FULLERTON — It’s been a little more than three decades, but Shondell Reed – now the athletic director at Cal State Fullerton – has held onto the credential he wore as a student journalist at that school in 1995, identifying him as a staff writer for the Daily Titan.
“I look so young,” he said. “I’m digging through the boxes (while preparing to move back to California) and I was like, ‘No way.’ I said this is gonna go in my office somewhere, for sure.”
So just how does one transition from a Communications major, with a journalism emphasis, to athletic administration? (We’ll get to that.)
But there’s also this, and it might be the more important part of this story: Reed, who was hired in August to replace the retiring Jim Donovan, has a varied background in college sports over the last 20 years – stints at Cal and Ohio State, leading to senior associate athletic director positions at Colgate, Washington and Air Force.
And as a Fullerton alumnus, while going through a transition period – “I think it probably takes almost an academic year” to get settled, he said – he probably gets Titan athletic culture in a way that someone without a background there might not.
That’s especially so in the current environment, a substantially different world in college athletics than ever before and one not terribly accommodating to mid-major, mid-resource schools like those in the Big West Conference.
For example: Baseball has been a marquee program at Fullerton, with its legacy of four national championships, future major leaguers and Golden Spikes Award winners. Yet the Titans have been to one NCAA regional since 2019 and have had four sun-.500 seasons. Meanwhile, what used to be an 11.7 scholarship limit for the sport, divided among as many players as necessary, is now 35, which obviously favors the big-budget programs.
LSU “could have given 35 10 years ago, but the rule said they could only do 11.7,” Reed said. “Fullerton was like, ‘That’s great because that’s about all we can do is 11.7.’ Now that’s completely opened up.”
The Titans’ softball program, meanwhile, has six regional appearances and an average of 37.4 wins per season its last eight full seasons (not counting 2020’s pandemic-shortened season), so at least one of the bat-to-ball sports continues to thrive. But the tilting of the scales toward the moneyed programs isn’t helping. All Big West programs but UC Davis opted into revenue-sharing payments in the wake of the House settlement, but none figure to come close to the $21.3 million limit.
The trick is to work within that structure with a budget that’s middle of the pack for the Big West. The most recent Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act report for Fullerton, for the 2024-25 academic year, listed the department’s budget at $26,422,865.
“We’ve got some work to do in terms of increasing our level of philanthropy and increasing our level of revenue generation so that we can get up there,” he said.
The goal: To once again punch above the school’s weight.
“I always used to joke that they tried to make it like (NASCAR) restrictor plate racing, like we wanted this to be somewhat equal so that we’re all competing with the same type of car, (so) we need to put in some restrictions on how the car’s built,” Reed said. “… So maybe we should put a ceiling on what each school can spend and how they can spend it, so that when we get on the field we know we’re competing against somewhat like teams.
“And that’s gone. That’s long gone.”
At this point it becomes a matter of philosophy. For example, Fullerton faces UCLA in a men’s basketball game on Nov. 18, and for the Titans – and for Long Beach State and UC Riverside, who are also scheduled to play at Pauley Pavilion in the coming weeks – it’s an exercise in aiming high without worrying about the steep hill they face.
When it comes down to it, Reed said, “We don’t have to be better than UCLA. We have to be better than (fellow Big West teams) Long Beach State, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, Cal Baptist, Cal Poly. That’s who we need to be better than. Because if we’re better than those teams, we get to postseason.
“You know what kind of things can happen in basketball, for example, in an NCAA Tournament format.”
And yes, those Fullerton alumni with really long memories remember when the Titans made it happen, in a 1978 West Regional in which they were one basket away from getting to the Final Four. It’s hardly guaranteed, but it’s possible.
“Going to an NCAA Tournament just has a different feel to it,” Reed said. “It’s just – it’s magic. It’s fun. … It is the look on a student-athlete’s face. When they’re done, they talk about that run. When I was at Colgate my women’s soccer team got out of the first round, beat Arizona State. (It was) the highlight of those young women’s lives … the dogpile on the field, the dancing on the bus after the game. It’s a moment that they’ll cherish forever.”
So how exactly did Reed’s career trajectory change so dramatically?
He grew up in Harbor City and originally attended Fresno State, then transferred to Fullerton for his senior year and commuted to school from Murrieta, where his parents had bought a house. He actually received his diploma and then had to come back to take one more journalism class.
“Sports was always in the background” when he was writing for the Daily Titan, he said. “But I didn’t realize you could make money doing anything in sports. And so my senior year here I thought, okay, I’ll go to law school, and maybe I’ll be an attorney for a newspaper.”
He applied to law school, got waitlisted, and in the meantime entered a paralegal certification program at the University of San Diego. Ultimately he received his law degree from Seattle University, but the itch to work in sports proved to be too much. So he changed course and got a Master’s degree in sports management at the University of San Francisco. That led to a job at Cal in marketing and promotions.
At some point, he realized that working with NCAA compliance incorporated a lot of what he had learned in law school. He applied for and got a job at Ohio State, and that was about the time when Buckeyes football star Maurice Clarett was dealing with academic issues and allegations of improper benefits.
“If you’re trying to learn compliance and learn how the rules work and how to deal with some things, you want to be at a place where there’s a little bit of action,” he said, and that’s something of an understatement. He got more than he bargained for in his two years at OSU.
Things work in funny ways. He interviewed for a job at Texas and didn’t get it, but the hiring manager recommended him to the new athletic director at Colgate, who offered Reed a compliance position in 2004. He was subsequently promoted to Associate Director of Athletics for Compliance and then to a senior associate athletic director post. After eight years at Colgate he was hired by Washington as a senior associate AD, spent eight years there and then was hired by Air Force as associate AD in 2020.
And then word got out this summer that Donovan, Fullerton’s athletic director, was retiring.
“I need to chase this one,” Reed said he told his wife. “We need to keep an eye on that one just in case. If they go to market with the opening, we’ll put my name in the hat and see what happens.”
He never actually saw a job posting, or anything indicating the school had enlisted a search firm. So he did a search and found a web page about the position.
“Fortunately for me, it was three days before the application was due,” he said. “I was just glad I tracked it down before the job closed, because I would have been kicking myself (if it had). I probably would have reached out and asked if they would take one more application.
“And I would have played the alumni card.”
Who knows? That Daily Titan credential might have worked, too.
jalexander@scng.com