We had a lot of low hanging fruit that Mike has knocked out. Branding, connecting to the city, talking with smaller donors, revamping social media presence, connecting with the students - he has done all of that. The school adopting athletics branding and moving more towards using Charlotte shows a connection between he and Gaber is much more symbiotic. He has not run his AD as family.
He came in and said winning matters. He threw down that gauntlet. He then backed that up by letting go of coaches that were not getting that done. We are better in nearly every sport not basketball or football. With basketball he made a great hire that just hasn’t worked out. The second extension is mindblowing, but to me that is just about the only misstep he has made. The first extension I am not as upset about. Keeping coaches with 4/5 years under contract is normal. I probably wouldn’t have done that there, but it wasn’t the worst thing. The second extension though really confounds explanation. The good thing is in the long run that likely didn’t cost us THAT much money withthe contract wording. In football he hired a guy that took us bowling his first year, had a season wrecked by covid that you really shouldn’t count at all and then had a year where we were 4-2 before falling apart. I can’t call football a failure at all. Jury is def still out. The student crowds all year were amazing so what he is doing with football is going in the right direction.
If basketball stays around .500 I think odds are Mike moves on from Ron. With football I do wish Mike had stepped in a mandated West go if Will wasn’t gonna do it on his own, but this could also be Mike saying fine roll with your guy but next year it could be your head. We shall see. At some point Mike is going to have to start looking at his own hires and decide when it’s time to cut bait. You don’t hit on all of them. In his interview someone asked him a question about firing a coach. Remember Judy had just fired Price. He said at Florida there were a few times they fired a coach early in their contracts because it was clear they were either not a fit or couldn’t get it done.
Mike got us into the AAC when last go round we were not even on the radar. That is huge. We leap frogged a few other institutions without having significantly improved either money sport. To me that means what ever plan he has for success must have worked for them. In his interview Mike said finding a better long term conference home was imperative towards success. He started working that relationship immediately and was proactive in getting us where we needed to be. I am at a loss as to why we are still sitting on the master plan though as clearly that was a key component of the invitation.
I have seen parts of it and I know others have as well. Not sure what the hold up is. I fully expected it to drop this fall with the conference news. I would be nervous that means fund raising isn’t going well, but if it was that iffy the AAC wouldn’t have extended the invite. I am a bit confused there. Disappointed we haven’t seen it, but at the same time not worried that we haven’t. Would be nice to hear an update either on timeline or fundraising goals. He has reorganized fund raising in the AD and the fact we are hitting new records in fund raising each year tells me he knows what he is doing there. He has landed some 100k-1mil gifts, but we need some really big ones to make an impact to the long term goals.
As for his long term goals. I know he loves living in Charlotte. He loves the area and I think he truly believes we are on the edge of some really amazing things. I think he would leave us for 3 jobs, Chapel Hill, Clemson and Florida hands down. I am not sure other jobs move the needle enough for him to leave, but I wouldn’t say he sees this as a job to just coast through the next 20 years like the last person. I have said with other roles and I say it here - if Charlotte is your dream job, I don’t want you here. We are a stepping stone role for nearly everyone. That’s ok. Come here, make an impact and get paid by a P5 program. That’s the game.
Now the big thing is we are going to have to get our budget to 50 mil in the next 3-5 years and then to 75-80 mi in the next 10. We are at nearly 41 now. Thats a 20% increase in 3/5 years and a doubling in 10. That is going to require some really heavy lifting. Mike has some big challenges there. I would also like to see them keep trying to tackle the merchandise challenges, rework on campus tailgating and keep pushing our name and brand locally.
He has had 4 years. Basically 1 year to observe, 1 year to start making changes, then a crazy coivd year and now this year. I give him a B+ so far. Money is up, attendance in football is up, wins in nearly all sports are up, branding, conference move, with the detractions being delay in master plan, delay in announcing any new large donors, question over Ron, still to early to judge football, improvement opportunities to gameday experience with football. Overall I am pleased with where we are but a big caveat with how Mike handles Ron if this season goes the direction we are all thinking it is headed and the master plan.
Like I said.