Here is the text of Hogan's comments to the Panel last Friday. Kind of long, but paints an interesting picture.
REMARKS BY WAYNE HOGAN , APRIL 23, 2004 / PANEL ON UM ATHLETICS
Good Morning Madam Chair and Members of the Panel. Thank you for the invitation to visit with you today.
During the past few weeks I have had an opportunity to re-construct the timeline that led to my resignation as Director of Athletics at the University of Montana on March 3, 2004. While I have not backed off in my resolve to shoulder the blame for the deficit I think it is important that you all have my perspective on the series of events which I believe contributed to this current state of affairs. I do this with the great hope that this panel can make substantive recommendations that will insure the continued success of Grizzly Athletics.
First, I need to give you some historical background. As early as 1996 I began to have a consistent annual give and take with President George Dennison with regard to athletic funding. I recently unearthed documents from those early years in which I repeatedly asked the President to increase our institutional support lest athletics would face never-ending deficits. I was particularly dismayed that because funding decisions were made independently at each of Montana’s university campuses, my counterparts at Montana State University were receiving and spending approximately $1.5 million more from the state general fund annually on athletics. It was a fact that the more money UM Athletics generated through its own sources, other schools would simply keep pace by increasing institutional support. By comparison, I estimate that during my tenure as AD at Montana, MSU has expended approximately $12 million of state funds more on intercollegiate athletics than UM.
In 1996, President Dennison and then Vice President Jim Todd unveiled plans to perform a $24 million renovation of the Harry Adams Field House. That renovation was designed by a renowned architectural firm out of Kansas City, which based the remodel figure on enhancing the arena to maximize revenue streams which would be used to cover an annual debt payment of $1.2 million. The breakdown called for a $16 million bond issue, with the additional $8 million coming from private or corporate support. For the better part of a year I personally made many pitches to involve corporate entities. In the end we found no takers.
Hurriedly, a redesign was ordered by entities within Main Hall, cutting the $24 million proposal to $16 million, all of which would be bonded. The new design eliminated many of the elements that would create a revenue stream to pay the debt. Some of those cutbacks included points of sale for concessions and novelties, individual VIP suites were eliminated and a redesign and relocation of the ramp which provides easier floor access for major concerts and shows was scrapped. The number of prime seats between the baskets and close to the floor was diminished. More seats were forced into the end zones, making them less attractive thus commanding a lower ticket price.
Already facing the daunting task of balancing the athletic budget, I advised President Dennison and Vice President Todd that I was opposed to the scaled down renovation. I saw the debt service of $1.2 million annually as financial suicide for athletics. I estimated and shared with President Dennison in an August, 1997 letter, that Athletics would need an infusion of $3 million over the two year renovation period to cover bond payments, relocation costs, lost revenue from being out of the arena, and increased staffing. No such commitment was made, but the University chose to move forward with the project and I was asked to carry out the plan, which I did with great vigor. The building was dark for a year during the renovation process and as the doors re-opened in 1999 we, not surprisingly, found a deficit problem that was at least the published amount of around $1 million. In a January, 2000 letter to president Dennison, I stated that we now had “a new car without the engine that generates the revenue.”
At this point President Dennison called in long-time budget strategist Sylvia Weisenburger to assess the problem and assist in a plan to manage the $1.2 annual debt as well as keep athletics afloat. It was at this point, Adams Center was spun off to create its own entity, taking with it the $1.2 million debt. However, athletics was not absolved of responsibility altogether. Adams Center took all food and beverage revenue (including Washington-Grizzly Stadium concessions), collected money from all rental of space in the facility and athletics was assessed $425,000 in annual rent. It should be noted here that including the loss of concessions revenue the Athletics contribution to Adams Center today exceeds $700,000 annually.
On June 30, 2000, with the help of some significant one-time bailout funds from the university, it was determined the combined Athletics/Adams Center deficit was $487,000. In fact the problem was much worse because inflation in the costs of tuition and travel were mounting and together, the two entities could not possibly generate enough revenue to pay the debt on the renovation, recover from the deficit and keep up with rising costs. Even so, on May 12, 2000, President Dennison presented to then Higher Education Commissioner Ray Crofts a “deficit reduction plan.”
