Since so many alums/people are so upset after every loss, what is the "specific" formula to make us a perinneal top 10 program like Clemson??? Personally, I think its all about $$$ & majors. Until we pony up the $$, other teams have better assistants and better support staff to prepare the team. Right now, we are behind the competition every week! Also, depth hurts. Although we have greats players, we just don't have great players at the 2/3 deep. Why, b/c we have to develop talent versus recruiting ready to play talent. The top dogs who come in ready to play sure as hell aren't engineers, & I would wager they would struggle with the business curriculum everyone loves to insult!
In my opinion, if CPJ wasn't at Tech, we would be lucky to win 3-4 games per year. Yes, you can say his record is similar to past coaches, but since he has been here almost every other ACC school has passed GT in $$ invested into their program. CPJ is taking MIT, Caltech level students and winning 7-10 per year.
Give him some $$ and 1 major to stash athletes and I guarantee we win the NC within 5 years!
If you disagree, other than constantly complaing about CPJ, how do you think we win it all moving forward?
So I haven't read the entire thread yet,but here are my ideas. First, to build a better program there are things we can control, things we have some control over,and things we can't control. With those breaks in mind here are things we can do to create a better program.
TLDR version: Align the school and AD's paths so the Hill helps the AD and the AD helps the hill. Raise more money, market GT as a whole, use the city as a resource not an excuse, seek additional well thought out majors, don't worry about the things that we can't control.
Things we can control
1. Integrate the mission of the school and the athletic department. To often the Hill appears to view the AD as the red-headed step child of the Institute, instead of viewing it as the front porch. This will require us as an alumni and fans to apply pressure to both TStan and Bud to work together more closely, especially in areas of outreach, fundraising, and overall experience of every person that comes to visit the campus.
2. How we fundraise: Clemson has been helped tremendously by the iptay program. This has raised them so much money since 1934 that they are considered a powerhouse in the sport. Instead of relying on large donations and AT fund add-ons to season ticket sales Tech, and honestly any school, should mimic the IPTAY program. Some fun acronyms for such programs could include:
FEW: Five ($5)/Fifteen ($15)/Fifty ($50) Each Week - assuming all 126,000 living alumni (2010 GT alumni association estimate) paid in, this would raise between $32.8 MM - $327.6 MM annually
FEM: Five ($5)/Fifteen ($15)/Fifty ($50) Every Month - $7.6 MM - $75.6 MM annually
FEQ: Five ($5)/Fifteen ($15)/Fifty ($50) Each Quarter - $2.5 MM - $25.2 MM annually
TECH: Ten ($10) Every Check - ~$32.8 MM annually
Ideally, in a fully integrated system this money would be split 50-50 to support the AD and the school's endowment (what we pay into roll call). As you can see, this type of fundraising would be significant to the overall financial health of the school and AD. Better finances drive everything else.
3. Our Marketing - Our marketing and outreach as an athletic program in the city is terrible. The billboards are cool, and every now and then you hear a radio ad, but for the most part the advertising sucks. We need to hire someone to create a story for the AD, the school, and both as a whole unit. Target Georgia Tech's reputation in the State. Build pride in the institution among alumni and our fellow citizens. Have public outreach to every school in the state, we call Georgia Tech the MIT of the south, let's market GT so much that MIT is the Georgia Tech of the North. This would be paid for in part by the better money flow created by programs discussed in #2.
4. Our gameday atmosphere - Fans this is on us as much as the AD, but let's start with some things that the school can control.
A. When we have weeknight football games, would it kill the Hill to stop classes at 3 PM?
B. Our color coordination - I really like the concept of "White at Night! Gold in the Light!". If you're unfamiliar with this, the idea is that we wear gold (as fans, and potentially players) when the kick occurs in a traditional early or afternoon slot (noon - five) and we as fans wear white for any kicks after 5pm (night games).
C. Being loud and proud in the stands - As fans, we can help create a great gameday atmosphere by just being loud and engaged
D. Re-seat the stadium so that we hold between 50-53k in an attempt to get rid of the empty seats, consider replacing bench seats with bucket seats ala NFL stadiums.
Things we Sorta Control:
1. Our reputation - We as an institute, alumni/fan base, and AD can do our darndest to be perfect citizens, great hosts, and rowdy fanatics, but we can't really control how others view us. So behave well and appropriately, but don't worry to much about our reputation, just continue to do your part to build it.
2. Media coverage - The current old guard in local media will not give us a fair shake, keep winning, use the advertising to get a larger fan base, and don't complain every time a bad article comes out. Consume the articles, especially the good ones, and push that you want more coverage/shows at reasonable times. For instance, push 680 for a Yellow Jacket Round Table on Wednesday mornings.
Things we can't control:
1. Majors - I believe it was a great mistake to give UGA an engineering program without providing GT an eduaction program. I feel that the school should push for certain majors to be added to GT - education being first and foremost, but until the BOR stops viewing the institute as the ignorable cash cow we will have a stupidly hard time increasing majors.
2. Other programs - Beat them on the field, but don't worry about them. Be tech, keep everything up to date, and we'll be good.
Any other suggestions guys? I'm working on putting together this in a bit more formal presentation to present to TStan. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.
