Beilue: 'Most challenging, most rewarding'

Photo: The Lady Buffs women's softball team celebrate a game-winning grand slam June 1 in the NCAA Division II national title game. (Photo courtesy NCAA)

WT Athletics may have had greatest year during a pandemic

Recently, West Texas A&M University’s athletic department had its first full, in-person staff meeting since February 2020. There was no way to know then what lay ahead, both good and bad.

Yet 15 months later…

“In every aspect, this has been the most challenging year ever, and at times the most frustrating year with everything going on,” athletic director Michael McBroom told the assembled coaches. “But it’s also been the most rewarding.”

What began in August with the unknown and uncertainty brought on by a virus pandemic ended on the first day of June with a national championship. In between was an athletic year that was as good – if not better – than any in school history.

The athletic year ended with an exclamation point on June 1 when the Lady Buffs softball team won the NCAA Division II national title in dramatic style in Denver. Just a few days before, 1,300 miles away in Michigan, the Buff men’s track team was national runner-up. The previous month, in Evansville, Ind., the WT basketball team played in the national championship game.

If that were all, that would be plenty, an accomplishment only one other school in the country could come close to claiming. But it’s not:

• Women’s track won the Lone Star Conference and finished third in the nation.
• Baseball went 33-9 and to the South Central Regional finals.
• In a delayed spring schedule, men’s soccer won the LSC regular season and conference tournament and finished No. 6 in the nation.
• Men’s cross country won its eighth consecutive LSC crown and was third in the Division II national invite.

In a year where some sports — especially the fall sports of football, soccer, cross country and volleyball were constricted, condensed and put together against the wishes of the NCAA — no team sport had a losing record.

“Every year you run into difficulties,” McBroom said, “but this was one of those years on steroids. If you surround yourself with good people who are smart, good things are going to happen. These were not small challenges, but we rose up. We didn’t back down. At the end of the day, we claimed all these trophies because good people and good programs rise up.”

There may have been a temptation in August when the LSC decided not to play sanctioned fall schedules and the NCAA decided not to contest its championships in Division II to throw up a collective set of hands and take a mulligan.

But attitudes from the outset were to compete until they couldn’t. From the top of administration to coaches, from athletic training staff to players, teams went through health and safety protocols to get on the court and the field to focus on winning championships.

“We were going to do everything we could to make things as normal as possible,” said cross country coach Jake Krolick, whose men won their eighth conference title and fourth in a row with him as coach. “We have the right people in charge who give us the resources and let us do our job. They give us as much as they can to help us get the best kids and then it’s up to us after that.”

About $100 million has been poured into facilities over the last 20 years, and the athletic budget, McBroom said, is in “good shape.” Those are two key factors in a winning program, and important in attracting quality coaches.

With the exception of soccer coach Butch Lauffer, who has been at WT for 30 years, and baseball coach Matt Vanderburg’s 13 seasons, none of the coaches in the 14 sports for men and women have been with their programs longer than men’s basketball coach Tom Brown’s seven seasons.

In early June, Josh Prock was hired from Eastern New Mexico University as head women’s basketball coach. He led the Zias to their only three NCAA tournament appearances and is 77-41 in eight seasons.

Before Prock, the newest coach was Mike Mook, hired in 2019 to take over the softball program. Mook was 154-61 at NAIA power Valley City State in Valley City, N.D. After a pandemic-halted first season in 2020, all Mook did was lead a predominantly freshman and sophomore team to a 43-12 record and the national title with a 4-1 win over Biola on June 1.

“I feel like I’m a fairly good judge of people, and after talking with Michael, everything he said resonated with me,” Mook said. “In talking with him, he was awesome. As excited as I was to work at WT before I got here, it’s been even better since I started.  Every time I wished we could get this or that, Michael has made it happen.”

Photo: Track star Benjamin Azamati helped lead the WT men's track & field team to a national runner-up title. (Photo courtesy WT Athletics)

If there is such a thing as sports synergy, where the success of one program is momentum for another, it seems to be happening in Canyon.

“It’s like shooting. You get a team and a couple of guys starting making shots, now everybody can shoot. It’s a domino effect,” said Brown, who is 181-43 in his seven seasons at WT. “Our coaches really pull for each other, and that makes a big difference. Five years ago, I wouldn’t have said that.

“Whether one coach makes more money or is more successful, there’s often some jealousy, but I just don’t see that. Maybe I’m naive. I was Mike Mook’s biggest fan – ‘volleyball, let’s go, football, let’s go, track and field, let’s go.’ You get a text from a coach, it means a lot. We got the resources and facilities. We got the administrative support. Now we have to get it done as coaches, and we are.”

There is a director’s cup for the three NCAA divisions which determines the top overall athletic programs. WT has on several occasions finished in the top five. One was not officially kept by the NCAA this year. The Buff athletic program will likely tally one where it’s expected to finish in the top three in the country.

As the summer buys more time to distance from COVID, the obvious expectation is the 2021-22 athletic year will return to blessed normalcy, or what passes now for normalcy, which means full schedules and fuller arenas. WT athletics may leave behind the restrictions of this past year while using the lessons learned.

“I was talking with (volleyball coach Kendra Potts) and we all had to learn to get better in what we do as far as managing people due to COVID,” McBroom said. “We’re much better in what we do now and really there’s not anything we can’t take on. We all learned to hit curveballs this year.

“From our ability to lead and direct people and adjust on the fly, things are better for us from a human standpoint that can’t be measured in dollars, cents or trophies.”

Do you know of a student, faculty member, project, an alumnus or any other story idea for “WT: The Heart and Soul of the Texas Panhandle?” If so, email Jon Mark Beilue at jbeilue@wtamu.edu.