(08-22-2015 01:57 PM)Orange County Owl Wrote: Listened to the first 20 minutes or so in the car this morning and it is beyond impressive - particularly the discussion of "relative excellence" vs. "absolute excellence".
Sounds like "Transformation vs Incrementalism"
JK's podcast is a great idea.
Note it is easy to hear host JP Heath and guest Rice soccer coach Nicky Adams, but Joe himself speaks at such an understated volume, that his comments are very hard to hear even with the sound volume turned all the way up. Perhaps they can move the mike closer or run his audio hotter next time to make him easier to hear.
Loved listening to his commentary on various aspects of Rice Athletics. Some things that stood out:
Stadium Renovations: Probably a 4 or 5 phase scenario. Next up most likely will be West Stands and upgraded seating and experience for Season Tix holders. JK mentioned Rice needs its season Tix base in Football to be 4x or 5x what it is today within 5 years. Renovating the West stands next will allow more flexibility in renovating or redoing the Press Box area, which he seemed to indicate would come in phase 3. Later phases 4 and 5 would be the East stands and then the South stands--he's not sure which order they would come in at the moment.
Coaches: We have 12 head coaches. Goal is at least one Conference championship in each sport every four years, so each athlete can experience that at least once during their Rice playing career. Had great praise for Basketball coach Mike Rhoades as being "authentic from the first five minutes you talked to him." Also praised Rhoades for "inspiring the entire Athletics staff."
Scheduling: Football: have talked to lots of teams; maybe about 10 or so just won't play us in Rice Stadium. Working on others. Happy with some of the recent scheduling upgrades in football. Talked to various SEC teams, former SWC rivals, etc... (No mention of GA Tech, though.)
Basketball: our low RPI currently hurts scheduling in basketball. "Once we get basketball RPI down to low 100's or under, we'll have no problem getting better teams in here to play us (at Tudor.)" Goal is to have season tix base grow to between 2,500 to 3,000 in next five years, regularly have Tudor crowds in the 5,000s. Feels basketball is in very good hands with Coach Rhoades and how he conducts his program. Rhoades has right attitude and he considers him to be an inspirational coach.
Baseball: Goal is season tix base back to over 2,500-3,000 as well.
on Relative vs Absolute success: JK said he "coined" the idea back when he was AD at Oberlin. While it's nice to have relative success compared to your peers, more important to JK is to have absolute success that anyone can recognize, even outside your peer group. I would think this is where JK gets his benchmark idea for all coaches to not just win CUSA championships, but for all of them to be regularly ranked in the Top25 of their sport.
JK said "I think programs are built first and foremost with people." JK said he likes people who are "authentic" as coaches, direct, "not a lot of smoke and mirrors", then he sees if they fit in to Rice.
