Mary Alice Hill:Taking the Aztecs Into the Big Time

SAN DIEGO —  On a good day, when she is able to slip away from the office by mid-afternoon, Mary Alice Hill drives to a stable near her home in Rancho San Diego.

After changing from business suit to jeans and boots, she throws a saddle on one of her horses, Midnight or Cowboy, and gallops off into the hills.

Along with cycling and weightlifting, horseback riding is therapy for job-induced ulcers. But even on her horse, Hill can’t always relax. She can’t always shake thoughts of work. Often she is struck by the irony of her life.

She is, as San Diego State’s athletic director, the only woman at a Division 1-A football-playing school to hold such a position.

It wasn’t so long ago that she was fired by another school for being too outspoken on the issue of women’s athletics.

Now she finds herself trying to propel a struggling Aztec football team into national prominence--a very traditional, establishment objective for an athletic director.

Has the radical feminist in her died?

No, but it has given way to a new outlook. Hill now believes that the best way to improve athletics for men and women is to build a prosperous football program.

San Diego State’s $3.1-million athletic budget, about one-fifth the size of some major colleges’, has been in trouble. The athletic program lost $2 million in the four years before Hill became athletic director.

Hill hopes to balance the books this year, but only a dramatically improved football program can make a long-term difference.

Her ambition is to get San Diego State into the Pacific 10 in the next few years. Thus, UCLA appears on the schedule through 1994. A four-year contract with Stanford will begin in the fall. She is negotiating for games with Nebraska and Miami of Florida. She also likes the idea of being part of a speculative national super conference.

First, though, the football team has to regain some respect. There was a 4-7-1 record last year, and there have been only two winning seasons in the last five. It has been more than a decade since the glory years under Don Coryell.

This year is central to Hill’s plans. A winning season capped by a bowl appearance should produce increased attendance and revenue, she reasons. An average attendance of 35,000 is needed for a healthy budget. Last year’s average was 23,378.

“If football doesn’t turn around this year, we are in trouble,” Hill said. “The dice are rolling. I know it will take a few years for the public to really believe in us, but I don’t think our reach exceeds our grasp.”

What if there is no turnaround? Well, the school’s athletic program could find itself right back where it was when Hill succeeded Gene Bourdet in September of 1983.

She went to potential corporate sponsors with her hand out, saying that San Diego State might have to drop to Division II if the budget didn’t get a boost.

Her message got through. Fund-raising efforts produced $1.5 million last year, more than twice the 1982 level. She expects growth to $2 million in contributions this year, $3 million next year and $5 million within three years. But there is still a $750,000 deficit to be retired over several years.

Hill’s grand plan is predicated on football success. That’s universal in the NCAA.

But San Diego State may be in for a rude surprise if it expects to follow other upstarts, such as Miami, Boston College, Clemson and Brigham Young, into national prominence.

Boston College Coach Jack Bicknell, whose team rose to top 10 ranking on the arm of Heisman Trophy quarterback Doug Flutie, is skeptical of Hill’s goal of achieving high ranking in the near future.

“If you want to play UCLA, you have to play others of that caliber to get continuity and credibility,” Bicknell said.

“And if San Diego State has dreams of getting national attention, a lot of things have to happen. Upgrading the schedule is just one of them. It doesn’t make sense to look at us, for example, and say if we did it, anybody can. It’s a long process.

“Having a widely recognized player helped. Circumstances fell into place. We beat Texas A&M; in Jackie Sherrill’s home opener, then later we beat Alabama and became an attractive bowl team. It wasn’t a fluke thing, but maybe we couldn’t do it again.”

Also skeptical is Michigan’s athletic director, Don Canham, who administers the largest athletic budget in collegiate sports, more than $14 million.

“If San Diego State wants to became a UCLA or USC, their chances are remote as long as they are in the WAC,” Canham said. “It might be a different story if they were in the Pac-10.”

Certainly, attendance could be expected to improve if the Aztecs were regularly playing major West Coast rivals, and there would be a lot more money. For example, as Canham pointed out, the Big Ten and Pac-10 just signed a new TV deal that will yield teams in both conferences about $400,000 annually. A supplemental cable TV deal would be worth another $150,000 or so a year.

Canham acknowledged that there has been some thought given to a so-called super conference of 25 or 30 football schools with a desire for greater control over their destinies. He doesn’t believe it will materialize. If it did, he said, “It would be built on the wreckage of the NCAA.”

Canham said he had heard good things about Hill, but he added a note of caution.

“She has a tough road, particularly in scheduling,” he said. “Schedules often are made in bars. A woman might not be included in a group of (male athletic directors) going out at night.”

Even some big financial backers of the Aztec program, with whom Hill seems to have clout, doubt that a sudden transformation is likely.

A major supporter, who requested anonymity, said Hill is a strong administrator but questioned whether the university is behind her. He said hard-nosed professors have been making it tough to keep athletes academically eligible.

