Mark Majeski was hired as Linn-Benton Community College’s director of athletics in July of 2018. Since then, the LB athletic program has won a total of five NWAC championships. In the 2023-24 school year, all four of the college’s sports teams had winning records, three made the playoffs, and two, volleyball and baseball, were crowned NWAC champions.
The day after Beaks baseball won their second title in the last three years, Majeski sat down with The Commuter to talk about his role as director and what has made the athletics program so successful during his time at Linn-Benton.
Editor’s note: this transcript was lightly edited for length and clarity.
How did you first get involved in college athletics, and what led you to Linn-Benton?
Well, long story short, I played basketball in college. I always thought I wanted to coach. But after I graduated, I felt like I had to get a real job in the real world, and I wasn’t able to coach and I was getting frustrated. I had an opportunity to go back to my alma mater which is Menlo College down in the Bay Area for a very part-time job, and I jumped at the chance just to get in.
I was able to do some coaching at the high school level, but at some point, I had to decide: did I want to be a coach or did I want to earn a living? And so I chose to earn a living and that got me down the administrative route and that led to my career in college athletics over the last 25-plus years.
I was at Willamette University for 11 years as the athletic director, and then left there in 2011. And I was just doing some consulting in college athletics. I never anticipated going back to being an athletic director again, but I saw the LB job open up and I was missing being an athletic director at the time. I didn’t anticipate that. And so I explored this opportunity and found out that this is really a place where a lot of good stuff happens. And so I went through the process and I’m thrilled that it worked out because I’m really enjoying myself.
What are your day to day responsibilities as an athletic director?
I mean, it’s varied and it covers a wide area at this level, small college athletics. You know, you have to wear many hats, do lots of different things. We don’t have a large staff like they do across the river in Corvallis. So, I mean, it’s really managing the budget, it’s managing the people. It’s trying to raise some money where we need to have some money raised.
But it’s really more of a coordination-type role. A leadership role, but really providing support that the teams need in order to be successful. And so I view my role as trying to provide the coaches with the things that they and their programs need so they can worry about recruiting and coaching their kids.
Is there an aspect of your job that might surprise people?
I empty the garbage cans sometimes at the baseball games or around here. I might be filling in for a few minutes selling tickets at the basketball games, I mean, I’ve been on the PA, I’ve run the cameras for our live stream. I mean, there’s a lot that goes into it. I don’t do that all the time. We try to hire a lot of students, but those are some things that do come into play.
Outside of LB, what do you like to do?
I play golf. That’s about my only. We still live up in Salem, so I’m close. But I’m still a little bit removed from this community. We have a son that’s a freshman in college, just finished first year, so we’re following his career. He’s a musician and he’s in film school. So we’re kind of busy with what’s going to come next with him.
Linn-Benton has four sports. Two won NWAC championships this school year. What’s it like seeing this athletic program thriving like it is right now?
It’s exciting and it’s fun. And I think it’s because that’s what the potential is, right? It comes down to the people. We’ve got great coaches that are going out and recruiting great kids, kids that want to be here, that want to work hard, that they’re here for the right reasons. Doing it the right way. They’re good students. They’re working hard outside of the classroom to get better. They get their job done in the classroom. So, to see that type of work ethic across all of our programs, and then to see it pay off with winning some championships, it’s pretty special.
And you know, to have two of the four programs win it, I mean, that’s a pretty good percentage. So, we’re pleased that that’s happened. The same thing happened back in the 2021-22 school year. Where volleyball won in the fall, and then that spring, baseball won the championship, too. So, two years ago, we had two championships. It is pretty cool.
But yeah, it’s great to see how excited the student athletes are. Because I think what comes across is that they get the sense of, ‘Wow, it’s all worth it.’ All the hard work is worth it and it feels so good to know that you’ve worked hard at something and then you’ve achieved.
A throughline in all of that is the incredible head coaches this program has. What are the things that you’re looking for when you go to hire a coach for LB?
Well, I think in a nutshell, it’s doing things the right way for the right reasons. If you ask any of our coaches, and certainly this was kind of the theme, the focus isn’t on winning the championship, right? That’s a result of everything else that goes into building a good, strong program, because there are so many things that have to happen to win a championship.
Everything has to go right, things have to happen, but sometimes you can be the best team and you don’t win the championship, right? But it’s everything that goes into that season, and hard work during the offseason. And so I think coaches that understand that, sure, we enjoy winning the championships; that’s an awesome feeling. But that’s not where we focus.
