Rachel Kalac works hard to provide best possible experience for Raider teams

Andrea Bell
Staff Writer

The athletic department works hard to make sure their programs are properly funded, and that the athletes are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

A lot of work goes into making games a reality for the Raiders.

But who is behind all this? Duncan Stevenson, Director of athletics, steps up and helps with a lot of it, but there is another person behind the scenes who makes all the athletic events possible, and she is Rachel Kalac.

Once a Raider herself, Kalac played softball of the team during the 2005 and 2006 seasons. Before this however, Kalac was going on to play for Green River Community College, but didn’t enjoy how the program was run because it lacked the competitiveness she was looking for.

After a quarter at TCC, she finally decided to come play for Pierce’s team.

“I didn’t really want to play for the Raiders at first” Kalac explained.

“The program wasn’t the best and they still used Western State Hospital’s field.” Kalac said.

But after some persuasion from some friends Kalac decided to play for the Raider team.

At the time, the team wasn’t the best because they were still growing as a program.

But most of all they didn’t have any titles under their belt.

“I liked that I was on the team for the transition between no play off experience, and the team making it to the play offs” Kalac explained.

From the two year Kalac transferred to Washington State University to study Sports Management, she returned to Pierce to intern for the position.

She completed her degree and stepped up to take the job after her superior stepped down to take care of their baby.

Kalac then became the full time Program Coordinator.

The job of the program coordinator is to plan out events and fund-raiser. She works with the teams to make sure everything is how it should be running and have them help out with the fund-raiser.

Although it is a lot of paper pushing Kalac enjoys her jobs and working with the teams to help create a better program for them.

Kalac explain that baseball and softball seasons are her favorite to work with because she still holds a connection with them from her time playing as a Raider.

Kalac can be found at all the Raider baseball home games cheering on her team.