By: Arielle Canchola
On Feb. 24, Wright College welcomed Gabriel Billings, as its new Athletic Director. Billings joined the Wright Rams following the departure of previous AD Maurice Culpepper.
Currently, Billings runs a four-sport department, which is different compared to the roles he had in the past. His administrative responsibilities as Director of Soccer Operations in the Glen Ellyn Park District assist him in his new role.
Billings is a couple of weeks in as AD, and his biggest priority for the Athletic Department is to expand the department beyond the Events Building and engage with the rest of the school.
Small steps, Billings suggested, would be trying to get the rest of the student body more information about fitness, nutrition, etc. He is aiming to fill in the lack of representation of the Athletic Department through the rest of campus.
AD Gabriel Billings working in his office, in the events building basement in room E026. Photo Credit: Arielle Canchola
Billings said, “The biggest one I look at is women’s soccer. We’ve got an intramural team, we’ve got a men’s soccer team, when can we get something like that going?”
With the sudden change in ADs during the ongoing basketball seasons, President Andres Oroz assured, there had been no unforeseen effects. He said, “Our team and our coaches have been very supportive” and that there hasn’t been anything they couldn’t solve and it’s been business as usual.
For roughly nine weeks without an Athletic Director, Dean of Student Services Romell Murden-Woldu was next in the line of succession and stepped in as Acting Athletic Director, describing it as a “learning experience”.
Weight room attendant and “utility knife” of the Athletic Department, Brian McKinney said, “We all had to work together in order to make this thing run, you know? So I think we did a good job at that.”
Zaporia Smith, the women’s basketball head coach, Carlos Thomas, the men’s basketball head coach, and McKinney all applied for the position. As applicants, it was not possible for them to be on the hiring committee as well.
Many staff members in the Athletic Department were surprised to hear that Culpepper would not be returning from break. Culpepper started at Wright in 2022 and had been with the CCC district for 38 years.
McKinney, the person who worked closest to Culpepper, said he was “shocked” and was “in the dark about everything” such as why Culpepper left and that Wright was searching for a new AD.
Thomas said “We trust the administration to do what they feel is in the best interests of the staff, the students. Just trusting that process was something that we had to do.”
Kayla Jones of the Lady Rams said, “They never told us. They just told us that he was just let go, they never gave us an explanation.” Jones expressed, Culpepper “felt like a dad” who you can go talk to about anything.
Culpepper’s legacy will be the relationship he cultivated with students and the impact he left on the Athletic Department during his 2.5-year tenure at Wright College. “We appreciate all the work that he did for us and helping us move this program forward, but it was time for a change and we supported that change and got on board,” Thomas said.
Thomas is looking forward to working with Billings to “fill in the gaps in our Athletic Department” and to provide players with the “resources they need to be the best athletes and students they can be.”
The current next steps on Billings’ agenda will be searching for a new soccer coach for the men’s team as well as preparing the department for fall 2025 sports, which will be women’s volleyball and men’s soccer beginning preseason in August 2025.
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