A Conversation With ... Brenton Illum

You were named interim AD last April after the departure of 32-year veteran David Stair. What have you brought to the role?
(Stair) put Evangel on the map nationally in the (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics). During his time here we have added sports and had success. I am a product of this place and have always felt responsible for it. I had no intentions of being athletic director. I, truthfully, never wanted to be a head football coach either. When I was asked by our president – [Robert] Spence at the time – my sense of responsibility took over. I’ve had more fun the last five years than I’ve ever had in my life. I was approached about it three years ago knowing Dr. Stair would be retiring. His last year, he handed some things off and I’ve been doing the work for a little over a year now.

Evangel can be a life-changing experience. It was for me. Now, to be the caretaker of that experience for today’s student athletes is a tremendous responsibility. We are moving into the next generation of athletics. We launched a new website last year and have gotten more involved with social media. The next phase is to start building facilities. We haven’t been able to do much for a long time here at Evangel for athletics. That is the next thing on the radar for our president, [Carol Taylor]. She has been very clear she wants to improve the facilities.

From basketball to cross country, you oversee 17 sports programs at the university. Which is the most profitable?
In terms of pure profit, football is the most profitable in net tuition revenue, but they all have value. There are different ways that each sport affects the community and student life. All have worth. We haven’t discussed cutting any programs. Now, we have added soccer, which has been a real need.

Adding soccer adds cost, but it also adds revenue. You have to spend some money to make some money. There will be added costs with adding coaches, scholarships and equipment. The financial benefit will outweigh the cost by quite a bit.

Evangel can exist on its own. There are a lot of schools like us that have to have athletics, a huge part of their enrollment is athletics and they need it to keep their doors open. At Evangel, I don’t think we could function as we are without athletics, but it’s not like we have these monstrous roster limits we have to get to. We have about 1,800 plus in undergrad enrollment and athletics makes up about 300 of those. At most schools our size, it’s more like 50 to 70 percent of the student body is involved with athletics.

As head football coach for Evangel, how much of your job is coaching players vs. getting butts in the stands?
This year, we averaged just over 2,700 at our football games. When you factor in a couple bad weather games, that’s not bad. We actually led our league in attendance this last year. Our community has supported us. That’s something really on my agenda right now, trying to integrate Evangel  athletics into the Springfield community. A lot of the Springfield community hasn’t made time to come see us. I want to connect to the community better. We want the community to have a presence in our events and at our facilities.

Some believe Evangel’s mascot – the Crusaders – is offensive. Has the university considered a change?
There is some controversy around the mascot. The intent of the creation of that mascot has nothing to do with the negative connotations that can come from it, but there is no denying there are some negative interpretations of a crusader. We can’t turn a blind eye to that. We need to look at that and talk about that with our alumni, our student athletes and faculty. Everybody who is a Crusader needs some say in this. We will engage the community over the next year and see where that goes. There are a lot of people very proud of the mascot, but you have to be wise. If the best thing for our reputation and image is to move to something else, then we will certainly do that.

Talk to me about recruitment. Is it a challenge for a smaller Christian school?
It’s definitely different, but every school has something like that. I have coached up in the mountains where you have to get kids who wanted to live in the mountains. Each place has a different draw and you have to find your niche. Every school isn’t for everybody and we don’t want to be for everybody. We are a faith-based institution that is very selective. If you are a student athlete, Evangel is very good for you, but we also want students who are good for us. We are selective of who we want to represent us and to do that you have to cast a very broad net. One in 20 kids maybe the right fit. We might have to recruit 20 times as many kids as someone else does to find that right fit. Is that a challenge, sure. Our football team had 21 states represented last year.

Your football team plays at JFK Stadium. Do you see Evangel building its own on-campus stadium in the future?
At some point we really want that, but there are a lot of needs. We have an aging Ashcroft Activities Center, built in 1967. It needs redone or replaced. That would affect us on a daily basis. If we were able to upgrade or replace that building, it would affect every sport in a major way. A football stadium would be valuable for a lot of reasons, but it simply wouldn’t get quite the amount of use that an activity center would. That is where the priority lies. Hopefully, within the next year, we can provide some clarity to the public as to where we are going with our facilities. Dr. Taylor has made that publicly evident that’s what she wants to do.