Following the October retirement of 20-year Sonoma State University veteran and Senior Director of Athletics Bill Fusco, the Seawolves officially welcomed their 10th athletic director, Gail D. Barksdale.

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Barksdale has spent the last seven years at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis where she most recently served as deputy director of athletics. Living in New York for most of her adult life, she has also been employed by professional sports organizations such as the New Jersey Nets and the New York Mets. Barksdale said her past experiences have led her down a path different from most.

“I’ve had an eclectic background compared to some of my counterparts,” she said.

Barksdale earned a bachelor’s of business administration degree in marketing and management from the University of Cincinnati and her master’s of science degree in sports management and athletic administration from Indiana University. Barksdale, never having played sports on the collegiate level, said she has always felt the competitiveness of sports could relay into her professional life.

 “I like the intensity, the stress, the exhilaration and the disappointment, and all that comes with athletics,” Barksdale said. “Ten seconds left in the game you can be at the height of the world, the other team hits a basket at the buzzer and you lose and you just get the life sucked out of you, and I just love that sensation.”

Despite working for two professional sports teams, Barksdale said she fell in love with collegiate athletics and found it’s where she could be her most successful.  “I love the 18 to 22-year-old demographic,” she said “You’re independent enough to where you are not in the high school or middle school league of sports,” Barksdale said, “but you’re still impressionable; I can still help you grow as people, as individuals, and have an impact on their lives and their community.” 

Barksdale said, “I think now I’ll be helping to grow the university, and if athletics can be a conduit to do that and helping to grow enrolment, helping to grow the diversity of the university population, I want to be able to be a vehicle to help the university to reach its own goals.” Seeing how the student body turns out for events excites her.

When it came to moving across the country to Rohnert Park, with family waiting for her in San Francisco, Barksdale said this move wasn’t out of the blue, rather “It was just a matter of timing and finding a job that I wanted in an area that I wanted, and it just came full circle into the perfect storm.”

 “I really get joy helping people become the best person they can become,” she said.