'Tom is a natural leader': Long-tenured Big Sky commissioner Tom Wistrcill guides conference through sea of change

Aug.

12At the Big Sky football meetings last month in Airway Heights, league commissioner Tom Wistrcill stood in front of the collected players, coaches and media to give his annual state of the league address, a tradition for league commissioners across the country.Wistrcill's remarks provided little in the way of controversy.

Even the biggest news about the conference this summer the departure of Sacramento State, the league's highest revenue athletic department was met swiftly with the update that the league was adding Southern Utah and Utah Tech.He mourned the death of two Big Sky football officials, addressed the impact of gambling and highlighted the accomplishments of the league's student athletes.And later, as the media day neared its end, he emphasized a point he has raised time and again during his seven years as league commissioner."I love what our schools and what the people affiliated with those schools stand for," Wistrcill said.

"I say frequently we're the true college athletics now.

We can play the highest level of athletics and still talk about graduation and student-athlete experiences.""That's what energizes me," he said.

"That's what I love about the Big Sky."In early July, Wistrcill signed a five-year contract extension with the league to remain commissioner until 2030, a term that would make him the league's third-longest tenured since its inception in 1963.

Ron Stephenson held the post from 1981 to 1995, and Doug Fullerton did so from 1995 to 2016.Among the commissioners of the six Division I athletic conferences in the Western United States, Wistrcill has been in his post the longest and has dealt with the least turnover in membership.Next summer, when Southern Utah and Utah Tech officially become members, the league will have 11 full-time institutions and two more (Cal Poly and UC Davis) as football participants.

At that point, there will be just one FCS program west of Texas San Diego that isn't a part of the Big Sky in football.It's a significant consolidation that gives the Big Sky more stability as a league than any of its geographic counterparts.And though the Big Sky plays at a lower-revenue level of college athletics the league isn't on the same competitive plane with Pac-12, Mountain West or West Coast Conference programs when it comes to NIL during Wistrcill's time in the league office he has built a reputation as a strong leader locally and nationally."Tom is a natural leader," Dan Satter, Big Sky deputy commissioner, said of Wistrcill.

"He galvanizes people, and in the role of commissioner, that's especially important."The Big Sky doesn't have a particularly large staff: just 12 members, including Wistrcill.

But among that staff, Wistrcill's generosity and care is appreciated.Each year, for example, he asks league employees to identify a word that captures their focus that year.

Wistrcill has everyone's word put on a mug, distributes them to everyone and then follows up individually as the year goes on to see how that focus is going.

He's also known to close the office early for a staff golf outing or a meal."We've got a great group of people who care about the right things," Wistrcill said, "and that starts with me.

I've got to set that tone, but it's a team effort."He also retains people.

Jon Kasper, at the league office since 2004, was promoted to senior associate commissioner of championships in 2019.

Satter has been with the league since Wistrcill joined it in 2018 and worked with him previously at the University of Akron when Wistrcill was that program's athletics director, from 2009 to 2015.Satter remembers getting the call from his former boss in 2018, inviting him to reunite in the Big Sky Conference office."I'd never lived west of Akron, Ohio, so I didn't know what it'd be like to move to Utah," Satter said.

"I didn't know what it would be like to work in a conference office.

But I knew that I would really enjoy working with Tom."Since 2022, Wistrcill has been a member of the 12-person Division I Men's Basketball Committee, the second Big Sky commissioner to ever serve on it (Fullerton was the other).

In 2021, the Big Sky and ESPN announced a media rights deal, one that was extended this summer to run through 2030.

Both of those have raised the league's profile."He's on the ground floor with us.

He just gets it," EWU head football coach Aaron Best said.

"Like a quarterback, he has that 'it' factor.

He wants to make this the (premier) conference at the FCS level, and he's stood by that from Day 1."That, though, has been one goal the league has yet to achieve under Wistrcill.

A Big Sky team has played for four of the last seven FCS championships, including EWU at the end of the 2018 season.But in each, the league representative has lost: three times to North Dakota State and once to South Dakota State.

Both of those schools play in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, which has produced 12 of the 14 national champions since Eastern Washington's title game victory in 2010.With the football season starting up again this month, ending the league's title drought is a goal Wistrcill would like to see met."It's one game, in that moment, you have to show up and play your best football, because the opponent you're playing obviously is a great opponent, so the margin of error at the championship level is so narrow," he said.

"It'll happen.

It'll happen.

I think we have a great chance at it this year.

I think the FCS is wide open, just like the Big Sky is wide open.".

This article has been shared from the original article on yahoo, here is the link to the original article.