{"id":4002,"date":"2019-10-25T22:08:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-26T02:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=4002"},"modified":"2019-10-25T22:08:35","modified_gmt":"2019-10-26T02:08:35","slug":"stanley-cromartie-joins-polk-state-as-director-of-athletics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/10\/25\/stanley-cromartie-joins-polk-state-as-director-of-athletics\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanley Cromartie joins Polk State as director of athletics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Polk State College has named Stanley Cromartie as its new director of athletics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Stanley Cromartie. Winter Haven, Fla. Oct. 25, 2019. (Photo by Tom Hagerty, Polk State.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cromartie comes to Polk State from Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, where he served as associate athletic director and athletic director since 2010. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mission is to be in line with Polk State\u2019s mission, and my vision is to help grow this department grow where it needs to grow,\u201d he says.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd we want to be more visible in the community and to increase funding for athletic programs.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cromartie also coached basketball at South Carolina State University, Seminole State College, and Valencia State College and played basketball at Manatee Community College. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That experience, he says, makes him an ideal fit at Polk State. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the biggest thing is I\u2019m a product of the state college system, so when this position became available, I thought it would be a great fit for me.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know the dynamics of state college athletics and thought it would be an easy transition for me. I came in here and hit the ground running.  I have good relationships with of the athletic directors at other state and community colleges, and I want to help build on the success we\u2019ve had here. \u201c <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key to that success, he says, is Polk State\u2019s coaches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur strength is we have great coaches. I just want to piggyback on what they\u2019re doing and help them get to the next level.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raising additional funds can play a part inmoving to that next level.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA weak area for us, as it is for all state colleges, is funding,\u201d says Cromartie. \u201cFundraising is what I call \u2018friendraising.\u2019 You have to make friends to raise funds. My first objective is community outreach, where I can go out, get to know more people in the community, and then make recommendations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited and I want to dive in and do a lot of things, but I have to kind of pump my brakes and look at the landscape first.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another goal is to get students and the community more involved in Polk State athletics.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to know who we are and where we are,\u201d he says. \u201cMost of our students go home or go to work after classes. They either don\u2019t want to or can\u2019t come back for a ballgame. And that happens at all state colleges.  But there are some things we can start with, like having all sports support each other, getting student government more involved, but it\u2019s a hard sell when it comes down to getting people to come out and support our teams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can own Winter Haven. It\u2019s my job to get out and knock on doors and make people believe in us. That\u2019s how we\u2019ll get to the next level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very blessed and very fortunate to be here at this time.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cromartie is a member of the State College of Florida Athletics Hall of Fame (2015) and the Florida State College Activities Association Hall of Fame (2018). He earned a master\u2019s degree in coaching and athletic administration from Concordia University and a bachelor\u2019s degree in business administration from Edward Waters College <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polk State College has named Stanley Cromartie as its new director of athletics.  Cromartie comes to Polk State from Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, where he served as associate athletic director and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"31","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polk-state-college-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}