When Cal State Bakersfield named Cindy Goodmon, its senior associate athletics director, as interim athletic director on May 5, Vice President for Student Affairs Thomas Wallace took care to highlight her unparalleled "in-depth knowledge" of the school and local community.
Goodmon has accumulated her expertise over more than three decades at the school, dating back to its Division II heyday, and will now try to apply it to a new set of challenges facing CSUB as it tries to get acclimated to the Big West Conference.
The Californian caught up with Goodmon for a Zoom interview Thursday, her second official day in the role, though to some extent her work began as soon as Kenneth "Ziggy" Siegfried announced his departure on April 21. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TBC: You've been with CSUB for 35-plus years, and so with all the different experiences you've seen, having seen the whole arc of the athletic department since then, how do you think all that experience is going to serve you during your time as interim AD?
CG: It's interesting, I have been here on campus for over 35 years. The blessing that I've experienced is that I've served in a lot of different capacities. But as I look back in the athletics program, I've been in here for over 25 years ... When I arrived to athletics, we were right at that pinnacle of the Division II glory days. We (won) those back-to-back national championships, we went to the tournament, we packed the gymnasium. So I know what that success looks like at the Division II level.
... I was very instrumental in working with our leadership during that time — it was myself and (former AD) Rudy Carvajal, and (former senior associate AD) Gloria Friedman was here at that time too. But we transitioned over to Division I, and that was based not only on our student-athletes but our students, and our community, and our campus community. So everybody was buying into the fact — OK, we've been so successful, it's time.
And it's been a great experience for our program overall, and for our city. Right now, we just landed in the Big West Conference this last year. We are very excited about that. Because a lot of our old rivals from the Division II days are currently in the Big West Conference. We're excited to start building up those rivalries again and growing our program to be successful. Every day, we have a great staff that is working together to do what we can in order to see those success days again.
TBC: What has the transition into this role been like for you over the last almost a month at this point, since Ziggy first made his announcement?
CG: I'm in the day-to-day operations, I was his second-in-command at the time. And so I'm already aware of what needs to be done, not only internally but externally. I have a great relationship with all of our coaches, and we work closely together, and so it's just been stepping into that role, understanding where we were on the external side as far as fundraising, so that's been a benefit ...
The men's basketball coach (Rod Barnes) sits right next to me, and so him and I have a very close relationship. Now it's all about strategically looking at that program and saying, 'OK, what can we do during this transition to get them in the best place, and get all of our teams in the best place to compete as we begin the next academic year?' Because we've got to see some better competitiveness out there, that's for sure.
TBC: I'll get to that in a moment — on this same note, my sense is that Ziggy's departure was pretty unexpected for the department, so how do you kind of set things back on track and get everyone on the same page when something like that happens kind of suddenly?
CG: OK, we've already done that. So we did that when he made his announcement, we started setting up the meetings with the coaches and the administrative staff. And so everybody's already got their plans, and they're working their plans throughout their summer, in preparation (for) our new Director of Athletics. We're definitely moving, we're not going to sit still.
TBC: With softball finishing its season, all of the programs have been in the Big West for at least one year, and several have struggled a bit against conference foes. On the other hand, you've got volleyball, which had a great year, and Miranda Miller getting a conference championship (in the pole vault). So how do you see the teams adapting to Big West competition so far?
CG: Definitely, they all took a step back and looked at it and you know, some of our teams were successful, some of them were not. But they're looking at it, looking at, recruiting-wise, what do we need to recruit in order to compete against the teams in the Big West. We're capable of doing it, and so they're all changing pace right now, and they're working towards bringing in different recruits, different types of recruits so that we can be ready to compete next year.
TBC: One specific issue that I've heard brought up a lot during this spring, especially after the end of the basketball season, is the transfer portal, and the impact that transfers are having on a lot of your programs. How do you feel like that's affecting some of your sports?
CG: That's a tough question. Because in reality, when we look at the transfer portal, is it a good thing or is it a bad thing? Some days it's a good thing, some days it's not. One of the things that we look at is that our coaches are awesome in regards to recruiting them here, because our coaches care about our athletes. They definitely want to win, but their first priority is to get these kids graduated, but then also to build those relationships with them so that they can begin the next chapter of their lives after graduation ... You hope that those relationships are going to be good so that they don't want to go into the transfer portal, if that makes sense. Because there's going to be years when some kids are not going to be able to compete ... but if they just hang in and work hard, ultimately they can get there. And it's just those trust factors that they built within the coaches, and those relationships.
TBC: Another area of emphasis for you guys in recent years is continuing to improve facillties, and so I was wondering, how do you feel the school is on track with regard to your master plan and your goals in that domain?
