As Portland State University Athletics Director Valerie Cleary paced her way into the nearly 2-year-old Viking Pavilion, she had already tackled a couple of her obligations for the day.
It started when she spoke with a sports psychology class on campus.
“I speak with these classes every quarter,” she said. “I enjoy doing it. Plus, the professor of the class I spoke with today is a huge sports fan. He’s one of our donors.”
Cleary also had a meeting to explore a more localized home for the university’s football team, which plays its home games at Hillsboro Stadium.
Last month, PSU’s interim president, Stephen Percy, released a statement on the five-year contract extension for Cleary to continue her role as athletics director. Cleary joined PSU in 2016.
Just before speaking with Street Roots, Cleary had been watching the men’s basketball team practice. She discussed the importance of the games the PSU Vikings would play that weekend, which they went on to win. We then walked to her office to talk about the politically charged world of sports these days, and her journey as a rarity in this business: a black, female athletic director at a Division I university.
DeVon Pouncey: Rather than focusing on the challenges you faced to get to this point, can you speak to how race and gender were advantageous for you in this process? If at all?
Valerie Cleary: Yes — there are a few things. Oregon is interesting in that we have a state law that is similar to the NFL “Rooney Rule.” Sam Sachs and his folks at “The No Hate Zone” really advocated for that some years ago, and it got passed. So now there is a state law that says for any head coaching position or athletic director position, you need to have a diverse pool. So that helped.
There are barriers, but I also think there are a lot of advantages, because specifically in the field of athletics, we are always talking about making sure that you have a diverse staff that is representative of your student body. We serve a diverse range of students in athletics here, so you want to make sure your staff somewhat mimics that, which isn’t always easy to do. The same thing goes for half of our athletes being female.
I think within about the last 10 years it has become more forethought for universities in hiring, especially when it comes to athletic directors. There is an association called Women Leaders in College Sports, and they track a lot of data in regard to what the increase has been with athletic directors and commissioners who are women hired in these spots. There is still a long way to go. I think right now probably about 10% of athletic directors are women. And it’s an even smaller number that are women of color. So in some ways, you definitely stand out and the search firms tend to call you up because they’re trying to make sure they have a diverse pool and they need women in their pool, and if you check off a couple of boxes, more than likely you’ll be contacted about these types of jobs. I get contacted all the time, just to see if I’m interested in being in those other job searches, because they’re trying to diversify their pool at the institution they’re working for.
Pouncey: In December, the women’s basketball team had record-setting attendance numbers against the University of Tennessee. That doesn’t happen without the new Viking Pavilion. Do you foresee the football program being next with new state-of-the-art facilities?
Cleary: Shockingly enough, we had that contract signed to play against Tennessee before the Viking Pavilion was done. But we did know that the gym would be done by the time the game was played.
But in regard to the football stadium, it’s always the plan. I was working on it this afternoon trying to explore some options. It’s hard in Portland. Football stadiums take up a lot of land, and land is at a premium here in this city and, really, the Portland-metro area unless you get further out. Which is why we’re playing in Hillsboro. Hillsboro had the foresight to actually develop an athletic facility on a bunch of land. It’s just hard to find land. And then once you do find the land, the land is really expensive.
We want to have our student athletes play in the city because a lot of them choose to come to Portland State in large part because of the city. It’s a top-three reason that they decide to come here. You want them to be able to represent the city that they live and play for. Right now, the sports that we have that compete in the city of Portland are men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball and that’s it. Football, softball and soccer play out in Hillsboro. Golf plays in Wilsonville. Men’s and women’s tennis play in Vancouver, Wash. We host one cross-country meet here each year and track is usually on the road.
Pouncey: Speaking of the women’s basketball team, how big was it for the university for them to win the Big Sky Conference tournament and get an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament last season?
Cleary: It was a big year last year for women’s basketball here in the state of Oregon. All three Division I public institutions had their teams in the NCAA Tournament. So it was pretty cool to have us, Oregon State and University of Oregon in the tournament last year. Oregon State was the regional host, even though I believe they played in Albany. But there was a great partnership with the Trailblazers and Sport Oregon, which was really big for the city and just women’s sports in general.
