Portland State’s athletic director is a finalist for the equivalent position at California Polytechnic State University and will interview for the position early next week, according to multiple media statements.
Torre Chisholm, in his fourth year as PSU’s athletic director, will travel to the Cal Poly campus in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on Monday and Tuesday to interview and meet with university administrators and athletics’ staff members.
Chisholm said that his application at Cal Poly was largely due to familiarity with the area.
“I lived in the central-coast area of California for about 13 years, which is longer than I’ve lived anywhere in my life,” Chisholm said in a telephone interview. “I know the area and love it, and I have a lot of friends and some family in that area—this particular opportunity was intriguing from that perspective.”
Chisholm was named one of three finalists for the position, according to a Cal Poly media statement. For the position, he is competing with Don Oberhelman, the associate director of athletics at San Diego State University, and Ron Prettyman, the athletic director at Indiana State University.
While at Cal Poly, Chisholm is scheduled to meet with University President Jeffrey Armstrong, who officially took office just this month. Chisholm will also meet with various members of the school’s faculty and staff, as well as with student-athletes, coaches and athletics’ department staff.
Before coming to PSU, Chisholm worked as an associate director for development and marketing at UC-Irvine and prior to that he worked at UC Santa Barbara—his alma mater, located about 100 miles south of Cal Poly—for nine years from 1991–2000.
Since being named PSU’s athletic director in 2007 under then-President Dan Bernstine, Chisholm has seen the Vikings win 11 conference, divisional or tournament titles. In that time, the athletics department has also renovated several team locker rooms, administrative offices and training facilities.
Chisholm also helped develop a student services program within the athletics department that has added two academic advisors and created an associate athletic director for student-athlete welfare.
Chisholm said that he is unsure of how the position at Cal Poly would differ from his position here at PSU.
“Obviously, the core roles of an athletic director are the same, [but] every school has its own intricacies, and that’s what you go and interview to find out,” Chisholm said.
Founded in 1901, Cal Poly has an enrollment of nearly 20,000 and is the second-largest university in the state in terms of land holdings, according to its website. It is a NCAA Division-I member-school, and fields 20 intercollegiate teams with the Mustangs as their mascot.
“I’ve really enjoyed being at Portland State, and actually we have so many great things going on that I’m looking forward to seeing to fruition,” Chisholm. “But when you get to a certain point in your career, there are only so many jobs that you can look at. So, there’s only a handful of them out there that you think, ‘Well, if that happens you kind of have to look at it because you never know if it’s going to happen again.'”
Chisholm said that, regardless of the outcome, he feels he has a great job right now.
“I guess, for me, the worst-case scenario is that I continue to have a great job at Portland State,” he added. ?