By Staff
Athletic Management, 18.5, August/September 2006, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/am/am1805/qaguerrero.htm
In 1974, Daniel Guerrero was playing second base and batting .343 for the UCLA Bruins. Three decades later, he is at the helm of the athletic program, which is looking to become the first in history to claim 100 NCAA team titles.
Director of Athletics since 2002, Guerrero has led UCLA to 13 NCAA Division I championships, four bowl game appearances, and 28 conference championships. Two-hundred thirty-one Bruin athletes have been designated All-Americans under his leadership.
During the 2005-06 school year, UCLA won NCAA titles in men’s volleyball and women’s water polo, the school’s 98th and 99th. The men’s basketball and women’s soccer teams made it to the NCAA championship games.
Guerrero began his career as an administrator at 32, serving as Athletic Director at California State-Dominguez Hills and at the University of California-Irvine, where he was named the Division I-AA/I-AAA West Region NACDA Athletic Director of the Year in 2002. He has been honored as the 2002 UCLA Latino Alumnus of the Year, named one of the nation’s Top 100 Most Influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business, and designated 28th among the 101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports by Sports Illustrated.
In this interview, he talks about his journey up the career ladder, representing his culture, hiring high profile coaches, and making personal connections with student-athletes.
AM: You’ve hired coaches for two very visible positions—Head Men’s Basketball Coach Ben Howland and Head Football Coach Karl Dorrell—and UCLA’s teams have excelled under them. How did you decide they were the right people for those jobs?
Guerrero: Contrary to popular belief, not every great coach is the right coach for your program. I believe it is critical to hire individuals who are fundamentally the best fit for your organization, period. An athletic director has to clearly understand the culture of his or her university, recognize the key variables for success, and identify the person who is the best fit.
Karl and Ben were the best fit for UCLA. Both individuals are bright, articulate, and passionate, and possess a fervent drive to excel. Both were able to articulate a plan built on integrity and doing things right. They embraced the high expectations at UCLA and recognized the type of student-athlete who would succeed here academically and athletically.
There is no magic formula that guarantees success when you hire a head coach for football or men’s basketball, and sometimes an athletic director only gets one chance to make these types of decisions. Therefore, I felt it imperative to hire “good men” as coaches, whose vision for their programs was aligned with mine, and whose core values were on point: integrity, hard work and impeccable character.
They have laid wonderful foundations for their respective programs in terms of their expectations of our student-athletes on-and-off the field and court. It is gratifying to know that these two programs have a chance to be very good for many years to come.
Dorrell is one of only five black head football coaches in Division I-A. Why are there so few black head football coaches, and what can be done to change that?
There are exceptional African-American football coaches ready to take the next step and lead their own teams. These coaches are paying their dues by coaching effectively, developing networks, and honing their skills for the opportunity to be given a chance. The question is, how many athletic directors and university presidents have the courage to hire an unproven but promising African-American head coach?
I am encouraged by what I see at the conference and NCAA levels. Increased efforts are being made to enhance networking opportunities by hooking up minority coaches with athletic directors throughout the country, and workshops are being conducted to teach coaches how to optimize their candidacies for future positions. The Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee of the NCAA and the Minority Opportunities Athletic Association, now affiliated with NACDA, have continued their efforts to create awareness and provide programs and resources for minorities in intercollegiate athletics. And Richard Lapchick’s National Consortium for Academics and Sports continues to serve as the conscience of our business practices.
All of this is positive. But until athletic directors and university presidents make a greater effort to recognize and identify the minority talent pool, and ultimately demonstrate the courage to provide the opportunity, we will not realize a major deviation from our current number of African-American head coaches.
As a minority, I possess a unique sensitivity to this issue and an understanding of the challenges facing minorities as they work their way up the ladder. I appreciate the struggle and feel that in some respects it can give a person a competitive edge. A person in a minority position often feels the need to “prove” themselves, not just once, but continuously. They develop survival instincts, and coupled with outstanding coaching acumen, that can result in a very positive outcome.
As a Hispanic athletic director, do you feel that same need to continually prove yourself?
In a way, I guess I do. I’ve been in this business for almost 25 years, and I can count on one hand the number of Hispanic administrators I’ve known. I believe that makes the fact that I now have the opportunity to be the steward of one of the most prestigious intercollegiate athletic programs in the country very significant. It’s important that I succeed in this position. There are a lot of eyes on me, and I welcome that. I take it very seriously.
My success provides validation for anyone who happens to be a minority. I hope it gives young people the chance to see a person who perhaps looks like them shining in his profession. I find the responsibility of representing my culture very rewarding and very humbling.
You started your career at a small Division II school and made your way to UCLA. What advice do you have for other athletic directors about climbing the ladder?
First and foremost, know who you are and what is important to you. Establish a set of core values that can serve as convictions for you in your professional life and never deviate from them. The core philosophy I have at UCLA is no different from the one I had at Cal State-Dominguez Hills. It’s built on integrity, balancing academic and athletic success, and commitment to diversity, student-athlete welfare, and public service.