We focus on everything that happens before that, and I think we’ve got a group of coaches that really understand that. Again, they know that the student athletes are going to get so much more out of the process than just that championship, and I think that’s a key thing and I think we’ve got a group of coaches that really get that.
Linn-Benton will be losing a lot of sophomores this summer. What has that class meant to this program, and what has it been like to see some all-time talents pass through such as Grace Boeder, T.J. Zimmermann, just to name a few?
They’ve just been, again, phenomenal athletes. They’ve been recognized for their athletic achievements, but they’re even better people. They really are.
You mentioned two of them, T.J. and Gracie. They are great students, great human beings. They’re just nice people that work hard on and off the court and really get it done. And we’ve got the same thing in our women’s basketball program and in our baseball program. They’re just good people. So I think that what they’ve done – and this was an interesting group, because this is a group whose high school careers were wacky because COVID. I mean, you haven’t had a normal high school experience or college, and so some of these kids didn’t have a great normal high school experience. They’ve come here as we’re coming out of COVID and been able to get things back to normal.
And so I think that coming out of COVID, this group of sophomores have really reinforced what we’re trying to do here, which is don’t worry about the distractions – stay focused, work hard, and good things will happen, on and off the court. And that’s proven to be true. So this group of sophomores is special in that sense. I think they’ve really reinforced and set the bar at a really high level that people look up to.
With Linn-Benton being a two-year college, how do you deal with the heavy turnover rate on rosters each season?
For me, the hardest thing is the revolving door every couple of years. Learning everybody’s name, you know, ‘Who are you?’ to the group of new ones coming in. But for the coaches, it’s really replenishing the rosters and so it is hard because you’ve got to be prepared to do that. It’s different than at the four year level, where you have them for twice as long.
But I think coaches, they adjust, they adapt, and they understand that. And then baseball in particular, sometimes we have kids for just a year. We’ve got two freshmen that are moving on this year [pitchers Ethan Kleinschmit and Gabe Brabec], because they’re going to play at the four year level. Because that’s the right thing for them to do. But you know, every two years you’ve got at least half of a roster change.
And so, the challenge there is sustaining a culture from one group to the next. I think that’s where our programs have really excelled: baseball in particular, volleyball, especially. It’s just year after year, the kids are coming – and the coaches are recruiting. They know what they’re getting. They’re looking for a particular type of student athlete, but then they get here and the rising sophomores have embraced the culture and then that gets passed down to the incoming freshmen. And so once you get to the level where you’ve established a culture, it starts to build on itself. And so it’s not as dramatic of a shift as you might think, even though the faces are changing.
Do you have a favorite memory during your time here at LB?
You know, at this point, I would say it would have been three years ago when our volleyball program won their first championship, and [head coach Jayme Frazier], it was her first championship. She had been here 27 years and had gotten close a few times, but to be there and see her reaction when they actually won it for the first time, that was a pretty special moment for her because she had been at it so long, and then finally got over it. And now she hasn’t let up one bit [laughs]. Three in a row!
So, that was a pretty special memory because volleyball had never done it. Now, it’s great when [baseball head coach Andy Peterson] won his first one two years ago, but baseball had won two championships years ago. So for volleyball, to be the first women’s sport to win a championship here, it was just a cool memory.
What’s on the horizon for LB athletics – any big announcements or events to preview?
No, no big announcements. I mean, we have our next Hall of Fame class coming in the fall. Our fourth class, just some phenomenal people and teams that are being inducted. I think that the thing that is always talked about is, are we adding sports or not? I think that is yet to be determined. I think that there is a desire, there’s a place for it, but we’ve got to do it the right way and in a way that makes sense – that’s right for the college. That we can have things in place to make sure the programs will succeed. That the programs will be on par with the other programs that we have.
There’s a lot that goes into that and a lot of it has to do with budget climate. I mean, it’s been a tough couple of years for the college, budget-wise, and so I don’t know if it would be the right thing to roll out a sport or two within that budget climate. So, the plans and the discussions are taking place. There are plans there that, when we’re ready, we probably know where we would go. But you know, we’ve got to wait and see and make sure the timing is right.
Is there anything else that you’d like to add for our readers?
I think that it’s a great time to be a Roadrunner, and we just hope that people can fully embrace the pride that they should have in the institution. This is one small group of folks that is representing the whole college, but really, this is one way that we can get LBCC’s name as a college out there and represent all the good things that happen here.
