KREM Sports Director Brenna Greene sat down with WSU AD Pat Chun last week to discuss a variety of topics that have come up in his first full academic year on the job.
Q: Overall your first full year in the job, what have you learned in this first first year?
A: Just reaffirmed all the great things about Washington State. Just how passionate our alums are for the institution. How on any given moment, and and given season, you can make history. So really proud of the things our student-athletes were able to accomplish this year. Pretty amazing. If anything even what happened through our football season, you felt like we have some teams competing at the highest levels right now. The country is hearing the volume of Washington State because we're at the highest levels. So a pretty special time to be a Coug. You get to feel how much pride and passion our student athletes have for our logo and for this institution. Ultimately, that filters to our alums. I would argue Coug pride is as at all-time high right now.
Q: What do you think your biggest impact has been in the first year here?
A: Biggest impact? I would argue I don't know if I've had a huge impact. I was fortunate at that our institution is already filled with great people. So we have extraordinary student-athletes and extraordinary coaches. If anything, probably the impact I have had to have is we've had to make some tough choices on some sports, four specifically. Just because the standard is so high at Washington State. We have student-athletes that weren't having the type of experiences that we would like them to have and winning as a part of those experiences. So if anything, probably just having to make some tough personnel decisions is probably what I look back on in 15 months here. That was probably expected when you come in anytime with a leadership change. We were always gonna be fortified at Washington State. I would argue 3/4ths of our staff plan on living in Pullman for a long time. They make decisions that are going to affect Washington State for the next decade and beyond. It's just having to make some tough decisions on certain areas, to set us forward as we as we try to accomplish some even greater things at Washington State.
Q: Going into this next year, do you have any goals?
A: We're authoring a strategic plan, which should give us kind of a road map for the next five years. But really, it's making sure that we're supporting our coaches as much as we can, providing the best possible environment for our student-athletes. It's an everyday goal. How do we create an environment that maximizes performance? How do we make sure that everyone's doing their best academically, in the weight room, in practice, and the results will be on the field. Excellence doesn't pick and choose spots. We need excellence in every corner of our athletic program. We have great people. We have young people that take so much pride in wearing our jerseys. It's really awesome to be a part of an athletic program where we've accomplished so much last year, so much in our previous history, and you can make the argument the best days are directly right in front of us.