Then, this may seem obvious, but you have to work hard. Develop competencies in the areas that I call absolutes: planning, staffing, begetting, knowing how to report, and being accountable to a broad constituent base.
Next, you must have vision and be able to convey it. I’ve always believed in asking myself: If I didn’t have the title, would people still follow me? Am I gaining the confidence and loyalty of the individuals around me just by the way I do what I do? That has been a guiding light for me.
Have you had mentors?
Mentorship is critical in our business. For me, two individuals in particular come to mind. When I first started in the business, Rudy Carvajal, Athletic Director at Cal State-Bakersfield, took me under his wing. When I moved into Division I, he provided a sounding board for me. I’ve also leaned heavily over the years on Gary Cunningham, a former head basketball coach at UCLA [and current Athletic Director at the University of California-Santa Barbara].
Now that I have moved into the ranks of the more experienced athletic directors, I spend considerable time mentoring young athletic directors, especially minorities. I hope that someone 20 years from now will say, “Dan Guerrero was a big help in my career path.”
How do you connect with the people you mentor?
Often it’s through conventions and conferences where I’m a presenter. People come up and introduce themselves and we exchange cards. I also get a lot of e-mails and phone calls from athletic directors looking for advice, and I make every effort to respond. There are definitely ways to gain access to an individual in my position, and young athletic directors shouldn’t hesitate to reach out.
How do you ensure coaches and athletes make ethical decisions while facing the pressure to win?
It’s about establishing a tone. There is no better way to do that than to take action when someone fails to act in an ethical manner. Early in my career, at UC Irvine, I made a decision to replace two coaches who were very successful and had just won Coach-of-the-Year honors because they simply chose not to follow rules. And following the rules is an absolute for me.
I want to win as much as anyone else, but how we do things at UCLA is just as important as what we produce. That message is underscored at every one of our monthly coaches meetings. We have our compliance director speak at every session, and I lead off every coaches meeting with a “state of the union” that always includes a discussion about being vigilant and making certain athletes are aware of the rules. I also talk to our coaches when situations occur around the country about how we can anticipate and avoid the same issues.
How much direct contact do you have with student-athletes?
I spend a lot of time with our student-athletes, and I take great pride in that. It’s important for them to know who the steward of the program is—who is setting the tone for how it’s being run and for how their coaches are coaching them.
I establish relationships with them as soon as they come in by speaking at orientation. I invite them to come up and talk to me anytime, and many of them take me up on it. I make it a point to go to as many contests as I can over the course of the year—there is no team that I will not see compete at least once. Perhaps most importantly, I go out to practices, and they see my relationship with and respect for their coach.
We have more than 500 student-athletes. I would like to say that I can recognize every one of them going down Bruin Walk in their street clothes. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I need to see their numbers on their back. But student-athletes are why we do what we do, and I get great enjoyment from developing relationships with them and watching them grow.
How do you get athletes to value academic achievement?
The message must be clearly sent to everyone associated with your program that academic success is the primary mission. Coaches must recruit individuals who are motivated to succeed in the classroom and enforce policies that support academic accountability as a prerequisite to athletic competition. The university must be committed to providing the resources to support a student-athlete’s academic aspirations.
Finally, you have to make it a point to celebrate academic excellence. We make a big deal out of it when athletes excel in the classroom. Winning championships is wonderful, but watching your student-athletes walk at graduation in their caps and gowns is much more gratifying, and our young men and women get this message at UCLA.
Why did you decide to write an open letter to UCLA’s student body about fan behavior?
Things got out of hand during one particular men’s basketball game against a rival. We had an over-zealous student section use language that was in my opinion not appropriate for our university. I felt it was important to convey to them that UCLA represents the very best in academia and intercollegiate athletics, and we expect our fans to follow that lead. Their actions were certainly not representative of how we want to be portrayed to the public. So I felt compelled to write and let them know it was not appropriate behavior, and I felt they would agree after reading the letter.
I wrote the letter in a manner that was non-threatening. It was about being educational, and it was about encouraging them to change their behavior. I received a tremendous amount of positive response both from students on campus and from many of our constituents in the community who agreed with my position and were thankful that I took the time to write to our student body.
The American Diabetes Association recently named you Father of the Year. How do you balance the demands of your job with raising a family?
I have been in this business for almost 25 years, and for that entire period of time, the throttle has been down. Balancing a home life with a life in intercollegiate athletics is not easy. Like anything great in life, it takes hard work, and maybe even more importantly, it takes smart work.
Today, as it has always been, my life is made up of my commitment to my faith, my family, and my work. There has been little time for me to become a good golfer, for example. Those who have played with me can attest to that fact. But I wouldn’t trade being a scratch golfer for all of the years I spent at recitals, on soccer fields, at parent-teacher conferences, and in gymnasiums with my wife and children—not for second. In fact, I wish I could do it all over again.