By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
It started with a plane ride. Twenty-one years ago, then Fort Hays State University President Ed Hammond offered the director of athletics position to Great Bend native Curtis Hammeke. The problem was, Hammeke had just moved his family twice in two years. Hammond sold the job by offering to pick up Hammeke and the family on the plane. Last week, Hammeke announced he was retiring from the role in June.
"Who ever knows if there's a right time for a such a thing," he said. "We love Fort Hays State. It's been our whole life, but I think it's time to move toward a new chapter in our lives."
Hammeke was a baseball player at FHSU in the mid-1980s and coached the Tiger baseball team from 1991-96. He returned home to work as activities director at Great Bend High School, then took the AD job at Butler Community College from 1998-2003. He spent one year in that role at Newman University in Wichita before getting the call from Hammond. He had to convince his wife, Annette, that another move was a good idea.
"I told Annette if I lose my job at Fort Hays, I'm going to work at McDonald's," he joked, "but we're not going to move again."
In Hammeke's 21 years at FHSU, the school has added three new sports: men's and women's soccer and women's wrestling. His athletic department has also seen numerous facility upgrades. Five members of FHSU's Athletic Administration Staff have worked in the department for at least 11 years, and five head coaches have tenures of at least a decade under Hammeke. Three of those five coaches have spent at least 20 years coaching at the school. Hammeke said making coaching changes has been the most difficult part of the job.
READ MORE: Hammeke announces retirement set for June 2025
"I think a lot of times, people who are critical of administrative positions haven't been in one," he said. "When someone loses their job, you think about the one who lost their job but you don't spend much time thinking about the person who asked them to not have their job. That can be very, very hard and has certainly been the worst thing of my profession in all these years.
"We're a Division II level. What people see on TV and the media with multi-year contracts and millions of dollars in contracts, that's not what we're dealing with. We're dealing with people with kids and living month to month on salaries that are like real people."
On that note, Hammeke gives great credit to the staffers and coaches who have worked around him.
"I'm so proud of the people I've had the chance to work with who have made it all go," he said. "Quite frankly, anything we have accomplished is the result of having good people around us."
Projects continue around the FHSU campus. The football field at Lewis Field will be re-turfed this spring and the old track at the facility will also be covered with turf. Construction of the athletic complex in the south end zone of Lewis Field is expected to be completed in November.