Remember folks, Tarleton and Coach Reisman have been involved with D1 feasability studies, courtships/break-ups, game scheduling agreements, and "potential" to "probable" to "imminent" invites with the SLC since 2005. Had we stayed on Coach Reisman's path, I have no doubt a Tarleton/SLC marriage would have eventually happened. For years that was the only option you had as a D2 moveup in Texas. And to be fair, it makes sense when you just look at it on a map. But the marriage is off now, and it likely won't ever happen, because there is no reason for it to. We're in a much better situation in the WAC, and I think we (Tarleton & A&M) will make the most of it. Don't be surprised if we see more A&M schools come on board over the next few years to help button-up and stabilize this conference for good.
Tarleton President Hurley:
"They (A&M Chancellor Sharp & Co.) see this as an opportunity to enhance our research scope. They also see this as an opportunity to get us into new media markets that expand our kind of broad message. And we need to tell the Tarleton story more broadly. Texas is, growing no doubt. This state is growing. But every other state is coming into Texas now to recruit our students. So not only do we have to really fight everybody to protect and keep our own students, but we have to start thinking about recruiting students from other states to backfill. And so, by going into California and Utah and Arizona and Seattle and those places, and Chicago, that we get to play in the WAC, that just really exposes the great things beyond athletics. And from day one, I’ve said, this is not about athletics. This is about raising our institutional profile, in particular, our academic pedigree."
"And Dr. Dottavio, my predecessor, established a panel led by our former CFO, Dr. Richardson, that really went through all the necessary steps. They had faculty engagement, staff engagement, student engagement. Of course, Russell came in and continued to pour over the data and update the data, you know, looking at all conferences, not just the WAC, but three or four other conferences that could be viable for this institution. And at the end of the day, we trusted our consultant. We trusted our faculty and staff, the leaders that had really been kind of engulfed in this process the last three to five years. And we felt like the timing was right. The WAC was poised to invite us and we just felt like the iron was a little too hot not to strike."
Tarleton President Dr. Hurley breaks it down like a fraction why we finally left the SLC negotiating table and went with the conference that offers much more upside:
https://athleticdirectoru.com/video/tran...es-hurley/