Intro

Alturino: 00:00 – 00:09

What’s going on, Gators? This is Lourence Alturino for Golden Gate Xpress. Welcome back to another episode of The Chomp. Today I’m joined by Brandon Davis, SFSU’s Interim Athletics Director. How are you doing, Brandon? 

Interview

Davis: 00:09 – 00:11

Doing well, thanks for having me.

Alturino: 00:18 – 00:21

How long have you been working for SFSU? And how long have you been part of the community? 

Davis: 00:21 – 00:41

Yeah, so I’ve been at San Francisco State since January of 2017. I came over as an associate director of athletics for communications. And then, at one point I was made senior associate director, and I was interim director for a month when they did a hiring search for the athletic director. The most recent director left. I was named interim in September.

Alturino: 00:41 – 00:45

What exactly is the athletics IRA fee? Explain to everyone, what exactly are students paying for?

Davis: 00:45 – 01:10

Sure. So, IRA is Instructionally Related Activities, so athletics falls under that category. And of the IRA fee that the university collects, currently $68 goes to athletics. So each person who pays tuition pays these different fees. Some go to different services, some go to health, some go to Mashouf Wellness Center, the library and all types of different things. 

Alturino: 01:10 – 01:18

Yeah. So the increase is for $32 added on to the $68. And is the $4 fee in the summer going to get increased?

Davis: 01:18 – 01:21

The $4 will not increase.

Alturino: 01:22 – 01:37

Okay. So, for the plan from my understanding, is $32 for the next school year and then $25 for the next three years each year. So by then, would it be around $175 per semester? And then a 5% increase over time. 

Davis: 01:38 – 02:29

Correct. So, most fees have a 5% increase built into them. For whatever reason, 15 years ago, when they set this fee up, they did not build that into it. I wasn’t here, so I can’t speak to exactly what happened or why it was created that way. But what I can tell you is that everything has gone up cost-wise, right? Had that 5% been built in at the time, it would be close to that $150 right now. 

02:03 – 02:29

So, basically we’re trying to play catch-up because all these years we’ve been operating really below kind of what the market rate is. So, below what the cost of travel, what the cost of keeping the lights on has been. So, we’ve realized that we’ve run at a deficit the last few years. They’ve eaten through the reserves by doing that. And so now they’ve realized that they need to do this in order to keep the program open.

Alturino: 02:30 – 02:40

The athletics fee covers everything operational-wise, like travel, staffing and such, but it doesn’t cover the coach’s salary, correct? That is general fund money. So what is the plan for that? 

Davis: 02:41 – 02:59

Yeah. So I’d like to make it clear that it should cover all of our operations. It does not cover scholarships. So other students aren’t paying for other students to come to school. They’re paying, however, for the programs for the facilities, the coaches who are considered faculty and there’s staff members, myself included. 

02:59 – 03:26

So there’s about 30 staff members, you know, we’ve got 30 to 50 work-study students. But to your question, the general fund is money that comes from the CSU to help supplement the money that the university collects through tuition and other revenue streams. So those general fund dollars are dispersed among different areas of the university. By taking the coaches and putting them onto the athletics fee.

03:26 – 03:58

The athletics fee, first off, can only be used for athletics. So by increasing that athletics fee, what we’re doing is we’re allowing the coaches to move off that general fund money and into athletics. That frees up money for the university to use in other areas. So while the money comes to athletics, it’s really moving the money to allow for, you know, because it’s government money, right? So it’s earmarked in different ways. So that way that money can be used for other parts of the university.

Alturino: 03:58 – 04:06

Why? I know you weren’t here at the time, but why was the fee just never increased throughout this whole time? Was it just negligence from the university or any other reasons for that?

Davis: 04:07 – 04:28

When there were 30,000 students enrolled, nobody really thought about, ‘Oh, we’ve got to do this.’ As the college systems have shifted, this CSU in particular has seen enrollment change, right? So now we’re closer to 20,000 students. Right? So, our budget is impacted by that by 10,000 times 68. 

04:28 – 04:42

So, that ends up being a large number, having to chase that. So, as the university becomes a smaller institution from what it once was, we have to rightsize programs. But in doing so, we also have to adjust different fees and that type of thing.

