September 15, 2016

September 15, 2016

Intercollegiate Athletics Council Meeting (IAC)

Attended Meeting:  David Bassa, Kelli Creel, Robert Spina, Travis Fife, William Holmes, Tracy Benson, Brad Mayer, David Carroll, Derina Holtzhausen, Jason Henderson, Hsing-wei Chu, Jerry Bradley, Rosa Hubbard, Helene Thill, Uliana Trylowsky

Meeting was called to order at 2:03pm by Dr. Hsing-wei Chu

President Evans gave the official charge to the committee.

• Athletics is a complex enterprise and has a lot of moving parts.
• Southland Conference wants to increase APR requirements for conference championships.
• Football and Men’s Track are not below the NCAA required APR cut score.
• Always looking to elevate the academics in all sports and specifically football and men’s track.
• We have put approximately $3,000,000 into the softball complex and the track for improvements over the past few years. Also, money was donated for the new scoreboard at the Montagne Center.
• Looks to the IAC members for other athletics areas that might need improvements.
• Student-athletes have a strenuous schedule with academics, practice and travel.
• There are a lot of pressures on student-athletes and we want to look for any undue pressures put on them by professors and coaches. Looking that the expectations are not inappropriate.
• All athletes are students first, athletes second.
• Coaches have support from administration and university staff. They are expected to be competitive, but should also not have undue pressures put on them by boosters, alumni and other community members.
• IAC can be a conduit for athletics to the President.

Jerry Bradley asked if there was anything that could be said to professors that do not excuse student-athletes from class and just don’t like student-athletes in their classes.

• Evans recommended a letter being sent from the IAC to professors to let them know that their views of student-athletes are not based on facts.

• There could be a shake-up in conferences. There are all kinds of rumors out there of where people are going, but we haven’t been approached or reached out to any other conference.
• We should be competitive in current conference before making a move to a bigger conference.
• How can we more effectively reach out to faculty and staff to improve attendance at games?
  • College receptions before basketball games.
  • Email faculty and staff on game days.
  • Send out the Cardinal Club newsletter to all faculty and staff.

All members in attendance introduced themselves.

Jason Henderson thanked all members for serving on the IAC.  He gave updates for the athletics department.

• We have started the new year and have had a little bit of a tough start.
• Football lost to Coastal Carolina and University of Houston. Conference play starts this weekend against Sam Houston State.  There has been a lot of energy in practice.
• Soccer is home next weekend.
• Volleyball – Has played well to start the season, but have been on the road. They will start conference play at home on October 8.
• Cross Country – Placed 2^nd in both men and women the first weekend.
• Basketball – Starts practice around October 1.
• Softball – Fall practice started. We will host some home games this fall.
• Baseball – Fall practice starts October 3. Coach Davis has brought a new energy to the team and is excited for this year.
• Montagne Center scoreboard should be up in the next couple weeks. There will also be a new sound system and new LED lights will take away the buzz.
• NCAA APR – Football is at 931 and Men’s Track is at 934. These are the only two teams close to the 930 cut score.  Next closest team is at 945.  First team with 4-year average of 1000 is men’s golf.

The basketball schedules should be released next week.

Baseball and softball schedules should also be released soon.

Uliana Trylowsky recommended that we do more internal marketing of athletics to our faculty and staff. 

All faculty and staff receive 2 tickets to each game.

We had a very good student turnout for Coastal Carolina.

Degree Audit is a very important tool for the university.  IAC members agreed to assist with trying to get degree audit more widely used across campus.

Dr. Holtzhausen recommended that the project for the group should be to work on getting more faculty members to athletics events.

Meeting was adjourned at 2:45pm