Glendale, Ariz.- Over the last few days the Golden State Athletic Conference announced their trio of administrative winners and Arizona Christian University Athletics swept the honors. Dr. Peter Dryer (Athletic Director), Travis Armstrong (Athletic Trainer), and Tim Gooszen (Sports Information Director) were voted by their GSAC peers as the best of the 2022-23 athletic year.
Over the course of the 2022-23 athletic year, the Firestorm claimed three regular season championships on their way to their highest ever finish in the GSAC All Sports Award standings. Dr. Dryer provides leadership for all 24 ACU varsity teams and several club programs. Focusing everyone on their leadership capability, Dr. Dryer leads by focusing on the success of others at the forefront. On the GSAC front, Dryer served as the Women's Soccer liaison and on the conduct & ethics, awards, and schedule parameters committees.
Dr. Dryer joined the ACU Athletics department as the Assistant Athletic Director of Game Operations in the spring of 2015 before quickly moving up to the Associate AD level. In the spring of 2019, Dr. Dryer was named the Director of Athletics. In addition to spearheading the athletics department, Dr. Dryer added the title of Dean of Students in the fall of 2021.
"The Arizona Christian University community is very excited to see Dr. Peter Dryer be recognized as the GSAC AD of the Year," stated Associate Athletic Director Keith Baker. "Dr. Dryer is committed to doing things the right way. He has consistently stepped up to serve ACU students and staff. He takes our GSAC membership seriously and leads with true concern for others. ACU is grateful for all that he does for our University and the GSAC."
Armstrong and his team of athletic trainers did their best to keep about the 750 athletes at Arizona Christian healthy or returned to action as quickly possible. Even while usually pulling double duty (athletic training and game ops) at games, the fan experience continues to grow for fans in attendance or watching online under the watchful eye of Armstrong.
Armstrong arrived at Arizona Christian as the Director of Sports Medicine in July 2018. In the fall of 2021, Armstrong added the role of Director of Game Operations and Athletic Facilities. Since Arizona Christian moved to Glendale during the summer of 2019, Armstrong has been one of the key figures in facility space conversion for athletic purposes like finding ways to build out team locker rooms and painting or hanging banners.
"Travis is one of the more selfless people around and does not know the words no or cannot- just okay let's figure another way and/or let me see what I can do," commented Assistant Athletic Director Tim Gooszen. "He is the master of finding bargain deals to make the most of his athletic training and game ops budgets. From his passion for getting athletes back in competition as quickly as possible to using a "band aid" to fix a broken football charter bus to creating a one-of-a-kind scoreboard cart and ball/strike/out counter for softball, his everyone else first attitude is amazing."
For Gooszen, the 2022-23 athletic year was season 16 in college sports information. On the NAIA national front, he served on the national stats committee. He aided the GSAC by coordinating and creating the stats for Men's and Women's Tennis during the season. In addition to serving as the SID onsite for the GSAC tennis championships, Gooszen was the primary play-by-play voice of the GSAC softball championships. Over the 2022-23 campaign at ACU, Gooszen oversaw the complete relaunch/rebranding of the ACU Athletic website acufirestorm.com, produced the weekly ACU coaches show called the Storm Report, confirmed the accuracy of the stats for the ACU teams, and coordinated with the GSAC the officials needed for the Firestorm athletic events.
In October 2015, Gooszen was named the Sports Information Director at Arizona Christian. He was promoted to Assistant Athletic Director of Athletic Communication in the summer of 2021.
Dr. Dryer- Director of Athletics- offered these thoughts about Gooszen, "We are very excited for Tim to be recognized as the GSAC SID of the Year! Tim does quality work and goes the extra mile to ensure things are done the right way. His strong work ethic and determination are two of the many valued qualities that make him such a positive contributing member of our team. We are grateful for Tim and all he does for ACU and the GSAC!"
Gentlemen- Congratulations on winning the "of the Year" awards.
