Diana Sabau on 90 days in office
Vice president and athletics director Diana Sabau assumed her position on Aug. 21, 2023 after the new hire was announced on Aug. 7. In an interview with The Utah Statesman when Sabau was first hired, she expressed the importance of learning before acting.
“Before I change anything, I need to listen and learn. There will be a time, hopefully within the first 30, 60, or 90 days, that I’ve listened and learned from our staff, from my colleagues on campus, from students, from student-athletes and from people in the community, so that I can determine what Utah State Athletics needs to keep doing,” she said.
Now, 90 days and a full semester of sports later, Sabau is creating change for USU Athletics.
Q: What are your initial thoughts on your first semester at Utah State?
A: “It has been absolutely fabulous,” Sabau said. “The USU community, and Logan especially, is really kind, really welcoming, and really anxious to share with me their Aggie pride. That is really, really important to me. As I started to run into our fall seasons of sports, I was so overwhelmed with the community support. The HURD is obviously spectacular and how they come out in just hundreds of thousands for games. And so it really showed me quickly that athletics and sports in the community is a cornerstone of pride, and just really a fellowship.”
Q: What has it been like working with coaches and seeing the success they’re having?
A: “I’m really thankful that we have hired good teachers and good leaders. No one is with our student-athletes more than our coaches and our coaching staff, helping get to that next level,” Sabau said. “It’s really important as part of our goals in athletics now with my leadership is to keep student-athletes here at Utah State, keep them out of the transfer portal. It’s making sure that we have enough resources for our student-athletes and our programs to be successful.”
“Something I’m more happy about than winning is our student-athlete’s GPA and our graduation success rate. It’s one of the highest in the Mountain West. And then also really what we’ve done in the community. We’ve done more community service this year through our Student-Athlete Advisory Council than we’ve done since before COVID. I always want to challenge people and push them a little bit farther past their comfort zone, and our student-athletes have really responded,” she said.
Q: What has it been like working with the Blue A Collective, and how has that played into those players staying? What has contributed to athletes staying at USU?
A: “The Blue A Collective is something that everyone is still trying to get their arms around. If someone doesn’t like it here, they can go and transfer and play immediately, which used to not happen. So this whole transfer portal is sucking our student-athletes away from what we’re trying to provide because they think it is perhaps better, bigger, greener grass somewhere else. We had a kickoff event in September for the collective, and now we’re at a good point with donations. But it’s really important, I think, for the community and for others to understand that if we want to keep winning, and be on the trajectory of success that Utah State has been known for and historically proud of, we need that collective to keep growing because if we don’t, our student-athletes will be leaving,” she said.
“Utah State has never had an Alston plan. We’ve been actively fundraising and trying to really make sure that we can provide Alston money. If you have that money — which is not taxable to the student-athlete, whereas collective money is taxable — hopefully, that helps more realize the value of staying here as well,” Sabau said. “We’re just a little bit behind, and we have to take some bold steps to catch up.”
Q: What difference does it make that they’re not just making money because they’re an athlete, but they’re giving back to the community in exchange for it?
A: “That was a part of the cornerstone as we were all growing this new collective concept. It was very important for us to grow our presence in the community. It wasn’t just a form of payment, but we were also growing young men and women and producing more soft skills for them to realize the value of different services within the community. If you know and you care and you’re close to something, you exponentially will want to protect it and want to invest in it and want it to be really, really good. As part of this collective, we’re teaching the value of that, and maybe showing them something that they’ve never been exposed to, and hopefully, it grows who they are as an individual,” she said.
Q: What changes have you implemented or are you beginning to implement because of that learning time?
A: “We are out there trying to grow our base in foundational giving, in our donors and in our investments to athletics. We have just started two new funds. One is for the student-athlete experience, and that will cover travel, nutrition, investments in mental health and investments in leadership. We’re a Division I institution, but we’re working with some outdated resources. The other fund is really for technology and innovation so that we can invest in more wearables for our student-athletes, that we can make sure that our scoreboards are functioning and are really state-of-the-art properties. We’re also taking a good look at our student-athlete’s health and wellness. Just really having a holistic overview of that is going to be really important as we move forward,” she said.
Q: What are you looking forward to for the rest of the school year, and what does the future hold for you at Utah State?
A: “I’m super positive about the future. I feel blessed to be working with a president and vice president staff at Utah State that has high aspirations and brings the question every day of ‘What can we do to be better?’ I love that type of energy and reaching past your comfort zone. I think that’s really important for all of us, to be relevant and current, so that makes me really excited for the future,” she said. “I want to be here for a long time. I want to invest in the community. I’d love to be maybe on some community boards or start getting to know more community leaders and kind of spreading past just my Utah State University involvement. Logan to me is so charming. It has so much to offer. I’m really proud to be here.”
“I’m just really excited to squeeze the most out of it, to continue to evolve our department, continue to achieve and continue to be this bright light in the community,” Sabau said. “When the A turns blue, I want people to know that we won, but I also want them to be really proud of what athletics represents in the community, and how we’re moving it all forward.”