Alturino: 04:43 – 05:07

Going back to what could be a $175 total amount, students have to pay. That amount seems like an awful lot, especially for those who don’t care about athletics or might not be aware that athletics are here. What do you tell those students? Why they should agree to an increase to the fee? Why should they commit to something that they might not even care about or feel that it might not affect them personally? 

Davis: 05:08 – 05:26

Yeah. I think when you look at the different fees and you look at not just San Francisco State, you look up and down the CSU, there’s a chart that shows all the different fees. San Francisco still is right in the middle of the 23 CSUs. While this would be a $32 increase, it actually wouldn’t jump. Well, $32 this year. 

05:26 – 05:51

It wouldn’t jump exponentially and make us suddenly way more expensive than the next CSU. So we would maintain where we are in terms of the cost. But it adds value, right? And I know that it seems like we’re charging more. I guess you could say we’re keeping value in one way. So athletics, it benefits the entire university. 

05:51 – 06:22

It’s not just student-athletes who are involved in the program. It’s those work-study students. It’s the Golden Gate Xpress doing this, we provide content. BECA, all kinds of different classes on campus. Kinesiology has probably ten interns a year who work in our sports medicine area. And, we’ve got, a lot of kids who are business majors or biology majors. So it’s not just one small group that’s being affected. 

Alturino: 06:22 – 06:39

Yeah. The way I see it is, like, athletics is a big piece of the puzzle of the campus. So it, like you said, it connects it back to BECA, journalism, kinesiology, all this stuff. So, like we’re saying, the cut of athletics is not only affecting student-athletes, it’s affecting all students.

Davis: 06:39 – 07:12

A lot of people say athletics is the front porch of a university, right? It gets people on campus. So, we have community events. We’ve got camps. So there’s kids coming on the campus all the time. And those people might be prospective student-athletes or people from other schools are coming to our games, and they have families in the area. And maybe San Francisco State is a good fit for them. And ‘Oh, I’ve been on that campus before.” It gives a familiarity to the campus that people might not otherwise have.

Alturino: 07:13 – 07:23

Let’s go back to: how did this proposal come about? So was this kind of a reactionary thing from when the three sports for next year will get cut, or was this something that was found out last minute?

Davis: 07:24 – 07:51

I think probably a little bit of both. We had the task force and that happened.

I think that started last summer or this past summer. And so, we recognize that there were deficits and we needed to figure out how to get back on budget. And realizing it’s just not possible with the current makeup of not only the department, the university. 

07:51 – 08:10

So recognizing that, you know, we obviously had to make some tough decisions, but we needed to really figure out how are we going to be sustainable for the future. You know, we’re OK for next year, 25-26 with those cuts. But what can we do to make sure that we’re sustainable well into the future? 

08:10 – 08:35

Is there a possibility that we bring sports back something? We didn’t want to cut anything. I think it’s tough because folks really, after seeing the news that other schools were like, ‘Oh, they have no problem cutting,’ that’s super difficult for us to have to do. I had to go down to baseball and tell those guys in person. Like, ‘Hey, here’s the bad news.’ 

08:35 – 08:51

Nobody wants that to happen. And I think nobody wants anything at the university to be cut. But unfortunately, financially, just the realistic thing is that the money’s not there. And we have to be able to support all of these programs. And how do we do that for our students?

Alturino: 08:52 – 09:00 

When it comes to cutting the sports, of course, you picked three sports: baseball, men’s soccer and women’s track and field. How did that come together as well? 

Davis: 09:01 – 09:31

So women’s track and field has an indoor and an outdoor season. Indoor is a very costly initiative because they, in the past, have been traveling to places like New York, Boston, up to Washington. So, nothing super local. I think the closest is probably somewhere in Nevada. And yeah, because when you think about it, the indoor track, they’re running indoors. They’re competing indoors because of the weather. Right. And so those are indoor facilities. 

09:31 – 10:02

And in California, we got fairly nice weather. So there aren’t a lot of indoor tracks to compete at. So we’re having to go a long ways for those. So travel alone was the driving factor for indoor track and field. And then we’re currently just looking at shaping it, so it’s more of a distance program. And that is simply because of staffing issues, in terms of being able to support and fund the staff members for the coaching staff in that program.

