The fifth year at Georgia Tech for athletic director Dan Radakovich was not full of idle moments. He fired men's basketball coach Paul Hewitt, broke ground for renovating Alexander Memorial Coliseum and an indoor football practice facility, and made progress on a new tennis facility. He spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the year past and the one ahead:
Q: What was the biggest positive development and the biggest disappointment this past school year?
A: The biggest positive development has been that philanthropy, as it relates to the building of buildings, continues to be very strong. … From the disappointment category, I think that in some ways, there was no way to go but down. In the 09-10 year, we had the best athletic year we ever had as it relates to wins and losses. So this year we kind of moved back a little bit in some of our sports but that's going to happen.
Q: The baseball team had 17 freshmen, yet tied a school record for ACC wins. However, the team lost in the NCAA regional round for the fourth consecutive year despite being the No. 1 seed. How do you assess it?
A: I think that we did have a great year. This may have been one of (coach) Danny's (Hall) best coaching jobs that he's ever done, considering the large number of first-year players that contributed to our team. I think as we look forward, there's a lot of reason for optimism.
Q: With McCamish Pavilion a year away from opening, do you know yet how you'll split up the men's basketball games at Philips Arena and Gwinnett Arena?
A: We do know that it's our plan right now, and we'll be corresponding with our season-ticket holders shortly, but we will have 10 games at Philips Arena -- the eight ACC games, plus the game against Alabama, plus the ACC-Big Ten Challenge game against Northwestern. Those 10 games will be part of the season ticket that will be sold at Philips Arena. The other games, the other four or five games that are played, the nonconference games, will be at Gwinnett and we'll sell those on a per-game basis.
Q: What can you do to attract more fans into Bobby Dodd Stadium?
A: We have tried a number of things over the years. We're going to increase our advertising presence around the first of July, first of August, with some different types of things that we haven't done in the past. We just completed a very extensive survey of 1,200 randomly surveyed customers. We got a very good response rate, achieved a 95-percent confidence level based on those responses.
There's a lot of myth (about the fan base). Now we have data. So we'll be able to go forward and attempt to find ways that we can influence buyers to come and attend Georgia Tech events and target a little bit -- I don’t know that you ever hit the target 100 percent -- but maybe have some more rationale and reason behind the type of advertising we do.
Q: Do you see more potential for ticket buyers within alumni or people not associated with the school?
A: We would love to grow the unassociated category. We need to maximize the number of people here who may not be a Georgia Tech graduate but enjoy college football and enjoy the atmosphere and enjoy the pageantry of college football. We want them to look at Georgia Tech and say, "You know, let's go down and see a game. Let's support this program."
Q: Does any part of you want to see the NFL lockout extend into the fall?
A: That's not something that we would want to see happen. Will it have some kind of tangent effect? It could, or it could make everybody angry. You could look at it and say we get rounded into a negative circumstance surrounding it. But we're going to be here, we're going to play. If something unfortunate happens within the NFL, if someone would love to come out and watch football at a high level, then they're certainly welcome. There's room in our wagon for them to come and experience that.
Q: With projects like the basketball arena and indoor football practice facility, what is the amount of debt that the association is carrying?
A: I think the total amount of debt is somewhere around $170 million.
Q: What was it when you arrived (in 2006)?
A: About a hundred (million).
Q: Do you feel comfortable with the plan to service the debt?
A: I think we have, and the institute understands it as well, a very good plan for managing our debt. The last few years, about 12 percent of our operational revenue has gone to debt and within our five-year forecasting period that we're working on right now, that number stays within tenths of a percentage point of the same because we'll then be pulling dollars off these philanthropic donations in bits and pieces to help offset the increased cost. So we've done it thoughtfully. There's a lot of very successful businesses that have large amounts of debt.
Q: What is your plan for filling the open football date in 2013?
A: It's kind of up in the air right now because it is a single date. We don't have a corresponding date in '14 or '15 that we can plug someone else in. It's a little difficult to understand right now which way we're going to go. But Ryan Bamford, our new associate AD, it's one of his charges to present some options.
Q: Is playing in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game an option?
A: It's a possibility, it certainly is.
Q: But not more than a possibility?
A: No. Again, I don't know who else we play that year (scheduled nonconference opponents: Georgia, BYU and Elon), so you have to look at it as a schedule in total as opposed to just one particular game.
About the Author
