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Fort Lewis College athletic director Kelly Higgins sets up hand railings in the grandstands at Whalen Gymnasium on Tuesday afternoon. Fort Lewis is preparing to host the Central Region Tournament of the NCAA Division II Women’s Basketball Championship, starting Friday.
Ben Martinez, sports information director at Fort Lewis College. lines up the players chairs Tuesday afternoon at Whalen Gymnasium. The FLC gym will host eight teams in the Central Regional Tournament, starting Friday afternoon.
Fort Lewis College athletic director Kelly Higgins has been involved in the planning and execution of as many as eight national championship events, and has overseen events at every stop he's made during his career. But perhaps none is as daunting as the planning and execution of this latest event, the Central Region Tournament.
“I've run eight national championships, but the basketball regional in D-II is hard because it's last-minute notice, and it's hard to get everything together the way (the NCAA) needs it," he said.
Fort Lewis is one of eight Division II schools named to host a regional as part of the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship. Each regional site will host the first three rounds of the 64-team tournament, and the winners of each region advance to the Elite 8 in St. Joseph, Mo.
But before play begins Friday afternoon, there's a lot of work that has to be done, including a bevy of subtle yet necessary changes to Whalen Gymnasium.
Higgins said that preparations began more than a month ago, when the school filed paperwork to bid for the regional should Fort Lewis finish atop the region. A previously planned locker room renovation was completed, and the athletic department began talking to hotels about blocking off rooms to accommodate the teams, officials and other NCAA personnel.
Fortunately, the Skyhawks have stood at the peak of the Central Region rankings for quite some time, giving those involved with the planning a sense that all this work could lie on the horizon.
“Some of the things we started weeks ago, putting things into place, just in case," Higgins said. The NCAA does not allow any portable advertising at host venues, meaning the familiar ads that usually line the wall behind the basket opposite the locker rooms had to be removed.
NCAA logos and advertising will rest in their place.
FLC also adjusted the team banners, moving the men's soccer title banners to where the ads used to be, and put volleyball and women's basketball NCAA Tournament banners next to the men's basketball banner.
“If it's portable, we have to take it down," Higgins said, adding that fixed advertising, such as that found on the outer edges of the scoreboard, is allowed to stay in place.
Aside from the change in baseline advertising, NCAA stickers must be placed on the floor, and a banner must be hung on the front of a newly elongated scorer's table.
Adams State, one of the eight teams in the regional field, loaned its scorer's table to Fort Lewis to accommodate the extra personnel on hand for the tournament.
The temporarily new-look press row will host these new and extra faces, which include the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference's supervisor of officiating, who will assign officials from the RMAC and Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference to each game.
There also will be all the sports information directors, radio crews and additional print media, which will spill over onto a riser behind the original scorer's table.
“I haven't even heard back from some of the schools, but I'm already around 25, 30 (additional media) just with six teams," Fort Lewis sports information director Ben Martinez said.
The NCAA also mandates that each site make four locker rooms available for the duration of the tournament, as well as making available a working press room and interview room for the media's postgame activities and space for visiting athletic trainers.
In order to pull this off, Fort Lewis is using the football locker room as storage, the football video room as the media area, and clearing out several other offices and locker rooms to address the NCAA's mandate. The men's soccer dressing room also was one of the spaces cleared out for use this weekend.
“All faculty will be kicked out of the faculty and staff locker rooms so the officials can use that," Higgins said. “We have to make sure our washers and dryers are working; cleaning staff has to be up and running."
One major sticking point for both preparations and the potential attendance is that FLC students are currently on spring break. Not only does that decrease the potential attendance pool, it also depletes the athletic department of a good chunk of its work force.
Fortunately for Higgins and company, several different athletic programs, including the golf and cross country teams, are helping to pick up the slack, and sports information directors from the other competing schools have offered assistance as well.
Martinez, who's in his first year on the job, said many of his fellow SIDs have been helpful in terms of advice, too. “I think the best piece of advice I've got is, 'At the end of the day, it's just sports. It's not life or death,'" the former Skyhawk basketball player said.
The department is responsible for listing places to eat, transportation companies and other local amenities for the visiting schools to use once they arrive in Durango.
They are also in charge of securing broadcasting rights from the NCAA for the various radio stations attending the tournament, and licensing rights for Follett, who is the retailer for NCAA merchandise.
“Literally, on Sunday night, when things are done (and brackets set), we get an onslaught of about 20 e-mails per person telling us here's what we need to do, and how to do it," Higgins said.
Some of the maintenance staff will work overtime, because electricians and structural whizzes need to be on hand in case of a power outage or other emergency. Extra police must be on hand as well.
Fortunately, the NCAA reimburses the college for most of the costs associated with running the event, including the aforementioned overtime pay.
Higgins also will rely on his father, Roger, himself a high school athletic director for more than 40 years in Nebraska. The elder Higgins will be in Durango for the first time to see the fruits of his son's labor.
“He may be doing the PA (public address announcing)," the younger Higgins said. “That's why I'm so good, because I got it from him."
The Skyhawks' athletic director said the hotels have been more than helpful, blocking off roughly 120 rooms well in advance, knowing that if FLC didn't host, there would be money lost.
The hotel situation also is tricky because NCAA rules forbid women's athletic teams from staying in rooms that have doors leading directly outside, taking several motel-style chains in town out of the equation.
FLC's athletic department also has been hard at work on a short-notice advertising campaign, placing ads with the various local media outlets in Durango and the greater Four Corners.
“Mostly we're trying to do (public service announcements), get the information out so people know what's going on," Higgins said.
After all the long hours, called-in favors and frayed nerves have come and gone, there's still basketball to be played. The school is hopeful that all the hard work will pay off for the Sklyhawks, who earned the right to play in front of the local crowd, sleep in their own beds and play in a familiar gym.
“To be on your floor in your comfort zone with your fans in your environment, that's the best," Skyhawks head coach Mark Kellogg said.
Higgins said he thinks pulling off such an event should be smooth, considering the school hosted the men's and women's regionals for soccer last fall. The lean, lanky AD is glad to put himself and his staff through the ringer if it gives the Skyhawks any sort of advantage.
“It's something you work for your whole life, to have one shot at," Higgins said. “Here's our shot."
rowens@durangoherald.com