Coonan optimistic about Bronco athletics

By Cecile Nguyen and Matthew Cucuzza

Athletic Director Dan Coonan sat down with The Santa Clara to discuss athletic issues, including facility improvements, the department's budget, Kerry Keating's first year and player arrests.

The Santa Clara: What is the current state of our athletic department?

Dan Coonan: It's going very well. I'm very optimistic about the future. I think the recruiting classes continue to be great. Men's basketball has a great recruiting class coming in for next year, maybe one of our best classes ever. I think men's soccer's expectation every year now is to win the national championship. Baseball has a phenomenal class coming in. I think the sky's the limit in baseball.

TSC: Are there any more upgrades to any of the sporting venues?

DC: Leavey has been a great facility for us. We're making it better. We're inproving the locker rooms and the bleachers. The improvements made to Buck Shaw are phenomenal. We have to be among the top five nationally combined men and women's soccer programs, and now we have a facility. All of that is brand new, and I think it really bodes well for soccer.

TSC: How is the department doing financially?

DC: The fundraising has been phenomenal. Bronco Bench fundraising, which is crucial to us for scholarships, has been going very well. We may hit an all-time high in fundraising this year for Bronco Bench scholarships. As for sport-specific fundraising, we definitely hit an all-time high there. So we're raising over $2 million annually to support our scholarships and operations. That, coupled with our $20 million-plus endowment for athletics, which spends about $800,000 in scholarships as well.

TSC: What is stopping the school from putting more money into the potentially big-revenue sports like basketball and soccer?

DC: We significantly increased our basketball infrastructure. We've raised over $2 million basketball-specific for five years. The university kicked in a considerable amount of money as well. I'm very happy with the university's contribution toward basketball and I'm thrilled with these donors who stepped up to make a significant impact in our long term future for men's and women's basketball. With soccer, we got it done with the Earthquakes.

TSC: So the deal with the San Jose Earthquakes is pretty fair?

DC: Oh yeah, it's more than fair. They treated us very well. I have nothing but respect for Lew Wolff (co-owner of the Quakes). I'm very pleased with the way that went.

TSC: There are some athletes here in certain sports, especially the non-revenue sports, and even the club sports, who, in terms of funding, aren't completely satisfied with the job that the athletic department is doing. What would you say to those people?

DC: I would say there is no question some of our budgets are lacking compared to other sports here, and compared to programs that those teams participate against. I'm not going to deny that at all. I'm not disagreeing from a budget standpoint.

A lot of those sports have raised significant amounts of money. That said, money is respect, too, and I understand that. And if you've heard that from anybody, I don't question it, and I don't blame them either.

I would say to them no question they are respected, and in our plan for athletics and going forward, we want to get a lot more revenue from men's basketball, and when that comes, that will trickle down to other sports, including theirs. We're trying to raise it, and we're trying to get it in revenue from basketball.

TSC: Do you think Santa Clara has a space in the Silicon Valley to be a big-time basketball program? Is that one of your goals?

DC: How quickly can I say yes to that? I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe that. I think we can be hugely successful and have a nationally-elite program in any sport. We are, in men's and women's soccer. In volleyball, we are the first WCC team to ever make it to the Final Four. In water polo, we're consistently top 20, and they're one of the sports that doesn't get the funding that I'm sure they'd like to be competitive.

But I think that if you look at any sport here, if I were able to get the resources through donations and revenue to fund them the way we'd like to fund them, any of them I think could be hugely successful.

We have admission standards, and there is no place to hide academically. Some people think that's an impediment to success, but I don't think it is. I think that we've hired coaches that don't believe it is, and they go out in search of athletes that would fit here, and there are plenty of athletes that would fit here, and I think they are proving that.

I think in a lot of sports it would take us getting very good at basketball for that to happen because of the budget situation. But I'm an optimist and I think it can happen.

TSC: Did Kerry Keating meet your expectations in his first season at Santa Clara?

DC: Yes he did. We hired him for a lot of reasons. We knew he would be a phenomenal recruiter, and he has not disappointed in that respect. The class he's got coming in next year and the class that he is going to start lining up beyond that will definitely indicate that he can recruit.

The question when you have someone who hasn't been a head coach is: Can they coach? I think he answered that. Absolutely he can. We lost three All-Conference players last year: Sean Denison, Danny Pariseau and Scott Dougherty, and four starters. We were picked to be sixth in the conference. We finished fourth. One local writer who follows us said we'd win eight games last year.

Did we fall short of where we expect to be? Yeah. We want to be competing for the championship every year. When Kerry gets the student-athletes in here that fit his system and his vision, I think we're going to be phenomenal. So yes, no question he met my expectations.

TSC: What are your thoughts on the three players transferring because they won't get playing time?

DC: I do think, especially when you have a new coach, it happens frequently in college athletics. Sometimes coaches will cut scholarship players. We don't cut scholarship players. Any of those student-athletes could keep their scholarship and could stay on the team and could have a chance to win a spot on the starting lineup and some playing time.

I think a new coach owes it to his or her team when he or she recruits individuals that may likely take the place of someone in the starting lineup or take playing time away from someone. You've got to be honest with your team, and I think that's what we have here.

Athletes are competitive. They want to play, and I think some people made that decision and decided to go elsewhere. They could have had their scholarship if they wanted to stay.

TSC: Santa Clara received some negative press when both William Gorin and Thomas Hendrickson were arrested. How do you feel about that situation?

DC: It's terribly unfortunate. If anything has dawned on me in the last four years, it's what phenomenal students we have at Santa Clara, and student-athletes are no exception to that. I don't think it's representative of these two individuals and who they are as people, but unquestionably they made mistakes and it's unfortunate. I think they have learned from it and will move forward. There are consequences to actions, and they are not a part of our team any longer, but I don't think you can look at those situations and draw conclusions about Santa Clara student-athletes or Santa Clara students.

TSC: What are you most proud of in your four years at Santa Clara?

DC: I'm proud that our cumulative GPA is above 3.0. I do think, from a competitive standpoint, we are competing at a very high level, and competing against the Pacific-10 in some sports and having a great degree of success. Yet at the same time, our cumulative GPA is still above 3.0. In my years in athletics, that's almost unheard of. That's not my accomplishment, but it's what I'm most proud of about Santa Clara student-athletes.

TSC: Is football even on the radar? Is it ever possible that it will come back?

DC: I would say it's not on the radar. It's safe to say that, I think, for a lot of reasons. I'm not going to say it will never come back, because we could get a president that may feel differently, but I doubt it. The economics of it can be difficult and challenging.

TSC: Do you have anything else to say?

DC: I'm very aware of the discrepancies in budgets of our sports, and it's something that I'm working hard to try and rectify. The way we're going to get it done is through basketball. Jerry Smith, Cam Rast and Jon Wallace are three elite coaches in the whole national scene here, and each of them could have gone somewhere else and earned more money and arguably had more resources. But they believe in the mission here, and it keeps them here, and I think that makes Santa Clara unique. I do think if we hire the right coaches, and I think we have in a lot of sports, that helps us be a real player on the national scene. I think we can -- in some of these sports we already do -- it's just that we need to get that funding out of basketball to make it happen.

Correction: The story incorrectly stated the name of Scott Dougherty.

Contact the sports staff at (408) 551-1918 or sports@thesantaclara.com