WESTERN CAMPAIGN SUCCESSFUL: Private funds secure WSC ski team through 2010

Western campaign to fund ski program successful

Western State College has announced the successful completion of an effort to privately fund its intercollegiate ski program through 2010.

Alumni and friends of the college have made annual commitments of more than $135,000 for the next five years for a total of nearly $675,000 to ensure the program will continue.

Tom Burggraf, Executive Director of the WSC Foundation, said college officials will "continue to work diligently to attract private investment so an endowment of $2.5 to $3 million can permanently replace the annual funding."

That level of endowment will annually produce a budget of $125,000 to $150,000," Burggraf said.

Western President Jay Helman said "everyone involved in the effort, from administration to athletes to alumni, agrees that the proud tradition of skiing and the transforming impact that it has on students' lives is worth saving and securing for the future."

He called the successful completion of this first step "incredible news."

"What these supporters have accomplished is historic for Western and rare in collegiate athletics at any level," he said.

Privately funding the ski program on an annual basis is the first step in a broader effort to attract private investment in several of the college's intercollegiate programs.

"The success of all of our athletic programs is becoming more dependent upon private support," Helman said.  "This represents the first step in a new dimension of increasing those efforts.  Our goal is to attract an infusion of private investment to help us as we work to create sound, competitive opportunities for our nearly 350 student athletes."

The effort to increase private funding for the ski program began fully three years ago.

Over the past several years, a "comprehensive athletic program evaluation" which studied all intercollegiate sports at Western identified skiing as one of the college's most costly intercollegiate programs as well as the sport most in need of private funding.

Last fall 35 ski alumni, former coaches and others from across the country met for a weekend-long "Ski Summit" in Denver to consider how to fund the program.

"It was a veritable Who's Who of Western Skiing" Burggraf said.

"Our question was whether those who cared most about the program would step up and make the kind of commitment needed to save it.  The answer was a resounding yes."

The group heard presentations from Helman and Athletic Director Greg Waggoner who labeled efforts to privately fund the ski program a priority while detailing the realities of funding issues. "We came out of the Summit with a game plan," Waggoner said.  "We have now successfully completed the first step of that plan, on time."

Burggraf and Waggoner said they are proud of the fact that, in nine months time, intercollegiate skiing went from a program attracting among the lowest external funding level to one that is now "absolutely the highest."

"What this tells us," Waggoner said, "is that if former students who competed in other sports will stand behind their program they way our ski alumni have, we can ensure success and look forward to being highly competitive in the long term."

Our goal is not to "maintain," he said, but to excel.

The NCAA National Collegiate Ski Championship consists of teams from NCAA Division I, II and III.  Waggoner pointed out that Western is the smallest four-year public college to complete in these championships.  "Many of the programs we compete against have significant private funding," he said.

"Still," Waggoner said, "Western has produced a staggering list of individual national champions, U.S. Ski Team members and coaches and Olympians."

Western, Waggoner said, is one of the few places where promising American skiers can still compete at the highest level.  Nearly all the top colleges and universities in the U.S. "buy their skiers" from overseas," he said.

Helman pointed out that the success of the recent campaign means that ski coaches can recruit two classes of students who can expect to be in the program until their graduation.

"Then, as it becomes evident we are succeeding in permanently endowing the program, they can recruit with confidence far into the future," he said.

Bobby Heiken
Assistant Athletic Director for Media and External Relations
Western State College

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FOUNDATION'S LETTER

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO THE WSC FOUNDATION
(make sure to designate your gift to the "Ski Team Fund")