Let’s step up and save Seawolf hockey

There is currently a lot of discussion about the future of the University of Alaska Anchorage hockey program. The Board of Regents supported the university’s administration in making this the last year of hockey — unless the community can raise the funds to support it. This is bad for the university and it is wrongheaded.

I spent more than 10 years working for a university; for the last half, I was an administrator in the president’s office. Like UAA, my school was the only large urban school in the state. My president decided that the best way to build the school was to develop a strong football program. His theory was that the best business school might produce well-educated students, but it would not stir the community to get involved financially in supporting the institution. However, a strong sports program would draw community members to support the total institution. The Gonzaga University president used basketball in the same way, to bring attention to the school and ultimately build it to the academic and basketball power that it is now.

Over a period of 30 years, including the 10 I worked there, I watched Boise State move from being Boise Junior College to Boise State College, to its current status as Boise State University. During the BSC years, the football team began to grow in depth and strength until it was regularly winning everywhere. A trip and a win at the Camellia Bowl began to build the football reputation and the positive rumbling in the community. That was followed by players being drafted to a new NFL team in Seattle, the Seahawks. Boise State football was on a roll. This athletic activity turned into overall support for the university that would have been impossible or at the very least have taken much longer to build without the excitement of a viable and successful football program.

I worked for Boise State with the state Legislature during the transition from Boise State College to Boise State University. Because money was required for program development to make that leap, working with the Legislature was important. One of the more remarkable speeches delivered on the floor of Senate during that campaign was a speech in opposition to the move, delivered by a North Idaho legislator. He saw the growth of Boise State as a threat to the North Idaho-based University of Idaho. He rose to take the floor in opposition to the move and said, “BJC, BSC or BSU, as far as I am concerned, it is all B.S.” His failure to stop the move was indicative of what positive notice and fiscal support a strong athletic team can bring to a university.

Our hockey team has brought attention to the university, and has added a significant number of business people to the community in the form of players who elected to stay in Anchorage after graduation. Not only have those UAA alums become local professionals and business people, they have stepped up to lead a new generations of hockey players who have grown up to play Seawolf hockey or to play collegiate or professional hockey elsewhere in the United States. Names like Gomez, Carle, Thompson and Dubinsky all make our community proud. A former UAA hockey player, Dennis Sorenson, who was the first college graduate in his family, has coached all but the newest of these outstanding hockey players. These players grew up on UAA hockey, dreaming of the time they could play like “those guys.” A greater number of local players played on elite youth hockey teams, left to play collegiate hockey elsewhere and then returned to the community ready to contribute in a variety of ways.

A solid spectator sport helps build a school and a community. It is also part of the draw for businesses wanting to support a local university. Losing Seawolf hockey will be bad for the UAA, for the community and for the young people who dream of growing up to “play like Scotty.” Let’s step up and save the UAA Seawolf hockey program. Doing so will help keep local people and businesses aware and supportive of the university as a whole.

Rosalie Nadeau spent 20 years keeping score for the Seawolves, and now is on the Save Seawolf Hockey Committee. She also spent nearly 10 years working for Boise State University, first as an instructor and then as an administrator.

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