Serge Clement is now an assistant coach at Le Moyne:
Syracuse, N.Y. – Le Moyne College head men's basketball coach Nate Champion '14 has added Serge Clement as an assistant coach.
lemoynedolphins.com
Katie Pate, who worked at Mason Athletics for fundraising, is now at Appalachian State
Seems she left on good terms and went back to App State on her own accord.
However, I really don't know what to make of her leaving. Seems in this job with Mason she had a resource rich area to really build something to take the reigns and move the needle for Mason athletics fundraising and donor relationship building. From my interactions with her she was always open for dialogue in ideas and ways to bring in donors and major corporate donors and was actually putting plans in place. I believe she was a major factor in re-organizing the season ticket pricing plans and hospitality rooms.
Seems she has bounced around a lot in her career which is common in this industry. When she was at App State the first time she did very well (clip from Mason's release on her hiring back in December 2023) - "Most recently, Pate served as the Associate Athletics Director for Development/Major Gifts at Appalachian State University. In two years, Pate played a significant role on the major gift development team to realize $15M in fiscal support. In 2022-23, nearly 61% of all major gifts were from new prospects. Her major gift portfolio eclipsed $4.85M in Pate's two years with the Mountaineers. Spearheading a capital project for renovating the men's and women's basketball office suites, Pate brought in $650K in a short three-month span."
Are there any metrics to show what she brought in to Mason during her limited year and half here?
Thinking she feels like a bigger fish in a smaller pond at App State and better aligned for career success. Being in the DMV you are a small fish in a big pond - especially in this line of work.
With that... it's disappointing that we have to find another major hire to lead these efforts in such a short time and crazy time in college athletics - with the raise in ticketing fees, NIL, Patriot club growth, etc.
We need someone who has ties to the DMV region for this role moving forward. Someone who knows this area and has contacts in the corporate world- we have to seriously put greater emphasis into getting the right people in here who are in charge of fundraising, donor ship, etc. and who want to be here. I would even look at making this a contract position - making this a 3 or 4 year contract and then evaluating their track record after - either move on or give them a raise and another contract. It's tough if people come in and keep leaving after 2 years or get let go in 2 years or under. 3-4 years is a good amount of time to get a year under your belt to put in place an action plan to go execute with your team in place for the remaining years.
But knowing Mason's track record.... it will be rinse and repeat as they will probably bring in someone who is in their salary range or cheaper to do the job, and probably no rush or timetable since they used a committee last time to find and evaluate candidates.
