Esser offers Redhawks vision at Southeast Missouri State athletic director interview

Kurt Esser, one of three finalists for the Southeast Missouri State athletics director job, can picture it all perfectly.

A few years from now in late fall -- his favorite time of year -- he'll walk into Dynamite Coffee to get a latte and then walk around downtown Cape Girardeau with his family.

His wife Tricia and children Reese and Jack will turn off one way and he'll continue on toward Houck Stadium for a Southeast Missouri State football game.

"I'm walking up to campus -- now I know it's really up," Esser said, drawing laughs from a crowd of Southeast faculty, staff, boosters, student-athletes and other community members. "We've had a great fall. We're hosting two out of the three OVC championships. We're undefeated at home. You know why? Because this is going to be the toughest place to play in the Ohio Valley.

"... The university, the community is alive, and people are wearing red. People are excited -- not just for the wins and losses but for the opportunity to share these moments with each other."

Esser laid out some of his vision for Redhawks athletics and explained his previous experiences during an open forum on Tuesday afternoon at the University Center Program Lounge on Southeast's campus.

Esser is currently senior associate athletic director at the University of New Mexico and was asked why he'd choose to leave the university, specifically because its football team competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision and Southeast is part of the Football Championship Subdivision.

"I think some people think the grass is always greener somewhere else. And the grass does not grow in Albuquerque, New Mexico," Esser said with a laugh.

Esser pointed to a small corner of the room to show how tiny his yard in New Mexico is before getting serious.

"I can make a difference here. I really do feel that I can help push along our university mission, our community and our athletic department mission," Esser said. "I think we can win more, I think we can add more to our resources, and I think we can graduate great students and student-athletes that will be very productive, and you can do that on any level. It doesn't matter whether you're FCS, Power 5, Division III. My passion is in dealing with our staff, coaches and student-athletes."

Esser grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, earned a bachelor's degree from Indiana University in 1988 and a master's in education with an emphasis in sport administration and psychology from the University of Kansas in 1995.

While getting his masters he interned for the Athletic Directors Association. He later served on the board of directors and was president of the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators.

During Esser's vivid imagining of his Houck Stadium experience, he was interrupted by someone saying that he'd have to get people in the stands. He responded with a simple, "I know."

When asked how to do that -- with students, in particular -- he responded with suggestions such as having players asking people they see to come to their games, having coaches be visible and be in attendance for any events the department sets up, using social media and videos to paint a picture of what Southeast athletics is about and tell the university and department's story.

"Be visible, be visible, be visible," Esser said. "Just out doing things. My kids are going to play in the little leagues, I'm going to grocery shop here, I'm going to go to the arts functions on Friday evenings. I want to serve my community. I'm involved in Special Olympics, Coaches vs. Cancer in New Mexico, and I'd love to do the same types of things here. Connect. Because if our community's not getting any better then how is our university and how is our athletics department?"

But Esser isn't naive. No matter what type of connection Southeast athletics makes with the community, losing teams won't draw large crowds consistently.

"We have to win. There is no substitute for winning," Esser said. "That's always a difficult thing to talk about because people's lives are affected on wins and losses and whether they're employed, but I've found no head coach in my experience that doesn't want to win and doesn't think that they should win.

"Now, we need to adjust our budgets and our resources to match what our expectations are. Right now we're in the bottom third of the OVC in our budget, so we, our team, needs to work with campus, with our community and find ways, find resources."

Budgets and fundraising is one area where he feels New Mexico and Southeast are similar. The Lobos go out to find funds, resources and people that are in place before a new project or initiative comes to fruition rather than complete something and then have to find ways to pay for it.

Esser can see himself retired 10 years from now, and hopes that in a decade he'll have had a successful tenure at Southeast.

It's a position that he said he's wanted since he was in seventh or eighth grade, but it didn't matter what level.

"I just said I wanted to lead a department, so when people say, 'Oh, you're going to come here as a stepping stone and go somewhere else,' [I think], 'Only if I've done a fantastic job,'" Esser said. "But [moving up] is not my goal. I'm not driven by those things, glamorous things. I'm driven by helping our students, helping our student-athletes. And I'm driven a lot by helping our staff, if they want to go on and be head coaches at a higher or level, or be head coaches at all if they're assistant coaches."

Brady Barke, who has served as interim director of athletics since former AD Mark Alnutt left to take a deputy director of athletics position at the University of Memphis in July, will have his open forum at 2 p.m. today at the UC Program Lounge. Dan Coonan, the executive director of development at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, California, will have his open forum at 2 p.m. Thursday.