Rick Dickson Addresses the Media
Oct 7, 2004 | General
Oct. 7, 2004
Tulane Director of Athletics addressed the local media at a press briefing on Tuesday morning prior to the weekly Tulane football press conference at the Hall of Fame Room in the Wilson Center. The following are excerpts from the morning:
Opening Statement
We thought that I had not been up in front of you [the media] in a while, this is just a chance to catch up. It has been an active year for our staff and I. A little over a year ago we kicked off our Perpetual Wave campaign. I just wanted to give an update of where we are overall.
I go out around the country a lot, speaking to groups of Tulanians around the country. If you pick any major metropolitan area in the country, you can count on there being a Tulane alumni chapter there. I enjoy telling the story and representing Tulane; it is a model athletic program that probably does not get its due recognition. I know in my industry a lot of the focus is on the competitive success only, and I don't apologize for our competitive success; we just finished a year where we were in the top [80] (77) in the Sears Cup, of over 320+ Division I schools. That ranked second in our current Conference USA, so we compete well. To be associated with kids that perform in the classroom also, average gpa of 3.0, at the top of the country in graduation rates (14th in 2003), things like that, that is rewarding to be part of a program like that, yet one that still competes. We also strive to do better in each area. We are going to make it work here.
I am pleased with where we are in year one of our efforts, the first year of our campaign which is a five-year exercise for us.
Just last week, the chair of our athletic committee gave a report to the full board [of Tulane]; it is a good report and it is by no means final, but we made good strides in year one. Of our $50 million-plus objective in our Perpetual Wave Campaign, we have over $30 million committed at this point. But we still have a lot of hard work to do.
You will see some positive signs of that [progress], some of the things you may not see because they are not real tangible, like endowment funds. When you look at the health and well-being of this program, that is very critical. Other things are things that you do see a little more readily, like our lifeblood, our TAF program, which is the direct conduit to support those 320 student-athletes. For the fourth straight year, it is at a record-high. My first year it was about $530,000 and we finished over $2.1 million this year. That has to continue to grow; it has to become our number one revenue stream.
One of the more tangible things you will see has just started out there this week, the preliminary work, the infrastructure work for the new baseball stadium. A little later this fall, we'll do a full-blown announcement. Right now, they're just digging holes, things that need done. Before the school year is done, you will see similar things going on outside with the new tennis stadium. The key is that as a group, we have strong resolve, maybe the strongest resolve ever, in saying let's do it, and do it right, and do it once and for all.
As always, the best ambassadors we have are our kids. I was excited when we announced the partnership with NORD [New Orleans Recreation Department]. Since I have come, I have tried to find ways to better showcase our ambassadors, our kids; and what better way to do it, than connect them directly to a group of inner-city youths. I think if you could pick one place in the country where positive influence needs to be displayed, it would be that group right there. We're not talking about paid professionals or millionaires; these are kids [the Tulane student-athletes] that are going to be sending the message, look we have some skills we worked hard to develop and we are going to trade those skills for an education; develop your skills, whatever they are, you do need an education. I can't think of a better message for the kids in the city of New Orleans.
On whether, given the progress, he believes a review such as last year will ever happen again:
Well, I was surprised that it ever did happen, but, the fact that it did, I don't think you can rule out that it will "never" happen again. As long as you're in a high-risk, high-reward industry like we are, there is always the chance that you will falter. The indicators show there is strong resolve, starting right here in this building and going out to our fan base, and that's what it takes to never go back there. But we know we are in a tough fight.
On the baseball stadium:
[We know for a fact we can expect] two things, great baseball again, and it will be here [at Turchin Stadium]. We will certainly play the season here. This summer, we were working through the issues, so the timetable made it so we could not get the whole project done by the first of March. So we ended up adopting a plan that was going to do it in phases. Right now, it is not the bells and whistles, it is the things that happen underground, the electrical, the sewage and water lines, the things of that nature that just have to be done. There are a couple of other things, the front entrance, which we want to make a great impression with, will be worked on in phase one. The other thing is a speciality or hospitality area down the (right field) line that replaced one of our former areas that we will announce the details within the next 60 days.
On the effect of stadium work on fall baseball:
I believe the majority of our fall ball will be accomplished right here. We are making some backup accommodations in case it's not. But it will be a minor inconvenience for a major improvement.
On dropping academic standards for student-athletes:
Results might come a little quicker, but in the long run, we would be doing a disservice. I can say this even as a parent, the opportunity for kids to get this quality of education (is tremendous); if we didn't equip them and give them the right chance, then we would be doing them a disservice and cheating them, if we didn't give them the guidance and the resources and assistance to do that. If we just said that's not important, just come and compete and win and life is good. As any of us who have been around athletics very long knows, after those four years, life isn't very good if you are not successful in the other arenas.
On a new basketball arena:
Six months after I got here, while sorting through some of the other more evident problems we had, we did a study of our footprint starting from the Reily Center going out to Claiborne Ave. Our soccer team was getting in vans and going to Jefferson Parish to practice every day; our track looked like it had gone through a Mt. St. Helens experience out there, because it was buckled and wavy; and our football practice field looked like a rodeo grounds. Before we did anything, I wanted to look at the possibilities to see what can we do? I needed a reference point before we began anything. One of the things in there was the possibility for a basketball arena.
Everything we are doing, we are trying to achieve as much multi-use in everything we do. We need to make as broad a use of our space as we can. One of the things in this Perpetual Wave Campaign, was, I believe, an $8 million, initial phase basketball project. Our thoughts were as we go forward, as part of the first $50 million, let's get eight of it committed so that we are now in a position to make a determination on whether a renovation or upgrade of our current arena is in store, or does that become a springboard for an actual ground-up arena. In that five years, that is part of what we want to accomplish; to be in position to make a decision.
On basketball:
Just like what I think has been happening with our football program, showing that we have promise and the ability that a lot of the pieces and layers that we talked about are now in place. Now it is a matter of getting some of those pieces and layers more experience and the opportunity to be successful. I think the same thing is true in our basketball program. If you went back and studied like I have, where our basketball started when I came, which was very incomplete, probably the most incomplete of any of the programs we have with I believe six kids on scholarship the first year, six kids that hadn't had a lot of court experience. Couple that with some of the growing pains of the new staff, I think what you have seen the last two years are the type of classes we do need to have. Like our football, they are kind of young and competing in a very tough league, but they need to show that we are making strides toward where it has to go. Ultimately those are programs that we need to be able to compete consistently. It kind of goes back to the start; it's a different formula [at Tulane]; we don't have a quick-fix formula for it. And we have had to go through some of the growing pains, one with a new staff, learning the recruiting market, those type of things; and then two, what is the right type, profile of kid that can come here, play at a high level, but also in four years graduate. It takes more than one swing to be able to do that successfully. I like the last couple of swings I have seen in that, now we need to start seeing the results on the court.
