Pacific adds three sports

Future WCC member adds three sports to its offering
Nov. 12, 2012

STOCKTON, Calif. -- Beginning this spring, University of the Pacific will have three new sports teams, Vice President for External Affairs and Athletics Ted Leland announced today. The Tigers will welcome Women's Sand Volleyball, Women's Outdoor Track and Field and the return of Men's Soccer.


The sand volleyball and track teams will begin competition in spring, 2013. The soccer team will begin playing in fall, 2014 and will begin NCAA Division I competition in fall, 2015. The soccer team is being created to take advantage of the new level of competition that will be available to Pacific when it enters the West Coast Conference (WCC) in fall 2013, while the other two teams are being added due to popular demand. Pacific announced the change from the Big West to the WCC earlier this year.


"The addition of these sports will expand our athletic profile and take us to another level," Leland said. "The men's soccer team and the track and field team have long been identified as additions we'd like to make to our athletics program. Sand volleyball is being added because of the rising popularity of this sport and the opportunity to enter a new league devoted to the sport.


"The additional sports will be funded by the existing Athletic Department budget," added Leland. "No new University funding will be used to support the programs."


Men's Soccer will return to NCAA Division I status at Pacific for the first time since being discontinued after the 1985-86 season. The program will begin competition with recruited student-athletes in the fall of 2014 and will play a full NCAA Division I schedule as a part of the WCC in the fall of 2015.


The Sand Volleyball team will compete in the Northern California Sand Volleyball Consortium beginning this spring. The other teams in the consortium will be announced at a later date along with a start date. Sand Volleyball is an NCAA emerging sport, a sport recognized by the NCAA that is intended to provide additional athletics opportunities to female student-athletes.


"We are very excited to be among the first programs to have sand volleyball and will begin our sand program in March," said women's volleyball head coach Greg Gibbons. "I think it provides more great opportunities for our players to compete at a very high level and capitalize on the growth of sand volleyball in the United States and. Globally it provides another platform for our student-athletes to develop and play at the next level. From a training standpoint, it will help develop our players to be better all-around volleyball athletes and as from a team aspect, most of our women and recruits play both indoor and sand volleyball and we are able to offer them both."


Women's Outdoor Track and Field will emphasize distance running events and will compete as an NCAA Division I Independent. Both the track and new volleyball teams will add minimal new expenses to Pacific's Athletics program, as the current coaches of Women's Cross Country (Josh Jones) and Women's Volleyball (Greg Gibbons) will coach those teams.


"We are very excited about the addition of the track program for our runners, said Jones. "We have worked really hard these last four years to improve the cross country program. With the addition of track, we have more opportunities to compete and train, which puts us on a more even playing field with other West Coast Conference programs."


With the addition of these sports, Pacific will have 19 total sports - 11 women's and eight 8 men's:


Women's Athletic Programs: Women's Basketball, Women's Cross Country, Field Hockey, Women's Sand Volleyball, Women's Soccer, Softball, Women's Swimming, Women's Tennis, Women's Track and Field, Women's Volleyball, Women's Water Polo


Men's Athletic Programs: Baseball, Men's Basketball, Men's Golf, Men's Soccer, Men's Swimming, Men's Tennis, Men's Volleyball, Men's Water Polo


--from pacifictigers.com

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Dr. Ted Leland, the Vice President for External Relations and Athletics, took over as the athletic director of Pacific Athletics on July 1, 2011. Beginning his second stint as the director, Leland will oversee Pacific Athletics while guiding the implementation of Pacific's new strategic plan for Intercollegiate Athletics - a plan that he and former athletic director Lynn King created while working together over the previous year.

“I love what I do, I love Pacific and I am happy to be back,” said Leland. “I had a wonderful time in Stockton earlier in my career and I am looking forward to helping make this a smooth transition.”

In addition to his duties in the athletic department, Leland will retain his status as vice president for external relations. A member of the University Cabinet, Leland is also a part of the Institutional Priorities Committee and the President’s Advisory Council.

