SDSU’s John David Wicker Honored As Athletic Director of 12 months

San Diego State Athletic Director John David Wicker has been named the Sports activities Enterprise Journal AD of the 12 months.

In doing so, he turned the primary athletic director from a Group of 5 college to win the award, which was introduced Wednesday on the sixteenth annual Sports activities Enterprise Awards in New York Metropolis.

Wicker is coming off a yr that included the opening of the brand new 35,000-seat Snapdragon Stadium, the boys’s basketball workforce reaching the nationwide championship sport on the NCAA Match, six Mountain West workforce championships and the Could 18 announcement that the a Main League Soccer enlargement workforce will make Snapdragon its residence.  

In describing Wicker, the SPJ wrote, that “it’s not typically that an athletic director has a chance to construct a soccer stadium from the bottom up, however that’s precisely what J.D. Wicker has been doing at San Diego State.

“Wicker led a probably thorny course of to get Snapdragon Stadium to the end line final season, bringing collectively town of San Diego, the college and the athletics division in a means that saved the $310 million venture on finances and on time for a 2022 opening,” the publication stated.

Wicker, in accepting the award, famous the Group of 5 disparity. “It appears like we get nominated lots, however for those who’re not within the Energy 5, you’re not at that degree.”

Energy 5 conferences embody the SEC and Pac-12 – an-oft rumored vacation spot for SDSU after UCLA and USC’s impending departure for the Large Ten – and are higher funded and considered extra aggressive than Group of 5 conferences.

The latter contains the Mountain West, the Aztecs’ longtime residence, and Convention USA.

He went on to say that educational success and contributions to the group matter in addition to athletics.

“Two weeks in the past, we graduated a bunch of scholar athletes, and that’s how I do know we’re succeeding. The softball workforce is of their first-ever Tremendous Regional this weekend. That’s succeeding. We simply introduced MLS [expansion] in San Diego within the stadium San Diego State constructed for the group. That’s succeeding,” Wicker stated. “There’s all the time one thing across the nook; you will get misplaced in all of the issues at occasions. However we’re doing lots to make San Diego profitable.”

Wicker has been SDSU’s athletic director since 2016. He served as deputy athletic director from 2011 to 2015, when he departed for a brief stint at Georgia Tech. He additionally has held the put up of affiliate athletic director at Washington State and spent two years as director of occasion and facility operations at Southern Miss.

Wicker graduated from Mississippi State in 1992 with a bachelor’s diploma in skilled accountancy. He obtained his grasp’s diploma in schooling with an emphasis in sports activities administration from Georgia in 1997.

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