(08-17-2019 08:32 PM)PirateTreasureNC Wrote: I am hearing nearly the exact opposite of what is transpiring here in Greenville so far.
Are you guys saying he did little because he had little?
Just saying that what you guys are saying about his tenure there just isn't matching up with what I am seeing in Greenville so far.
He was the exact definition of a poor cultural fit at Southern Miss. To wit:
We needed someone who was going to find new revenue streams to help grow the athletic department. He got tens of thousands of extra dollars out of adidas and figured out how to maximize ticket revenue out of falling attendance (this last bit is coming up again).
We needed someone who would inaugurate a new round of capital improvements. He changed the last guy’s projects to make them more cost efficient and got us a new volleyball building (85% paid for by state and federal title Ix funds) that we didn’t ask for at the cost of shelving the basketball arena improvements we actually did ask for.
We asked for home non conference games the fans would want to see to make up for the loss of rivals. We got a football scheduling philosophy heavy on road buy games and nearby sun belt teams while playing practically no one at home our fans were familiar with except non-FBS opponents. The same is essentially true for our other sports as well.
We asked for someone to re-energize our fan base and make us want to attend games again. All you really need to know here is that attendance declined in his tenure in every single sport except baseball. His excuse was to point to rising ticket revenue. I’m not sure what ECU wants out of an AD, but Southern Miss fans found a guy bragging about squeezing the diehard fans for more money to be an insult and a plague on the department.
He did make a whole lot of promises when he first got here. He delivered on very few of them. He didn’t even finish all the projects started by the guy before him. Our attendance is down, our finances are down, and our hopes are down. We had to get rid of him.
I’m perfectly aware that people on the AAC and ECU forums are going to dismiss this as a guy being forced to work with almost no resources at “broke” Southern Miss. So are the rest of our posters, which is why you are getting defensive replies. Such thinking complete ignores the fact that this guy wasn’t taking advantage of the resources available to him in the first place. To wit (again):
1. The university president convinced the state legislature and IHL to double the cap on the amount of money academics could use to subsidize athletics. The measure passed the faculty senate 94-4% in the same meeting where another wage freeze for academics and support staff was also approved. The budget did not rise.
2. We set records for the amount of cash Alabama and Auburn paid us for buy games. The budget did not rise.
3. We have one of the highest alumni and student giving rates in the country. The alumni rate reached 60% of all graduates in fiscal year 2012. The budget hasn’t risen.
4. We are getting more money than ever before from our apparel deal. The budget didn’t rise.
5. Ticket revenues rose. The budget did not.
6. We have a ridiculously small debt load for a d1 athletic department, with only two payments left on the 2006 improvements project, and a department that hasn’t had to borrow very much money for any other reason since at least 1991. The budget hasn’t risen much.
So this is what you have as far as Southern Miss fans are concerned: a guy who is pretty much tone deaf when it comes to what the fans want him to actually do (he sure talks a good game though) who doesn’t know how to maximize the revenue streams available to him or have the wherewithal to properly inaugurate capital improvements.
