Kennesaw State’s leaders sought advice from presidents and athletic directors from Mobile, Ala. to Norfolk, Va. as they put together the blueprint for new football program.
KSU President Dan Papp and athletic director Vaughn Williams received information about marketing, facilities and academic support, to name a few of the ingredients in what will eventually be the support structure for the team. But often they heard that the two most important steps, the steps that will determine the program’s future long before the first game is expected to be played in 2015, will be the hiring of the first head coach and the accuracy of the budget. Williams wants to have that hire made by the end of March because there’s a lot to do before the team plays its first game.
The first coach will set the direction of the program from an academic, athletic, financial and moral standpoint. They will need to be as well versed in fundraising and budgets as Xs and Os at first because everything, including the first football, must be procured.
“The reason that person is important is because the decisions that are made with respect to personnel, both above and below, are so strongly influenced that the overall welfare of the program for decades will be drastically affected,” Bill Curry said. “I’m talking about all kinds of personnel, not just the coaching staff.”
After decades in football, Curry was hired at Georgia State in 2008 to lead its football program, which didn’t play its first game until 2010.
Curry was one of several Georgia State officials who met with Papp and Williams in the past to discuss all aspects of starting a team, including the need for the right kind of leader.
Curry in effect said he is an example of what not to do as the head coach of a program. Though the Panthers are about to play football on the FBS level after just three years on the lower level, they have struggled on the field, going 1-10 last year in Curry’s final season as coach. He retired.
“If we had a better head coach we would have won a lot more,” he said. “We would have done better in a lot of areas. It’s just a fact. Football is a head coach’s game.”
Curry said he would advise Papp and Williams to find someone who has a good eye for talent, both for recruiting players and support staff. He said the next coach doesn’t have to be young, but they have to be willing and able to put in 90 hours a week.
Much of that time in the first 12-18 months will be spent on selling the program, according to Old Dominion athletic director Wood Selig.
Coach Bobby Wilder said he had as many as 250 speaking engagements in a single year – sometimes tripling up on breakfast, lunch and dinner speeches -- as he crisscrossed the Hampton Roads area selling ODU’s new program.
“They need an individual who can sell everyone on what is now only a dream, who can paint pictures with words and who can sell to so many different constituents,” Selig said, pointing to recruits, alumni and others.
Wilder said 75 percent of the time he was part of a team that included representatives from ODU's marketing and fund-raising departments at these engagements.
"What happened, with each speaking engagement we gained more momentum," Wilder said. "That 2½-year period we just kept gaining momentum."
Lastly, Curry said the Owls’ first coach needs to be a “genius” in some aspect of the sport because it gives the team an extra coach on the field. Curry said he wasn’t.
“There are so many things that I see that we could have done better,” he said, but declined to go into specifics.
Williams said he has an idea of the type of coach he wants to hire. He said he has a list of potential coaches based upon who has connections in Georgia, who has had success in high school football and recommendations from other athletic directors.
He declined to say the salary range of the new coaching staff and other needed hires, but in documents to the Board of Regents the university’s projections show $2.2 million for football operations and $1.2 million for administration support.
Williams said he will have final say on any hires who work in the department because he’s trying to maintain a culture. But the coach will have the freedom to pursue candidates and bring their choices to him.
Williams said he will consider coaches with college or pro experience, or those who lead top-level high-school programs.
He agrees with Curry that he’d like to find someone who is well-versed in a particular aspect of the sport. More importantly, he wants someone who can see past the sidelines to the long-term impact of coaching.
“They are about the ‘We’,” he said. “The institution, the students, the community.”
To fulfill that goal, he said he’s not looking for someone who wants the job to build a resume. He said he needs someone to start the foundation and set the direction.
“If you are going to build something strong, it will take time to do that,” Williams said. “Everyone will want instant results, but we need someone who really wants to be here.”
The coach and the budget will be intertwined because the next coach will be the face of the fund-raising. But that financial projections need to be accurate.
Williams had many conversations with Georgia State athletic director Cheryl Levick, who took over the program in 2009, and associate athletic director James Greenwell.
“There’s no need to make the mistakes twice if we can share,” she said.
Levick said they talked about coaches, salaries and other things related to the hands-on aspects of the team. She said the most important piece of off-the-field advice she gave was to make sure that the Owls have given themselves enough time to so that’s nothing rushed. She also said they need to make sure that their operating budget stays up to date.
Georgia State’s first operating budget was projected four years before the first game. The Panthers found out they were off by about $250,000 by the time first season was complete as inflation and other factors caused expenses to increase.
Selig said projected budgets should be doubled and hopefully they will be matched by revenue. He said one consultant vastly underestimated the demand for ODU’s football program, which has sold out every game with a waiting list of 4,000 for season tickets, partially because of Wilder’s efforts before the first game in 2009 and the results since as the Monarchs became one of the better teams in the Colonial Athletic Association. Wilder said ODU originally put aside 6,000 season tickets. That sold out in one day. They eventually capped that total at 14,500, but he believes they could have sold every ticket at Foreman Field as a season ticket. They have since accepted an invitation to join Conference USA and play football on the FBS level.
“If you do the right job behind the scenes you will be pleasantly surprised,” Selig said.
Williams, whose background is in finance, seems confident that Kennesaw State’s projections are accurate. In documents at the Board of Regents meetings, KSU provided two reports. In one, the more optimistic, the Owls project profits of almost $3 million after the 2017 season. A less-optimistic projection, which included reduced expenses related to the marching band and fifth-year scholarships for student-athletes, still showed predicted profits of $2.1 million.
In the end, Williams said they can’t copy anyone’s plan because every school’s situation is different.
For example, unlike Georgia State, Kennesaw State owns the stadium the football team will play in. It has already reaped some financial reward by selling naming rights to Fifth Third Bank for $5 million over 10 years. Georgia State doesn’t have that opportunity with its home in the Georgia Dome, but it doesn’t have to pay for maintenance costs in part of the trade-off between owning vs. renting or leasing.
“We studied everybody, but it’s really about what Kennesaw State can do,” Williams said. “You don’t put together a business plan based upon what others can do. We are going to be smart, efficient and transparent and live within our realm.”
