If I were Athletic Director, Part 1


Thoughtful
Originally uploaded by Mountainbread
I think that GW's basketball program has a lot of room for improvement - off the court. On the court I couldn't be happier. So I'm going to start a regular series on what I would do if I were the A.D., and this is the first installment. I'll address one topic each time, so stay tuned.

Transparency

Call it transparency, openness, glasnost, whatever. GW lacks it. People like to know what's going on, and GW doesn't tell them.

Just this off-season, we've had no announcement about season tickets until I asked, unannounced major changes to those tickets, no word on recruits coming in, and no word on the out of conference schedule. And many of these things happen every year with no announcement until the very end.

These are all things that GW fans and other people follow and either need to know (in the case of tickets) or would really like to know (all the rest). Telling the GW community, and hopefully the press, would keep people interested. Especially in the case of the schedule and recruits, it would help build hype for the program in the offseason - it would get people excited for the season to start. And when it comes to telling fans about ticket changes and such, it's a nice thing to do and could also get the fans more involved in the process, which would benefit everybody.

And it's not like everybody else keeps quiet - see Charlotte, which has news about a recruit and news about the schedule, both in and out of conference. Their OOC schedule came out in June! Temple has similar articles, as do most schools in the A-10.

So what do you think about openness and GW?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thanks for your excellent article. This is a critical issue that I'm not sure people are paying attention to. Let me tell you as someone who has been a student (two degree), consultant to GW, a vlounteer lobbyist for them on the Hill, a repeated thwarted donor, this is what I have gotten from GW since 1978.

I'm proud to say that my neice just started this week as a freshman at Georgetown. They don't run the place very well as a business (GW certainly does that), but the student experience is 500% better. BTW that's why their alumni donate millions more to the school than GW alum do. Most GW alum leave the school embittered and the school doesn't do much afterwards to change that.

Athletics is your beat and it's a good place to start. I'd venture to say that you'd find the same problems in student accounts, financial aid, admissions, alumni relations, fundraising, and any other area where the students get service.

Good luck on your mission. I look forward to your next suggestion.
Anonymous said…
Georgetown sucks.

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