Proposal For A New Athletic Department Position

[Green to the Bone]

The job title is just for grins: a play on the titles such as "director of football operations" that many pro and college teams have adopted in somewhat silly imitation of corporate America, which can be silly enough on its own.

But the concept is serious: a full-time position for a professional responsible for conceiving and organizing game-day activities, victory celebrations, away travel for fans, etc.

This week is a great example of the need for such. Someone to send out an Eaglemail and a mass e-mail to everyone on the Athletic Department and NTExes and prospective donors lists immediately (like within a few minutes, to emphasize how exciting it is) upon word of a conference championship and an upcoming tourney and a victory celebration. Someone to get the administration's PR department (which is well known for being slow and not very competent in every area, not just athletics; and which, to be fair, pays its employees miserably) to send out an immediate press release on the victory celebration so that it comes from the university itself, not just the AD, to make it clear that this is a university-wide deal. Someone to get video of the game highlights, victory celebration and player interviews on the UNT main web page, featured prominently. Somebody to get student volunteers/interns/Talons/whoever to slap posters all over the dorms and grab people out of the lobby to be there when the bus arrives.

(And if some administration procedure prevents access to Eaglemail mass mailings or requires nine levels of approval, which I suspect it does, then someone to beat the snot out of the admin until that's changed.)

And someone to drum up lots and lots of enthusiasm for people to go to the Dance, the OU game, the SMU inevitable victory, the NO (or better?) Bowl, with detailed logistics advice, negotiated travel deals, etc., by web, e-mail, billboards, skywriting, mental telepathy -- by any means necessary. In the past, we've had to search too hard to find such logistics; even now, the alert on upcoming Dance tickets sales is a single paragraph at the bottom of the press release, and it contains no mention of what if anything we might do about organized travel. My AD e-mail on the victory, which arrived at 8:05 a.m. yesterday, has a game wrapup, but not a word about what happens next, keep an eye out for Sunday's picks, where we might play, what we'll do about tickets, travel, etc.

What I've got in mind is not quite the "sports information office," which puts out game releases and stats. It's more like a promotions office. Somebody whose own enthusiasm is on overdrive.

It seems that this position would pay for itself in ticket sales and public goodwill alone, even if it paid quite well, which I think it would need to do in order to attract a seasoned pro. Perhaps a donor would agree to fund the job for a specified number of years, with renewal if the results justified it. All in all, it would reflect progress toward the wise comment that someone posted yesterday: It's about time we started acting like the fourth (and soon third) biggest university in Texas.

I apologize for going on and on, but I think it's really an important step for the program and the university as a whole

By the way, I thought about "director of excitement operations," but that sounded dirty.

What say ye?

[Quoner]

Everything you just said is an athletic director's job to make happen - whether through his current staff or necessary additions.

And college athletics will never pay that much: too many people want to do it.

PS: Not shooting down this idea in the least, but just adding commentary

Edited March 8, 2007 by Quoner

[Green to the Bone]

This should be read as a suggestion to the AD and a solicitation of public support.

Anybody else agree/disagree?

[THOR]

THAT WOULD BE FABULOUS AND KINDA FUN!!!!!!!! make it happen O GREAT LEADER OF OURS!!!!!!!