A MESSAGE FROM THE AD: Dannen Recaps 2020-21; Looks Ahead to 2021-22

Tulane Fans and Friends:

As June 30 marks the "official" end of the academic year, I write this note to you today to summarize, and in some ways memorialize, a year that was like no other.

The 2020-21 school year will obviously be remembered for the pandemic, and how Green Wave Athletics, like the University, like the city, like all of us…navigated heretofore unimaginable times.   At this time last year we were just weeks into the return of our football student-athletes for summer school and summer workouts, along with a few coaches and staff members.   We had conducted several hundred Covid tests as a part of the most aggressive testing protocol in the country. By the end of this year, we conducted 36,000 PCR Covid-19 tests on 756 different individuals with an overall positivity rate of just 0.67 percent.   Today, I'm proud that over 90 percent of the department is vaccinated.

Just one sport, football, competed in the fall, and compete they did.   We played 11 of our 12 scheduled games, losing just a single non-conference game that was related to the national reshuffling of scheduling amidst the pandemic rather than specific Covid-related game issues.   The Idaho Potato Bowl marked our third consecutive Bowl game, a first in 127 years of Tulane football history. We also earned our first win over a top 25 program in over 30 years and 2021 marked our fifth consecutive year with at least one player drafted.

Sixteen of our 17 teams participated in the spring.   With a hiring freeze in place which put us down 18 of our 65 administrative positions, our staff did a remarkable job supporting full, simultaneous competition. Our student-athletes complied with every protocol the institution, the NCAA or health officials threw at them. They managed their academics to a record level of GPA success.   At the same time they led all Division I schools in the nation in community service hours.   We have truly remarkable students here at Tulane.

Competitively, sailing led the way with a National Runner-Up finish at the ICSA Women's Championship in just year four of our varsity program.   Less than 18 inches separated us from winning the national championship.   We host the national championship regatta next summer here in New Orleans.   We are also the host institution for the Men's Basketball Final Four next year!

Men's tennis advanced to the NCAA Tournament while women's basketball and volleyball were both bubble teams and received at-large consideration for NCAA berths.   Women's tennis ranked #6 in the region, bowling was top 20 in the country all season and men's basketball's RPI was the third highest since the year 2000 with a roster predominantly of freshmen and sophomores.   Finally this spring, baseball appeared in the Top 25 mid-season and earned a 2^nd place finish in the AAC, only the second time since we joined the league we have finished in the top two. We celebrated two freshmen All-Americans and one All-American.

When athletics shut down across the country on March 13, 2020, we told our student-athletes, our staff and our supporters that our goal was to come out of the pandemic running.   Our goal was the health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches and staff. Our goal was accomplishing as much as we could in a bad situation.   These goals were accomplished!

Several projects are well underway that will help position us for future successes as well.   A $5 million production center will be completed by the end of the summer.   Not only will we have full capability to produce all on-campus sporting events on ESPN+, but it will allow much of our communication and marketing strategies to shift to digital and video.   With a national fan and donor base, this is critical.

The $2.4 million expansion and reimagining of our academic center, to be renamed the Don and Lora Peters Academic Center, is on track for August completion.    A new lighting project in Avron B. Fogelman Arena in the Devlin Fieldhouse has already changed the look of the building and is certain to make the fan experience even better.    New LED lighting is set to be installed in Greer Field at Turchin Stadium in the next month as well.   A formal announcement will come later this fall, but a $3 million gift received in the last two weeks will enable construction of a state-of-the-art sports medicine facility during the upcoming year.

Student welfare continues to be at the forefront of how we invest in people and programming.   A $1 million gift, the Alan H. Rosenbloum Mental Health Endowed Fund, has created our third behavioral health position.   A separate $1 million gift has allowed creation of a career services position that will help plan and prepare our student-athletes for success after graduation.    There has never been a better time to be a student-athlete at Tulane than today.

