When Terry Wanless was hired to be the director of athletics at Sacramento State, he inherited a solid athletic program. In seven years, he helped make the Hornet athletic program nationally relevant.

Wanless was named the 2008-09 Under Armour Western Region Athletic Director of the Year in the Football Championship Subdivision in June.

Despite it being an individual award, Wanless wasted no time in recognizing that the award was a tribute to the entire athletic department at Sac State.

“I always look at awards like this,” Wanless said, “somebody gets the hardware, but it really takes a team of people to make it work.”

It is something he wants to make clear of in the athletic department.

“Before the program’s inception, our Honors and Awards Committee recognized a need for an award such as the Athletic Director of the Year,” National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Executive Director Mike Cleary said on the NACDA website. The NACDA is the organization that chose the winners from different regions.

“I think it is a great honor for (Director of Athletics) Wanless, as well as our university,” football head coach Marshall Sperbeck said.

Wanless said this is his first national award of this type in his career.

“It is very humbling because I have literally received letters, e-mails and phone calls from friends and colleagues from across the nation. You kind of just want to say, ‘Thank you, I appreciate it, let’s move on,'” he said.

Sac State has won 25 Conference championships in the last three years, Wanless said.

According to his biography on the Hornet Sports website, “Over the last seven years, Sacramento State student-athletes have posted nearly 2,000 term GPAs of 3.0 or above, and close to 500 Hornets have earned conference all-academic honors during that same time period.”

Wanless is known around campus as a friendly, outgoing person. Football secretary Katy Logaburn said he works well with people.

“He wants to make sure people are taken care of and are happy. He has an open-door policy and I always feel comfortable to talk to him about things,” Logaburn said.

One thing Sperbeck specifically mentioned when speaking about Wanless and his work at Sac State is his help with recruiting.

“The top thing he has done is just to support our staff and myself,” Sperbeck said. “He has helped us with our recruiting. He has taken an active interest visiting with our recruits.”

Wanless said he has been able to hire great people at Sac State, and he and the department have a certain motto.

“Character before talent,” he said. “I hope if I have a legacy on this campus, it will be those three words. We philosophically believe in that statement.”

Wanless said he could not pinpoint one reason he and the university earned the award, but said he thought the overall success of the program in recent years played a big role.

“It is very unique to average eight conference championships a year, let alone three years in a row. I am sure that had a great deal of value in the process,” he said.

Prior to coming to Sac State, Wanless was the Athletic Director at the University of North Dakota. While it is a small university in the Midwest, it boasts some great athletic accomplishments, including one of the top college hockey teams in the nation. However, Wanless said the similarities between the University of North Dakota and Sac State are hard to compare.

“It is entirely different. At the Division II level, we could build programs that were expected to compete at the national level. Here, we are more focused on competing at the conference level,” Wanless said.

Wanless said he has always been education-oriented. By getting his doctorate, he showed his commitment to education.

“I want our faculty to have a sense of confidence and that we are more than just about winning games. We are about preparing young people for the future,” he said.

There are many great parts about Wanless’ job, he said, but he identified one aspect as being above all the others.

“The best part is sharing the joys of success,” he said. “That is what athletic competition strives to achieve.”

Dustin Nosler can be reached at [email protected]