Southern Illinoise University Athletics
President Dunn, Tommy Bell press conference transcript
05/01/2015 | 12:00:00 | General
!0-Point Plan To Restore The Glory of Saluki Athletics 
President Randy Dunn Opening Statement
"Good afternoon everyone. It's a great day in Carbondale and a great day for Saluki Athletics. Let me welcome all of you to SIU-Carbondale and tell you how great it is to see such a wonderful turnout today. Before I introduce somebody that many of you in the room know, let me make a few comments on the search process for our new athletics director here at SIU. As you know, when we do all of these searches, we have a fairly comprehensive search committee and a process that committee follows. For this position, that committee worked under the leadership of our financial aid director, Terri Harfst. It took a lot of time, and we put them on a fast track. We do appreciate the efforts through a very busy time of year. As you all know, the search committee identified four outstanding finalists for this position, and the selection of one certainly does not indicate any weakness in quality of the other candidates. In fact, we heard some initial concerns about what kind of pool we would get that time of year and not having a chancellor as we started out on the search. Given the work of the committee, the assistance we had from interim AD Dr. Harold Bardo, our special assistant to Saluki Athletics Doug Woolard, we've been able to undertake a process that brought us a very strong pool, commensurate with the level of position this is. I want to extend my gratitude to everyone involved in that.
I do want to thank all of the candidates for their interest. I want to thank the athletic staff, the broader University community for their input throughout the process. In my acting role as Chancellor, it has been a pleasure to be involved with this very great group of people undertaking an important mission for the university.
Let me tell you a little bit about Tommy Bell, who will soon be returning to SIU as our Director of Athletics. Tommy brings three very powerful, very important characteristics to this position. These were characteristics that I think many of us agreed were essential in the next athletic director. First of all, athletics leadership and fundraising experience. Second, a commitment that was deep and ongoing to Saluki Athletics. Finally, an understanding of the value of a strong Division I program to a national mid-major prominent university. I'll tell you that my first question to every one of the candidates coming in had to do with how they thought about the welfare of our student-athletes. How we support them in working towards their goals of a championship as well as a degree. Tommy hit that answer on the head.
Tommy lead athletics programs at Western Illinois University, a colleague institution of ours in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, and also served at IPFW. At Western, he was involved in the development of a master athletics facility plan, undertook a major stadium renovation project, and started a corporate sponsorship program for the Leathernecks. In Indiana, he launched a branding campaign, expanded donor relations, and served as the athletics consultant for a $42 million project to the Gates Athletic Center.
Many of you know Tommy from his time as Associate Director of Institutional Advancement for Saluki Athletics from 2001-2007. He established the Saluki Athletics Scholarship Fund. He oversaw the Athletic Department's first comprehensive fundraising campaign. As he noted when he interviewed here, is that he comes back with a full set of athletic administration skills, having sat in the chair. That's tremendously important when you're leading a national Division I program.
Prior to coming to SIU, Tommy served in multiple roles as well for the Department of Athletics at Northern Illinois University, where he was an athletic trainer and physical education teacher. He holds a master's degree from Radford University, a bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech, and an associate's of arts degree from Ferrum College. I strongly believe that Tommy does bring to Saluki Athletics the experience, the ability, the drive, and the love for Saluki Athletics that will allow us to tackle our challenges, embrace the opportunities ahead of us, and move Saluki Athletics forward.
As all of our candidates were in, we often talked about bringing back the glory days of SIU Athletics. That's a good thing. It's a wonderful thing to have talked about, and to see that excitement and passion. What gets a program there is a culture of excellence. I know that Tommy knows what that means, what it looks like, and how you nurture it going forward. So let me introduce to you, the 13th Director of Intercollegiate Athletics at SIU, Tommy Bell."
Tommy Bell Opening Statement
"When I see so many familiar faces in the room, it kind of blew me away. I was fine when I was back there, and then I walked in here. A lot of friends are here today.
This is a great day for our family. If I talk about them a lot, we might not get through this. I've just got a few remarks, and then we'll get on to some questions. I'm very grateful and humbled to be your Athletic Director. Thank you President Dunn, the Board of Trustees, the search committee, and most importantly, the most important person in my life, my wife, Laurie. She's here at this campus. She's been the wind under my sails. I stand before you today because she has been a tremendous influence in my life, and I get to celebrate 32 years married to this wonderful woman at the end of this month. Thank you Laurie, I appreciate what you do.
I want to thank you for entrusting me, President Dunn, with this important responsibility. I will not let you down. I also need to thank Dr. Jack Thomas and Dr. Gary Biller at Western Illinois University, who gave me an opportunity to get in a larger comprehensive institution. I just want to thank my friends at Western and having that opportunity.
When I met with President Dunn several weeks ago, I presented him with a one-page, 10-point plan that we're going to post on the athletics website later today. The theme of the plan was `Restore the Glory to Saluki Athletics.' We're blessed to have a rich tradition at SIU. Think of some of the athletes that have come through our university: Walt Frazier, Steve Finley, Connie Price-Smith. All in the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame. So many incredible coaches have made their mark at SIU. People like Itchy Jones, Lew Hartzog, Charlotte West, Rich Herrin, Cindy Scott, Jerry Kill, and Bruce Weber. Those are just some of the names that have helped build the foundations of this department.
We will celebrate our past, but we will not live in our past. It is now the time for the current generation and the future generations of players and coaches to achieve greatness. Ultimately, it is my job as Athletic Director to create an environment in which great things can be accomplished by great people.
Let me speak for one moment to our fans and our supporters. I'm going to make sure our staff and student-athletes know how important you are in our success. We will not take you for granted. We're all about family. Your voice matters to us. You're our customers. We'll be transparent with you, and we want you to let us know how we're doing. When it comes to raising money, we want to earn not just your financial support, but most importantly your trust. I want to hear your concerns. What are we doing well? What can we improve? How better can we serve you?