10:03 – 10:30

Baseball, we’ve been super successful, so super hard. There’s a lot of guys, a lot of equipment, a lot of travel. It’s just a costly sport to run these days, unfortunately. And so that was really the driving force there. And then men’s soccer, we had to keep our Title IX numbers. To give us a little bit of cushion in the budget, we had to make the tough decision to have another sport. The math worked out that it was men’s soccer.

Alturino: 10:31 – 10:49

It wasn’t a matter of success. It was just about budget. Right? I would assume because baseball was in the regionals last year. That’s why it was really shocking to me. Like, baseball got cut? That was like, I feel like one of our top sports aside from women’s volleyball and such. So with this talk about the athletics fee, what does the future of SFSU athletics look like?

Davis: 10:49 – 11:14

So we get this fee passed, right? Then that gives us a little bit more stability. We don’t have to worry about the general fund dollars. We’ll be able to bring our coaches onto the athletics fee, freeing up that kind of not worrying about, ‘Hey, is that general fund money going to be there next year? Is it going to be there the year after?’ Bringing those coaches on and that’s not going to be immediate, right? 

11:14 – 11:42

Because the fee won’t immediately solve all those problems. But what it will do is give us that flexibility moving forward. We’ve incurred some costs that we have to pay back. Right. So, we’ve been in the red and so we will work to pay the university back. So again, it’s not just for athletics, we’re paying the university money. So what happens if, what happens to that money if the university disappears?

11:43 – 12:05

So we’ve got to be able to cover our own costs. We’ve got to pay the university. And then from there, once we’re stable and able to have our ten programs, then we can look and see, has enrollment grown? What’s the future look like? What are other schools doing? Are we able to then maybe bring back one, two or three sports?

Alturino: 12:06 – 12:15

You mentioned other schools. Sonoma State also cut all of their athletics. When that happened, was there any fear in your mind that the same could happen here? 

Davis: 12:16 – 12:35

Oh, definitely. I think the folks there, I know several of them, and they just felt really blindsided. There was that fear because but it’s that knee-jerk reaction, like ‘Oh my gosh, that happened to them, that could happen to us.’ But it’s been a much more transparent process here. I’ve met with President Mahoney several times. I had met with her yesterday.

12:35 – 13:00

Having that time to meet with folks who are making the really big decisions, I think that’s important on this campus. And that’s something that we see with that shared governance.

And I think that’s something with this fee, right? Like we brought this to the students. We’ve said, ‘Hey, you’ve got a voice in this.’ So that’s really important to be able to have the same thing happen. The same thing happened to the Academy of Art, as Sonoma, they got blindsided. 

13:00 – 13:25

They didn’t know that was going to happen. Of course, they’re a for-profit institution. That’s a different situation than a CSU. Holy Names closed a few years ago. So I think there’s recognition that higher education is threatened, but also athletics in higher education, and so we have to figure out a way to make ourselves sustainable, because if we don’t, we’re not going to be around.

Alturino: 13:26 – 13:31

Was there anything else that you guys pitched that could also help save athletics or was it just like the one that you guys focused on the most? 

Davis: 13:31 – 14:01

Yeah, I think it’s really this with the short time frame that we’re working with. There’s state budget cuts that are still looming and so folks are still waiting to see what those are going to look like. And if we can do this, again with passing this fee, it’ll reduce some of the stress on other parts of the campus that might have had to face cuts, because we’ll be freeing up a good million dollars for the university that we’re currently using to pay our coaching staff.

14:01 – 14:14

We’ve got a head coach for each sport. And a part-time assistant coach for each sport. Those are all faculty positions that, again, can move on to the athletics free and then move, free up that general fund money for other programs.

Alturino: 14:14 – 14:28

You mentioned that just the fees are not enough to cover an NCAA Division II program. A suggestion was made at the AS board meeting for a move down to Division III. So, can you explain to everyone why that is not a viable option for the Gators?

