As EC heads into a new semester, it finds a new Athletic Director at the helm.

Michael Fenison, who has coached the men’s basketball team for the past eight years, finds himself picking up where former AD, Rory Natividad, left off.

Natividad, who is now Dean of Physical Education at Rio Hondo College in Whittier, was the head athletic trainer at EC for four years before stepping in as AD for the past three.

While the AD position Fenison currently holds is temporary, he wishes to step in right where Natividad left off.

“(Natividad) left a tremendous foundation as far as athletics are concerned,” Fenison said.

Where Natividad left off, Fenison has stepped right into his place, according to football coach John Featherstone.

“(Fenison) has been great. He has been taking care of all of the fall programs,” Featherstone said. “He has not skipped a beat.”

During Featherstone’s tenure at EC, he knows the good an AD can do for the community college program.

“(Natividad) was very young and progressive, he saw the big picture,” Featherstone said. “He supported all of our programs, and even got EC started with the ‘Scholar-Baller’. He did a great job of getting the community involved.”

Scholar-Baller is a program that awards student-athletes excel in academics by achieving a 3.0 GPA.

When Featherstone talks about the “big picture,” he is mentioning that athletics at EC are all about the student-athlete. It is something both Natividad and Fenison are very adamant about.

“These young men and women have a great opportunity to write their own ticket here,” Featherstone said. “They have a chance to finish half of their degree at EC. The sky is the limit.”

Before taking the helm as men’s basketball coach, Fenison’s experience included more than just a community college; he held coaching positions at Loyola Marymount, Cal State L.A., University of California at Santa Barbara, Cal Poly Pomona and Mt. San Antonio College.

“Its great to see EC take a chance on a young coach,” Featherstone said.

Many sports programs across campus had a great working relationship with Natividad; they know that their relationship with Fenison will be the same.

“(Natividad) was very organized, he had a lot of new ideas along with a lot of professionalism,” Corey Stanbury, diving and water polo coach, said. “(Fenison) has shown that he is very interested in preserving athletic programs here as well as making sure the smaller athletic programs have what they need to grow.”