New athletic director Summe shares his vision for STLCC
By: Christian Hargas
Sports Editor
STLCC Athletic Director Shawn Summe has been the athletic director for Saint Louis Community College since Dec. 1, 2014. The potential for the STLCC Athletic Department to be successful is an important motive and that past success can be replicated, Summe said.
“I want to help it progress to where it needs to be. There has been a lot of success between the campuses in the past. We have national championships in volleyball, men’s soccer, women’s soccer and baseball. Those are things I think we can replicate and achieve once again,” Summe said. “We also have great student athletes with a chance to change their lives and be educated. Athletics are great, but we also have a chance to be able to help students get education through athletics.”
This is not his first time being the director of a collegiate athletic department and he uses his past experience to help him today, Summe said.
“I served as an athletic director, and a fundraiser coordinator for an athletics department in the past. The one thing I think would be the best experience I can possibly take away from everything is the ability to develop and cultivate relationships amongst the entire campus faculty and staff, which is the most important thing that can be done to make the job successful,” Summe said.
The STLCC Athletics Department is the main part of his job, but he does other smaller jobs for the community college, Summe said. “I will serve some committees for the Accreditation Process. I will also serve on the committee for the Foundations Golf Tournament. Other than that, I am strictly in the athletics department,” Summe said.
The department is in good standing – but there are always things that can be done to strengthen it, Summe said.
“It is our job as administrators, coaches and student athletes to try and improve the visibility of the athletic department. We do have interesting set ups – compared to other schools. We play our games on multiple different campuses [Florissant Valley, Forest Park, Meramec, and Wildwood]. We also want to improve on the visibility of each team – through student athletes doing their part as students and being an active part of the campus community,” Summe said.
Coaches and administrators also play an important part in improving the strength and visibility of the campus by being accessible to every campus, Summe said.
“We are trying to do things to make the athletic department better every day. I do not think there is ever a point where we can just sit back and say that [athletics] is great. It is more of ‘what can we do every day to make this better’, ‘what can we do to help our student athletes achieve success in the classroom, out of the classroom, on the fields and off the fields,” Summe said.
Looking back at past success is a good way to formulate future success, Summe said.
“I love looking back at the past because we have had a lot of success, but the department is different now than it was back then. We are trying to replicate success we had back then – on the field and on the court – and we are trying to make sure we have student athletes that are getting their education to be able to continue their educational athletic careers at a four year school,” Summe said.
New plans are already being made and past concepts are also returning to the STLCC A t h l e t i c s D e p a r t m e n t , Summe said.
“One of the returning concepts this year is our volleyball team. We did not have that program last year, but it has come back. A new and exciting plan for our baseball team is that they will be playing their games back at the Meramec Campus. We have been away for about three years, so that is a positive for them to be back on campus,” Summe said.
Community college athletics could be as popular as notarized university athletics – like the University of Alabama and University of Southern California – but it would be a challenge, Summe said.
“I think it would be hard, at first, because we lack the television, radio and newspaper awareness. I think if we do our business and we are successful, we can become a pride for the city of Saint Louis,” Summe said.
STLCC is working on ways to improve the visibility of the athletics department and expand their horizons through the media, Summe said.
“For newspapers, right now, they will put our scores in the paper, but they will not write any aricles about us until we get to tournaments. Once we start having success, that will begin to happen. Hopefully, we well get the media to come out and do stories on our program, but they want to see success before they do that,” Summe said.
The success of the program will be the result of hard work, dedication and pride in one’s job, Summe said.
“For one, there has to be a vision. Two, you have to have great help and we really do. We have a great office manager, athletic director, and coaches that really help everything run smoothly. One person cannot run the athletic department. You have to have good communication with the administrators as well. That is the great thing about [STLCC] that we have people – starting with Chancellor Pittman down to our student athletes – who want to see you be successful because they care. That makes it fun to be a part of it,” Summe said.
The ultimate vision of the STLCC Athletics Department comes down to three main goals.
“One, our students athletes are successful in their classes, so they are graduating and finishing up the academic side of everything. Two, they [student athletes] become productive members of the campus community and they are actively being a part of the Meramec Campus. Three, we compete for regional championships. We want to compete for championships, we want them to be the best students they can be, and we want to be the best people we can be,” Summe said.