Davis: 14:29 – 14:52

So we just cut to ten sports, right? Division III requires institutions of a certain size, I think it’s only a thousand students, that they have to have 12 sports. So, if we can’t afford 13 and we’re down to 10, going back to 12, it’s going to be tough, you know? So, that’s really kind of the driving force of why we want to remain Division II. 

14:52 – 15:21

Division III also, there’s some Southern California schools and they have a strong conference in Southern California, but they’re all mostly private schools. The only Division III public in California is UC Santa Cruz. So, even if we move to Division III, who do we play? There’s no one there for us. And, you know, regionally, I think we want to be able to go to games where we can limit our costs, right? Hotels are a big part of that. Flying’s a big part of the travel cost.

15:21 – 15:30 

So, we need folks who we can play regionally to be able to save some of those costs. Right now, Division III is just too costly on the travel part. 

Alturino: 15:31 – 15:49

How does this situation in terms of the sports landscape here affect recruiting? So, when students hear about SF State, they might hear about how the women’s volleyball team did really great last season with nationals. We had Johnny Lopez with the wrestling championship and baseball reaching regionals. 

15:49 – 16:06

Those athletes coming out of high school and people looking to transfer here, they might hear that and think, ‘Oh, I want to go there.’ But now with sports getting cut and the entire program potentially being gone, how does that affect you guys recruiting and helping convince people to come here.

Davis: 16:06 – 16:26

We’re the front porch for the university, right? So, Johnny Lopez got a great feature on the news, Channel 2. And they did a feature on him about winning the national championship.

Volleyball got featured when they were having their great run on TV. So, folks see that type of thing on TV and realize, ‘Oh, hey, there’s stuff going on at San Francisco State.’ 

16:26 – 16:38

I want to say that we’ve been fortunate in that there hasn’t been a lot of coverage about the cuts. There was a few days worth, but we’ve generated more positive news than we have negative news with our department. 

16:38 – 17:01

Right now, baseball is doing well. And we’re going to see them through the end of their season. We’re going to make sure they finish strong. They’re doing well in conference, get to the CCAAs. And hopefully, they can get a spot in regionals again. Softball is ranked 22nd in the country right now. Again, that gets people on campus. I think people will see the things we have, right? 

17:01 – 17:18

Like, softball is a great facility. It’s situated right behind Mashouf. It’s got the health center right across the street from it. So, there’s a bunch of new buildings right there for folks to see and be like, ‘Oh, wow, San Francisco State really does have a lot going on.’ So I think there’s ways people can see those positives. 

Alturino: 17:19 – 17:31

Yeah. So you say, like the positives are going to outweigh the negatives. Because I mean, I would assume as an athlete, it’s just going to be in the back of their mind. That even though I do come here, I might get my sport cut. How do you talk to an athlete about that?

Davis: 17:31 – 17:53

The transfer portal has really changed things in the last few years. I think there’s always an uncertainty these days that didn’t used to exist at all levels. But at the same time, we have people who are here for the love of the game. They’re here because they want to get a major. They want to earn a degree here at San Francisco State. 

17:53 – 18:07

And we’re going to have people who transfer because they think they can go D1 or they decide, hey, I want to go to a bigger school, a smaller school, a different area. But I think folks who come here for the most part are coming because they want to have a solid education.

Alturino: 18:08 – 18:26

With three of our sports already being cut and with Sonoma State getting their entire program cut, I assume the transfer portal is already crowded. In a world where San Francisco State cuts all of their programs, athletics programs, that obviously creates more of a flood. Where does that leave our student-athletes here? 

Davis: 18:27 – 18:54

Yeah. It’s not a good place. Like I said, we’re a founding member of Division II, so we have a long-standing history. The thing is that when you look at it, between the struggles of small universities like the Holy Names, who have closed, then the financial woes on schools like Sonoma, Academy of Art, closing its athletics programs, suddenly opportunities for students and student-athletes just don’t exist, right? 

18:54 – 19:26

You’re forced to go to a school and you might not even get to play. I saw something on the transfer portal, but something like 60% or 70% don’t even land somewhere. And if they do, it’s at a lower division. So, of those Division I players thinking they’re going to get to the next big school, the majority of them either go down or don’t play again. And so, you come here, you play four years, if you love the game, we have a home for you. 

