Dr Derrack Gragg, the AD at Eastern Michigan University was named the AD at TU. Let's all hope he does a good job, and I certainly echo that. But there is an alarm bell about his hiring that needs to be discussed and this forum is as good as any. So here goes.

First is whether he is a "builder". By that I mean does he produce facility upgrades on a continuning basis? In this area, I think the results are mixed. EMU evidently had decent facilities - to MAC standards and from what I could see on their website, they were well maintained. The only noticable new facility built was an indoor practice facility that was built at a cost of $3.9 Million. It looks nice enough, but is one of those inflated buildings that I doubt TU wants. But it IS an upgrade from what TU has at this point. But again, he probably passes the facilities test IMO.

Second is a bit problematic and that is attendence. As far as CFB is concerned, EMU's was probably the worst of the worst. Their attendence last year was more than pathetic, it was obscene. Most of their games drew fewer than 8,000 and one game drew less than 2,000 fans. Even a small school like TU doesn't approach that attrocious number. When you only draw that number, heads should have rolled IMO.

But the above problem was evidently created by poor coaching. Ron English, the HFBC was hired by Dr Gragg and his overall record is pretty bad. He hasn't had a winning season in four years. The records are:

2009 - 0-12
2010 - 2-10
2011 - 6-6
2012 - 2-10

So IMHO he probably should have let that coach go. But he didn't and that could be a reason he's looked elsewhere for work. We certainly don't need an AD who won't admit his hiring mistakes IMO.

The other coaching records we are concerned with IMO would be MBB and WBB. MBB is coached by Rob Murphy and was hired by Gragg. His records are:

2011-2012 ---- 14-18
2012-2013 ---- 16-18

The WBB coaches record was

8-22 (first season)

So I would say that there is an alarm bell as far as winning is concerned and a bigger alarm bell as far as attendence, but the biggest alarm bell is that he'd keep a coach on that has proven himself to be a loser, hurting the program. Lets hope that isn't Dr Graggs practice in the future.

IMO

I agree - We need someone to get out in the community and promote TU to casual sports fans, otherwise we will never be able to fill our stadium with just alumni and students.

http://emueagles.com/sports/2010/4/29/GEN_0

Thats the website for the IPF at EMU in case anyone is interested.

I did listen to him on a local TV sports interview, taped a few minutes after his press conference. He did say he knew the key thing of importance is growing our attendance. He said the university needs to market itself properly as Tulsa's team & get out in the community to see the best way to do this. He said he would enjoy this because he likes to meet people.

That sounded encouraging to me. I am sure he was told attendance will be a goal for the future. The key will be how aggressive he will be at marketing Tulsa athletics. I think marketing has been our achilles heel for years.

IMO the perception of TU athletics by the community has to change. There are ways to do that, but our own fans/alums sometimes hold us back in that regard imo. The alums, fans, university officials, students and most importantly the city and region have to get on board - totally.

That's good material to talk about in the offseason after spring ball. I bet it gets some play.

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But I fear our new AD isn't familiar with the systemic problems we have and how to change them - I hope he gets a handle on them quickly.

But I think we need to be aware that the last few administrative hires that were made at TU were utter disasters and were triggered by something other than a successful resume'. I'm not convinced that he fits that hoped for "success" model. EMU became an athletic train wreck and the question is, was he a contributor, an enabler or only an observer.

BTW Tulsafanzz, I've really enjoyed your observations on the new Big East on rivals. Excellent!