April 15, 2002
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Dave Campbell appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
If you have been out of the country for maybe a year or so, or you've been asleep like Rip Van Winkle for longer than you want to admit, then maybe you are going to drop in on the executive offices of the Baylor Bear Foundation one of these days and find you can't tell the players without a program.
Things (and faces) have changed that much, all right.
David Hawkins has retired. Jim Huey has moved to Fort Worth, Trudy Sanders back to San Antonio. Roger Goree has moved to a new position under Tom Hill at the Ferrell Center.
Doug Smith, named in July of 1998 to head up the Baylor Bear Foundation, still serves as its executive director, spearheading the aggressive effort to bring in more dollars and more members for the BBF each year, but now he has what amounts basically to a new staff.
That staff includes one familiar name, Jeanne Nowlin, one who has been on the scene now for several years, Bobby Brents, and three who need an introduction -- Roger Newton, Aaron Leetch and Cheryl Ervi.
Nowlin, formerly the associate athletic director for women's athletics until continuing health problems prompted a career change, is now the BBF's athletic development officer who will concentrate mainly on expansion of the membership of the Athletic Director's Club. She says she relishes the opportunities and challenges.
Newton for awhile will almost be Smith's shadow, going on the road to BBF meetings with him, cultivating relationships, helping develop more numbers of volunteers for the spring fund drive which begins next month.
Leetch's emphasis will be on the various "Excellence Funds" that help bolster each individual sport sponsored by Baylor -- 17 sports in all.
And Ervi, a longtime Wacoan who spent 18 years with Word, Inc., before coming to Baylor, is the new office manager of the BBF. Brents, who is also the organization's daily entry person (computers), is an administrative assistant.
Newton, 34, a native of Lexington, Ky., should feel right at home in the athletic world. He has been there almost all his life. A physical education major at the U. of Kentucky, he spent 10 years coaching and teaching in Lexington (head basketball coach at Lexington Christian Academy, the fourth largest Christian academy in the nation, and assistant coach in football, baseball, golf, softball, and track and field). But he earned a master's degree in sports management at Baylor before beginning his teaching/coaching career.
"While at Baylor I worked with Darryl Lehnus in athletic marketing, and even though I went back to Kentucky to start my teaching and coaching career, I stayed in touch with Darryl and David Taylor and Mary Felkner (BU athletic department members). They told me this job was about to come open and they thought I would be interested.
"I'm very excited being back at Baylor, of being a part of the Bear Foundation, of working with Doug. He has some great ideas," Newton continued. "Fund raising is not new to me. We had to do a lot of it at the school in Lexington. I helped raise probably ?100,000-150,000 in my last year there.
"My main responsibility here will be the spring fund drive, bringing in new volunteers, expanding the Foundation, building relationships. I look forward to the challenge. I like to help build something."
Newton is married (wife's name is Pam), the father of a 5-year-old son, Tyler -- "a good Texas name" -- and considers Baylor "a very special place."
Leetch, 24, is not married -- "and not interested right now," he laughed, "with the life Doug expects me to lead, I can't get married."
He is a native of Garland who graduated from high school at Garland Christian Academy and then got his college degree at Tennessee Temple U. in Chattanooga, Tenn.
"I came to Baylor to get my master's in sports management (which he won last summer), and while doing so I worked as an intern under Darryl Lehnus until November. Then I officially became a BBF staff member on Dec. 6.
"I definitely see myself as an Alumnus by Choice at Baylor, I just feel I'm a good fit here. I'm very happy to be here," Leetch said. "When I got my masters, one of the first things I did was join the Baylor Alumni Association."
He said he also will be significantly involved in the spring BBF fund and membership campaign, "and a big goal is to increase income as well as membership in the Excellence Funds. I think in their case that membership is as important as dollars. I'll be working with the coaches closely. I want to find out their goals and then work out the strategies with them to achieve those goals."