Contained in the plan was a commitment of $400,000 in additional general fund support to come in two $200,000 increments in FY 02 and FY 03. However, through increases in tickets prices, Grizzly Scholarship Association (GSA) dues, corporate sponsorships, etc, Athletics would be responsible for finding an additional $900,000 annually by 2003 in self generated revenue. President Dennison also promised that Athletics would make $125,000 in expense cuts, pay $425,000 for rent to Adams Center and Mrs. Weisenburger would be assigned to the Athletic Department.
During 2000 and 2001 Mrs. Weisenburger worked in concert with Main Hall in maintaining the carefully orchestrated deficit reduction plan. With Mrs. Weisenburger’s impending retirement in late 2001, she identified and strongly recommended the hiring of Rob Edwards as her replacement. He was hired in September of 2001.
By mid-May, 2003 things began to unravel. The main culprit, according to Mr. Edwards, was a shortfall in operational revenue with respect to our development efforts. Although we had raised roughly $1 million for the year in private donations, almost all of it was tied to capital improvement projects. This is money we could not use for operations. The problem was that we had budgeted $200,000 in anticipated revenue from Development for operations that did not materialize. I made a pitch to the National Advisory Board for Grizzly Athletics. I asked that each of the 30 members make a commitment of $11,000 each by June 15 to the Athletics Opportunity Fund. I knew that we could use a good portion of those commitments to cover shortages due to tuition increases and summer school tuitions not included in the amounts allocated as scholarships in FY 03, and also to lessen similar impacts in FY 04.
Thankfully, nearly 20 people made the commitment and by late June we are able to secure $165,000 in unrestricted funds which was deposited in our scholarship account. Unfortunately, it was far too little to make things balance as it developed there were other surprises and miscalculations. Ultimately, the University found it necessary to make a one-time transfer of approximately $325,000 in order to meet President Dennison’s obligation of a balanced budget.
During the months of July and August 2003 Mr. Edwards reported making at least weekly trips to Main Hall to work with Mr. Duringer and his staff. The purpose, he told Marie Porter and me, was to construct a realistic budget and produce an “Operating Plan” for FY 04. This plan would require quarterly reports on budget status, essentially giving us a far better look at the ever changing landscape and preventing, in theory, a repeat of the last minute chaos experienced in June, 2003.
Sometime in early September 2003, Mr. Edwards and I were required to present an Operating Unit Budget Plan for FY 04 to President Dennison. Mr. Edwards prepared a power point presentation. It was my firm belief that he was receiving advice and help from Mr. Duringer’s staff in the preparation of this document and that they concurred with his assessment of our status. In short, this Budget Plan showed athletics healthy and prosperous for FY 04. I recall Mr. Duringer, Rosie Keller and Bill Muse sitting in the room as Mr. Edwards and I made our presentation to the President. No significant questions or concerns arose in this meeting.
During this period I observed Mr. Edwards was becoming increasingly pressured and agitated. On Friday, September 26, 2003 Mr. Edwards informed me that it would be best for all concerned for him to resign his position. It is critical to note that at the time of Mr. Edwards’ departure no one in Intercollegiate Athletics had any indication that the department had any sort of budget problem.
At this point, I requested from President Dennison assistance from Mr. Duringer’s staff in assessing our fiscal status and maintaining the day to day fiscal operations. Mr. Duringer’s assistants Rosi Keller and Michelle Jensen were dispatched to reconstruct and assess our current and ongoing budget status. I asked former Athletics CFO Chuck Maes to also assist in this process. Between October 1 and early January, Mrs. Keller, Mrs. Jensen, Mr. Maes, Mrs. Porter, Athletic bookkeepers Patty Dwight and Heather Alexander and myself began to unearth the components of a structural imbalance of approximately $600,000.
The other part of the existing problem, though, was bubbling to the surface simultaneously. This involved some accounting entries that were made in the final moments of FY 03. These transactions were made without my signature or authority. Suddenly, in January, we are now aware that the balanced athletics budget of FY 03 was, in fact, at least $281,000 short as a result of these entries. Add to that the University’s $325,000 one time transfer and the one-time NABGA collection of $165,000 the real FY 03 athletics imbalance was about $771,000.
