Portland State Magazine Winter 2016

24 pORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE winter 2016 “Coach Barnum gets it,” says PSU Provost Sona Andrews, who closely follows college sports. “He recognizes our student athletes are here first and foremost to get a degree.” SMALLER FOOTBALL programs like PSU’s get a hefty chunk of their budgets by agreeing to play early-season games against big programs. In essence, the teams agree to be fodder for a televised game in return for a big payday. When PSU lined up against the Pac-12’s Washington State on Sept. 5, Vegas odds-makers had them as 27-point underdogs. Barnum calculated his chances differently. He had a versatile and savvy quarterback, junior Alex Kuresa. His defense had shown strong promise in practice. When he told his team in the locker room that they could beat the Cougars, he believed it. Down 10-0 at halftime, he still believed it. When the Vikings staged an improbable come-from-behind win, Bar- num didn’t dance on the sidelines. Not his style. He strolled off the field, a look of satisfaction on his face. “I walk into the locker room and the coaches are all sitting there,” Barnum recalls in an aw-shucks drawl, like he’s telling the tale over coffee and eggs at a local diner. “They’re smiling like Cheshire cats. I look at ’em and say, ‘That was a big win, wasn’t it?’ They burst out laughing.” The victory against WSU—Portland State’s first ever against a Pac-12 team—has gone down as one of the most significant in Viks history. It thrust Barnum and PSU into the national sports limelight and helped propel the team into its first national playoffs in 15 years. Barnum was chosen Football Championship Subdivison National Coach of the Year as well as Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year. Sports Illustrated and ESPN wrote stories about Barnum and the Vikings. Even the PSU student paper, The Vanguard , ran a front-page article calling out “a new spirit of athletics.” “PSU is on the radar,” Barnum says. And that helps the entire school with recruitment, philanthropy and an overall sense that things are on the upswing, he says. “I’m not bragging, just sayin’ is all.” BARNUM DESCRIBES his upbringing as “mobile.” The son of a serviceman, he was born at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. and moved around the country. His father was stationed at the Capitol when John F. Kennedy was assassinated and was among the president’s pallbearers. That incident sparked an interest in history with Barnum, who got his bachelor’s degree at Eastern Washington Univer- sity, where he also played football, and a master’s in education at Western Washington. He coached high school football immediately after college, and then landed assistant jobs at Idaho State and Cornell universities, where he met his wife, Shawna, who was the assistant basketball coach. They have two teenage children. When Barnum was hired as an assistant at PSU six years ago, he was disappointed by how isolated the football program was from the rest of the campus. After he got the interim head coach job, he began making the rounds, dropping off Viking T-shirts and other gear with administrators, faculty, custodians— anyone he could think of. He also encouraged his team members to take part in campus activities. Then came the win against Washington State and a drubbing against North Texas, both Football Bowl Subdivision-level teams. The Vikings were on a roll. A much-circulated YouTube video captured the moment newly appointed athletics director Mark Rountree told the team Barnum had been given a five-year contract. First, wild cheering, then the chant: “Barn-y Ball! Barn-y Ball!” Barnum’s assistant coaches may not have received public shout-outs, but they were never far from his thoughts. He had written into his new contract that $15,000 of his performance bonuses go to them, and that’s just what they received after coaching the Viks to a 9-3 record. The change in the football program had resulted in full and noisy student sections at home games, and the players got noticed on campus. Murmurs about possibly ending football have ceased. “This is a hard job,” Barnum says. “It’s always, ‘what have you done for me lately?’ But you take a team like this, add some wins to it, and all of a sudden it’s magic.”  people’s champ Football coach Bruce Barnum talks to players during practice on Stott Field, which is diagonal from Montgomery Court.