Leatherneck Nation

What has our AD been doing to improve WIU athletics?

I get concerned when we

Continue to flounder in the bottom of the Summit League standings, again last overall, last for women, last for men.

Track and Field becomes relevant and the Head Coach is fired.

Football continues losing and we keep the same coach.

Did I miss something? Track and Field became relevant? Does seem like we always have one or maybe two athletes who are sort of competitive in the conference. Beyond that, nada.

Tere North wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 9:33 am

Football continues losing and we keep the same coach.

I'm not defending her...obviously the athletics department has problems...but I'm willing to allow until the end of this fall season before he turns things around or gets fired. A couple of reasons for that:
1. I believe his contract was for 3 years (seems like the standard for new hires), which means that he would have been up after the fall 2020 season, if there had been one. Obviously there wasn't one and the spring 2021 season stood in for that, although that was obviously a pretty weird season. I would bet that they just extended his contract another year from the original term to give him the spring "COVID season" and regular fall season to see how he does.
2. Firing a HC after a weird spring season like that is a really bad idea. The time you want to be looking for a new HC is right at the end of a normal football season, when there's a lot of movement of coaching staffs, not in the spring when the FBS schools are wrapping up spring practices and working on recruiting and stuff. Plus most coaches existing contracts that are expiring that year will expire in December/January...X number of years from when they were hired. So, if we'd let him go after the spring season, our pool of available coaches would have been pretty tiny.

So, waiting until the end of the fall 2021 season (if there is little to no improvement) will enable us to let him go without having to buy out any of his contract, gives him a full 3 seasons plus the odd extra "COVID season" to prove himself, and allows us to have a much wider selection of available coaches who could apply.

Beyond that, we've got men's basketball that seems to be on the upswing, although we need another year or two to really see if Coach Jeter can get us to where we want to be. Women's basketball...I'm not sure anyone could do any better with the financial resources and support that we have than Coach Gravina has/does.

Outside of that, we haven't had much success, and obviously the Summit League overall standings (Commissioner's Cup) show that we are not doing well overall in terms of on-field performance. Do we wait and see how the end of the football season plays out? I think she did great with hiring coach Jeter...but I don't know about the other coaches that she's hired yet. Do we wait and see how the football coaching situation plays out at the end of the calendar year and decide on her fate then, or should they go ahead and get rid of her before that happens?

sealhall74 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 11:46 am Did I miss something? Track and Field became relevant? Does seem like we always have one or maybe two athletes who are sort of competitive in the conference. Beyond that, nada.

When you have national qualifiers, that makes you relevant! What other WIU sport was that relevant since Western's Women's BkB made it to the NCAAs?

How long do you want to sit at the bottom of the league?

Our Athletic Dept isn't ran like a D1 institution from a Marketing standpoint. That has been my biggest beef since my son got there. No background to know how things were done in the past. Our website is a joke; no other way to describe it. Our game day environment improved in 2019, but now that Cassemire has moved on we'll see if that continues. Anonymity is not a good thing when you are trying to sell a product.

GV Dad wrote: ↑Sat Jul 24, 2021 10:09 am Our Athletic Dept isn't ran like a D1 institution from a Marketing standpoint. That has been my biggest beef since my son got there. No background to know how things were done in the past. Our website is a joke; no other way to describe it. Our game day environment improved in 2019, but now that Cassemire has moved on we'll see if that continues. Anonymity is not a good thing when you are trying to sell a product.

I'm guessing these are two areas that suffered with budget cuts, Kelsey did great with gameday ops before she left for Iowa. The website used to be much better I believe that was Pat before he went to the Hospital but i could be wrong on that it could have been Kyle as well. Our TV coverage is a joke as well as a broadcast alum it's embarrassing. It's never been a strong suit but it used to be at least respectable.

Western did not have most of its Football and Basketball games on a local radio station even though the university owns & operates two radio stations.

WIUS-FM did broadcast the home games (with its own crew) during the regular academic semester.

Eastern Illinois University has been broadcasting its games on its university-owned radio station for many years.

If you have a chance, give a listen to Gordy Taylors "Macomb on the Move" episode 25 where he interviews our new president, Dr. Huang. The more I listen to him the more impressed I am with what he brings to the WIU "table!" The whole conversation is worth listening to but at about the 1:07:00 mark Gordy asks him about our commitment to D1. jc

Neckfansince71 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 25, 2021 9:48 am If you have a chance, give a listen to Gordy Taylors "Macomb on the Move" episode 25 where he interviews our new president, Dr. Huang. The more I listen to him the more impressed I am with what he brings to the WIU "table!" The whole conversation is worth listening to but at about the 1:07:00 mark Gordy asks him about our commitment to D1. jc

Did he just spill the beans by not spilling the beans? We are seriously looking at a conference switch now? Or I am reading too much into it. Would not be the first time.

I picked up on that too Sealhall. OVC?