Athletics: On familiar turf

John Johnson took the helm of the Portland State Athletics Department on May 1. But as a graduate of Eastern Washington with a master’s degree in business administration, Johnson’s no stranger to the area. His experience in collegiate athletic administration stretches back to 1985 and includes 11 years as an athletic director in the Big Sky Conference. He spent time at Eastern Washington, Weber State, and Washington State. Most recently, he served as the senior deputy athletics director at the University of Nebraska.

Portland State Magazine recently caught up with Johnson to discuss the new role, the ever-present pressure to bring in new revenue, and his plans to get more PSU fans in the seats.

Questions and  responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.

What attracted you to PSU?

Our roots run pretty deep in the Northwest and, in particular, the Big Sky Conference. So this is home for us. I spent a lot of time in Portland when I was in the Pac-12 conference. I worked at Washington State for former Athletics Director Jim Sterk, who was here at Portland State as well. So you know, it’s really comfortable.

It’s funny how you’re away for three or four years, and you come back, and it just feels like home. I feel lucky and privileged and honored to have the opportunity to serve Portland State, and hopefully, I can help make it better.

Your experience at Washington State included overseeing the Cougar Athletic Fund. What did the role teach you about revenue generation in college athletics, and what might you apply from that to PSU?

When you’re in athletics and an athletics director, revenue generation is on your mind when you wake up in the morning and go to bed and sometimes, quite frankly, in the middle of the night. New revenue comes from new ideas. It comes from initiatives that help people say, “I want to be part of that.” You need to tell the story.

You also need to fundamentally be sound in your fundraising principles. And I’m using “fundraising” in very specific terms, but also raising funds in general terms with ticket sponsorship, etc. Not unlike being in a sport, you need to do well on the fundamentals or you won’t win any games—everything from how we answer the phone, how we treat our opponents, how we do business, how we integrate on campus, and then how we fundamentally put together a strategic plan from a fundraising standpoint.

So, you know, it’s doing the little things. Everyone’s important; everyone helps us win games. We’re always fundraising in a variety of ways to support our scholarships. So all that’s part of it.

The football team at the moment plays at a stadium in Hillsboro. At this very early stage, do you view a new, more permanent solution as  a possibility? If so, what has your approach been so far?

I need to get through a season. I need to see what the opportunities are. It’s a nice facility. The city of Hillsboro has been terrific to work with. I’m still evaluating to see what’s best for the program longterm, knowing that there’s going to be changes not only in our league, perhaps on how we approach things, but also in the NCAA, which is going through a very specific transformation. They call it the Transformation Committee, where we’re looking at the structure of Division I athletics and what it looks like. That also will have an impact.

So right now I’m listening and learning. We’ll use the basis of that to put together a strategic 3- to 5- to 10-year plan.

What are the different ways that the athletics department might engage students at a commuter school like PSU?

It’s not unlike at Weber State or Eastern Washington, which were primarily commuter schools. For traditional-age students, we engage them and create a fun environment similar to what they experienced in high school, and just continue that and engage them. Then you look at those who are working and want to further themselves educationally. Time is of the essence, and it’s hard for them. We need to create a good opportunity for them in a very cost-effective way to attend a game, and have good, wholesome entertainment for them and their families, if they have them. We’ve partnered with MAX to shuttle them to the game. So it’ll be a holistic experience that starts when you leave home, not when you get to the game.

We need to find out what they want. What kind of data do we have? Can we survey them? Can we talk to them? Can we do some focus groups: Hey, what do you want from us? What would help you want to come to a game?

You come to basketball and volleyball right here and we have a wonderful new facility. It’s as good as anything in the conference and it’s easy to get to. We have parking. We have people downtown. And you know, one of our roles, I believe, in athletics is to serve the community and to create opportunities for the community. We’re going to help get people downtown coming to our games, eating in restaurants, doing what they do when they come to games to make it a great experience that helps the city of Portland.