Oct. 23, 2000

Each week, GoBaylorBears.com features a different guest in "Ask the Bears." This week's guest was Director of Athletics Tom Stanton.

I'm a graduate of Baylor University and support the football team by attending most home games. I do believe that it is important that we remain stable over the next several years and give Coach Steele a chance to establish his recruits. I do believe and I think Baylor has witnessed this, that change can do more harm than good. However, what I'm curious about is what happens if five or six years down the road we're not successful or competitive. Do we stay in the Big Twelve at this point or jump ship to another conference where the competition is not as strong. I will support Baylor football through thick and thin and believe the best is yet to come. But in case it doesn't happen what do we do?
Jason Gray, Mesquite, Texas

The Big 12 Conference membership is strategically in place for years to come. Our unified television packages have recently undergone an extension period through 2008. There are also a great many other activities going in the Big 12 Conference of which many are unaware, but create major unification among the institutions. For example, the universities Provosts spend time together, as do compliance executives from the institutions as well as significant exchange in the areas of academia. The Big 12 is much more than an athletic conference. The question assumes one sport can create failure which is not the case. I encourage all of you to take a look at the All Sports standings for Baylor athletics in total relative to Big 12 competition. Also the dynamic growth of our women's sports programs, the quality improvements in many of our facilities along with our other conference members make Baylor University a viable and growing athletic entity within the Big 12 Conference.

Life is full of cycles, the same is true in sport. This is an extremely difficult conference to get a foot hold in any sport in which we participate. The Top 5 finish in this league virtually ensures a Top 25 national ranking.

Baylor has no interests now or ever to leave the Big 12 Conference. In my opinion that consideration is not an option because it says we don't have the courage or the endurance to compete and ultimately be victorious over the best.

Our football program will be fine with its current leadership. This rebuilding process has to be done through hard work, integrity, and endurance. Kevin and all our respective head coaches are putting foundations in place to give us successful athletic programs for years to come. I appreciate more than you know the support for our football program, your efforts and enthusiasm will be rewarded.

We make the drive to Waco pretty frequently. However, I sure like to see Baylor athletes in the Houston area. We went out to see the Volleyball team at the Rice tournament and Dave Bliss said we would be trying to schedule Rice in Houston next year. I've also been out to see our baseball team when they are in town. I know they will be playing at Enron Field in early February. These are great, but we really need to get the football, soccer, softball and lady's basketball team through here on a regular basis. In addition to making it easier to see the Bears in action, scheduling games in Houston should improve our recruiting in the area and help to energize Baylor support in the area. Finally, when we do play here, it seems we need to do more to get the word out early. Between the Foundation, Development office, Alumni Association and Athletic Department Marketing we do fairly well today, but it seems we need to do more. I've spoken to quite a few people that never realized the volleyball team was here in September. Also, a number of people have not heard anything about the baseball team coming to Enron in February. These events and others need to become a part of a regular dose of information going out to Baylor supporters in Houston. Are there any specific plans to schedule more games in Houston? Also, are there any specific plans to do more to tell Baylor supporters about future games in the area? Thank you.
Randy Woodruff, Sugar Land, Texas

Relative to scheduling, the coaches are aware of my desires to allow our major alumni bases in both the Houston and Dallas areas to have an opportunity to see our various Baylor University sports teams. Scheduling, however, can be quite complicated: there are financial issues tied to game guarantees, some institutions may not want to play us, certain teams may create an inappropriate balance in the RPI goals we have for our respective teams to ensure inclusion in the NCAA Tournament, and sometimes it may not be in our best strategic interests. All these factors are considered by the coaching staffs who bring forward their recommendations. In virtually all cases those are accepted because the coaches have done in-depth studies relative to competition, the RPI factors, and their personal desires as to the building of their respective programs.

As a university we are going to make an expanded effort between our athletic marketing department, Richard Scott and the Development Office along with Mark Kimball now in the Alumni Association for stronger communication. Mark is an outstanding leader with a quality vision for the Alumni Association and our Development Office has also experienced tremendous growth and expansion of University resources since Richard's promotion to that area.

I would like to compliment Darryl Lehnus and Scott Stricklin for their expanded utilization of the Internet. Hopefully the Internet along with regular mailings and newspaper coverage can do an expanded job of notifying our alums in their respective areas. Thanks for a great question.

Using the "A-F" scale, please assess your tenure as AD with specific regard to the football program.
Rod Acker, Tustin, California

You may or may not be surprised by the answer. For identifying the need to remove the first coach I inherited, under whom Baylor's once proud football program had begun to deteriorate - A+. For our second coach and documented results and disappointments - F. For the swift removal and hiring of Kevin Steele - I am extremely excited about the final grade, which will be determined by all those involved.

