Daily Vanguard: You have a pretty fancy job title. What does a Director of New Business Development do?
Dennis Ferguson: Well, [laughs] I was in business here in Portland for a long time, then I applied for the job of Development Director but I actually got hired for [Director of] Business Development. That is basically going to the businesses in our community—mainly downtown, but all around the community—and introducing or reintroducing Portland State athletics to them; talking about what we’re trying to accomplish with our student athletes, trying to raise money for scholarships, trying to get also some advertisements and sponsorships.
Until the economy tanked, we were doing very, very well. Now it’s a little tougher, but we’re still getting good dollars for football and for scholarships and women’s basketball
DV: When you say you were in business here in Portland, what kind of business did you do?
DF: I ran an insurance brokerage firm that basically would be called risk management. I did that for 35 years and ended out running the firm, but for most of the time I was running around handling and selling business.
DV: Insurance and college athletics are worlds apart. How do you make that transition?
DF: I retired for two years and I was playing golf and I was having fun. But the problem with retirement is everybody is old. When everybody is old, they talk about two things: They talk about money and they talk about healthcare and I wasn’t really interested in either one of them. I said, “I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to go where people still talk about what they want to do with life.”
This opportunity came along and athletics is the window into a lot of universities. When people are looking at Portland State and they say oh, they have a great basketball program or great women’s programs—which we do—or a great football program—which we are becoming—then people want to be a part of that. People like to be a part of winners. As much as academics is really what we’re all about in college, academics doesn’t sell. We connect the business community to our scholar-athletes, but basically with the bigger understanding of our university.
DV: You started Coach’s Corner last year. Tell me a little bit about that and where you got the idea.
DF: [A couple of years ago, Portland State] had a golf tournament that raised about $25,000 and it’s a ton of work. I didn’t put it together, some alumnus did, but they got tired and said they were not going to do it. So when I was with [former football head coach] Jerry Glanville at Montana State…he introduced me to a guy up there and they have what they call a Cornerback Club. Same concept.
[In the Coach’s Corner] everybody gives $1,000 a year and we’ll have 50 people doing that this year. That’s $50,000 dollars and it all goes to football. It goes to [head coach] Nigel Burton and he gets to determine where that money is spent. Part of it is having a party once a quarter. We have it at this racket club, which is very nice. We have hors d’oeuvres and cocktails and they get to talk to the coach personally. If they want to know some inside scoop, then they get it.
DV: What do you like best about working in athletics?
DF: It’s fun. It’s a lot of fun. Business was not fun, but it was extremely rewarding because you got paid if you were very good at what you did. In athletics, the money doesn’t necessarily follow, but the product is so much fun. You’re working with young scholar-athletes…you get to work with these young coaches. Well, they’re young to me. So you know, you go, is this a good deal or what?
—This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.