Volume 30 · Number 2 · Winter 2013
Sports
Terry Tumey: building a new athletics model with a respect for Aggie tradition
Terry Tumey, director of athletics, with UC Davis gymnasts.
(Karin Higgins/UC Davis)
Three seasons as an All-Pac 10 defensive lineman for UCLA taught Terry Tumey about success in the trenches. So it’s not surprising that UC Davis’ new director of athletics is digging deeply into the Aggies’ athletics program, and trying to learn as quickly as he can.
For Tumey, who joined UC Davis in August, that means asking lots of questions and typing copious notes on his trusty iPad, which sits in front of him at nearly every meeting he attends.
“I can’t, as a newbie here, truly understand the essence of UC Davis,” said Tumey, who came to campus after three years as athletics director at Dominican University of California in San Rafael. “I need to talk to the experts, and that’s those who have lived it here. I look to learn from my partners and the only way I can do that is by asking questions.”
He hopes to gain an understanding of how UC Davis athletics got to where it is today, so he can help chart a course for where it will be tomorrow. Indeed, Tumey has set the bar high.
When he visited UC Davis as a candidate for the position last June, he said his “challenge is for UC Davis to redefine intercollegiate athletics within the NCAA Division I framework. For us … the ultimate win will be that — to redefine the NCAA’s model, not having the NCAA redefine you.”
In a recent interview in his second-floor office in the Hickey Gym building, Tumey explained that his excitement and optimism stems from his belief that the athletics program is tightly woven into the UC Davis mission.
“Because athletics truly embodies the institutional spirit of UC Davis, I feel as though athletics needs to truly represent and reflect those ideals,” he said. “The first way you do that is to really see yourself as the institution. Everything we do here at this institution should fall in alignment with that mission statement. Athletics is no different.”
Former head women’s basketball coach Sandy Simpson, who was on the athletics director recruitment advisory committee and serves an administrative role in the department, is convinced that Tumey is up to the task.
“He processes information so well and crystallizes it into two or three points that we need to address,” he said. “He’s great at separating the wheat from the chaff.”
Tumey earned a bachelor’s degree from UCLA in 1988 and a master’s in business administration from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management five years later. He helped coach the football team at his alma mater in 1995–99 before coaching professionally with the Denver Broncos, and later moving to the San Francisco 49ers where he ultimately served as the director of football operations.
But a passion for student-athletes drew him back to the collegiate ranks, landing him at Dominican. There he guided the Penguins’ reclassification from NAIA to NCAA Division II, and helped the program gain recognition for academic achievement and community involvement.
At UC Davis, Tumey inherits a 23-sport, Division I varsity program that faces many of the challenges encountered by athletics program across the country, especially in the areas of budget and facilities. It’s an environment, though, in which Tumey thrives.
“[For him], it’s not focusing on negatives. It’s embracing the opportunity to do something about it,” Simpson said.
To get up to speed, Tumey is doing what he calls an “assessment.” He’s visiting with coaches, staff and student-athletes, meeting with campus administrators, talking with donors and alumni, and taking the pulse of the community to help him gain a better understanding of the job ahead. It’s a means to an end — to develop the athletics program so that it continues to bring pride to the campus.
“I don’t think what I’m doing is any different than what we’re doing in the College of Engineering. I don’t think it’s any different in the School of Education. I don’t think it’s any different than any of the other disciplines here,” he said. “I’m feeling more comfortable here at UC Davis based on the fact that so many of my campus partners have the same desire that I do. I’m just doing it in the area of athletics.”
One of the biggest strengths Tumey has found at UC Davis is the caliber of its student-athletes. “We have amazing students here,” he said, crediting the campus for ensuring that undergraduate admissions is “truly an institutional activity. Athletics doesn’t admit people — the admissions office admits people.”
Tumey’s first major task was waiting on his desk when he arrived — launching a search for a football coach to replace Bob Biggs ’73, who ended his 35-year tenure on the Aggies football staff with the close of the 2012 season.
Tumey emphasized the importance of continuing the successful lineage of Biggs and former coaches Jim Sochor — an inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame — and Bob Foster, among others.
“To be able to find that special person to perpetuate that success in a very high-profile position, is a task that I don’t take lightly,” he said. “There’s no room for failure in finding our next coach because that coach, literally, will help us build on what we’ve achieved athletically for years.” (As UC Davis Magazine went to press, the search was ongoing.)
Tumey said his overall goal is to enhance student-athletes’ experiences — athletic, academic and social — for the ultimate benefit of the entire campus. “If that part is good, I also feel as though that will replicate in the entire student experience,” he said. “We’re just a vessel of both [the student and the athlete]. So, the student experience is ultimately what athletics is going to try and achieve greatness in.
“Having positive experiences, having positive events and having the camaraderie of athletics, [we want] that energy that comes with athletics to be pervasive throughout all of our community. That’s truly what we want to do.”
When it comes to fostering energy, Tumey leads by example. He’s highly visible at many athletics events, even leading the Aggie Pack student section in cheers at a recent football game — and student-athletes responded by cheering his name.
“To be accepted in this community and to be part of the community, and have people say cheers or whatever for you, I feel that’s an honor. As they cheer for me, I’m cheering for them.”
Indeed, Tumey sees the broader UC Davis community as integral to the future success of Intercollegiate Athletics as the student-athletes on the field and their coaches on the sidelines.
“When you’re changing the world, it’s not a spectator sport,” Tumey said at his recruitment forum last June. “We need everybody to join in and move us forward.”