The level of integrity of student-athletes representing Baylor football from a character and academic clearinghouse perspective will put our football team in much stronger position as these student-athletes will actually make it to campus.

I believe the graduation of our football team will be 82% with an overall student-athlete graduation rate being 11 points higher than the student body at Baylor University. If you are simply looking to judge Kevin's first year by wins and losses, you are not doing justice to the enormous amount of work and energy in laying an excellent structured and well orchestrated business system that builds with the outstanding high school coaches that exists in the state of Texas, significant community involvement and relationships being built. The significant character focus and guidance being given to our entire football team, especially our football recruits, the fundraising efforts taking place to expand the areas needed to create a first class venue for our football program, not to mention the numerous endorsements I continue to receive from the Tom Osbornes, Bill Parcells, Bill Polians (Vice President and General Manager of the Indianapolis Colts), and the numerous other nationwide collegiate and professional football people who know Kevin Steele.

Kevin Steele is going to be Baylor's football coach for a long, long time. I am proud to say that. I know that he will be extremely successful given the resources and time to rebuild our football program.

There are a number of disturbing trends in the football progam, including low attendance, declining stadium amenities (specifically restrooms, parking lots, scoreboard) and lack of improvement on the playing field. Obviously, the first two problems will be much easier to rectify once the third is taken care of. That being said, what will be done about evaluating the performance of the coaching staff at the end of the season? In my opinion, the lack of direction of our offense is completely unacceptable. We will not improve if Coach Steele is given a carte blanche on staff decisions in the name of "staff continuity". Will you evaluate all the coaches following the season? If so, who will determine whether or not those coaches should be retained and how will that determination be made?
Chris Davis, Dallas, Texas

One of the amazing things about sports is the variety of opinions related to various topics. We are in the final stages of completing a master renovation plan for Floyd Casey Stadium. It will consist of several phases including an expanded locker room and weight area for our student-athletes, a larger training area due to more student-athletes representing our university in all sports since the North End Zone complex was created. We also have plans to rework the underbelly of the stadium, create cosmetic enhancements and paved parking.

It is a top priority for Baylor football to improve fan amenities, such as restrooms, concession stands, scoreboards and overall stadium appearance. Outside the stadium, our master plan has the goal of creating a face-lift so that Floyd Casey has the same esthetic beauty we see with our University Parks facilities for baseball, softball, soccer and now tennis. The scoreboard obviously is a part of that and, as always, we would have already completed all these projects had dollars come forward for these to be accomplished. I will personally be continuing my fundraising quest to ensure these things happen which are needed to move our football program forward.

All our coaches have the opportunity to organize and manage their own staffs. They are treated as divisional executives who have the responsibility of choosing their own management teams. The evaluation process for head coaches, assistant coaches, and all personnel are a routine part of a year in Baylor athletics. I never have nor will make assistant coaching decisions for head coaches. I do not believe in the "Jerry Jones" type of executive management. If I ever change my philosophy, I will go into coaching personally.

Most (if not all) of the other Big12 schools have a Jumbotron for football. Since our JHawk board doesn't quite measure up, are we about to get a Jumbotron? Thanks.
Scott Starks, Southlake, TX

The Jumbotron issue is an important one, because it involves making the Baylor experience an enjoyable one for the fans. We have made decisions regarding the kind of technology we want and it is a matter of fundraising to fulfill the upgrade of our scoreboard. Our intent is to take what is now a "displaced screen" and mount it as enhancement to our baseball stadium. I hope we will be able to accomplish this with the fundraising efforts. The project for the football jumbotron costs $1.25 million, which we are in the process of trying to raise.

Is it true that you have hired two coaches now for something other than proven head coaching experience? If so, what exactly is the criteria used to pick a head coach for Baylor University?
James Heffington Jr., Grand Prairie, Texas

The issue of hiring head coaches with or without experience is probably in the eyes of the beholder. At one point, Dave Bliss had never had any head coach experience. He has been hired to run our men's basketball program after a tremendous career. Kim Mulkey-Robertson does not have head coaching experience, but has had an unbelievable playing and assistant coaching career with national championships on both resumes.

Bill Snyder, the head coach at Kansas State, was once an assistant at North Texas State. He had no head coaching experience. Kevin has had tremendous mentors in Johnny Majors, Tom Osborne, Phil Farmer, and at Carolina in the NFL with Dom Capers.

There is a criteria for our head coaches which ties to intellect, integrity, organizational abilities, character, a faith component which ties to the mission and values of Baylor University, a commitment to academic excellence, and a desire to compete at the highest national level.

