My name is Sandra Roland. I'm a five-foot-ten, blonde-haired and green-eyed, somewhat stocky but still good-looking, thirty-something lady of French-Canadian and Irish descent living in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts. I work as athletic director of Kingman College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. It's a tough commute, driving from Brockton to Chestnut Hill everyday but I like what I do. I'm the first female athletic director the school has ever been. And both students and faculty have been thrilled with my performance so far. I just hope they don't discover what I've been doing behind closed doors. Cause it could mean the end of me.
When I took the helm of the Kingman College in 2003, the school was in complete disarray. Kingman College is a small private school with only about eleven thousand students. Yet it was a maelstrom of trouble in its own right. Fortunately, I knew what I was doing. You see, my father, Sanders Roland used to be a college football coach and athletic director before he retired. He taught me all he knew about sports, and collegiate politics. My first major decision as athletic director was to whip the Department of Athletics into shape. I had my work cut out for me. The previous athletic director, Marshall Stephens was a beloved administrator right until his untimely death in the summer of 2003. As his replacement, I wasn't exactly made welcome.
Gradually, I won them over, though. In 2003, the student body of Kingman College was seriously imbalanced. Seventy five percent of the students were female. Once a college has reached that point, it ceases to be interesting to both male and female applicants. I found a way to restore balance to the student body and boost the school's reputation across the country. I talked to the board of directors about the possibility of adding football. I must say they were all surprised. Female athletic directors aren't known for adding men's sports as the first order of business when they come on the job in colleges and universities across America. Many male directors wouldn't have been so bold but whatever.
After an eternity of political arm-wrestling, the school board agreed. They forked over three million dollars, and I was allowed to do what I wanted. The first thing I did was renovate the old football stadium. Kingman College hasn't had a football team since 1959. They did away with it because it was too expensive. The old football stadium was used for various activities by the school's sports teams. The men's and women's soccer teams, along with the men's and women's lacrosse teams used it. The field hockey team used it as well. It cost over a million to fix the damn thing. Eventually, though, I got it done. Then I began looking for a coach for the team. My dad's good friend, NFL legend Patrick Henderson, had plenty of good ideas. He helped me recruit football players from high schools around New England. Together, we went to speak at Brockton Community High School, Boston College High School and many others. The top high school football players of the region, that's who we wanted to recruit. If the inaugural football team wasn't successful, the school board would use that as an excuse to give the football program the ax. And I couldn't fail at my first test. It simply wouldn't be good form.
Eventually, we attracted enough attention from the athletic community and what do you know? Both male and female enrollment skyrocketed at Kingman College. The 2003-2004 freshman class was fifty five percent male. I saw that as a good sign. Originally, the Kingman College Department of Athletics sponsored women's intercollegiate softball, soccer, swimming, lacrosse, golf, field hockey, ice hockey, cycling, volleyball, track & field, cross country and tennis along with men's baseball, soccer, swimming, lacrosse and tennis. After the addition of football boosted male enrollment, we had more leeway as far as adding new sports teams. It's important that we alleviate Title IX concerns. Lest some disgruntled female student or faculty member file a lawsuit and get us negative media coverage. Since the student body was now fifty percent male and fifty percent female, we created additional men's varsity teams in wrestling, cycling, volleyball, golf and ice hockey.
Yeah, just like that, I changed the face of Kingman College forever. Where were the naysayers now? Silent as stars. I asked Patrick Henderson to coach the new football team but he declined. Instead I hired someone he recommended. Legendary college football coach Holden Fawkes, who quit working for Central Oregon University after they unjustly fired his good friend and boss, C.O.U. athletic director Jimmy Edwards. I was thrilled to have a legend working for the school . I stood by Head Coach Holden Fawkes side at the press release where he officially became the head of football operations for the Division Two Football team of Kingman College.
Yeah, all was well. That was six years ago. Kingman College entered the 2008-2009 school year in good shape. Students and faculty at the college had gotten used to me as athletic director. In fact, they liked having me around. I was a really progressive leader. My policy was modeled after that of schools like Ohio State and Georgia Tech. These schools believed in adding sports for both men and women in the face of Title IX challenges, rather than slicing and dicing their sports teams like James Madison University so infamously did a few years ago. During my 'reign, for lack of a better term, Kingman College gained new teams in men's and women's rugby along with coed gymnastics and women's equestrian. All was well in my little kingdom. Last year, the Kingman College football team came within a hair's breathe of becoming national champions. I was so disappointed when that happened. Oh, well. We still rock the New England Conference and Kingman College is rated among the top one hundred schools in the United States of America. All was well. I should have known that peace and tranquility wouldn't last.