Scheduling not too difficult for Jacobsen

OREM — Mike Jacobsen has been the athletic director at Utah Valley State for the past 22 years. His job dictates that he is the man at the helm of Utah Valley's transition from the junior college ranks to playing in Division I. Earlier this week, Jacobsen took some time to sit down and answer questions for the Deseret Morning News.

DMN: What are some of the challenges you face in scheduling games with other schools?

JACOBSEN: Everybody told us that scheduling was going to be the hardest thing (about Division I), but it's not. The thing where it's starting to get a little tougher is with my men's basketball team — they've been so successful that people don't want to play us, because if they play us, they're going to play us because they want to win. If they're going to pay us money to play us, they for sure want to win. People want a patsy when they're playing us.

I think one thing we've got to be really careful of is that it's easy for us to get caught up in playing big-name schools. At the same time, we've got to play enough schools where we know that we have a good chance of winning, too, because you've got to give the kids confidence. You've got to let them believe in themselves. You can play all the big names you want, but if you're getting your can kicked, it's not doing you any good. And so we've got to have a balance between the teams that have good name recognition and on the other hand the teams that going in you know you have at least a 50/50 chance to win it.

DMN: The Utah Valley State student body president got elected on a platform aimed at bringing football to UVSC. Does what the student body president wants have an effect on what really happens?

JACOBSEN: I've worked with 22 different student body presidents over the years, and all but three or four of them have been very, very supportive of athletics. Many of them have helped us to improve our financial base by the raising of student fees. Basically, what we've put together is a five-year conference affiliation plan where we're going to increase student fees each year over the next five years, and that will make us more attractive for a conference.

If starting football is what we need to do to be more attractive to a conference, we're going to use this money to do that. If starting any other sport is what we need to do to get into a conference, then we're going to do that. Like I've said, we've put together a conference affiliation fee that is going to help us find a conference that is a good match for us and good for them as well.

DMN: Do you know how much those increased student fees are going to raise for your programs?