To our coaches and staff: we're blessed to have the tools we need for success. We have a great history. We have great facilities. We have great fans. With that comes great responsibility. I will challenge you to reach your full potential.
To our student athletes: Our department will be firmly committed to helping you become the best you can be. Not just in competition, but in the classroom and in the community. We'll push you to go the extra mile and achieve your goals, and we'll celebrate every one of your achievements. We will also set high expectations for you as a member of our family, as citizens of our community, and representatives of Saluki Athletics.
It would be easy for us to read the headlines of budget cuts and other issues and lose confidence in our future. But I've always been an optimist, a glass half-full kind of guy. As I used to say around here sometimes, `No means maybe.' There are some supporters here who have heard that before. I know that we face some significant challenges, but so did Bruce Weber when he walked in the door in 1998, as well as Jerry Kill when he got here in 2001. Just ask them; they'll tell you. They showed us how to get it done, not with shortcuts and not with luck, but by rolling up their sleeves and getting after it. That's what the people of Southern Illinois do. That's what our University is doing under the leadership of President Dunn. That's what we will do in Saluki Athletics.
I'm not a native of this area, but Southern Illinois holds a special place in my heart. I worked here during the magical era of the department's history. I developed lifelong friendships in this community, as evidenced today. I raised a family here. This is home. The people of Southern Illinois and the experiences that we've shared have helped shape who I am. I feel a tremendous sense of pride to be your next Athletic Director. As I look around this room, I see how much people care about SIU and Saluki Athletics. I know that working together, we can Restore the Glory. That's our mission, and I pledge to work each and every day with each and every one of you to make this a reality."
Q: What is Priority One coming in as the new Athletic Director?
"Priority One will be to meet with everybody in our department within the first 90 days and do an assessment as quick as we can and really try to gauge and take the temperature. There are already some decisions that have been made here that the University needs to make from a budget standpoint. The University already has a really good plan in place and I'm going to be ramped up to speed on that in the next two weeks."
Q: How did working at another public institution in the state like Western Illinois prepare you for this job?
"Really great, because on our campus we were going through different scenarios. I was meeting with my budget officer every week. And we were saying, `Here's a five percent, here's a 10, what's a 15 look like, what are some other things we can do?' Really going through that process, it made a difference."
Q: With the proposed budget cuts, do you believe that SIU will be able to compete on a national stage?
"Money can be a hindrance sometimes, but it's all about what our coaches do and what our student-athletes do that will put us in the national spotlight."
Q: Do you think you'll be able to recruit better students if you don't have the funds to do it?
"That will be up to our coaches. We'll work with them. We'll be very efficient. We'll do cost analysis efficiencies and we'll be very good at it."
President Dunn: "One thing I would share, too, is the fact that this is what's proposed. As we look at a whole host of cuts that we're working on at the campus as possibilities, the idea is to do everything we can in terms of changing the proposal on the state budget to be able to pull back on some of that and mitigate cuts in all of these areas that are important to this entire campus -- Saluki Athletics and well beyond that. Everyone right now is dealing with a proposal that we're trying to figure out a way to address so that it doesn't become as serious as what it looks as we sit here today."
Q: How important was your first go-around here at SIU?
"I think it formulated everything. The friendships, the family -- everything. The relationships really drove it, but the experiences here -- as I told people on the search committee during some of my interviews, I had the greatest growth in my professional career while I was here at SIU because I got opportunities to get involved in different projects, even though the most important part was doing the development work that we had to do. I was able to expand and grow, and that gave me the opportunity to get an athletic director's position, so I think it was very, very important."
Q: What in the 2015 version of Tommy Bell is different from the 2007 version?
"He's a lot different. Hair is different. I've got a receding hairline and expanding waistline. Professionally, sitting in the chair you know you've got to make decisions ultimately, the buck stops at your chair. You've got to be a team player within the University, but you've got to make decisions, and I've had that opportunity at two institutions to make those decisions. And now, we've got to do what's best for our institution and what's best for our athletes."
Q: What's the main thing you've learned to be an athletic director at this level?
"I've worked for a lot of really good administrators, whether they were an athletic director or an associate athletic director. I'm just one of those folks that I feel like I can learn from everyone, whoever it can be, and just try to be a sponge and just learn and grow and during those experiences to just hold on to them. Making decisions at other institutions I was able to use those experiences in other places and it helped and sometimes it worked -- and sometimes it didn't work."
Q: When is your start date?
"We're currently working it, we're finalizing the contract and putting those details together. They're not finalized as of yet, but they'll be ready before the next board meeting, which is in a very short period of time. At that time they will announce a start date."
Q: From the outside looking in, what's the major issue facing this department?
"There's multiple issues. Our success on the fields and the courts and the pools are challenges. There's a lot of customer service things that we'll look at, because I believe that works at every institution. I can't say here's one or two things, but we all know what the answer to a number of those questions are. But, I've got to identify that really quickly through an evaluation and really get my fingers on the pulse."
Q: How do you relate to your donors in response to the success, or lack of, these past few years?
"I believe there are a lot of great relationships. There's a great development team here, they've done some really fine work and they have great relationships. We'll have to identify it first, and that we go through relationships and making sure that we're in a process with people and if it's appropriate and is it a good plan. It'll be a team approach, because they've got to understand the history first."
Q: When you evaluate the athletics staff, how do you balance athletic success and academic success?
"What I've done previously at the two institutions that I've been able to establish it at both is a 17-point evaluation plan that has a broad base and really fits for athletics and for coaches. On the administrative side, I have something that's a little different, around 10 of 11 points, but I've been able to really hone that down over the years and it's been very helpful since it's a little more broadbased."
