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PITNEY: Interim UAF athletic director keeps job transition in perspectiveContinued from Page C-1where there are 250 million people in this. Or if it’s the university as a team or the state as a team. You tweak things a little different for the specifics. But this department is a team, just like the rifle team is a team. I’ve noticed that people are really binding together good on the staff as a team. They seem to really be enjoying the change and are really taking interest in the direction we’re taking. I have no Intentions of sitting here nextiear being in the same situation jive are right now. This is an opportunity to get us off dead tenter and get some three-, five-, seven-, 10-year plans and maybewill improve each year, looking for some goals. We’ve got somegoals that we’ve set and the goals now, everybody’s in on them and everybody’s buying in on them.FDNM: Can you give an example of one of those goals ?Pitney: We’ve got lots of dif-fernt ideas. The major one right now is the budget and finances. We’ve had budget problems here. We’re not funded at the level we need to be funded at. And by the same token, the university is not funded at the level it needs to be funded at.But (the athletic department has) great potential. We’ve really got a postive attitude here that we’ve got the potential to bring more revenue into this univeristy in two ways; One to bring more revenue to the athletic department to enhance our budget, butalso, it’s going to bring more students in. The athletic department is one of the big factors between a community and a state and the university. It’s one of the big things that’s seen out there.FDNM: The UAA athletic department expects a budget shortfall of $500,000 this year. In lightof university budget cuts, will there be a shortfall at UAI this year and if so, how much?Pitney: To answer the question first about UAA, I sat through parts of the regents’ meetings and I understand it’s $476,000. And even though we’ve always felt they’ve had more than we do, this cut’s going tohurt them more because it’s tough to cut things back. I imagine for that much, they’re going to have to make some major cuts. It seems like we’ve run at a deficit at times in the athletic department, but this year our charge and challenge is that we need to break even. We have to come up with a zero deficit at the end of the year. I guarantee you there’s not going to be any extra, any left over because we are so underfunded. But we intend to be at zero. 1 don’t think we have any choice in the matter. I’d imagine if we don’t show that we are getting towards that area and look like we’re overspending, we’ll probably have some cuts from above. But I don’t believe it’s going to be a problem.We’ve been given a budget, and it’s far less than what we need to operate on. But we have the ability to generate revenues here. Sometimes I believe in the past we haven’t been realistic about projecting those revenues.FDNM: What is the totalbudget for the athletic department ?Pitney: We’re allotted from the university $1.1217 million. Now, to accomplish what we’re doing, bare-bones level, we need $2 million. I mean bare-bones level. So we have projected that we will raise in revenues andrealistically so, $840,000. Those revenues come from the Top of the World Classic, season tickets sales, corporate sponsors and on and on and on. Every coach knows exactly what they need to do now. In the past sometimes we’ve been unclear of what we really had to spend or what we really had to do. When that happens, generally you spend more and you go over the total budget. Now every coach knows exactly a definitive answer of what amount of money they have. If they raise more money, then they can get off the bare-bones level. But if they don’t, they’re going to have to figure out how to make things work. It’s like running your checkbook in your home.The good thing is I’m a real capitalist. I’ve built a lot of incentives in to each person’s budget, how they can makes thingshappen. We’ve thrown all the money in the camps back into each sport. ... We’re going to set a certain amount for attendance based on the last three years and when we reach that level then they’ll get a certain percentage of the revenues after that and that will go directly back into the program. There’s really incentives built in and the coaches will know that it’s not going into a proverbial black hole. The black hole is gone and everybody’s really smiling about that. There is a big red ink basin and we have to make sure we clear that up. We’re all working together as a team and I’ve seen people come up with great ideas.FDNM: So you took over a deficit?Pitney: I took over at the end of a fiscal year, so we really don’t know what’s happened in the past years. But I know what I have and I won’t get anymore and I won’t get bailed out.FDNM: So what happened in past years doesn ’t affect you ?Pitney: I don’t believe we will be impacted by what happened in past years. ... But if it does, I would certainly hope we’re not impacted by that because that would demoralize the group so much it would be tough. We couldn’t run any place close to where we are now. We’d have to talk about some serious, drastic measures. Major cuts. We’ve got obligations that we’re just stuck with. We’d have to get out of conferences and things like that. I don’t think they want to do that. I think this athletic department has to show the university our worth. Maybe we haven’t done a great job of that in the past.FDNM: One issue thatcoaches bring up again and again is pay for their assistants. Is there any chance of pay raises in the near future ?Pitney: With the incentives, I would certainly hope we could accomplish that. We are re-evaluating that, (looking) at assistant coaches on a division-wide level. Certainly (UAF assistants) are underpaid. Some teams only have volunteer coaches and we need to take a look at that and see