wilsonmic200-blog

[wilsonmic200-blog]

The topic I decided to talk about is where I want to be after I graduate. I want to be a head athletic director for a school and help run sporting events for a major divison 1 school.  This has been my dream since the beginning of my senior year in under grad when I got the job working as operation staff for Rider University and quickly became a major and was able to do the book work and work directly under the athletic directors.  Within  this year though I have high concerns about everything happening because of the covid 19 and how many colleges are starting to cancel sports and still making it where no fans are allowed in the games which is a huge part of college sports. With covid 19 coming it is a lot to deal with for the school and they are thinking about possibly cutting down a lot of sports programs in order to make some money back. Also some of the highest paid employees have to take a pay cut in order for the schools to survive.  According to Theo Lawson “At Washington State, Director of Athletics Pat Chun has not publicly addressed the possibility of cutting individual programs, and it’s too early to know if that would be part of the school’s blueprint. The Cougars, it’s worth noting, already sponsor two fewer sports than Cincinnati, which doesn’t offer women’s rowing as WSU does, but has men’s swimming and diving, men’s soccer and women’s lacrosse. Still, cost containment strategies have been rolled out at WSU – Chun, President Kirk Schulz, football coach Nick Rolovich and men’s basketball coach Kyle Smith all agreed to temporary 5% pay cuts – and the department is working through various contingency plans in case the football season is altered.” (Lawson 2020).  Athletic directors have big decisions year round and have to make sure that the sporting events run smoothly all the times.  Some of the conferences in college football are trying to make it work for the upcoming season so they can still have one. According to  Ross Dellenger “Three weeks ago, SEC athletic directors met in Birmingham in an in-person meeting that produced several potential contingency plans for a 2020 season, including conference-only schedules of 8–10 games and schedules that includes eight conference games plus one or two non-conference games. The Big Ten and Pac-12 have already announced their plans for conference-only schedule” ( Dellenger 2020).  With this in mind you have a lot of less travel for the teams to be honest what they should do is follow the likes of the NBA and the NHL. For the first ten weeks have a bubble and go somewhere to meet with the other teams because MLB teams traveled a lot every weekend and there are many teams that have players or coaches have the virus now.   Another important job for the athletic director is compliance with the rules and making sure that the  players are all academically eligible to play the games. NCAA has different rules based on conferences and as well as divisions in the school.  Many athletic directors hire someone called the athletic academic advisor to make sure the students are on track in order to graduate and continue to be eligible to play their games and remain on scholarships if they have any for the school. According to athletic scholarships “ For NCAA Divisions 1 and 2, the lowest you can possibly score is a 2.0 on a 4.0 scale. If you have a 2.0 GPA you must score a combined 1010 on the critical reading and math sections of the SAT. You can take the ACT exam instead of the SAT if you prefer. With a 2.0 GPA you must score a combined total of 86 points on the four sections of the ACT, English, math, science, and reading. The NCAA Eligibility Center doesn’t use the writing portion of either test when determining eligibility. Individual colleges, however, usually look at all sections during the admissions process The NAIA and NCAA Division 3 levels are different. In the NAIA, an athlete must fulfill 2 out of 3 requirements to be eligible. They must either graduate in the top half of their class, have at least a 2.0 GPA, and/or score an 860 or an 18 on the SAT or Enhanced ACT, respectively”.  I think this is a good gpa for the start of it and to keep this gpa for students is very fair.  Another huge responsibility for athletic directors is to be able to recruit people to come to the school to join your sports teams. To be able to draw top tier talent will make other top tier talent want to come and try to build a winning team. Like for example there has been a lot of big name players recently switching from top schools to historical black colleges because of recent movements and everything happening.  According to Jerry Bembry when he talked to star basketball prospect Makur Maker he said that “ “I need to make the HBCU movement real so that others will follow,” Maker wrote. “I hope I inspire guys like Mikey Williams to join me on this journey. I am committing to Howard U & coach Kenny Blakeney.” (Bembry 2020).  This is very important to a lot of people because this is a top athlete who could have went to almost any division 1 school he wanted and he chose an hbcu college out of them all.   Another big thing to do as an athletic director is making sure all media is happy and have what they need to do their job in order to make sure the whole event runs the way you want it to.  Another big thing is social media affects everything so make sure you have a good social media team. For example “Things get really dicey when it comes to college recruiting, too, as coaches do whatever they can to draw attention to their programs—like Michigan's Jim Harbaugh—and players stir up ways to go viral when revealing their college choice” (Dimengo 2016) With this it was not the athletic director but it is the head coach and is a reflection of the school and the head athletic director so this put Michigan in a bad spotlight.

REFERENCES

LAWSON THEO Financial implications of COVID-19 leave collegiate athletic directors in precarious positions, uncharted territory Retrieved August 1st 2020 Retrieved from https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/apr/17/financial-implications-of-covid-19-leave-athletic-/

Dellenger Ross  SEC Moving closer to conference only schedule for 2020

Retrieved August 1st 2020 retrieved from  https://www.si.com/college/2020/07/29/sec-football-schedule-news-conference-only

GPA requirements for athletic scholarships retrieved august 1

st

2020

Retrieved from  https://www.athleticscholarships.net/question/minimum-gpa-to-get-a-scholarship

Bembry Jerry Top recurite choses HOWARD in a game changer for HBCU’s  Retrieved august 1st 2020

Retrieved from https://theundefeated.com/features/top-hoops-recruit-makur-maker-chooses-howard-in-a-game-changer-for-hbcus/

Dimengo Nick  !0 ways social media ruined sports retrieved August 1st 2020 retrieved from  https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2626562-10-times-social-media-ruined-sports.