SAN DIEGO — San Diego is cementing its position as a major sports city with another prestigious honor awarded to San Diego State University athletics.
SDSU Athletic Director J.D. Wicker was given the 2023 Athletic Director of the Year Award by the Sports Business Journal during the news organization's 16th annual awards ceremony in New York City on Wednesday.
The award marks a year of historic milestones for SDSU Athletics and the San Diego County sports community at-large.
"Two weeks ago, we graduated a bunch of student athletes, and that’s how I know we’re succeeding. The softball team is in their first-ever Super Regional this weekend. That’s succeeding. We just announced MLS [expansion] in San Diego in the stadium San Diego State built for the community," Wicker said during his acceptance speech.
"There’s always something around the corner; you can get lost in all the things at times. But we’re doing a lot to make San Diego successful,” Wicker said.
Under Wicker's leadership, SDSU opened a new, state-of-the-art stadium built for world-class sports and entertainment. The Aztec Men's Basketball team also celebrated a historic NCAA March Madness run that led the team to the championship for the first time in program history.
"It’s not often that an athletic director has an opportunity to build a football stadium from the ground up, but that’s exactly what J.D. Wicker has been doing at San Diego State," Sports Business Journal said in a statement. "Wicker led a potentially thorny process to get Snapdragon Stadium to the finish line last season, bringing together the city of San Diego, the university, and the athletics department in a way that kept the $310 million project on budget and on time for a 2022 opening."
During a 2022 interview with CBS 8, Wicker said honoring the City of San Diego was a major part of Snapdragon Stadium's construction
"We pay homage to what was a phenomenal building for the City of San Diego and now we're ready for Snapdragon Stadium and Bashor Field and all that it is to serve the next hopefully 100 years for the City of San Diego," Wicker said.
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