Waggoner introduced at ENMU

PORTALES — Greg Waggoner envisions a year of assessment as the new athleic director at Eastern New Mexico University. That year officially began Friday morning, as he was introduced during a morning ceremony.

Waggoner, hired last week by the college, comes from a 20-year term as athletic director at Western State Colorado University. He was introduced by ENMU President Steven Gamble, who stressed the importance of athletics at the school.

“You look at our distinguished alumns you can see how many student athletes, who probably came here to play sports maybe even ahead of what they wanted a degree in,” Gamble said. “Sports may have brought them in here and they’ve gone out and done wonderful things (in the world).

link Staff photo: Matthew Asher

Newly appointment ENMU Athletic Director Greg Waggoner talks during his press conference Friday morning inside Greyhound Arena.

“Athletics is 500 strong here. When you consider we probably have 2,500 full-time students at the institution and 500 of those are student-athletes, that tells you right there the percent of the enrollment that is here because of athletics. This is an extremely important position to us.”

Waggoner said he doesn’t want to simply rush in and make a bunch of changes.

“I said several times during my interview you have to assess what’s going on first,” Waggoner said. “You don’t fix what ain’t broken. It’s going to be different than where I was. You don’t do things exactly the same at two places.

“The first year or so there may be some things we have to address a little more aggressively. But for the most part really listen to people, listen to their operations. What are their needs? How are things operating in this culture?”

A key question Waggoner fielded was the completion of the new football stadium, and by proxy the upcoming Greyhound football season.

“I don’t know that it’s the priority, but it’s certainly a priority,” he said. “Any time you’re going to launch a new year, even when you’ve already been here, there are things that go into launching the new year. Some of that starts the spring before. Once August hits, it’s pretty vigorous. Football’s a large program, it requires some of those attentions a little more in ways than other sports. But it’s not the only sport launching in the fall. By the time the students come back in late August in some sense all the sports are launching such as practices.”

Just because Waggoner isn’t listing football as the absolute top priority, he does know the importance of the new football facility and wants to make sure everything happens with the new stadium as smoothly as possible

“As a result of the magnitude and the nature of football, even when you’re at a place it takes quite a bit of time,” he said. “Add to it that I’m new here and have X number of weeks to have all that figured out. And we’re finishing the stadium and launching a new venue. There are logistics and game ops that are done different because of that. All of that combined will make for a bigger summer and time spent on preparing for those things to make sure there’s a good first impression in presentation.”

While former athletic director Jeff Geiser was not present during the press conference, Waggoner said the two will be working together until Geiser’s last day, June 22. Waggoner wants to use that transition period to understand the intricacies of the business side of his job from Geiser’s perspective.

“There’s a lot of nuances with budgeting, fundraising, corporate sponsorships, that type of things. It’s very important to understand those nuances and the history and what direction (Geiser) recommends moving with all of that is probably as important as anything.

“I’m not saying it’s the most important thing I need to do in the early days of my time here, that’s getting to know the people who work here, especially the athletic staff, but between now and once he leaves those are certainly time-sensitive and important.”