Athletics State of the Department is Tonight

[MCMLXXX]

I will be there. Who else will be at Apogee tonight?

[UNT_FH_FR_YR]

I am planning on it as well, looking forward to it!

Casual event right? No need to get dressed up or anything? 

[untcampbell]

In!

 

GMG

[greenjoe]

I’m going.

[cousin oliver]

I am going as well.

[MeanGreen_MBA]

My wife has us doing something else…

[ttunt1970]

Since I'm in the hospital someone please it a recap on the board 

 

 

[Marty]

Wish I lived closer to Denton. Hope someone posts a recap.

[greenjoe]

I’ll start.  
 

A good crowd.  There was light food and soft drinks.  The bar may have been open.  Jared spoke about a lot of things green but mostly about our move to the AAC.  It will come as no surprise that we need more scholarship donors and season ticket purchasers.  He said that if we could get 2,000 fans to purchase season tickets at $25 that our bottom line would improve as far as number of donors and number of season tickets sold.  We are at the we bottom of number of donors in the AAC.  
 

No baseball until the Athketuc center is enlarged.  We don’t have room for the 75 total athletes (men and women) adding baseball would require.

 

He talked about parking problems and said too many fans were trying to arrive at the stadium 30 minutes prior to kickoff.  
 

Jared would not say who the new stadium naming was but that everyone would like it.  Announcement to be made in July.  
 

It was a pleasant evening seeing green friends.

 

PS…The new AAC logos have been cut out and laid on the turf as well as a much improved Texas cutout on a darker green field with the diving eagle in the center.  Looks great.

Edited June 17 by greenjoe

[untcampbell]

Thanks GJ.

On the parking, the access points into the stadium are limited for car flow and will be until Bonnie Brae is expanded. He provided charts as to the choke points happen, almost all within an 30 minutes to an hour of kickoff. It is complicated by folks that come up to the lot and decide they don't want to pay for their parking and have to be exited out the same way they came in.

Looking to educate fans to consider coming to the stadium earlier. Ideas were offered as to how that might be encouraged.

 

GMG

[Marty]

Thanks for the updates.

[NT80]

1 hour ago, greenjoe said:

No baseball until the Athketuc center is enlarged.  We don’t have room for the 75 total athletes (men and women) adding baseball would require.

And yet somehow of all the new AAC schools added, only UNT (a female majority campus) cannot have baseball.

Division I baseball programs may offer a maximum of 11.7 athletic scholarships, to be divided up among a maximum of 27 players.

[untphd]

He might be referring to the NCAA's Transformation Committee want ing to increase baseball, but also having to increase a women's sport.

[Glory to the Green]

54 minutes ago, untphd said:

He might be referring to the NCAA's Transformation Committee want ing to increase baseball, but also having to increase a women's sport.

Maybe he meant 75 bodies?  Players, trainers, coaches, etc?

[greenminer]

Lack of donors seems to be the root of a lot of our issues.   I’m not surprised.

[Marty]

31 minutes ago, greenminer said:

Lack of donors seems to be the root of a lot of our issues.   I’m not surprised.

Age old issue!

[untcampbell]

When you add a men's sport, you have to add enough women's sports to be Title IX compliant, and all the ancillary personnel that those imply. The support space we have for athletics right now, i.e. weight rooms, study halls, etc, is already beyond max capacity. Won't fund more humans until there is space to support them.

BTW, softball is getting new dugouts and a clubhouse at a pretty hefty cost. All that money has been set aside to fund it, and will be done before next season. So the $20m ask all goes to the new athletics hub.

GMG

[greenjoe]

We have lots of “conditional” givers.

 

I’ll donate when they fire the coach.

I’ll donate when they hire a coach.

I’ll buy season tickets when they expand the stadium

i’ll give when they add baseball 

I’ll donate when somebody asks nicely

i’ll buy season tickets when the ticket office answers the phone faster

i’ll give if I get a good parking space

 

While we wait for all conditions to be met, we are the lowest number of donors in the AAC.

