In the past few years, the athletics department has had issues with deficits in its budget. The success fee, when fully implemented in fall 2016, will give about $2.1 million to the department each year. (Mike Trujillo / Daily Titan)
With incoming revenue from the student success fee, the Cal State Fullerton athletics department hopes to provide more student athletes with scholarships and begin repairs and improvements that have long been on the back burner, said athletics director Jim Donovan.
The new student success fee will be phased in over the next three years and will be fully implemented at $181 per semester in fall 2016.
When the fee was approved in March, a $30 of the fee paid by every student was allocated to improve athletic facilities. An additional $25 from every student will go to increased support for athletic programs, including more scholarships and increases in teams’ operating budgets.
“The SSI funds are invaluable as far as helping (athletics) be successful in the future,” Donovan said. “I told the athletic coaches and student athletes that, if the (fee) passed, it would be the biggest thing for Titan Athletics since 1957 when they started the school.”
Funding for athletic facilities was one of the most contentious sections of the fee. When the university gathered feedback during the consultation process, it asked students to express their approval or disapproval of specific aspects of the fee on a 1 to 5 scale, where 1 indicates strong opposition and 5 indicates strong support.
Increasing fees to provide money for facilities received an approval rating of 2.88 out of 5. That was slightly higher than paying to support athletic programs, which students gave a 2.85 approval rating.
During the first year of the fee’s implementation, athletic facilities will receive approximately $700,000. That amount jumps to more than $1 million during 2015, and then to approximately $2 million the following year.
Funding issues in recent years have meant department revenue has gone largely to maintaining the facilities in their current conditions, with little room for improvements, Donovan said. That left coaches scrounging for the money to make needed improvements, and some got creative to come up with the needed funds.
Softball coach Kelly Ford raised nearly $10,000 to make dugout improvements.
Even small improvements can have a serious impact, said Scott Stow, the field manager for Titan Stadium. Better looking stadium and facilities and increased funding to athletics can increase the interest of potential recruits and their families, Donovan said.
The improvements can also serve to draw the attention of potential donors. “People love winners, so when you start winning you’ll definitely get more support and more interest,” he said.
The “titan pride” funds can go a long way to making Cal State Fullerton athletics more successful, Donovan said.
“Let’s face it … there’s no reason why Cal State Fullerton women’s tennis can’t be very successful,” Donovan said. “We have year-round playing conditions, nice courts centrally located in Southern California … but when you only have two and a half scholarships, well then, there’s the reason.”
Currently, scholarships are limited by funding, but lack of revenue has limited teams in other ways as well. Without necessary travel funds teams may be limited to competing at tournaments close to home. That excludes them from competing at tournaments farther away that could potentially provide better competition, Donovan said.
While athletic scholarships and team funds will affect only a small portion of the campus population, the planned facilities improvements are drawn largely from student feedback, he said. Student athletes brought the issues to his attention via their coaches, and the new funds will allow the department to address them.
Student responses to the SSI survey called for additional lighting on the intramural fields used by club and intramural sports as well as by kinesiology classes.
“Now, once the sun sets (the intramural fields are not) available,” Donovan said. Adding lights could make the fields usable as late as midnight and possibly early in the morning, he added.
Installing the lights comes with about a $2 million price tag. Donovan will be meeting with other administrators in the coming weeks to explore financing options for installing the lights, which is the one of the most expensive projects to be addressed. If financing can be approved, installation of the lights may begin as early as this summer.
Bringing lights to the intramural fields is one major project on the agenda, but many of the student fee-financed improvements come on a much smaller scale. Refurbishing bathrooms, improving landscaping, and revamping outdated rooms will also be covered under the new funding.
The Titan Gym will also receive some of the new funds, as Donovan hopes to improve the ticketing and concession areas of the gym. Eventual improvements inside the gym include improving and repairing seats and repairing obvious defects.
Goodwin Field and Anderson Family Field, home to the baseball and softball teams, respectively, will also be included in the plans for improvements. Lighting the fields so they are more suitable for high-definition broadcasts is one of the major projects being proposed for the stadiums. Currently, national stations that televise CSUF games have to bring in outside lighting to illuminate the fields well enough for broadcast.
One softball game scheduled as a double-header was cut short due to lack of lighting, said Brad Justice, manager of the baseball and softball fields.
Concession stands in each of the stadiums will also be the focus of improvements with success fee funds. Like many of the facilities, the stands are in need of improvement to improve the experience of attendees – the concession stands at Goodwin Field are in particular need of improvements, said Donovan.
“When we have … 3,500 people coming to the baseball game, (the concession stand is) sufficient; it’s just not as nice as we’d like it to be,” Donovan said. “The trailer – if it was a horse, we would shoot it.”
Improvements to facilities and team funding can be expected to begin soon after funds from the success fee start rolling in, and the administration’s hope is that the students’ support will mean more successful athletics for the entire university.