Mark Majeski has been the athletic director at Linn-Benton since 2018. He was born in Wisconsin and moved to California at the age of 8. Growing up, Majeski had a passion for sports and had aspirations of being a coach.
He played basketball at Menlo college in Atherton, California, went on to finish a degree in communication at San Jose State University then was offered a position as Menlo’s Sports information director after coaching for the schools high school team. He stayed at Menlo until 2003 when he took a job at Willamette University as the schools athletic director where he worked until 2011 to 2018 when he started his own business advising schools athletic programs and directors.
He has seen a lot of success at LBCC in recent years including four NWAC championships in the last three years and is proud of the contributions he has made to the school’s four programs.
How did you get the job at LBCC?
through a normal hiring process. I'd been living up in Salem and was working in the world of college athletics I saw notice that LBCC was hiring an athletic director and it just caught my attention, I was curious so I just took a look at it and then as I looked a little bit thought ‘well maybe I'm ready to get back into the athletic director chair’ so I applied, went through the process and I was the one that they chose.
What was it that attracted you to the job?
One it was a different environment. I had been at the 4 year level my whole career, it was something where I wouldn't be moving. I can still commute from Salem and it was just a smaller program in terms of numbers of sports and athletes. At Willamette, we had 20 sports and over 500 athletes, this was four sports and a lot fewer. so there was something appealing about that.
What do you like most about being an AD?
I think that it's it's fun being around college students, college athletes in particular because they're coming into this place motivated, looking to move on and hungry. For LB in particular, these 2 years are very transformative for students. There's a lot that happens from the day they walk to the time they leave and move on to whatever their next step is.
What are the biggest challenges you deal with as AD?
I think there are always budget challenges. you never have enough money to do everything that you want to do, everything is increasingly more expensive and I think that's probably the biggest stressor that is a universal one. At LB, it's a very supportive campus and a supportive environment. there's an appreciation for athletics so there's no real challenges on that front it's simply kind of the material things that everybody deals with.
How do you overcome those?
There's a budget process each year and we've been successful at making a case for a certain things that we need and we report all that through the Dean to the Vice President and the Dean helps carry our message of needs but the other thing that we also depend on quite a bit is just fundraising so each team is bringing in quite a bit of money from their fundraising efforts. We run a golf tournament and hall of fame events that also provide additional resources to help fill those gaps that we have.
What contributions do you make to each team's success?
Very little when it comes down to it other than I'm charged with hiring and managing the coaches. I think we've got a great group of coaches and we've kind of built an internal culture here. Everyone's on the same page, we're trying to do things the right way for the right reasons, so setting that tone for what we're trying to do plays into their success I think. But I'm not calling the plays or anything like that.
What are your goals for LBCC?
I just want us to be consistently successful in all of our sports. Baseball has won a championship, volleyball has now won three Championships in a row. Basketball is up-and-coming, what we want to see in the shorter term is both basketball programs now to start seeing the same level of postseason success that the other two have enjoyed.
Any personal goals tied into the school's success?
Not necessarily, I think I just want this to become a model for what community college athletics can be in Oregon. I mean personally that would be important to me that we can serve as that model.
What are you most excited for?
Seeing some of that success. Both our basketball coaches are relatively new to LB. It's seeing where they're going to take their programs that's kind of exciting.
Any interests beyond athletics?
More sports and music. Our son is a musician and is going to film school, so we do a lot of things around music and that sort of thing but golf is kind of my only hobby. Being athletic director is sort of a lifestyle.
At a Glance:
Mark Majeski
Occupation: LBCC Athletic Director
Family: Married, one son
Education: BA In communications San Jose State University, Menlo College
Years at LBCC: 6Before teaching at LBCC: AD at Willamette University
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