I always assemble a search committee of knowledgeable individuals who have Baylor's interest at heart and rely on those individuals for counsel, input and participate in the interviewing processes as the time dynamic of coaching searches permit. This system has produced men's tennis coach Matt Knoll (2000 Big 12 Conference champions), women's golf coach Sylvia Ferdon (first NCAA appearance in school history in 2000), women's tennis coach Dave Luedtke (five consecutive NCAA appearances), volleyball coach Brian Hosfeld (former number two assistant at San Jose State who has moved our volleyball team into the NCAAs for the first time in school history).

That process has also brought Dave Bliss, Kim Mulkey-Robertson, Kevin Steele, and Glenn Moore (who won two SEC softball championships at LSU) Baylor University.

I wish I had been perfect in all my hiring, unfortunately I haven't. But, we are now manned with the finest coaching staff in the history of Baylor athletics.

I have great appreciation for all the fan support and financial backing on the part of our alumni which has enabled us to bring these outstanding coaches to Baylor University.

What is being done within the Waco community to bring in a bigger fan base for the remainder of the year in football and the years to come? I know about the Bear Force One, but what else?
JD Gibson, Waco, Texas

Certainly part of attendance in all sports is tied to winning. Another component is fan-friendliness, which were are serious about improving. We have established a significant arrangement with the Waco community tied to Bear Force One. We feel that will continue to expand. We have our coaches and student-athletes involved in many of the schools for visibility and encouraging those young people to be involved and support "their heroes." We continue to have constant meetings with our student body representatives and are looking at creating various scholarship participation programs for next season in hopes of encouraging expanded student participation. We have also hired an outside consulting firm to help us with the upcoming basketball season.

We will continue to look at all the pricing mechanisms based on the Waco market. We want to make sure that there is an appropriate balance so we can continue to improve Baylor athletics, but do so in an affordable way for all those who wish to be involved in the support of Baylor Bears.

How many members of the bears football team do you think will go in the upcoming NFL draft, and who?
Jerry J. Forward, Houston, Texas

I spend very little time with any of the professional scouts regarding their assessment of talent. We have a constant flow of NFL representatives almost on a daily basis through our athletic department assessing player talent. It is a great question and Kevin, due to his NFL experience, would probably be able to give a much better assessment than could I.

What is the real story about forcing assistant coaches on prospective head coaches? If true, why did you do that? Everywhere we look there are simple things that you fail to correct. Restrooms at Floyd Casey. An incompetent John Morris in the broadcasting booth. Why?
John Haslam (Judge), Youngsville, Louisiana

There has never been in my tenure here a situation where any assistant coach or any head coach was forced to hire or retain the services of an assistant. Coaches have total prerogative as divisional executives to surround themselves with the individuals that will make them successful. I encourage coaches to completely assess the national market and to bring coaches to their staffs that will make us successful on the national scene. Any issues that you may have heard about forced hiring are absolutely false.

As I mentioned earlier, improving the fan's experience at Baylor athletic events is very important to us. We are in the process of raising funds to make the improvements we desire, such as restrooms at Floyd Casey. We have a master plan to resolve many issues and improvements will be continued as those dollars are raised.

John Morris is an outstanding representative of Baylor University and Baylor athletics. During my tenure as athletic director, John has won several broadcast awards from the Dallas based and statewide media. Some like red, some like green, some like blue, and I certainly respect everyone's opinion.

The commitment John Morris makes to our respective football, basketball, and baseball programs along with the numerous other duties he performs makes him an extremely valuable member of our athletic department. I am sure he will remain so for years to come.

I'm a BBF contributor, and I encourage friends and acquaintenances who follow Baylor sports to also join the BBF in order to help fund athletic scholarships. Often, the response I get is that such funding is not really necessary, since there is no additional fixed cost to the university associated with admitting athletes. In other words, some folks seem to feel that the buildings are built and heated, the lights are on, the class schedules are set, and the professors are paid, so it doesn't cost anything to let the athletes sit in an otherwise empty desk in an already scheduled class section. Could you explain how the various revenue sources, such as BBF, ticket sales, TV, bowl, and playoffs go to pay for expenses such as athletic salaries, equipment, travel, and facility maintenance and operations? Also, is Baylor, as a private school, at an athletic disadvantage to the other 11 Big XII members because it has no state funding? I don't believe state legislatures appropriate funds for athletics, but do legislative appropriations free up funds for athletics that the state schools would otherwise have to spend on academics and overhead?
Bobby Strother, Lewisville, Texas

Initially, let me say, I know very few athletic departments in this country who are not behind the "eight ball" financially. It takes literally millions of dollars to run a major business such as any university's athletic department. A specific answer to your Baylor Bear Foundation question, the total cost of scholarships including rooms, board, books, fees, and tuition this past year exceeded $5 million dollars for Baylor athletics. The Bear Foundation check was $2 million. If you will give those two figures to your friends, hopefully they will understand there is a tremendous need that Baylor University has to simply pay for the scholarship portion for our respective student-athletes.

