Aztec Boosters Plan Meeting to Figure Out What’s Going On

Tom Ables relied on an anecdote to explain why Aztec boosters have called a meeting for Wednesday night.

“To those guys (members of the athletic department), this is just a job. To us, this is important.”

At Wednesday’s 5:30 meeting at the Sports Arena TraveLodge, Aztec boosters will have an opportunity to discuss what is going on in their athletic department. Or at least to try and figure out what is going on.

“I have a lot of donors asking me what’s going on and I don’t know what to tell them,” booster Salvadore Freitas said. “People are holding off from sending in their pledges until they know what’s going on. They don’t want to support a program that is negative.”

Bob McCray, the president of the Aztec Athletic Foundation, said his organization has no official role in setting up the meeting or in dealing with the controversy at SDSU. But he is quite interested in both.

“Our function is to raise funds and support the athletic program,” McCray said. “The last two years, we raised more money than we ever have in the past. I don’t know if this will be a detriment.”

Freitas said the purpose of the meeting is not to “hold a kangaroo court where we’re going to hang someone.” Rather, it is a chance to discuss what action the boosters might take. Freitas said the boosters will consider writing a letter to the administration.

“But Dr. Day will make his decision, one way or the other,” Freitas said.

Freitas has followed the SDSU football and basketball teams since 1957, and he has a lot of opinions on Aztec athletics: “I think Mary (Hill) went to the defense of Smokey (Gaines) . . . If you want to have a Division 1 athletic program, you should admit any student with a 2.0 grade-point average. SDSU shouldn’t put themselves above that. This way, we’ll put people in the stands and have a winning program. It’s a business, isn’t it?”