Basketball season is underway, and our student-athletes, coaches and athletic staff have done an admirable job navigating strict COVID guidelines. It has been a challenging season for our student-athletes, with limited training opportunities, last minute scheduling adjustments and cancellations through no fault of their own. Still, I am proud of how they have responded on and off the court and have continued to represent CSUB and Roadrunner athletics with pride, character and excellence.

The men’s basketball team has played more games than any other team in the Big West and sit at 9-4 overall and 5-1 in conference play. The team has won five straight games against league opponents, including sweeps of Cal Poly and Hawai’i. Eleven student-athletes are averaging at least ten minutes per game, including senior Taze Moore, the reigning Big West Player of the Week.

The women are 4-4 overall and 2-2 in Big West play following a two-game sweep of visiting Hawai’i. The team opened the season with a huge non-conference win over California and recently knocked off rival Fresno State to spark their current three-game winning streak. Bakersfield native, Lexus Green leads the team in scoring and assists and was named as the Big West Player of the Week after the team’s big win at Cal.

The wrestling program opens its season this Sunday, January 24 against Stanford and Little Rock. The team will compete against an abbreviated conference only slate in 2021. They’ll face each of their five Pac-12 rivals, at the Pac-12 Championship in Corvallis, Ore., and, potentially, at the NCAA Championship meet in St. Louis.

Unfortunately, our swimming and diving and indoor track and field seasons were cancelled. A handful of our swimming student-athletes will still be training on their own in search of Olympic Trial berths this Summer.

More than anything college athletics is about the people involved, including our student-athletes, coaches, staff, fans and the entire Bakersfield community. We miss being together and we miss hosting sporting events and community gatherings in support of our student-athletes.

The most critical leadership task during our time apart has been to maintain communication with all stakeholders of CSUB athletics, and continuing to let them know they are valued, missed, respected and supported.

The unprecedented nature of the COVID pandemic has been tough, but it has also created many opportunities for innovation and reimagining how we manage our department and campus. Many leaders have emerged in our department during this difficult time. Our staff has exhibited great creativity, strength and resilience over the past 12 months. We will emerge from this pandemic better than ever!

We’ve looked forward to competing in the Big West with great enthusiasm and the partnership has been better than we could have ever imagined. We are forging new and deeper relationships with the conference offices and our new conference members as we navigate this unique time for college athletics. While the challenges are many, our situation has also brought us closer together and ingratiated our department into the Big West Community faster than expected.

We have been made to feel incredibly welcome and for that we are appreciative. It already feels like we have been a part of the league for many years. The transition has been very smooth thanks to the hard work of so many on our staff and in our community, including a high-level of participation from CSUB president Dr. Lynnette Zelezny.

We have already made our mark on the Big West Conference, showing leadership in a number of areas, including being a leader in the conference with our broadcast team.

The financial challenges we have faced due to limited revenue streams during the COVID pandemic are tricky and multilayered, but we have made a concerted effort to minimize the impact this has had on our student-athletes and athletic staff.

We have managed to honor all scholarships for student-athletes and avoided any layoffs within our department. Where we have been unable to fill vacant positions, our staff has stepped up to cover additional responsibilities, allowing us to operate at our highest potential in spite of the challenges we’ve faced.

While we have faced new expenses like COVID testing, personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies, we have been cautious with spending in other areas. Additionally, we have been able to defer significant costs to future years and we have saved money relative to the typical travel expenses we incur most years. Our campus and athletics leadership has prepared us for this budget crisis and I can tell you that we are in much better shape than the majority of athletic departments across the nation.

With the support of the community, through avenues like the Roadrunner Scholarship Fund, we will continue on our strong trajectory of excellence on the field and in the classroom.

First and foremost, we’re looking forward to the fall of 2021, welcoming students back to campus and allowing our student-athletes to access all of the support they need to be successful in the classroom and in competition.

We expect to continue to make our mark in the Big West Conference as all of our programs will compete together for the first time.

When fans return to on-campus competition they will be greeted by the new Harvey L. Hall Family Plaza, which will be a wonderful community gathering place and make the Icardo Center a more open and expanded setting to share with family and friends. We expect record-breaking crowds at the Icardo Center, Hardt Field, the Main Soccer Complex, the Softball Complex and the Hillman Aquatic Center.

Down the road, we envision a trophy case filled with Big West Awards as most of our programs continue to grow and excel in our new league. Our wrestling team will continue to produce Pac-12 Champions and NCAA Qualifiers. In the pool, Olympic hopefuls will become the norm at the Hillman Aquatics Center.

And equally as important, we expect we’ll continue to add academic semesters of 3.0 cumulative grade point averages to our current streak of 12 in a row.

Earlier this week we celebrated the life and achievements of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I spent the day reflecting on how the role our athletics department has played in addressing the social injustices that continue to occur in our society. We continue to have regular discussions within our department, strategizing on how we can unite and build bridges in our community and, ultimately, across society. We have been intentional in our actions to promote change in our athletic department and in our community, and while we have made significant progress, we know the journey will continue.

In addition to our involvement within our department at CSUB, we have also taken a leadership role within the Big West Conference. I am proud to serve, alongside women’s basketball student-athlete Vanessa Austin, on the Big West’s Undivided Committee, which focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion. We operate under four actionable pillars: education, empowerment, accountability and change.

Additionally, we have overseen a number of initiatives to educate and include our student-athletes’ voices in social causes.

With the assistance of university personnel, we registered our entire student-athlete population to vote and worked to educate them on their electoral choices.

We organized and developed a number of social justice workshops and training sessions, to give athletic staff and our student-athletes an opportunity to learn, grow and express themselves, and we created a resource library for anyone looking for further information.

The Marathon, our new student-athlete newsletter, provides a new platform for our student-athletes to express their opinions on social justice and their experiences at CSUB.

We enhanced and revamped our Diversity, Equality and Inclusion committee within our athletics department to help us stay informed and involved in understanding our changing society and leading our response. The committee also gives athletics staff and student-athletes another chance to tell their story as it relates to social justice and unity within our community.

As a department, as a university and as a community we are determined in the continued self-evaluation necessary to live up to our commitment to social justice and equality. We have taken some strong steps to that end, but we will only achieve true equality by remaining vigilant and intentional in our actions moving forward.

Visit the newly-redesigned gorunners.com.