Devoted to service in college athletics and his community, Leland is the Chair of both the Stockton Unified School District – Measure C & Q Citizen Oversight Committee and the USA Volleyball Foundation Board. He also serves as a member of the National Advisory Board of the Positive Coaching Alliance, Miracle Mile Improvement Association Board of Directors and USA Volleyball Board of Directors. He is also a member of the San Joaquin Partnership, the San Joaquin Community Foundation Board and the Sutter Health Central Valley Region Board.

Leland last ran Pacific's athletic department from 1989-91. He was instrumental in the fund-raising campaigns that built the Baun Student Fitness Center and helped renovate Stagg Memorial Stadium. Under Leland, Pacific athletics set records for season tickets, while the women’s volleyball team advanced the NCAA Final Four in 1990.

Leland was named The Jaquish & Kenninger Director of Athletics at Stanford University on June 7, 1991, and was the guiding force in leading an athletics program that was voted as "the most admired collegiate athletic program in the nation." From 1991-2005, Stanford won 53 national team championships in 14 different sports, including an NCAA record six national titles in 1996-97. Cardinal teams consistently competed for the national championship in virtually each sport every year. In 2004-05 alone, Stanford had 26 programs finish in the Top 25 nationally, including 10 in the Top 5 and 16 in the Top 10.

In the area of fundraising, the Athletic Department raised over $270 million in private donations, and its assets and endowments grew from $52 million to $374.9 million during Leland's tenure. In addition, approximately $185 million in new or renovated athletic facilities were completed and funded.

Leland's peers and colleagues have honored him on several occasions. He was presented the Dick Enberg Award by CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) in 2004. In 2000-01, Leland was honored by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics and by Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal as the Athletic Director of the Year.

Leland has served on numerous national committees throughout his career. He has been a member of the Division I NCAA Committee on Infractions and the NACDA Executive Committee, and has served on various other NCAA committees. He has chaired the NCAA Water Polo Committee (1989-96) and the NCAA Adhoc Committee on Student Athletic Employment (1997). He was also a part of the rebuilding while serving a two-year term as chairman of the NCAA Division I Management Council (1993-2001). In June of 2002, Leland was named a co-chairman of the United States Secretary of Education's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics. The 15-member panel examined ways of strengthening enforcement of Title IX and expanding opportunities to ensure fairness for all college athletes.

After serving as Stanford's Director of Athletics for 12 years, Leland was granted a "Special Research Leave" from his post in the spring of 2003. During an 11-week absence, Leland was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution on campus, conducted research on a book, and wrote and delivered several speeches on national issues related to intercollegiate athletics.

In addition to Stanford and Pacific, Leland was also the athletic director at Dartmouth College from 1983-89. His other career stops have included Northwestern University, where he was a Senior Associate Athletic Director from 1981-83 and the University of Houston as an Assistant Athletic Director from 1979-81. He was an assistant football coach and instructor of physical education at Stanford in 1978-79.

Leland grew up in Northern California, graduated from Hayward High School and later attended Chabot College. He earned both his Bachelor's (1970) and Master's (1972) degrees from the University of the Pacific, prior to adding a Ph.D. from Stanford in 1982 in education/sports psychology.

While an undergraduate at Pacific, Leland earned First Team All-PCAA football honors as a defensive end in 1969. He later coached football at Pacific, Stanford and East Tennessee State.

As he continues a remarkable career, Leland has been inducted into the Hall of Fame of eight different organizations, including University of the Pacific, Chabot College and Stanford University.

In addition to his work in athletic administration, Leland has held the position of "adjunct professor" at Dartmouth College, Pacific and Stanford, teaching courses in Sports Psychology and the Philosophy of Sport. He currently teaches in Pacific’s Freshmen Seminar program.

Leland and his wife, Stefanie, have two adult children: Amanda and Bo. Bo and his wife Robin have a daughter, Emma.

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