It Starts at the Top – Supporting Sun Devil Baseball
A new era of Sun Devil Baseball is underway. Former ASU standout and 14-year MLB vet Willie Bloomquist has finally come home. “I have bled Maroon & Gold since I was a kid,” said Bloomquist at his introductory press conference last June. “I wanted to come to Tempe to play for the Sun Devils. When I was a 17-year-old kid and came down to Tempe and put this jersey on for the first time, I knew I was representing something very special.”
To put action behind his words, Coach Bloomquist – in partnership with Senior Associate Athletic Director Graham Rossini – has not only started but become a ground-level supporter of the newly formed Baseball Support Group. This group believes in the direction and the mission of Sun Devil Baseball above and beyond those around them, committing to giving $5,000 a year for five years, a $25,000 show of philanthropic support to Sun Devil Baseball toward sustainable endowment support for scholarship or programmatic needs.
“As we’re trying to compete at a national level again, this will really accent some of our current line items in the operating budget,” Rossini said of the group’s financial impact. “Nutrition, summer school, some of the team’s baseball-specific technology needs, it helps with both that short-term fulfillment and also works toward long-term financial sustainability.”
The belief in the group and furthermore in the program begins just like the authoritative hierarchy within the team, with the coach. Coach Bloomquist believes that there is power in action and has led by example time and time again throughout his life and career, with this being only the latest example.
One anecdote that often encapsulates this spirit dates back to the 1999 season when he sacrificed his scholarship for another teammate to be able to come back and play hoping it would help the team make it back to Omaha as it did the year before.
“We talked about it before the season and thought, ‘well what better way to cultivate support than really leading that effort?’” Rossini added. “Willie signed the contract without looking at the financial terms. He and Ray had a conversation about the deal and its structure and I brought it to him to sit down and review and he said, ‘Alright I’m ready to sign it, let me go to work.’”
Collegiate athletics provide an unparalleled opportunity for young people to grow individually and as a part of a team. People like Coach Bloomquist and Graham Rossini, a former walk-on with the Sun Devil Baseball program, understand that on a deep, personal level. That is why they see this as the perfect way for Sun Devil Alum and Sun Devil Nation as a whole to support the future Sun Devil student-athletes with the understanding that they can create more people like Willie, and keep the cycle going.
