Leatherneck Nation

Just saw that Michael Jones (Assistant Athletic Director for Development) is leaving Western to work for Edward Jones Investments. He'll still be in Macomb, just not at the university anymore:



At this point, I gotta wonder who is left in Athletics....AD Suprenant, Holly Van Vlymen, Asst. AD for Compliance Mark Izquierdo....seems like just about everyone else are grad assistants or open positions.
Seth Wickert is going to Northwestern, Monyae Williamson left to pursue a PhD at Florida State, now MJ.

Yes, we do have a plethora of grad assistants up and down the roster. When we start seeing a bunch of volunteer assistants, it might be time to worry. On the other hand, maybe we need more volunteer assistants to foster some outside interest in the department. How about a volunteer "Board of Directors" for the Leatherneck Club, each member having no direct tie to the university?

I know athletics usually has a high turnover and especially at our level, people are going to bigger schools/conferences, but I have never seen this amount of senior level staff leave. It makes me wonder what the culture is inside the department right now. Was it just a coincidence all these left at once or is there something to it internally.

Sad to see MJ leave. Always was super nice and enjoyed when he filled in for radio recently.

4EverPurple&Gold wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 7:43 am I know athletics usually has a high turnover and especially at our level, people are going to bigger schools/conferences, but I have never seen this amount of senior level staff leave. It makes me wonder what the culture is inside the department right now. Was it just a coincidence all these left at once or is there something to it internally.

Sad to see MJ leave. Always was super nice and enjoyed when he filled in for radio recently.

MJ used to be the "voice of Leatherneck Sports" on Classic 103 (WJEQ) back around the late '90s and early 2000's. Obviously has a great voice for radio (especially sports), but I think like many of us who used to work in the radio industry, you just don't make much money doing it. Back then, I was frequently the "board operator" for MJ's sports broadcasts (that's the person back at the station that switches things over to the broadcast, plays the ad breaks, relays information about other scores to the announcer...this was before you could just look it up on your phones, etc.).

As for the Athletics department, I don't know if it's something specific to the athletics department, but in general morale is pretty down across the university and there's been quite a bit of turnover over the last year or so. I know of one person who'd worked for the university for nearly 20 years and just quit this last spring, walking away from a huge chunk of what they would have been getting from the state in retirement, because they just couldn't take it anymore. For anyone who has an opportunity elsewhere (like MJ did), it's very tempting to get out.

ST_Lawson wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 1:01 pm...Monyae Williamson left to pursue a PhD at Florida State...

Although it sounds like she was very happy with her time here, but wanted to get her Ph.D. and the south is more "home" for her...undergrad in NC, masters in FL (and spending 5 years working there before coming to Illinois). So, that's overall a good sign, I think.

So how old is this! jc

So he has no Marketing experience...

4EverPurple&Gold wrote: ↑Tue Sep 14, 2021 12:27 pm So he has no Marketing experience...

 

He does at least have a marketing degree.

4EverPurple&Gold wrote: ↑Tue Sep 14, 2021 12:27 pm So he has no Marketing experience...

 

Unfortunately I'm sure they didn't have many people beating down their door for this job.