| Patrick Guillen:
Stepping up to the Plate for
Athletics Top Job
Athletics Director Patrick
Guillen, who
has been in acting at California State
University, Dominguez Hills since Nov. 1, 2005, has
earned the permanent position. The announcement was
made Jan. 11 by Boice Bowman, vice
president of Student Affairs. Guillen began his
new position immediately. He replaces Ron Prettyman, who
left CSUDH in August 2005 to take a position as the
athletic director at Indiana State University.
“I look forward with great
anticipation to working closely with Patrick to take
Toros Athletics to expanded levels of success while
continuing to provide a great academic experience for
our student-athletes,” said
Bowman. “The relationships Patrick has
built over the years, as well as his knowledge of the
Athletics Department, will allow him to keep CSUDH
Athletics moving forward with continued success.”
As the acting athletics director, Guillen already had secured several
new corporate partners. They include the Carson Doubletree Hotel and an update
of CSUDH’s corporate sponsorship with Enterprise Rent-A-Car. He has also
overseen the appointment of a new faculty athletics representative, raised
funds for new baseball and softball bleachers, helped secure a new title sponsorship
from Anschutz Entertainment Group—better known simply as AEG and owner
of the Home Depot and Staples centers—for the 2006 Toros Scholarship
Golf Classic, sold venue advertising, centralized and updated concessions,
and formulated future fundraising ideas. Those efforts could substantially
increase CSUDH Athletics funding in 2006 and beyond.
Guillen has been an integral part of an athletics department that has
captured an NCAA Division II men's soccer national championship, hosted the
NCAA Division II Final Four women's soccer championship, and first- and second-round
NCAA Division II men's soccer championships. In addition, Guillen initiated
the negotiation process that brought the Home Depot Center to the Carson campus
three years ago
Guillen began his tenure in the Toros Athletics Department
in 1995 after serving two years as the media relations
director at Vanguard University (formerly Southern
California College) in Costa Mesa. As the assistant
athletics director in charge of media relations, Guillen
had been responsible for fundraising, working with
the media, and community and public relations, as well
as overseeing all home-event management operations.
Carson and the South Bay are
more than passingly familiar to Guillen. He was born
in Torrance, played Little League and Babe Ruth baseball
at Torrance- and Carson-area parks, and graduated
from Carson High School, where he played baseball.
He earned his degree from Vanguard in 1987, in Business
Administration, with an emphasis in Management and
Marketing.
In his official acceptance
statement, Guillen says, “I
am thrilled to be appointed as the new director of
athletics, and couldn’t ask for a better situation
than working for a university that is a vital component
to the community in which I was born and raised,” Guillen
said. “I am honored by the confidence that
Dr. Boice Bowman, President James
Lyons, Dr. Al Rodriguez [associate
vice president of student affairs], and the entire
search committee has shown me by elevating me to this
post. I look forward to continuing to work with a very
talented group of individuals in the athletics department,
as well as the entire campus community, to take Toros
Athletics to a new level of success. But most
of all, I am excited about rolling up my sleeves and
working tirelessly on behalf of our students here at
CSUDH.”
Later, the new athletics director mused on how he
arrived at that post: “I was in a very successful and
lucrative career in the health-care industry [Comprehensive
Rehabilitation Associates, Inc.]. But I wasn’t
happy, wasn’t being fulfilled. I had an uncle
who liked to say, ‘Find a job you love and you’ll
never work a day in your life.’ My cousin listened
to him and is now a highly successful executive with
a fishing equipment company, Shimano, and he travels
around the world. He loves it. I decided, ‘What
the heck, I’m going to do that, too.’
“I went and I literally just walked up and knocked
on the door of Bob Wagner, at that time head of the
sales and marketing team for the then-California Angels.
He’s now a senior VP with the Mighty Ducks of
Anaheim and for Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim. He looked
up and said, ‘How can I help you?’ and
I said, ‘I want your job. How do I get it?’ And
he started laughing.
“He said, ‘You know, 25 years ago I did
exactly the same thing. I was a successful business
man at Fluor Corporation in Irvine, and I was tired
of what I was doing, and I wanted to work for the Angels.
I went and saw my predecessor, and I said the exact
same thing: ‘“I want your job, how do I
get it?”’
Guillen said he wasn’t sure he wanted to do
what Wagner told him, which involved starting work
with the minor league teams and working his way up.
He asked if there was an alternative. “He asked
me where I went to school, and I told him Vanguard
University. He asked me if I knew the athletic director
there, and I said, ‘Yeah, Ron Prettyman, he was
athletic director when I was a student there.’ So
Wagner said, ‘Why don’t you go see him
and tell him you want to volunteer?’ So
I did.
“I called Ron and told him I wanted to volunteer
my time in the office, and Ron said, ‘It’s
funny that you should call today, because I’m
firing my media relations director tomorrow. Why don’t
you send me your resume?’ I did, and the rest
is history.”
Guillen has big shoes to fill
at Dominguez Hills. Prettyman was named the 2003-2004
Athletics Director of the Year by the Division II
West Region National Association of Collegiate Directors
of Athletics. He began his tenure as Dominguez Hills’ director
in April, 1995, coming from the same position at Vanguard.
During his administration at Dominguez Hills, Prettyman
expanded the department from eight to 11 sponsored
sports, and oversaw and coordinated the acquisition
of the Hughes Education and Athletic Center.
Guillen says his first order
of business as the new director is to formulate a
department strategic plan. All the department’s strengths will be assessed
and a plan put together. He said he already has boosters
ready to help. He also wants to connect more with the
community. Some quick examples, he said, include “adopting
an elementary school. Also, I need to go to more chamber
of commerce and other meetings. I want to double our
fundraising. I hope I can get someone on board to help
with that.”
Guillen said that his part
in initiating talks that led to the Home Depot Center
being built on the campus is one of the highlights
of his career at Dominguez Hills—but it has
competition as his best memory.
Over the years, Guillen recalls, “I’ve
had several great student athletes here, great people,
including one of our all-time best basketball players,
Jair Fray. I remember he came up to me on the night
of his final basketball game. He came to my office
afterward, still in uniform, about 10 o’clock,
and gave me a hug and thanked me for all the things
I’d done for him. That means more to me inside
that coming up with the proposal for the Home Depot
Center.
“I also remember two years ago a professor came
up and showed me a term paper he’d gotten,” Guillen
says. “The assignment was for the students
to write a paper about their best manager ever. This
student had written it about me. The professor gave
it to me. I’ll always keep that. That student
was thinking about quitting school to work at a job
in real estate. I told her that could be the biggest
mistake she could make if the real estate market falls
through. She stayed and has thanked me many times since.
I love working with the students, helping to guide
them. Because we have more first-time college students
here at Dominguez Hills, there probably are a few more
who could use a guiding hand. I love helping like that.”
Then the new director says,
with emphasis, “We’re supposed to
be in this business for the students.”
Guillen added one more memory…or perhaps it
should be called a growing memory: “Also, there
is our department’s and the athletes’ annual
Christmas toy drive. We go to the pediatric cancer
ward with all the gifts, and to see the smiles on the
faces of those kids, y’know, that’s … it’s … well,
I still remember the faces of the kids from five years
ago, and all the kids since.”
–Russell Hudson
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