Division II Vice President Mike Racy and Community Advisory Group Chair Rich Luker were excited about their September 23 visit to Pittsburg, Kansas. After all, it was a big football weekend at Pittsburg State University (the Gorillas were facing rival Missouri Southern State University) and an opportunity for Racy and Luker to see the school’s much-talked-about community relationship in action.

Pittsburg State attracts about 9,000 fans to most of its football games — almost half the population of the rural southeastern Kansas community — and the school has developed a community bond that has attracted the likes of Sports Illustrated, which last year portrayed the school’s starting quarterback tossing passes to kids on the field after a game.

With Division II re-centering on community engagement as a central theme in its new strategic-positioning platform, Pittsburg State was an ideal classroom from which Racy and Luker could learn. What they expected to see was a "program" at work. And what they wanted to know was how administrators and staff pulled it off. Did they organize kids after the game, line them up and have the quarterback mechanically launch post patterns to pre-teens? Were areas cordoned off for the Rotary and Lions’ Clubs during the pregame tailgating? Did the Pittsburg State president host Chamber of Commerce officials in his stadium suite?

A process was what Racy and Luker expected. Reality was what they got.

"There was no program," said Luker, a consultant Division II has retained to help with its community-engagement initiative. "We expected an organized process, certainly after the game anyway, but what happened was real. Yeah, there were some players who had come back from the locker room and were on the field having their pictures taken with family and friends. And yeah, the quarterback threw a few passes to kids who were playing around him. But there was no program. It was just real."

The whole day was like that, Luker and Racy said. There were no moments in which an objective observer could say, "Ah ha! So that’s how they do it." Rather, the interaction among university and community members was seamless and genuine. The two were one, and looked like they had been that way from the beginning…

***

…But it hadn’t always been like that. Not that long ago, the stands were sparsely populated during games — football or otherwise — and the university, while it was part of the town was not as much a part of the community as it is today.

Pittsburg State Associate Athletics Director Tommy Riggs has been there through both bear and bull markets. Several years ago, Riggs said athletics administrators began to study their surroundings and terrain and figure how to turn a Gorillas football game into an event.

"Like many schools, we had some traditional tailgating with people bringing hamburgers and hot dogs, standard small groups like that," Riggs said, but nothing much dynamic occurred until the Gorillas played the Division I Missouri State University Bears in nearby Springfield in 1997. There, Riggs said, Pittsburg State officials saw firsthand what they believed could transform their own campus into a community attraction. "They had what they called ‘Bearfest’ in a big parking lot with food vendors and radio remotes and a central place to allow people to prepare themselves for kickoff," Riggs said. "Our president came back and said we ought to do something like that, tailor it to PSU and make it bigger and better."

Riggs said campus officials left the tailgating to grow on its own, which it has. "Per capita at any level, I would say it’s one of the best tailgating traditions," he said. But they began to develop other areas into the now regionally renowned "Gorilla Village," which incorporates both structured and spontaneous entertainment. There’s plenty of live music, a plethora of food options and programming for the kids. The football game provides the attraction, but the "village" extends the Pittsburg community beyond just the gridiron.

"We consider the village our strongest community engagement because it happens every home game and it really blends the community and the town," Riggs said. "In a town of 20,000, the town is the university and the university is the town. Gorilla Village is the centerpiece that reflects that relationship."

Pittsburg State President Tom Bryant, who has been in office since 1999, says he sees the community relationship every Saturday from his campus residence. "I look out on the open space that used to be our practice area and I see several hundred people setting up for their YMCA football leagues. And then I look over to the soccer areas and the same thing is going on there. That’s pretty normal here. The community runs the activities until it’s time to prepare for the football game," he said.

The community runs the activities, Bryant said. That’s key. Almost all schools feature tailgating at football or other high-profile athletics events. Many, including Pittsburg State, have "player walks" or marches that parade student-athletes down fan-lined pathways or streets toward the stadium before games. Most campus communities have strips or clusters of bars and restaurants to serve as popular postgame attractions. But at Pittsburg State, the community runs the activities.

Sitting in on some of the interviews during the September visit to campus, the NCAA’s Racy learned that it had not always been that way at Pittsburg State.

"All of this didn’t just happen immediately. They didn’t just open the doors to the university and all of the sudden they were selling out football games and having great tailgating events and community support and excitement with the student body for athletics events," Racy said.

Racy said many community members trace the success back to the late President Donald Wilson, who among other things during his tenure led Pittsburg State’s transition from the NAIA to NCAA Division II.

"In the 1970s they were lucky to have 1,000 people at football games," Racy said. "Wilson recognized that part of the problem was a feeling of isolation by the school. There was a perception that the school, the community and the Chamber of Commerce all were doing their own things. Wilson knew, though, that each could help the other — they all have assets that will provide service to the others, so he set out a mission to engage the community in a way that hadn’t been done before. It truly was the power of one.

"Some people might assume that Pittsburg State has always had the community engagement, the resources and the high winning percentage because it’s just a different level. Well, that ‘different level’ is in one of the poorest economic areas of the state, it’s a town of 20,000 people, and yes, 30 years ago they were struggling for attendance and they didn’t have any support from the student body. So it can be fixed."

Racy pointed to other community-engagement success stories at Grand Valley State University, West Texas A&M University and Washburn University of Topeka, among others, that have mirrored Pittsburg State’s example.

"Some people would look at us and say, well, it’s because you win," Bryant said, noting that Gorillas are the winningest football program in Division II history. "There is some truth in that, but community engagement is not completely reliant upon winning. I can remember the days we didn’t have the culture we have now, but letting people be involved and take some ownership — it’s their university, it’s our university. Letting them be a part of these things is a key. I believe we let people know they are important."

Riggs said if he could wish for something he didn’t already have as far as community engagement is concerned, he doesn’t know what it would be. "I guess if every single person put their trash away at the end of the day, perhaps that would just about do it," he said. "Between what happens in Gorilla Village and the tailgate areas and the 20 leased skyboxes we have, it has helped bring out a crowd that perhaps wasn’t coming before. That has grown our football games from simply being an on-campus game to an in-community event. Saturdays here are almost like holidays."

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