Much of my personal focus the last few months has been on national issues which have direct impact on our department.   The NCAA adopted a new "one-time transfer" rule that goes into effect this fall, which allows all student-athletes the opportunity to change schools and be immediately eligible at their new school one time in their career.   There are nearly 2,000 football players and over 1,000 basketball players nationally taking advantage of that this year alone.

We have been preparing for Name, Image and Likeness for the last year. Wave Brand Works was created early last fall to give our student-athletes the necessary education and background to take advantage of new rules which enable them to fully profit from their own name, image and likeness. While there is still tumult about how this ultimately plays out, as the NCAA and Congress both head down paths to legislate NIL, the state of Louisiana enacted a law effective July 1 that empowers this NIL opportunity for our student-athletes. Fortunately, we had a seat at the table during the development of this law and are thrilled with the look of the final version.

Social Justice issues have been at the forefront of our department over the past year.   Green Wave Justice for All is a student and staff led program initiated last June as an action and accountability plan for all of us to prioritize, promote and empower diversity, equity and social justice throughout our department.   I've been immensely proud of how our student-athletes have led this initiative and committed to the importance of an inclusive society.

Most recently, discussion of expansion of the College Football Playoff and the Alston decision by the United States Supreme Court promise that the progressive changes that college athletics have seen, and we desperately need, have only just begun.   While it is impossible to say with certainty what college athletics will look like in the future, suffice it to say it will not look like it looks today.

Our Tulane future begins today, and we are headed forward at full speed, as was our goal. We've been ramping back up to full staffing levels, while enhancing our staffing as the new endowments are allowing.   I'm particularly excited to hire our first Associate AD for Sport Performance as we fully integrate our strength and conditioning, athletic training, nutrition and behavioral health units to ensure the optimal health of our student-athletes and peak performance on the field.

This week we will announce the hiring of our new head coach for our men's and women's track and field teams. We are currently searching for a new head coach of our men's and women's track and field teams after Eric Peterson left after leading us for 12 years.   We anticipate breaking ground on a national-caliber tennis stadium and tennis operations complex in the next few months, and our new sports medicine facility, integrated with our current assets in the Center for Sport and Tulane Institute for Sports Medicine make us a leader in student-athlete health care and prevention of injuries.

We have already sold a record number of season tickets in Yulman Stadium for the upcoming football season.   We expect to be at full capacity on September 4 when Top 5 ranked Oklahoma comes to town. This is arguably the toughest schedule in the last 50 years for our football team, with UAB, Cincinnati and Oklahoma all coming to Uptown as defending conference champions in their respective leagues.

You will be hard pressed to find a team that doesn't have reasonable post-season aspirations in the 2021-22 school year.   That extends to our administrative staff, as we are coming off a record year in our annual fund giving, planning to produce and televise 60 plus events and looking forward to providing an experience for our student-athletes that improves upon anything we have ever done before.   In addition, we are thrilled to finally begin our study abroad program in which every rising junior will have the ability to travel internationally early next summer and earn credit while experiencing a first in a lifetime trip for most.   This program has been pandemic-delayed each of the last two years.

I hope you feel as good about our past year as we do in the department, and that you look forward to what lies ahead as much as we do.   I feel we have the best staff, top to bottom, of any department I've been a part of in 14 years as an athletic director.   We are each aligned with our student-athletes at the center of our focus, and with a desire and motivating objective of setting a standard at Tulane that our peers will aspire to achieve.

Please know how your support drives and empowers us.   Your passion further ignites our passion. Together, we have become a formidable force in the American Athletic Conference.   Formidable, however, is not the end game.   Formidable is just a spot on the paradigm of competitiveness right after "close" just before "expect."    Our pursuit today is in expectation of success in all endeavors. It is now we roll, Wave.

Roll Wave,

Troy Dannen
Director of Athletics

Tulane University Athletics

A MESSAGE FROM THE AD: Dannen Recaps 2020-21; Looks Ahead to 2021-22

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