In three seasons as the Director of Athletics at Long Beach State Vic Cegles has overhauled the 49er athletic department and provided a new path for the department to follow. 

Cegles, who was hired as the school’s 12th Director of Athletics in April 2006, has already made an impact in the athletic department’s ability to fundraise which is key to his goal of making Long Beach State, not only the premiere school in the Big West Conference, but a player on the national stage when it comes to both athletics and academics.

Since coming to Long Beach State, Cegles has restructured the annual establishing the 49er Athletic Club.  The centralized fundraising approach recognizes both sport specific gifts and scholarship contributions supporting all 18 intercollegiate teams.  The result has been dramatic with double-digit increases in the annual fund in fiscal years 2007 and 2008 and a strong 2009 campaign during troubled financial times.

In addition, Cegles continues on the five-year strategic plan focused on facility improvements, endowments and staff enhancements, while the athletic board he created has grown in 2009 providing guidance and leadership while actively participating in the athletics capital campaign seeking over $25 million to advance 49er athletics tradition.

Long Beach State has excelled both on the playing fields and in the classroom under Cegles’ leadership.  Academically, for the second consecutive year all NCAA sponsored teams at Long Beach State scored above the required 925 on the Academic Progress Rate (APR), the only California State University to do so, and 230 student athletes were recognized as “academic all-stars” by achieving a 3.0 grade point average for the fall or spring semesters.  Twenty-eight student athletes earned a 4.0 GPA and 52 earned a place on the President’s List with a 3.75 GPA or better, with 56 placing on the Dean’s List with a GPA between 3.5 and 3.74. 

Diversity in the coaching and administrative staff is a fundamental goal and the athletics department was recognized under Cegles’ leadership in 2008 as a national NCAA Diversity winner.

Competitively, in his three seasons at the helm of the Long Beach State athletic department, the 49ers have won 13 conference championships, with 15 LBSU teams advancing to the NCAA Tournament.

In 2008-09, Long Beach State won the Big West’s Commissioners Cup, awarded to the conference’s most successful athletic department.  LBSU teams won four league championships during the 2008-09 competition year with five teams making NCAA Tournament appearances. 

That success came on the heels of the 2007-08 season where Long Beach State had six teams win conference championships and six teams advance to the NCAA Tournament, a year after winning three league titles and making four NCAA Tournament appearances in 2006-07.

Cegles reorganized and refocused the entire administrative staff, but also negotiated new contracts for baseball coach Mike Weathers and volleyball coach Brian Gimmillaro while also hiring six new head coaches in softball, water polo, men’s and women’s golf and basketball coaches Dan Monson and Jody Wynn.

From 2003-06 Cegles was the associate athletics director at Temple University where he directed athletics fundraising, marketing and promotions, sponsorship and ticket sales while planning an athletics capital campaign with university development. 

Previously he was vice president of business development for Gaylord Sports Management in Scottsdale, Ariz., after serving 16 years at Arizona State University in athletic development and external affairs.  He ultimately served as the lead senior associate athletic director for external affairs in his final two years at ASU.

While at Arizona State he led the athletics department’s $25 million capital campaign to enhance facilities and endowments and, among other responsibilities, supervised baseball, men’s and women’s golf and women’s gymnastics.  He also was the assistant athletic director for development at Rutgers University for five years.

Cegles served as assistant basketball coach at Carnegie Mellon University and as an assistant basketball and baseball coach at West Virginia Wesleyan College and Indiana University of Pennsylvania.  He holds a degree in business administration from Bucknell and a master’s in counseling and student personnel services from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. 

Cegles and his wife, Bonnie, have two sons, Vic a recent graduate of Rutgers University and a baseball standout who currently works in the athletics department at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Casey who is a senior wide receiver on the Towson University football team.