After bringing four club sports under its umbrella last October, the department of athletics has brought on the former student director of club sports at Texas Tech to serve in the brand new role of, director of club sports.
Director of athletics, Lee De Leon said the decision to hire Todd Rogers was made to try and bolster the influence of club sports on campus and enhance the student experience after seeing its effectiveness at Grand Canyon University. De Leon said Rogers’ goal for the initiation of this change is two-fold.
“His first job is to establish relationships with the club presidents and coaches and how we can help them,” De Leon said. “Secondly, his job outside of structure, organization and developing relationships with the clubs is to build relationships with high school coaches and start recruiting kids to come play club sports.”
Rogers, who competed nationally with the Texas Tech cycling club, will work under assistant director of athletics Chris Ballard to create a greater presence of club sports on campus.
“It is a cliche term, but the sky is the limit for the club sport program here at ACU,” Rogers said. “It would be incredible to have all of our clubs competing for both conference and national championships each year. At the end of the day, though, club sports here at ACU has the potential to really improve the experience that students have while they attend ACU.”
Working as an intern for De Leon the last two summers, Rogers said he is familiar with the university and said he looks forward to working with this product.
“With the experience of interning here, I was able to realize how special of a place ACU is and I couldn’t have pictured a better place to start my career,” Rogers said.
In this position, Rogers will oversee men’s rugby, men’s soccer, men’s lacrosse as well as men’s and women’s golf, which are all eligible to compete at the national level. This will include managing budgets, hiring part-time coaches, handling team schedules, recruit high school athletes to play club sports and oversee the operation of each club as a whole.
De Leon said while the department hopes to add more club sports, Rogers will help set a foundation of club sports playing a larger role in the campus community.