Finally, there was one more shoe to drop. In a routine annual independent audit of the Grizzly Scholarship Association, it was discovered that there had been advance payments – funds collected for a particular fiscal year, but used to cover a scholarship shortfall in the previous year. I believe this practice to have started on a small scale under Mrs.Weisenburger’s watch, growing larger annually. Why auditors didn’t surface this as a concern in previous years is a mystery to me. Auditors said UM must “re-pay” the GSA in order to get the funds replaced into the correct fiscal year.
Having completed the full discovery process in early February, I could clearly see we had three separate issues: 1). an ongoing structural deficiency of around $650,000; 2). A GSA audit issue and 3). the accounting entry errors of late FY 03. It was my belief that the structural issue should be separated from the accounting and audit issues. I believed they needed to be dealt with and solved in different ways. After all, the structural imbalance was historical and ongoing. It absolutely had to be resolved if athletics were to continue to survive and flourish. The other issues were of a one time nature, not pleasant, nevertheless explainable and repairable. Proper handling of this disclosure was critical.
I felt it important to deal first with the most critical issue – the structural imbalance in athletic funding that has been identified at approximately $650,000 annually. Had I been given the University administration’s support to properly and systematically explain the issues, install safeguards and attack the debt repayment, there would have been minimal disruption to this $50 million impact engine. In addition, my administration’s credibility would have remained in tact, allowing me to once again identify revenue streams to fix the ongoing imbalance that would allow the program to continue as a national power.
To that end, I prepared an executive summary to explain how inflationary factors, NCAA requirements such as Title IX and Division I mandates were far outpacing our ability to create revenue streams. I prepared two easy-to-understand charts which I shared with President Dennison and Mr. Duringer. I began to share this information publically, first with the Missoulian and then with UM student leaders. Even today the logic stands firm. My sincere belief was, and still is, that we needed to address a good deal of the imbalance through an increase to the student athletic fee, woefully behind the national average and one-half that of Montana State’s beginning next year. I had discussed increases to the fee through the years with President Dennison and wrote an op-ed piece on the subject that appeared in the Kaimin on February 9, 2000. The fee had not been increased since its inception in 1994.
I urge you all at this point to understand the underlying issue of the funding imbalance. I believe we are at a great crossroads today. I have dealt with this in my own private way for eight years. There are those who would have us solve this by changing the culture of intercollegiate athletics. You can certainly do away with courtesy cars, complimentary tickets and put your football team on buses and so forth. You can cut staff, cut recruiting budgets and cut scholarships. You can all support the theory that the problem is “overspending” and not “under-funding.” I submit to you today that this program is not only under-funded, but under-staffed if our expectations continue to be winning National Championships.
Your panel and, indeed, all of Montana has had an opportunity to critique the way we have conducted our business. I have no apologies. Everything we have done during my tenure has been designed to strengthen this program to be the very best. Grizzly football won 93 games and lost only 22. We have built a season-ticket base of 17,000 fans. We represent a 50 million dollar per year economic impact for the Missoula business community. We made the playoffs every year – a record 11 straight times altogether. We have won two National Championships and have made four appearances in the title game. Meanwhile, virtually all of our roughly 300 student-athletes are flourishing and content. We graduate student athletes at a rate higher than the institution as a whole. Generally, we look far more like some 1-A programs you may be familiar with like Wyoming, Nevada and Boise State, whose budgets push $20 million. I suspect they are asking every day, how does Montana do it on $9 million?
I am proud that we have been able to raise more than $10 million dollars in private donations. We have expanded Washington Grizzly Stadium twice, installed state of the art synthetic turf, a $2 million video screen and scoreboard system in Washington Grizzly Stadium and the Adams Center, completely remodeled Dornblaser Track, designed and opened a magnificent Hall of Champions, improved the Grizzly Soccer facility, afforded to our student athletes the Jacobson Academic Center, and completed the John C. Hoyt Athletic Office Complex. Keep in mind, at the same time our university provided Athletics with at least 12 million fewer dollars in state taxpayer funds than our counterpart received. These monumental accomplishments were achieved with limited resources and manpower during an economically challenging period in our state’s history.
I urge you to quickly and prudently suggest a course to solve the imbalance of which I speak. I believe this panel has an opportunity of monumental and historical proportions. I urge you to save this great phenomenon in our state and resist the temptation to publicly dismantle it piece by piece. I know you are aware of what is at stake. Your good sense and understanding of the big picture is the path that will restore confidence and pride in Grizzly Athletics. The dedicated, hard-working and honest men and women of Grizzly Athletics deserve your positive recommendations and support.