Our athletic business is basically like any other. It has revenue streams such as the Bear Foundation check, ticket sales revenues, conference distribution monies which tie to the various television packages, and fundraising efforts in the form of our various excellence funds. Along the expense lines we have, as you suggest, all the regular selling, general and administrative expenses that go along with running a company.

We try to offset any shortfall to the university through fundraising and deal with all financial issues within the framework of the university budget and five-year plan process.

All of the facilities built cannot be started until we have raised the money in actual gifts or pledges to ensure the complete funding of each and every project.

We are at no disadvantage simply because we are a private school. Stanford is a private school and they have $180 million in their athletic endowment. We have a little over $9 million. What needs to happen is for me to continue to work and bring in talented leadership with appropriate facilities to recruit outstanding student-athletes to bring move victories to all our sports programs without compromising the mission and values of Baylor University and maintaining graduation rates for our student-athletes.

I believe Stanford beat Texas, I believe Northwestern beat Wisconsin, I believe Miami beat Florida State. If our alumni will step forward and we give our coaches what they need, we will be successful on the national scene. It is as simple as that.

I've been embarrassed at the conditions at Floyd Casey this football season, particularly the continuing malfunctions in the scoreboards and the filthy restroom facilities. What's going on?
Bobby Strother, Lewisville, Texas

We know we have several situations at Floyd Casey which need to be improved in order to fully service our fans. We appreciate Baylor people voicing their concerns, which enables us to have a better understanding of what needs to be addressed. I have to go out and raise some additional dollars to make these enhancements happen as quickly as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.

First I'd like to say Great Job in leading Baylor Univeristy to a new level of athletic competition. My question: now that Baylor has improved or is improving the facilites for the less marquee sports, when can we expect to see improvements for Floyd Casey? An estimated timetable and list of priorities would be greatly appreciated. Again, great job!
Robert A. Maxey, MD, San Antonio

The capital improvement list includes the Grant Teaff Athletic Plaza, a regrading and creation of a new walkway immediately around the stadium itself with decorative fencing and pillars similar to those surrounding the Baylor Ballpark. We need a rework of our parking ingress and egress structures. My intent is to have total paved parking from Dutton to Clay and from 29th to Valley Mills.

We have to redo and expand our team locker rooms and strength and conditioning areas, as well as redirect space for our equipment room and training facilities. We also will create a new rehab area underneath the south side for our student-athletes and faculty. In addition, repaving underneath the stadium. Restroom renovations are a part of our need as is the relocation of the display board to the baseball stadium with a new instant replay capability put in place at Floyd Casey. Some of these we will be working on immediately after football season. I will continue to do these on a project-by-project basis as dollars are raised. Total cumulative costs are approximately $3.5 million dollars. If you have any interest, please contact me personally or if you have any names of individuals that you think might like to be involved, I would appreciate your giving me those names for follow up. Thank you for your interest and support as well as your understanding of what we are trying to accomplish for Baylor University through Baylor athletics.

I can appreciate what we are trying to accomplish in the Big 12. In most sports we are getting the job done, but football is the CASH COW... and we are not getting it done. If the purpose is to "pack the stands" and have a windfall for the city of Waco (and have Waco embrace Baylor), why don't we consider getting out of the Big 12 and join a conference which we can be more competitive in all sports, football included. I feel Baylor (and Waco) is hungry for a winning football program, and I honestly feel that in a conference like Conference USA against the likes of Rice, TCU, SMU, Houston, Tulane,or UTEP... we would pack the stands and we would WIN. I have been a season ticket holder for 20 years... and I have never seen fan apathy this bad... I feel it will only get worse.
Bubba Alston, Calvert, Texas

Being in the Big 12 Conference is far more lucrative to Baylor University than being in a minor conference. We don't need to compromise our status, we need to rebuild our football program to its once proud days in the way we have been able to improve so many other of our 17 sports.

With 11 of our 17 sports in the NCAA playoffs this past year, more good days are to follow. The hiring of Dave Bliss and Kim Mulkey-Robertson have stabilized our basketball programs, Glenn Moore, with two SEC Championships under his belt, will bring a new vision and winning spirit to our softball team. And, we have an outstanding program-builder for football in Kevin Steele, it just takes a little longer to rebuild in football because of the number of players necessary.

I would not trade Baylor's position with any other schools in many of the lesser conferences outside the Big Ten, Pac 10, SEC, ACC, Big East or Big 12.