 

 

[Green Crazy]

10 minutes ago, greenjoe said:

We have lots of “conditional” givers.

 

I’ll donate when they fire the coach.

I’ll donate when they hire a coach.

I’ll buy season tickets when they expand the stadium

i’ll give when they add baseball 

I’ll donate when somebody asks nicely

i’ll buy season tickets when the ticket office answers the phone faster

i’ll give if I get a good parking space

 

While we wait for all conditions to be met, we are the lowest number of donors in the AAC.

 

 

Exactly! And that means that they really don't give a f u c k at all.

Edited June 17 by Green Crazy

[MeanGreen22]

11 hours ago, greenjoe said:

He talked about parking problems and said too many fans were trying to arrive at the stadium 30 minutes prior to kickoff.  

That and the first home game all passes displayed as blue lot even when they were orange. I’m sure that caused a load of cars either incorrectly in blue or having to turn around. 

[NT80]

1 hour ago, greenjoe said:

We have lots of “conditional” givers.

 

I’ll donate when they fire the coach.

I’ll donate when they hire a coach.

I’ll buy season tickets when they expand the stadium

i’ll give when they add baseball 

I’ll donate when somebody asks nicely

i’ll buy season tickets when the ticket office answers the phone faster

i’ll give if I get a good parking space

 

While we wait for all conditions to be met, we are the lowest number of donors in the AAC.

 

 

Open communication between the AD and the Fans, like this meeting, is a good start to correct or relay issues and info.  

But unless you attended the meeting or read about it here most fans still don't know about the issues.   Public information, either about Marketing, or Events, or Parking issues are the hardest to convey to a majority of interested fans and donors, even students and parents of students.

What is the solution?  More in-person meetings, more tweets, an online site from the AD for current info?   Connection and communication from Athletics to Fans has to be the #1 priority in the future.  It is the foundation for visibility, increasing more attendance, more donors, more interest in general to our sports programs!

[El Paso Eagle]

1 minute ago, NT80 said:

Open communication between the AD and the Fans, like this meeting, is a good start to correct or relay issues and info.  

But unless you attended the meeting or read about it here most fans still don't know about the issues.   Public information, either about Marketing, or Events, or Parking issues are the hardest to convey to a majority of interested fans and donors, even students and parents of students.

What is the solution?  More in-person meetings, more tweets, an online site from the AD for current info?   Connection and communication from Athletics to Fans has to be the #1 priority in the future.  It is the foundation for visibility, increasing more attendance, more donors, more interest in general to our sports programs!

Keep getting the coaches and staff out in front of people. Jared and both BB coaches have done a nice job appearing on different Podcasts. It will be interesting to see how they reach out to alums to get them involved. I know there are different views on this, but I think it would help to have more family-friendly events before and after the games with designated family areas. Hopefully, getting more players and coaches involved in on-campus events will help to get more students to the games. At this point, there is no group that we can not try to reach out to.

[El Paso Eagle]

11 hours ago, NT80 said:

Division I baseball programs may offer a maximum of 11.7 athletic scholarships, to be divided up among a maximum of 27 players.

I could very likely be wrong, but when it comes to T9, it's bodies, not the number of scholarships. 

[El Paso Eagle]

3 hours ago, NT80 said:

What is the solution?  More in-person meetings, more tweets, an online site from the AD for current info?   Connection and communication from Athletics to Fans has to be the #1 priority in the future.  It is the foundation for visibility, increasing more attendance, more donors, more interest in general to our sports programs!

Step 1 - Jared needs to find the Athletic Department version of Coach O for social media.

Step 2 - NEVER show that damn "Were not like other Universities" commercial again.

[untcampbell]

One last thing (I think): Jared took at least 45 minutes of questions, and he also entertained one-offs after the program. A handful of answers were pretty much just like you would expect, i.e. political. But honestly, I learned a lot at this meeting and appreciate the transparency.

 

GMG