REMARKS BY WAYNE HOGAN , APRIL 23, 2004 / PANEL ON UM ATHLETICS
Good Morning Madam Chair and Members of the Panel. Thank you for the invitation to visit with you today.
During the past few weeks I have had an opportunity to re-construct the timeline that led to my resignation as Director of Athletics at the University of Montana on March 3, 2004. While I have not backed off in my resolve to shoulder the blame for the deficit I think it is important that you all have my perspective on the series of events which I believe contributed to this current state of affairs. I do this with the great hope that this panel can make substantive recommendations that will insure the continued success of Grizzly Athletics.
First, I need to give you some historical background. As early as 1996 I began to have a consistent annual give and take with President George Dennison with regard to athletic funding. I recently unearthed documents from those early years in which I repeatedly asked the President to increase our institutional support lest athletics would face never-ending deficits. I was particularly dismayed that because funding decisions were made independently at each of Montana’s university campuses, my counterparts at Montana State University were receiving and spending approximately $1.5 million more from the state general fund annually on athletics. It was a fact that the more money UM Athletics generated through its own sources, other schools would simply keep pace by increasing institutional support. By comparison, I estimate that during my tenure as AD at Montana, MSU has expended approximately $12 million of state funds more on intercollegiate athletics than UM.
In 1996, President Dennison and then Vice President Jim Todd unveiled plans to perform a $24 million renovation of the Harry Adams Field House. That renovation was designed by a renowned architectural firm out of Kansas City, which based the remodel figure on enhancing the arena to maximize revenue streams which would be used to cover an annual debt payment of $1.2 million. The breakdown called for a $16 million bond issue, with the additional $8 million coming from private or corporate support. For the better part of a year I personally made many pitches to involve corporate entities. In the end we found no takers.
Hurriedly, a redesign was ordered by entities within Main Hall, cutting the $24 million proposal to $16 million, all of which would be bonded. The new design eliminated many of the elements that would create a revenue stream to pay the debt. Some of those cutbacks included points of sale for concessions and novelties, individual VIP suites were eliminated and a redesign and relocation of the ramp which provides easier floor access for major concerts and shows was scrapped. The number of prime seats between the baskets and close to the floor was diminished. More seats were forced into the end zones, making them less attractive thus commanding a lower ticket price.
Already facing the daunting task of balancing the athletic budget, I advised President Dennison and Vice President Todd that I was opposed to the scaled down renovation. I saw the debt service of $1.2 million annually as financial suicide for athletics. I estimated and shared with President Dennison in an August, 1997 letter, that Athletics would need an infusion of $3 million over the two year renovation period to cover bond payments, relocation costs, lost revenue from being out of the arena, and increased staffing. No such commitment was made, but the University chose to move forward with the project and I was asked to carry out the plan, which I did with great vigor. The building was dark for a year during the renovation process and as the doors re-opened in 1999 we, not surprisingly, found a deficit problem that was at least the published amount of around $1 million. In a January, 2000 letter to president Dennison, I stated that we now had “a new car without the engine that generates the revenue.”
At this point President Dennison called in long-time budget strategist Sylvia Weisenburger to assess the problem and assist in a plan to manage the $1.2 annual debt as well as keep athletics afloat. It was at this point, Adams Center was spun off to create its own entity, taking with it the $1.2 million debt. However, athletics was not absolved of responsibility altogether. Adams Center took all food and beverage revenue (including Washington-Grizzly Stadium concessions), collected money from all rental of space in the facility and athletics was assessed $425,000 in annual rent. It should be noted here that including the loss of concessions revenue the Athletics contribution to Adams Center today exceeds $700,000 annually.
On June 30, 2000, with the help of some significant one-time bailout funds from the university, it was determined the combined Athletics/Adams Center deficit was $487,000. In fact the problem was much worse because inflation in the costs of tuition and travel were mounting and together, the two entities could not possibly generate enough revenue to pay the debt on the renovation, recover from the deficit and keep up with rising costs. Even so, on May 12, 2000, President Dennison presented to then Higher Education Commissioner Ray Crofts a “deficit reduction plan.”
