“But he sticks on the list because I see the work he’s doing and I love that he’s pushing the vision at UP to a higher place. “Scott gets consideration for the list, in part, because he’s the sitting athletic director at one of the biggest athletic departments in the state,” Canzano said in an email to The Beacon.
#Making strides walking papers tv
Sports columnist, TV commentator and radio host John Canzano (Oregonian, KGW, KXL) named Leykam on his list of the top 25 most influential people in Oregon sports twice, ranking 25th in 2017 and 24th in 2016. In the last two years, he’s brought on former Trail Blazer Terry Porter as head men’s basketball coach, long-time coach and top recruiter Nick Carlin-Voigt as head coach of men’s soccer, and just recently, Olympic medalist Michelle French as head coach of women’s soccer. Right as he stepped on The Bluff, Leykam signed an eight-year agreement with Nike. The end of this school year will mark six years since Leykam took over the athletic director role from Larry Williams, who resigned to become athletic director at Marquette University. It shows something more important to Leykam than buildings and deals with Nike: student experience, athlete growth and pride. A life-size golden basketball stands in the center of his large office, a relic from 2014 when Cassandra Brown won the Final Four three-point shootout against Gonzaga guard Kevin Pangos.Ī photo of Brown making the shot also hangs on Leykam’s wall. But his demeanor more resembles your friendly neighbor, barbecuing in the backyard or coaching his son’s little league team (which he does, by the way). Leykam looks like he could have been a mob boss in another life, with his goatee peppered grey, sitting back in a leather chair, one leg draped across the other, wearing a version of what he wears every day - a Pilot purple quarter-zip and a pair of black slacks.
#Making strides walking papers full
He has administered more campus expansion in five years than the University of Portland has seen in decades: the Beauchamp Recreation Center, a newly renovated Joe Etzel Baseball Field, the new rowing boathouse and an upcoming River Campus property housing three fields, a tennis center and a full track. And Leykam soon will hang a photo of the men’s basketball team facing off against North Carolina in November’s PK80 tournament.Įvery snapshot is a milestone, a point of pride, for Leykam, hired in 2012 after a four-year stint working for the West Coast Conference (WCC).
The picture of Pilot rowers muscling on the Willamette River will change into a shot of the new Vancouver Lake boathouse. “That was Rob’s big moment,” Leykam said. The shot of men’s cross country head coach Rob Connor standing on a podium in 2014 will soon be replaced with a similar but more recent photo of the team winning second place in the 2017 NCAA Championship. The photographs hanging on the walls of Vice President for Athletics Scott Leykam’s office change.
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