The biggest challenge facing Bruggeman — and every other college AD — is tough economic times.

“It sounds like the budgets are stable for at least one more year,” he said. “Coming from Arizona where the budget is the worst in the country – even worse than California at this point — they are down 30 percent. We’ve had to think outside the box. We were thinking of things, without trying to cut ... how can we compensate for the losses from the cuts by the state, cuts from the president. We came up with 64 revenue-generating ideas and we’re using about 11 right now. We have a long way to go before we have to get to cutting.

“Thinking outside the box requires a lot more work and a lot more people (to become involved). But if the choices are that or we have less staff or we don’t have sports, I think the obvious thing is let’s look at what can we do to not cut but to maintain and grow.”