Contained in the plan was a commitment of $400,000 in additional general fund support to come in two $200,000 increments in FY 02 and FY 03. However, through increases in tickets prices, Grizzly Scholarship Association (GSA) dues, corporate sponsorships, etc, Athletics would be responsible for finding an additional $900,000 annually by 2003 in self generated revenue. President Dennison also promised that Athletics would make $125,000 in expense cuts, pay $425,000 for rent to Adams Center and Mrs. Weisenburger would be assigned to the Athletic Department.
During 2000 and 2001 Mrs. Weisenburger worked in concert with Main Hall in maintaining the carefully orchestrated deficit reduction plan. With Mrs. Weisenburger’s impending retirement in late 2001, she identified and strongly recommended the hiring of Rob Edwards as her replacement. He was hired in September of 2001.
By mid-May, 2003 things began to unravel. The main culprit, according to Mr. Edwards, was a shortfall in operational revenue with respect to our development efforts. Although we had raised roughly $1 million for the year in private donations, almost all of it was tied to capital improvement projects. This is money we could not use for operations. The problem was that we had budgeted $200,000 in anticipated revenue from Development for operations that did not materialize. I made a pitch to the National Advisory Board for Grizzly Athletics. I asked that each of the 30 members make a commitment of $11,000 each by June 15 to the Athletics Opportunity Fund. I knew that we could use a good portion of those commitments to cover shortages due to tuition increases and summer school tuitions not included in the amounts allocated as scholarships in FY 03, and also to lessen similar impacts in FY 04.
Thankfully, nearly 20 people made the commitment and by late June we are able to secure $165,000 in unrestricted funds which was deposited in our scholarship account. Unfortunately, it was far too little to make things balance as it developed there were other surprises and miscalculations. Ultimately, the University found it necessary to make a one-time transfer of approximately $325,000 in order to meet President Dennison’s obligation of a balanced budget.
During the months of July and August 2003 Mr. Edwards reported making at least weekly trips to Main Hall to work with Mr. Duringer and his staff. The purpose, he told Marie Porter and me, was to construct a realistic budget and produce an “Operating Plan” for FY 04. This plan would require quarterly reports on budget status, essentially giving us a far better look at the ever changing landscape and preventing, in theory, a repeat of the last minute chaos experienced in June, 2003.
Sometime in early September 2003, Mr. Edwards and I were required to present an Operating Unit Budget Plan for FY 04 to President Dennison. Mr. Edwards prepared a power point presentation. It was my firm belief that he was receiving advice and help from Mr. Duringer’s staff in the preparation of this document and that they concurred with his assessment of our status. In short, this Budget Plan showed athletics healthy and prosperous for FY 04. I recall Mr. Duringer, Rosie Keller and Bill Muse sitting in the room as Mr. Edwards and I made our presentation to the President. No significant questions or concerns arose in this meeting.
During this period I observed Mr. Edwards was becoming increasingly pressured and agitated. On Friday, September 26, 2003 Mr. Edwards informed me that it would be best for all concerned for him to resign his position. It is critical to note that at the time of Mr. Edwards’ departure no one in Intercollegiate Athletics had any indication that the department had any sort of budget problem.
At this point, I requested from President Dennison assistance from Mr. Duringer’s staff in assessing our fiscal status and maintaining the day to day fiscal operations. Mr. Duringer’s assistants Rosi Keller and Michelle Jensen were dispatched to reconstruct and assess our current and ongoing budget status. I asked former Athletics CFO Chuck Maes to also assist in this process. Between October 1 and early January, Mrs. Keller, Mrs. Jensen, Mr. Maes, Mrs. Porter, Athletic bookkeepers Patty Dwight and Heather Alexander and myself began to unearth the components of a structural imbalance of approximately $600,000.
The other part of the existing problem, though, was bubbling to the surface simultaneously. This involved some accounting entries that were made in the final moments of FY 03. These transactions were made without my signature or authority. Suddenly, in January, we are now aware that the balanced athletics budget of FY 03 was, in fact, at least $281,000 short as a result of these entries. Add to that the University’s $325,000 one time transfer and the one-time NABGA collection of $165,000 the real FY 03 athletics imbalance was about $771,000.
Finally, there was one more shoe to drop. In a routine annual independent audit of the Grizzly Scholarship Association, it was discovered that there had been advance payments – funds collected for a particular fiscal year, but used to cover a scholarship shortfall in the previous year. I believe this practice to have started on a small scale under Mrs.Weisenburger’s watch, growing larger annually. Why auditors didn’t surface this as a concern in previous years is a mystery to me. Auditors said UM must “re-pay” the GSA in order to get the funds replaced into the correct fiscal year.
