HBCU SPORTS BLOG: Is Your College President Ruining the Athletic Program?

If you want to know one of the biggest scourges on black college sports today, look no further than the president or chancellor of your college. They may be visionaries in program development, lobbying the state for funding and working the valuable alumni networks, but when it comes to athletic development, far too many campus leaders are behind the curve.

Ask yourself the following questions about your president’s relationship with collegiate athletics.

• How often is your president at sporting events other than homecoming or rivalry games? – If your president doesn’t bother to show up other than to glad hand and accept checks, he/she can’t possibly be emotionally invested in the branch of the school that is the emotional lifeline of the institution. And it could be a sign that they don’t know the game, which means that they can’t tell progress from regression on the fields and courts.
• Is your president mentioned in news stories concerning athletics? – If your president is mentioned as a comment source for a sports story outside of a hiring, firing or new facility, your school has a major problem. The AD can’t do his/her job, and the president takes the credit for progress without being the culprit for failures.
• Does the president sign-off on all decisions made in the athletic department? - Hiring and firing is one thing. But signing off on uniform changes, equipment upgrades, etc. is micro-managing to the max.
• Is the president involved in fundraising strategies? – One of the problems with academic minds is that they think too analytically. They use little-to-no creativity in approaching fans young and old. Disagree? Look at how many college athletics websites do not update info on a daily basis. If the department can’t get the financial sign off on a website designer and writer, imagine how tough it must be to conduct formal fundraisers.
• Does the president have a say in day-to-day athletic personnel decisions? – If you have a president who wants to fire a coach, trainer or official because of ego problems, they are far too involved in the program. Conversely, if your president doesn’t know anybody in the athletic department by name or face, you have someone that just doesn’t care.

All of these sites point to micro-management or total disassociation from the administrative levels. This is not to say that all black college presidents are completely out of touch when it comes to sports and the opportunities they present, but we know that many presidents are not big fans. Now, just because you have a president that is totally numb to the value of sports, it doesn’t necessarily mean a death sentence for your athletic programs.

It just means that you as a fan have to be that much more proactive in supporting sports and raising concerns about the administration. And you can start here. Feel free to comment below on president that you believe have damaged athletics to a point of sparse survival.

And I’d be more than happy to put your president on blast – jarrett-at-hbcusportsblog-dot-com is the email address. Nothing works better on narrow-minded leadership than wide-spread criticism.

-JC

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Tags: atheletic program, college, hbcu sports blog, presidents, Sports, university