A New Era Sterk’S Task: Greener Acres

He hasn’t examined the spreadsheet, so he can’t speak to the operating deficit that has the Washington State University athletic department capsized in about $2 million of red ink.

He knows the Cougars need a baseball coach - and in a hurry - but he hasn’t seen any resumes.

Cut Jim Sterk - WSU’s 10th athletic director - a little slack, if you please. On the job for just a few hours - and technically still beholden to Portland State University - he will get his chance to do the right things. But for the time being all he can do is say the right things.

Which he does - unfailingly, it seems.

For instance, upon his introduction here Thursday, he was quick to warm up to the subject of “fit” and insisted that, “I’m not a slick guy, I’m not a salesman” - not knowing, perhaps, just exactly how that remark would be interpreted (or misinterpreted) and why it would be so vigorously applauded by rank-and-file Cougs across the state.

It didn’t seem to be Sterk’s intention to distance himself from his predecessor, whose fate it is to be forever tied to Wazzu’s end-of-the-century competitive bellyflop and not any of his subtle successes. Indeed, it was interesting to hear that the first of five priorities Sterk outlined for himself on Thursday was “making sure our student-athletes have a great experience.” Perhaps the one undeniable home run Rick Dickson hit in his six years on the job was the level of commitment and resources he directed toward the care and education of the kids in the program.

In any case, this business of distancing - Sterk didn’t have to do any of it because it was pretty much being done for him. If there is a motif to the WSU mindset these days, it’s that the Cougars need to get back to hiring, well, Cougars. As a graduate of Western Washington, Sterk technically doesn’t qualify - but growing up in rural Whatcom County, apparently, gets him a pass.

“He was a farm kid,” said WSU president Lane Rawlins, “and for all farm kids, Washington State University is your university from the time you see that county agent for the first time.”

Everyone had a Hank Kimball flashback and laughed.

But in picking up on the theme, Sterk seemed determined to convince his audience that he fully understands when somebody says, “It’s a Cougar thing” - and that the Cougar thing is just as important to him as it is to the first guy Rawlins romanced for the job, Oregon athletic director and WSU raconteur Bill Moos.

“This is a job I’ve watched and wondered when the right opportunity was going to present itself,” said Sterk. “Since Rick got the Tulane job in December, I’ve spent the last six months basically on alert. There have been some anxious moments.

“But it’s amazing. I was not nervous coming over here to interview. I felt a peace. This was the right thing.”

And now it’s a righting thing.

In one respect, Sterk’s timing couldn’t be better. Cougar fortunes cannot suffer in compari- son to the past two years, for one thing. More important, however, is that the much-awaited Bohler Gym renovation is supposed to be completed next month - ending the department’s two-year exile in Stalag Perham. Fundraising for the heralded indoor practice facility is further from fruition than once reported - as much as several million dollars worth - but at least the rock is rolling in the right direction. There’s snazzy new turf on the football field and the practice yard next door.

“Rick has taken some criticism,” Sterk said, “for focusing on a lot of big things getting done.” Maybe the Billy Crystal’s Fernando was right - maybe it is better to look marvelous than to feel marvelous.

Because it’s been pretty hard to feel marvelous with that huge deficit building - the $2 million was Rawlins’ estimate - and that unsightly wonlost record of late. It didn’t take long for the president - new on the job himself - to pick up on that.

“I just felt we needed, more than anything else, a sense of what it meant to be a Cougar,” he said. “Morale had gotten a little low here. There was a little division over what our priorities were. There was concern over how we were going to handle some of the budgetary issues. The whole environment was a little uncertain.

“And I think some people were doubting that we were committed to excellence in Pac-10 athletics.”

Hiring a guy out of the Big Sky Conference might not convince the casual Coug about the intensity of WSU’s commitment, but Sterk’s chops as a fund-raiser are undeniable. There was a tenfold increase in donations during his watch at Portland State, and a 400 percent jump when he was associate athletic director with those responsibilities at Tulane.

Of course, Rawlins wasn’t going to be hiring Willy Loman - and in this economy, every onthe-come A.D. raises money well. But Sterk has had similar successes in improving facilities and hiring - and started a Division I basketball program from scratch.

And like the rest of us, he can read the standings.

He didn’t directly address the subject of wins and losses when ticking off his five target areas - the student-athlete experience, hiring and retaining good people, political dynamics, facilities and resource acquisition. But he insisted that “if you’re successful in those areas, the wins will come.

“Sure, President Rawlins and I talked about that. I asked, specifically, what his expectations were for the football program. He said there’s six bowls attached to the Pac-10 and we should be in one every other year. That’s a level of consistency that we’d like to achieve. I know Mike (Price, head football coach) has taken some criticism the past couple of years, but if you look at it closely and see the number of young kids in the program I think you’ll see he’s trying to develop that type of consistency on a long-term basis.

“But the wins and losses don’t go away. They’re important in the formula for a good program.” It can be argued, however, that the most important ingredient in that formula is hiring the right people. That has been the most vicious criticism of Dickson’s tenure - even without all the evidence in. Sterk will get his first test early, with the hiring of the next baseball coach.

Not unexpectedly, there was a rousing consensus on Thursday that Rawlins had connected on his first swing. Even Moos - who resisted the president’s full-court press earlier this month - weighed in from Oregon with a thumb’s up, as sort of a bonus consolation prize.

Even taking over a program that seems like a candidate for federal disaster relief, Sterk was hardly inclined to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm.

“My good Irish friend and mentor, Kevin White (formerly the A.D. at Arizona State), recently took over the job at Notre Dame,” Sterk said. “That was his dream job.

“For a farm kid from Washington State, this is my Notre Dame.”

If that’s laying it on a little thick, you can forgive a farm kid - he probably still has a little of it on his boots. And at Wazzu, that’ll play.