That was challenged by Thomas Day, the school’s president. “I believe our faculty are reasonable and I detect no antipathy or intrusion,” he said.

Perhaps a more telling point was registered by the same Aztec booster when he spoke of apathy among Aztec alumni.

“Only a small percentage of our graduates seem to care,” he said. “There’s not a lot of common spirit in this town. Most of us are from elsewhere, and we tend to be front-runners.

“It bothers me that I deal with a lot of alumni businessmen who give nothing back to the school. Maybe if the team wins, that will change.”

Another backer, Terry Brown, president of Atlas Hotels, is more optimistic. He contributed nearly $100,000 last year. “I wouldn’t invest if I didn’t think Mary Hill was capable or I thought she would fail,” Brown said. “I think she is dynamite, fully capable of living in a man’s world, and I also believe she is realistic in her goals.

“It can be accomplished with an awful lot of arm-twisting. I believe she can pull it all together. Mary does not fit the good ole boy category, and she certainly won’t be lulled to sleep or quieted. She is witty and smart and aggressive.”

Both Day and football Coach Doug Scovil believe Hill’s goals are reasonable.

“She believes in us and understands what it takes to build a program,” Scovil said. “I think we have laid the cornerstone and will get better. Her goal of a 7-5 season this year seems realistic to me.

“Mary also feels we belong in the Pac-10 . . . that it would help us get players we can’t get now. I want that, as well.”

Day said he sees 1985 as critical.

“We’ve covered our (recent) bills, but we have to persuade people that we have made a good transition to the future,” he said. “We can only maintain (an upward course) if the community pitches in. Mary certainly has my respect and backing.”

Day has been Hill’s supporter for years. She arrived at San Diego State in 1976 as a track coach after having been fired as associate athletic director at Colorado State, where her insistence on more money for women’s athletics was not appreciated.

In 1979, Hill was put in charge of non-revenue sports at SDSU, then was promoted to acting athletic director Aug. 15, 1983. On Jan. 1, 1984, Day made the appointment permanent.

Hill knows that as the only woman running a major athletic program, she is being watched closely.

She suspects that many people hope she will fail. She also likes to think, however, that there are some who are rooting for her.

Hill has won respect in the Western Athletic Conference. Her peers speak with admiration of the job she has done.

“The athletic director’s job is the second-most difficult at a university, behind only the president,” Wyoming’s Gary Cunningham said. “It used to be a gravy job, but no more. Now you are responsible for budgets, TV and radio contracts, dealing with boosters and interfacing with the university. It’s not a job for the timid.

“From all I can see, she is doing a fine job. She has contributed to our WAC meetings, for instance, with the drug program she has instituted at State. We’re looking at implementing something like it.”

Brigham Young’s Glen Tuckett said one of Hill’s biggest problems is the lack of a campus arena and football stadium. “That’s a monumental headache,” he said. “How she can keep her sanity under those conditions is beyond me.”

Hill is pushing for a new arena, seating 8,000 to 10,000, to replace Peterson Gym. A student referendum is scheduled next fall. The $15-million facility could be ready in two years, she said.

She is also gaining some national recognition. Hill is one of 44 members of the NCAA Council, a policy-setting body for college sports. The council, which meets five times a year, sets the agenda for the NCAA convention, among other business.

Still, the job has taken its toll, as evidenced by the ulcers.

Day has cautioned her against 12-hour days. “These are tough times for Aztec athletics, and being A.D. would tax anyone,” he said. “But she has to learn to pace herself, get away and think. It helps no one to walk off a cliff into a grave.”

Hill finds the job of athletic director draining because there is such a wide range of people vying for her attention--coaches, students, professors, businessmen and backers.

What she brings to the job that a man might not is a desire to make college sports more humanitarian.

She has created programs to help students deal effectively with the media, de-emphasize athletics once their eligibility is up and plan for their futures. She also has instituted a drug-counseling and testing program, with a student advisory group to set penalties for violations. Other WAC schools have asked for details so they can set up similar drug programs.

Hill’s targets include a full allocation of scholarships for all sports. Some of the non-revenue sports now are limited to two scholarships, divided among a dozen athletes. She also would like to increase the number of assistant coaching positions by four, distributed among various sports.

All of that brings her back to the importance of football.

“I have talked with a lot of people, and the underlying cry is for black uniforms, night games and winning,” Hill said. “We have taken care of the first two and we are working on the third.

“We think the WAC is right for us at the moment, but there are problems with remaining in the WAC. The time and money involved in traveling to road games is a problem, and let’s face it, Wyoming, UTEP and Colorado State just don’t draw in San Diego.

“Our worries would be over if we got into the Pac-10. I don’t see any reason we can’t compete with the West Coast schools, our natural rivals. I believe we could become a Top 20 team. But we need a stronger program to make a bid. Isn’t it ironic to base so much on football?”