A “lifelong” fan takes over as Padres director of communications

Morgan M. Hurley | Downtown Editor

When native San Diegan David Holtzman was 4 years old, he could recite the starting lineup of the San Diego Padres the way their announcer did it over the public address system. At 5, he got a few lessons on how to swing a bat from none other than Tony Gwynn at the San Diego School of Baseball.

“From the [first] moment I remember I was a Padres fan,” he said.

Fast-forward to just last month, when that same Padres fan – hooked at a very young age – took over as director of communications for the ballclub. He’s certainly come full circle, but it was far from a direct line getting there.

Raised in El Cajon as the youngest of three “sports fanatic” boys, baseball was a huge part of Hotlzman’s life. When the fervent young fan wasn’t attending Padres games or watching them on television, he played Little League and spent some time with his high school team at Valhalla before graduating in 1996 and setting his sights on a biology degree at the University of Kansas.

A long way from the Jack Murphy Stadium but with the Padres never far from his mind, Holtzman managed to make it back home often, landing a job at Jack Murphy in the scoreboard department one year, later doing an internship with the Holiday Bowl, and even returning for the 1998 World Series game. But it was the decision to switch his undergrad degree to sports management and tack on a graduate program in sports administration that ensured the path he was on would make a career out of his first love.

It just wouldn’t be in San Diego.

A seasonal internship in 2004 with the Kansas City Royals turned into a full time coordinator position, and by 2007, Holtzman had moved up to director of communications, settled in and was starting a family. “I was really fond of the city, the fans, a lot of the players and the organization,” he said.

Leaving the Royals after nearly 10 years was tough, but the thought of working for his hometown team was definitely a dream come true.

“I never thought I’d possibly have the chance to come back home, at least and work in the capacity I have been working in,” he said. “So it was a natural fit for me.”

Surprisingly, Holtzman said the decision still wasn’t an automatic one.

“Although this is my dream job, I loved Kansas City and I would not have left unless it was not the exact right position,” he said. “I went into my interview process being interested, but knowing that if it wasn’t the right fit organizationally, I wasn’t gonna take it.”

It was.

Gwynn has long since retired, but Holtzman hasn’t forgotten the impact he made on him as a child. Gwynn’s choice to stick with the Padres his entire career meant a lot to him.

“It was special,” Holtzman said. “It wouldn’t have meant as much to me as a Padres fan, as a San Diegan, if at some point in his career he had left for more money.”

Keeping attendance up and making those types of connections with young fans was at the top of his list in Kansas City and now he plans to make those same priorities in San Diego.

“Once a group of young kids from age 5-12 become attached to players and a club, as I was, you never let that go,” he said. “You are always a fan. To me that was my most important impact [in Kansas City], helping that transition to the next generation of Royals fans and not losing them to the Yankees or to any other clubs.”

With San Diego being such a transient city, Holtzman knows it might be a challenge to build a Yankee or Red Sox culture, but he sees things developing. Downtown is becoming much more urban, and the ballpark will attract more and more native fans as the years pass.

“We have 81 dates every year within walking distance,” he said. “It really is an entertainment center for Downtown, a really fun place to come if you are young, or if you have a family.”

He said community outreach remains equally important to the mission of the ballclub and he and his team plan to expand their reach with social media (@Padres), focusing on what he calls “fringie” fans who don’t read the sports page or listen to sports radio every day.

“The Padres aren’t just a team that plays 162 games a year, it’s a team that is a part of the community,” he said. “We want to get that message out there on top of the fact we’re playing good, exciting baseball and have people come out to support us, support the players and just have a night of enjoyment and know that this is their hometown team.

“I’m here to help the Padres organization grow, to help them win on the field, to help them win off the field community-wise and I can see all of those things taking root right now.”