19:27 – 19:34

They’re not getting paid the big dollars like the D1s, but they’re going to get that in experience. They’re going to get that in a degree at the end of their four or five years here.

Alturino: 19:35 – 19:39

Aside from the super athletes, where does that leave, like the coaches and staff like you, if athletics were to be cut?

Davis: 19:40 – 20:02

Yeah. I guess we’ll all be looking for jobs, unfortunately. And we’ve already had to do that, unfortunately, for a few of our coaches, who are going to be unemployed at the end of this year. So, you know, it’s a difficult thing to say, ‘Hey, there’s a bunch of people who need jobs.’ We’ll probably have to look at different industries, really, when there are less and less opportunities for us. 

Alturino: 20:03 – 20:07

Breakdown for people who have not looked at the survey yet, what does it look like exactly? 

Davis: 20:07 – 20:38

Yeah, I think it’s about ten questions, give or take. It asks what year are you? Are you a full or part-time student? Some of those demographic questions. And then it asks, have you been to an athletics event before? Have you gone to any of the town halls to hear about the information we’re presenting, or do you plan to? Want to see athletics succeed? If you don’t, why? Do you believe that athletics enhances the university in a number of ways, alumni engagement and different things like that.

Alturino: 20:38 – 20:40

After the deadline passes, what is the next step?

Davis: 20:41 – 21:06

Yeah. So they’ll analyze the data. There’s some folks in the university that’s their job to look over data. So they’ll pull through that, make sure that it was filled out once per student. You have to do your DUO login. So you’ve got to do that so it knows who’s logged in and done it. So it’ll make sure it’s only students. They get one chance to fill it out per person. 

21:06 – 21:28 

And then, they’ll look at that and then they’ll tally it up and hopefully, the data is overwhelmingly positive. That data will be presented on May 12 to the Student Fee Advisory Committee, SFAC. Based on that data, we’ll make a recommendation to President Mahoney. Hopefully, again, that’s a positive recommendation. And then President Mahoney can get things moving to implement that fee.

Alturino: 21:29 – 21:39

With the survey being released, students are filling it out as of now. Just one last plea to the SFSU students: why should the students vote for a fee increase? 

Davis: 21:40 – 22:14 

For those who are on financial aid already, 80% of CSU students receive financial aid. 60% of those students are receiving full aid. So if you’re already one of those students, you won’t feel that $32 because it’s in your financial aid package, essentially. For those who can afford it, a few cups of coffee to preserve campus life, right? Over the semester, the thing is that we need to realize that, if things get cut, things don’t come back, right? 

22:15 – 22:34

So the more and more things that get cut, it changes what a campus looks like, right? I was here during the pandemic. It was a ghost town, and I’d hate to see it be a ghost town again because people decide that they want to go elsewhere where there are opportunities, and I wasn’t a student athlete myself, but I wanted to go to a school that did have sports.

22:34 – 23:23

I looked at a lot of art schools, and I decided I wanted something that still had kind of the college experience. I ended up being a team manager for the basketball team, that obviously has shaped my career path. There’s opportunities that people may not think about, but they’re there.

A kid looking for a work-study job doesn’t know what they want to do necessarily

with that work-study. But, hey, they get a job in athletics. They fall in love with it. 

22:57 – 23:24

And all of a sudden that changes their life trajectory. And it can be anywhere, a student-athlete finds a job in a different department and goes, ‘Oh, wow, I really like this, I’m going to change my major and do this.’ And so it works for everybody. And I think $32 to preserve the life and just invest in the university, because if we don’t invest in the university, I’d hate to see what the future looks like down the line. 

Alturino: 23:24 – 23:35

Absolutely. Well, Brandon, it’s always great to talk to you. And I hope that this gives some students more information going into filling in that survey. So, Gators, now that the survey is live. Please go cast your votes. 

Davis: 23:36 – 23:48

Yeah. Folks can go to sfstategators.com/support, and there’s a video there that explains those bullet points on what happens with the fee and the process. And then, they can click on the link there to vote.

Outro

Alturino: 23:49 – 23:53

Again, thank you for Brandon for joining us. This has been another episode of the Chomp. Hope you guys enjoyed, go Gators.