are:

1) To create the best learning environment possible

2) To challenge our teams to competitive greatness

3) To commit the energy necessary for success

Over time I will discuss each of these but for now we will focus on the first fundamental; to create the best learning environment possible.

The primary reason our student-athletes come to Grand Valley is to get an education.  They are here to learn and we are here to teach.  Certainly we have some highly talented athletes in GVSU Athletics but the fact of the matter is 99% will never have a chance to compete in their sport professionally.  We have had a few great success stories at Grand Valley of former student-athletes who have gone on to have outstanding professional careers in their sport.  Some current ones include Matt Thornton, relief pitcher for the Chicago White Sox and American League All-star this year; Brandon Carr, starting cornerback for the Kansas City Chiefs; Dan Skuta, linebacker and specials teams player for the Cincinnati Bengals; and Callistus Eziukwu, in his second year playing professional basketball in France.  Again, we are proud of these individuals but as you can see, almost all of our student-athletes will not play their sport professionally and it is incumbent upon us to make sure our environment is such that obtaining their degree is a priority.

We believe in our school's mission, which is to educate our students to shape their lives, their professions, and their societies.  Our job is to teach these young people so they can get their college degree and prepare them for the rest of their lives.  We meet with all of our student-athletes at the beginning of every school year at our annual Laker Pride and Tradition meeting.  At that meeting, we let them know that we will help and support them in every way possible.  They know that Dr. Damon Arnold and his staff in the Laker Academic Center, as well as numerous people throughout our campus, are ready to assist them and give them the support they need to obtain their college degree.  However, we also make it clear to them that it is up to them to do the work.  They must go to class and stay on top of their assignments even during their busy athletics schedules.  We also make sure they know that we believe they must take the initiative to get that support.  A big part of college is learning to ask questions, seek help when you are unsure about things, or when one is struggling in a class.  We all need a little help along the way and as most of us in the "real world" know, no one has all the answers and most of us seek help and assistance every day of our lives to have success.

The other aspect of this fundamental is that we believe a big part of a student-athlete's education during their time at GVSU will come through their intercollegiate athletic experience.  I know I learned a significant amount about life during my four years as a collegiate athlete, and I happen to believe it is one of the best learning laboratories we have on our campus.  The best thing we can teach our student-athletes is how to overcome adversity.  They will face hurdles in their life throughout their careers, and they will face adversity throughout their collegiate athletic careers as well.  I remember my college recruiting visit 35 years ago. Bob Nichols, my college coach, told me they knew what I could do as a basketball player, but they didn't know how I would handle adversity.  I remembered that conversation in my sophomore year when I got my first start as a college player and promptly broke my finger in the first half.  I had a choice to feel sorry for myself or keep working hard to stay in shape for when I could come back and play.  Thankfully, it worked out well for me in large part to my understanding that these things happen and you have to grind it out to get through it.  Every college athlete will face adversity in his/her career whether it is an injury, illness, personal issue, family problem, not playing as much as he/she had hoped, coach decides to play him/her at a different position or changes the lineup, etc.  The way in which one handles those things will determine one's success in college athletics and ultimately, success in life.  Essentially, if you keep a positive attitude about things regardless of the circumstances, and keep working hard, eventually good things will happen for you.

Sometimes the best learning in life comes through the tough times and we believe our students will be better prepared for the rest of their lives for going through some tough times during their intercollegiate careers.

From time to time throughout the academic and athletic year, I will be writing a blog about the Lakers, sports in general, GVSU, leadership, life and any other subject that I believe to be an important message to deliver on gvsulakers.com.  These writings will be the opinion of this athletic director.  When one works on a campus of higher education, you are allowed some freedom to express yourself. ☺  Throughout my writings, there will be references to some people who have been very influential in my career.  The recently deceased John Wooden, in my opinion, has been the greatest coach of any sport of any level in my lifetime.  You will see him mentioned frequently.  Another deceased person who had a positive influence on my life was a gentleman by the name of John Savage.  The University of Toledo's arena is named after him.  He was a graduate of UT and a giant in the life insurance industry before his passing in the early 1990's.  My own college coach, Bob Nichols, retired in 1986 and is still the winningest men's basketball coach in the history of the Mid American Conference.  I learned an unbelievable amount about athletics from this man and the things he taught his players still resonate today. I try to pass them on to our student-athletes.  However, as with many people, I learned more about life and how to succeed in life from my parents than anybody else.  They are retired now and living in Phoenix, AZ, but the lessons learned from them are hopefully the lessons I am passing on to my children as well as our student-athletes at GVSU.  

My father, Dick Selgo, was a tremendous teacher and coach in Pettisville, Ohio.  He had a natural gift for teaching.  I have often wondered how he developed this God given gift as neither of his parents were teachers.  He was a Hall of Fame basketball player at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio in the late 1940's.  At that time, there were three prominent coaches on the staff at B-W.  Ray Watts was his basketball coach, Lee Tressel (father of Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel) was the football coach, and Eddie Finnigan was their track coach.  My dad talked often of these gentlemen, which demonstrates the positive influence a good teacher can have.  Some of the things I'm sure my dad learned from those coaches were things he passed down to me, which hopefully I've passed on to others.  

One of those things I learned from him was the KISS method of teaching.  KISS is not a rock group in this context, it stands for 'Keep It Simple Stupid'!  Our world is highly complicated today, therefore, more than ever before, we need to work at simplifying things to have the best chance at success.  The Lakers are coming off of another great year.  In the 2009-10 season, we won our 12th straight Presidents' Cup, our conference's all-sports trophy.  We also won our 7th straight Directors' Cup, the national all-sports trophy for Division II.  In addition, over 55% of our student-athletes achieved a 3.0 GPA or better and the student-athletes of our 20 varsity sports accumulated a total of over 3,000 community service hours.  Many times I am asked, "Does it ever get old?" and the answer is NO, it never gets old!  Or I am asked, "How do you do it every year?"  There are a lot of reasons for our success.  We have great coaches and talented student-athletes, but I often tell people that if you pinned me down to one reason for our success, it is because we have a GREAT school to recruit to.  But at this point in time, we try to apply the KISS method and follow the mantra to 'Stay Humble, Keep Working Hard'.  If we can continue to do those two simple things, we will get good results.  How good depends on a lot of things, but we can control our humility and our effort.  Jim Collins wrote a book entitled, How the Mighty Fall, and Why Some Companies Never Give In.  In that book he describes how some organizations succumb to the "hubris of success".  We can probably think of examples of sports programs that became full of themselves and all of a sudden others had passed them by.  College athletics is a competitive world that prepares our student-athletes well for the competitive world we all live in today.  One of the best measures of success is whether or not you can stand the test of time.  We believe that if we stay focused on the day to day teaching of young people to reach their full potential, the results will take care of themselves.  Again, our mantra remains to 'Stay Humble, Keep Working Hard'.  It may be simple, but it has been a proven formula for us and we will stick with it.