Catamount Athletics Welcomes Home Director of Athletics, Alex Gary

Cullowhee, N.C. – As the calendar flips to May and springtime has fully sprung across western North Carolina during these unprecedented days, Western Carolina welcomes its new Director of Athletics, Alex Gary. Today – May 1 – marks Gary’s first day on the job leading a department that gave him an opportunity as a baseball student-athlete back in the early 2000s.

Today, Alex returns home.

Officially introduced by WCU Chancellor Kelli R. Brown on Friday, Feb. 28, Gary returns to the mountains after nearly two and a half years as the senior associate director of athletics and the department’s chief development officer at Oregon State in Corvallis, Ore. His professional experience includes stints at Maryland, Michigan, and instate at Charlotte.

A native of Knoxville, Tenn., who grew up in Charlotte, Gary was recruited to Cullowhee as an outfielder, playing on the Catamount baseball team from 2001-2004. He experienced great success as a Catamount student-athlete where he was a part of WCU’s regular season and Southern Conference Tournament championship team in 2003, and played in the NCAA regional.

While our state continues to practice “stay home, stay safe,” Gary wanted to reach out to Catamount Nation on his first official day on post. Here is a letter that was disseminated to the WCU fanbase via email on the morning of Friday, May 1 as Alex Gary assumed the leading role for Catamount Athletics:

Catamount Nation,

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be back home in Cullowhee and be reunited with my Western Carolina University family! My fiancé, Katie, and I appreciate all of the calls, texts, and social media messages over the last month and are excited to officially get started today.

Leading our athletic program has been a dream of mine since my sophomore year on campus in 2003. During that year, our Catamount baseball team won the Southern Conference regular-season championship by beating App State in the final conference game. A week later, we beat Georgia Southern to win the SoCon Tournament Championship. The following week, we finally found ourselves on the losing end of a marathon 14-inning game against N.C. State in the Wilson, N.C., NCAA Regional final.

That 2003 team was made up of a senior class who loved to compete, was mentally and physically tough, and thought they could beat anyone. They defined what a Catamount Athletics program should look like. Seventeen years later, we still have great student-athletes and coaches who come to Western Carolina with a championship attitude and who work tirelessly to make Catamount Nation proud.

While a championship attitude is one thing, providing a championship experience to support that ambition is where we need to improve. We need to create new revenue streams, invest in new facilities, and most importantly make sure that we are preparing our student-athletes for life after their time in Cullowhee. It will be a journey, especially during the times we are in now, but I am confident that with the plans that will be put in place it can and will be done.

For today, the focus remains on getting through this uncertain time together. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed all of us in a situation where there are more questions than answers about when and how we can move forward responsibly. What I am clear on is that working with other campus leaders to usher Western Carolina University and Catamount Athletics through this pandemic must be our first priority. To that end, we have commissioned a COVID-19 Athletics Working Group to:

• make sure that our staff, coaches, and student-athletes are equipped with every available piece of information necessary to make important decisions over the next few months
   
• model and prepare for the potential financial implications of the pandemic in order to move quickly once we are clear on what this summer and fall will look like;
   
• ensure that when our doors are reopened, our fans understand the steps we have taken to provide a safe and responsible experience as they rejoin our venues.

Like any great journey, there will be adversity, but I am confident we will get through this together. I am so humbled to be your Director of Athletics and look forward to being with you all very soon.

Go Cats!

Alex Gary

Director of Athletics