Having completed the full discovery process in early February, I could clearly see we had three separate issues: 1). an ongoing structural deficiency of around $650,000; 2). A GSA audit issue and 3). the accounting entry errors of late FY 03. It was my belief that the structural issue should be separated from the accounting and audit issues. I believed they needed to be dealt with and solved in different ways. After all, the structural imbalance was historical and ongoing. It absolutely had to be resolved if athletics were to continue to survive and flourish. The other issues were of a one time nature, not pleasant, nevertheless explainable and repairable. Proper handling of this disclosure was critical.
I felt it important to deal first with the most critical issue – the structural imbalance in athletic funding that has been identified at approximately $650,000 annually. Had I been given the University administration’s support to properly and systematically explain the issues, install safeguards and attack the debt repayment, there would have been minimal disruption to this $50 million impact engine. In addition, my administration’s credibility would have remained in tact, allowing me to once again identify revenue streams to fix the ongoing imbalance that would allow the program to continue as a national power.
To that end, I prepared an executive summary to explain how inflationary factors, NCAA requirements such as Title IX and Division I mandates were far outpacing our ability to create revenue streams. I prepared two easy-to-understand charts which I shared with President Dennison and Mr. Duringer. I began to share this information publically, first with the Missoulian and then with UM student leaders. Even today the logic stands firm. My sincere belief was, and still is, that we needed to address a good deal of the imbalance through an increase to the student athletic fee, woefully behind the national average and one-half that of Montana State’s beginning next year. I had discussed increases to the fee through the years with President Dennison and wrote an op-ed piece on the subject that appeared in the Kaimin on February 9, 2000. The fee had not been increased since its inception in 1994.
I urge you all at this point to understand the underlying issue of the funding imbalance. I believe we are at a great crossroads today. I have dealt with this in my own private way for eight years. There are those who would have us solve this by changing the culture of intercollegiate athletics. You can certainly do away with courtesy cars, complimentary tickets and put your football team on buses and so forth. You can cut staff, cut recruiting budgets and cut scholarships. You can all support the theory that the problem is “overspending” and not “under-funding.” I submit to you today that this program is not only under-funded, but under-staffed if our expectations continue to be winning National Championships.
Your panel and, indeed, all of Montana has had an opportunity to critique the way we have conducted our business. I have no apologies. Everything we have done during my tenure has been designed to strengthen this program to be the very best. Grizzly football won 93 games and lost only 22. We have built a season-ticket base of 17,000 fans. We represent a 50 million dollar per year economic impact for the Missoula business community. We made the playoffs every year – a record 11 straight times altogether. We have won two National Championships and have made four appearances in the title game. Meanwhile, virtually all of our roughly 300 student-athletes are flourishing and content. We graduate student athletes at a rate higher than the institution as a whole. Generally, we look far more like some 1-A programs you may be familiar with like Wyoming, Nevada and Boise State, whose budgets push $20 million. I suspect they are asking every day, how does Montana do it on $9 million?
I am proud that we have been able to raise more than $10 million dollars in private donations. We have expanded Washington Grizzly Stadium twice, installed state of the art synthetic turf, a $2 million video screen and scoreboard system in Washington Grizzly Stadium and the Adams Center, completely remodeled Dornblaser Track, designed and opened a magnificent Hall of Champions, improved the Grizzly Soccer facility, afforded to our student athletes the Jacobson Academic Center, and completed the John C. Hoyt Athletic Office Complex. Keep in mind, at the same time our university provided Athletics with at least 12 million fewer dollars in state taxpayer funds than our counterpart received. These monumental accomplishments were achieved with limited resources and manpower during an economically challenging period in our state’s history.
I urge you to quickly and prudently suggest a course to solve the imbalance of which I speak. I believe this panel has an opportunity of monumental and historical proportions. I urge you to save this great phenomenon in our state and resist the temptation to publicly dismantle it piece by piece. I know you are aware of what is at stake. Your good sense and understanding of the big picture is the path that will restore confidence and pride in Grizzly Athletics. The dedicated, hard-working and honest men and women of Grizzly Athletics deserve your positive recommendations and support.