Chapter 6: Athletics
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All-American; he would go on to play in the NFL for the Buffalo Bills. The team finished with an 11-2 overall record, including playoff victories over Northwood and the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Once again, the team’s only losses came at the hands of Grand Valley State. The final meeting for the two teams that season — the Lakers hosted the Cardinals in Allendale — was SVSU’s third playoff game, ending in a familiarly disappointing 24-17 loss. GVSU went on to win the national championship again.9
Mike Watson Era
Mike Watson began working as SVSU’s new athletic director in February 2007. He replaced George Eastland, professor of chemistry and the long-time faculty athletics representative, who served as interim athletic director after Vogl stepped down from the role. A graduate of Miami University of Ohio, Watson played four seasons in the NFL for the New Orleans Saints before returning to his alma mater in 1983 as a football coach. Watson devoted the ensuing two decades to a career in collegiate athletics, eventually becoming the associate director of athletics at Miami in 1995. Watson’s primary mission at SVSU was rebuilding what in many ways had become a fragmented department. He noted while walking around Ryder Center during his first weeks on the job that coaches regularly would pass each other in the halls without acknowledging one another. He felt it important to get people within the department to talk to one another as the first step to create an atmosphere in which coaches, staff and athletes would
Mike Watson, who played four seasons in the NFL for the New Orleans Saints, was named athletic director in 2007.
