Les Forsythe is the man tasked with overseeing the facility operations in WKU’s Diddle Arena. The Owensboro native also assists with operations at Smith Stadium. Forsythe started work at WKU as a graduate assistant in the fall of 2005 and became full-time in May of 2007.

Q: What do you do on a day-to-day basis?

Day-to-day basis is overseeing all the facility operations in Diddle Arena, which, you know, not only do we have our game basketball court and then the two practice gyms, but we’ve also got our weight room. For sports, it’s men and women’s basketball, volleyball, swimming, golf, most of the athletic administration offices are in this building. It’s taking care of our student athletes’ locker rooms and also the offices that are in the building as well.

Q: How did you get into this position?

I came here for graduate school and was able to work in this office as a graduate assistant whenever I was taking grad classes. Right before I graduated from graduate school, a position opened up in here, and I was fortunate to apply and get the position when it became vacant.

Q: What goes into preparing the facilities that you oversee?

Well, we have to take care of regular day-to-day maintenance, which can be something as simple as a light out in someone’s office or there’s a bulb burn out in the video board in Diddle. Or on basketball game day, it’s as detailed as setting out the signs for our sponsors, setting up the ticket area where people can buy tickets. The bench chairs — you know, everything that you see on game day — our office is responsible for coordinating and getting that set up.

Q: How would someone interested in being a facility coordinator go about doing that?

Try to get a job working in athletics.  An entry-level job as a student is a good way to start to help build your resume.  

WKU has a good sport administration program.  Kids should look into getting a degree in that from here. The way the market is going now, most even entry-level jobs require a master’s degree, so getting that in sports administration or even facility management would be good.

Q: How do WKU’s facilities stack up with other schools in the Sun Belt Conference?

We’re always going to pride ourselves on being the flagship institution in the Sun Belt Conference as it pertains to facilities.

We want to make sure our facilities are up to date and clean… We only open up for six home football games a year, so it gets a lot of people on this campus that don’t come on a day-to-day basis.

When they come into our facility, it needs to be state of the art, it needs to be clean, it needs to be kept up in order.  That’s always a goal of ours — to be top of the line in the Sun Belt Conference when it comes to facilities.