You know this as a former college athlete yourself: It is not easy to win championships, and when Lynn Kennedy took over our women’s program as head coach, they had just two conference wins. Within five years, he is winning a conference championship. That’s pretty big. More importantly, it shines more of a light on women’s sports because sometimes they don’t receive the same amount of spotlight that men’s sports do. It also helps with recruiting across the board.
Pouncey: The International Olympic Committee recently banned political, religious and ethnic demonstrations for the 2020 Tokyo Games. Making that relevant to PSU, what is the institution’s responsibility to support athlete demonstrations in those three realms?
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Cleary: The way that I always approach it with our student-athletes is making sure we balance it out because our students have rights. Just because you sign up to be a student athlete doesn’t mean you don’t have rights. Even if that is contrary to popular belief where people believe coaches have all of this control. We actually have a policy that is specific to kneeling during the anthem, but it overall covers political demonstrations or freedom of speech. The first thing we want students to understand is that as a student athlete, they are representing the university. But we also want to recognize that they are their own person. We also want to support them because they are college students. This is their opportunity to learn, engage and become citizens of this world and to seek out things that they’re passionate about.
I was really shocked to see that the International Olympic Committee put out that bold of a statement. Some people may like it because it protects the spirit of sport in competition without creating something else on top of it. But on the flipside, many people see this as a one-in-every-four-year event where the world is watching. And people could actually use their platform and their gift of being a competitor and athlete to represent their nation to speak on things. Obviously the IOC has the right to do what they want, but on our end as an institution of higher education, we have to make sure we provide an environment where our students can best learn and grow.
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Pouncey: Last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom went on LeBron James’ TV show, “The Shop,” and signed the state’s Senate Bill 206 allowing athletes to be compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness. Would you like to see a similar bill passed in the state of Oregon?
Cleary: I don’t know. No one knows how this is going to play out yet. And no one knows what the impact is. I actually leave Wednesday (Jan. 22) to go to the NCAA national meetings. I’m sure name, image and likeness is going to be the top conversation. It’s very gray right now when it comes to how it’s going to impact student-athletes across the board. Whether it be at a Division III school like Pacific University, an FCS Football Championship Subdivision) school like Portland State, or if you’re playing at a school such as University of Alabama. Is it going to apply the same way across the board? For the NCAA, as the governing body for collegiate athletics Division I, II and III, how do you create consistency across 50 states? Especially with each state having its own say in what they do in their state. I can’t say that I’m for or against it with all of the unknowns.
What I value about college athletics is the beauty of sport, competition and growth. I do think if you start mixing outside dollars and influences into it, it has the potential to tarnish the true mission of what collegiate athletics is all about.
Pouncey: What advice would you give young athletes interested in attending Portland State in the future?
Cleary: Find your fit. Obviously you have this exceptional talent in your particular sport, and there is a small percentage of people that have the ability to go and play collegiate sports at any level. Use that gift as the ability to open doors for you, and take advantage of that opportunity.
Portland State has so many great things to offer. The city is amazing. The resources that we have for being an urban institution are second to none. But at the end of the day, a student-athlete has to determine what is the best fit for them. Whether that means going to school in downtown Portland or somewhere in the middle of Iowa. The uniqueness of Portland State, though, is that we are an urban university. And we value our students’ academic and athletic paths.
Pouncey: One of the main goals during your extension as mentioned by you and the university president is “to support the holistic health and well-being of student athletes by expanding program offerings in psychological services, nutrition and substance education.” What are some of the ways you expect to expand on this approach outside of the standard university resources offered to students for these issues?
Cleary: It’s interesting to see the difference in challenges that face our young people. And, there have always been challenges. I recall the challenges of my college days buying eggs, tortillas and potatoes. We didn’t have the same conversations around the many challenges students face today at this same magnitude even when I was in college. There was always a counseling center on campus, but it wasn’t an everyday topic. So with our student athletes, because of what is expected of them intellectually, physically and mentally, you have to be able to support that.
We’ve looked at ways to partner with OHSU, which is our sports medicine provider, to round out our support system for student-athletes. We’ve contracted with another outside counselor in the case that our counseling center on campus can’t accommodate. There is such a variety of needs to focus on that we are always looking at ways to best serve our student-athletes so that they can be successful as people.