CG: We have 10 women's programs. So we are in the process right now of remodeling all of our women's locker rooms, within one facility. In that, we're going to have seven of our women's teams. We are so excited about that, and those should be ready, I would say, probably mid-September ... Women's basketball and women's volleyball got new locker rooms a couple years ago. But the remaining teams will receive their locker rooms in September. So we're very excited about that.
In addition, we definitely have some facilities out there that we need to improve. And so we're continually working on that, on the master plan, we've got some improvements going on right now within all of our facilities, some small, some big. But we're going to continue to work on that, work with our community to build those bridges as far as financing. It's tough at a state-school level to get the financing to do that, so we have to go to our community.
TBC: Generally speaking, what are the main things that you're hoping to accomplish during your tenure as interim AD?
CG: My goal is to keep everybody focused on — our mindset right now is growth. And so right now during the summer, typically in the school system people take the summer off. That's not happening here at Bakersfield. We're going to work diligently to continue to grow our program to be ready for fall ... We all have projects that we're working on, and so my goal is to stay focused on those and making sure that we get those accomplished.
TBC: Last time the school had an interim AD (Siegfried), he wasn't expected to be in that position for more than a few months, ended up being over a year and then he got hired permanently. Do you feel like you're prepared to keep things moving for longer than the summer if needed?
CG: Absolutely. My heart and soul is with this program. I graduated from here, three of my children graduated from here, my in-law children graduated from here. I mean, CSUB is our home, and I raised my kids here. And so it means a lot to me. This is not a job to me, this is a lifestyle for me. I'm very dedicated to our scholar-athletes, and no matter what it takes, I will be here to make sure that that gets done.
TBC: One sport I wanted to ask about in particular is beach volleyball, with some of the new beach-only coaches and players and achieving a record 11 wins this year. So how do you see that sport developing going forward?
CG: It's interesting you bring that sport up. This year we did decide to split that from volleyball. We took one of our assistant coaches (Cesar Benatti), and he was interested in becoming the head coach for beach volleyball. Then we hired a part-time assistant (Briannah Mariner), and so they were very successful. Cesar has done a phenomenal job with the beach program. Not only on the sand, but also off the sand. And so, one of the things that I see is that he's built healthy relationships where they're working together ... We are going to do whatever we can to continually improve not only that program but all of our programs.
TBC: You see a lot of the programs trying to balance recruiting in Bakersfield and Kern County versus further afield — I know that's something that's really important for Coach (Jeremy) Beard in baseball, and I know it was a topic of conversation recently around men's basketball, there was a whole Twitter kerfuffle about that. (Tyrone Wallace, a BHS alum in the NBA G League, criticized CSUB — "never seen a team not recruit their backyard" — and Barnes responded with examples of prominent local products the team has recruited.)
I guess what I'd ask is how do you see your coaches sort of finding that balance?
CG: Well, what I can tell you is that our coaches are very interested in our local talent. I don't know one coach that is not interested in our local talent. And so it comes down to — the students decide to go somewhere else ... (Our coaches) believe in our community, and they want kids from our local community. Definitely they need to have that ability to compete at this level, and if they do, they're going to be recruiting them. But there's times when they just make choices to go somewhere else. We just recruited a transfer, (Ava) Palm ... We recruited her before she left, and so now she's going to be coming back here.
TBC: You talked about growth for the summer, is there anything specifically new that you're hoping to implement?
CG: ... Definitely my biggest thing is connecting our scholar athletes to our community. That is so important, I know, for me personally. I had kids in college, I had kids that were athletes in college, and I know how important it was to connect them with the community, because it's a win-win situation. I believe it's a benefit for the people in our community to meet our scholar-athletes ... They are able to get jobs, they are able to gain internships. But I think the biggest thing is just engagement within our community with our scholar athletes and with our program overall. We see ourselves as the flagship of our CSUB community, we just want to make sure that we continue to grow our university as much as we can through our scholar-athletes.
TBC: What are your thoughts on some of the sports that aren't getting the chance to compete in a (Big West) tournament, like volleyball or softball? And do you feel like those sports would be better served if they did get the chance to compete in a conference tournament, and how do you feel about the effect that has on the season as a whole for those sports?
CG: Softball, for instance, the coaches went to the Big West to see if they could have a softball tournament. It ended up not passing, and so we weren't able to do that. For us, we think it would be beneficial to have a conference tournament in volleyball and softball. And so we just need to get the Big West administration and board of directors to approve that, I guess. But there's a process of approval. But we definitely could benefit from that ... You win the conference tournament, that's an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.