what we can do. There again, if weshow what we’re worth to the university, hopefully they’ll realize we can be an even greater benefit if we can add in some areas.FDNM: Dean Carla Kirts said the school will decide what to do with the job after The Top of the World Classic. Do you consider the next four months an audition ?Pitney: I’m so busy I’m not really looking at that. I’ve never had a life ambition to be an athletic director. If I had, I would’ve probably made some different decisions in my early 20s. But I went different routes on things, which I don’t think I would’ve changed a bit. I’m enjoying the athletic director’s position right now. It’s very challenging and I enjoy challenges. But I’m kind of a grassroots person here. I’ve been with the university and the department a long time. I’m an alumni. I’m just here to help out however I can. I want to build astrong foundation for the nextperson that comes in. And maybe it will take me more than a year. Maybe it will take me a couple of years to really get things stabilized. I would hope that I would have that opportunity to build areally strong foundation, ratherthan just get part way and have somebody else come in and take over something that’s really not floating great yet.FDNM: Do you have the power to hire and fire coaches?Pitney: You know. I’ve never asked that question. I would imagine a director certainly would have that power. But especially in a public institution you have to have a good basis to fire anyone. I don’t think we have good basis to fire anybody at this point in time. All of us coaches need some improvement in whatever areas, some probably more than others. What I would like to do is work on an education program for the coaches so that we could have little chats, brainstorming sessions, as a group, maybe even call them clinics or workshops. I don’t know how formal they’ll be. But work on recruiting, that’d be one area because we can certainly do a better job of recruiting. Alaska is not offthe edge of the flat world. We don’t all live in igloos where it’s 40 below, 60 below all the time. And we have a lot of really positive things that we can use to recruit off of and this academic institution is one of them.FDNM: Several players have left the hockey and basketball programs in the past year, saying they were disappointed with the coaching. Is that a legitimate complaint or normal behavior for young adults?Pitney: When you’re working with young people the ages of 18 to 21 years old, at times they make decisions based on “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.’’ But they’re pretty smart kids and frequently their decisions are made very logically and they’ve got good basis for them. I can only evaluate the rifle team at this point in time. I’ve never really gotten into the politics of what goes on on other teams and if the coach is good or the coach isn’t good. Obviously as director now, I’ll need to start doing that.I would hope we could create an environment where our retention is 100 percent and no stu-dent-athlete wants to leave the program. I think we can create thatFDNM: In the past three years, there have been several cases of inappropiate conduct by UAF athletes. Can anything be done to stop that from happening in the future ?Pitney: Yeah, I would hope so by creating a good environment One of our major missions here is create a good enviroment for the student-athlete and to educate them in their maturation processes as they continue on in their lives. If we as coaches and in the administration are good role models to them, hopefully they will not do the silly things that frequently young people do. ... I would expect a lot less of that.FDNM: Hockey attendance dropped dramatically last season and, with exception of The Top ofthe World Classic, men’s andwomen’s basketball and volleyballVattendance have remained much the same. How important areticket sales to the athletic departments’s budget ?Pitney: We only have a few areas where we can raise money. Ticket sales are crucial. If we can’t raise money, we have a problem. That’s one of the big areas we’ve got there.What we need to do is create entertainment for the people that come to the games. Some of the reason people don’t come to the games is they just flat don’t know about them. And some of them, they’re there and they go home and even if we’ve won big time they don’t feel like they’ve been really entertained. We will make a few adjustments there so that even if we lose really badly on a night in any sport, hopefully they've gotten their money’s worth, gotten their entertainment value and they’ll be back and we’ll tiy to win the next day.FDNM: Do you have plans to get the community more involvedthis year?Pitney: Yes. I’m going to form an advisory committee to start with. You know, 1 can look at itthrough my eyes and I’ve gotyellow pads filled up with what we need to do, but reality checks are always great. I’ve sat on a lot of advisory committees around the state on different issues from Fish and Game to road commissions. I’m going to get some people in town that seem real knowledgable to me on the UAFathletic department, get them on an advisory committee and see what ideas they have also.FDNM: The thing you noticemost when you go to a game is there are no students. Is there a way to attract more students to the games ?Pitney: We not only have to get the community involved, Fairbanks and the Interior, but this campus. A lot of it is they just don’t know we have some of the games. We can do a better job of that. But we need to get something to bnng them out, some promotions and I’ve got yellow pads full of that again But somebody’s going to get them out for their first game, then if we’re putting out a quality product, then they’ll come back
Newspaper Details
Fairbanks Daily News Miner
Fairbanks, Alaska, US
Sun, Aug 02, 1998
Page 21
Full Page
Clipped by
Evan G.
USA 19 Jan 2022
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