You can’t say President Heather Wilson doesn’t support athletics
- Thread starter utep2step
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It takes a hell of lot more than Halloween costume to show support especially now.
It doesn’t. There is not a thing she could do that would make you all feel better.
Her and Senter could announce a 100 million dollar campaign to improve UTEP athletics, then achieve it. That would make me feel better.
It doesn’t. There is not a thing she could do that would make you all feel better.
She's not the reason that we are in this mess in my opinion. It's a nice gesture for her to dress up like that for Halloween
She's been president for three years. Senter has been AD for almost four. There was a great article in the Dallas Morning News last week about how the president and AD at North Texas had been preparing and planning for realignment for the past two years. What have Wilson and Senter been doing to prepare for this moment? My fear is absolutely nothing.
The same can be said for UTSA, and their commitment to athletics. Senter and Campos started at the same time. UTEP has several factors working against it, but without a strategy and commitment to athletics, it is pretty clear where the program is headed.
Wilson didn’t hire Kugler, Floyd who left a damn mess. I am happy for Dimel this year but the first three years were bad.
Texas & OU make a major move that has the MW barely surviving the bombing of Dresden. Let’s go visit the wonderful campus of UTSA and compare their facilities to UTEP.
Oh gawd I wish I could travel into the future because the new AAC is WAC 2.0 when SMU, TCU and Tulsa et al came in years ago.
But, they are in charge, I get that. But stop listening to gawd damn local TAM boosters and let’s get constructive on this and this starts by insisting on competitive head coaches, aggressive tickets sales and stop crapping on UTEP 24/7.
Texas & OU make a major move that has the MW barely surviving the bombing of Dresden. Let’s go visit the wonderful campus of UTSA and compare their facilities to UTEP.
Oh gawd I wish I could travel into the future because the new AAC is WAC 2.0 when SMU, TCU and Tulsa et al came in years ago.
But, they are in charge, I get that. But stop listening to gawd damn local TAM boosters and let’s get constructive on this and this starts by insisting on competitive head coaches, aggressive tickets sales and stop crapping on UTEP 24/7.
Not sure if you are deriding the UTSA campus or praising it...
I drive by the campus every day, I work with a bunch of UTSA grads. The speed at which UTSA has left UTEP in the dust is mind blowing. Their engineering program wasn't even ABET certified 15 years ago. They used us for a bunch of their growth initiatives, I kid you not. Their "birds up" thing was conceived after the AD saw our "picks up". I know people that could have gone to UT-Austin or UTSA for engineering and they chose UTSA because of the professors there. They have a downtown campus and they keep making additions to their main campus. They have a hockey rink in their student rec center!?!? Architecturally, their campus does not compare to UTEP, but they are flush with cash and it's burning a hole in their pocket.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know any A&M boosters in El Paso. The only time I'm in El Paso is during football season it's usually for 24 to 36hrs hrs on football weekends.
The DMN article was factual and layed out how UNT's admistratuon had been planning for this moment for two years. They made significant investments in facilities. UTEP didn't. UTEP did a very paired down renovation of the Sun Bowl. (15 million of the planned 65 million) the funding for that was largely secured before Senter came in.
Basketball has nothing to do with any of this. No one cares about basketball in realignment. I'm certainly not nor have ever been a fan of Floyd but his tenure has no bearing on this whatsoever. No basketball coaches tenure would influence this.
The Kugler era ended horrifically but he is the only coach to register a winning season in the last 15 years. Hopefully that changes Saturday. It was a terrible ending but many schools have had to deal with horrific season like that including UNT. It's not an excuse.
Natalicio and Stull made alot of mistakes. However, the narrative Natalicio was anti-athletics is not true. SHe was probably anti athletics before 2000. However, after 2000 she was very much pro athletics. She was at every home football game I can remember. She always came up at what was then the Captains Club and shook everyone's hand and thanked them for their support. UAB wouldn't have football if it wasn't for Diana Natalicio. She was the president of the CUSA presidents association when UAB dropped football. She resisted call to kick UAB out and lobbied the UAB president to bring back football. She told him how football was for an institution.
They made their fair share of mistakes. Biggest being turning down the MWC twice and tying themselves to two schools who wanted nothing to do with UTEP (SMU and Houston).
At the end of the day. This is Wilson and Senter's mess. They're in charge and the train is coming off the track. Like another poster above stated Campos has been on the job for as long as Senter and was prepared for this. As a university they are pushing up their athletic budget to $40 million. They have made their coach the third highest paid coach in g5. That's commitment. What have Wilson and Senter done ? Crickets.
Stop bullshit about people craping on UTEP. Football has been a successful and everyone is excited. This realignment has been a miserable failure to this point. It's been horribly mismanaged by UTEP. Our athletic future is in the most precarious spot it's ever been in. It's during moments like this leader lead. Wilson and Senter we're waiting.
One very important thing in this climate of realignment you left out and it is the most important part, location. The AAC took 6 schools from cusa and every one of them is in a large population metro area with very good recruiting. If El Paso had great recruiting plus twice as many people plus a lot more money it would be in the mwc today. When the mwc was considering expansion recently they made it crystal clear they wanted those huge Texas markets. Now the AAC has gobbled those up and the next time the mwc needs to add a school it may be UTEP. The AAC didn't add schools like Charlotte or Rice because of their great expenditures or facilities.
But Wilson looks cute in a uniform so we should feel good about that.
Again, she gave Senter a raise. Even though he extended Terry for no good reason, definitely wasn’t on the court results. This was before this football season. Now, all these schools left CUSA and Senter was either unaware or unprepared. Probably both. Instead of being proactive, he will be reactive.
If CUSA goes away, he will say they tried and it couldn’t happen, but he’s confident in Independence and whatever basketball league he can find. “We tried guys!”
Allegedly. I still haven't seen a reliable source that backs that story. If true, heads need to roll if anyone is still around from that decision(s).
Natalicio was convinced of the power of athletics to further academics. As far as I know, she was against hiring Price, yet she listened and was persuaded otherwise. She supported athletics the best way she could, or knew how to. Her job was to run the university and she did a great job at that. She delegated athletics to Stull. She was there at the Denver NCAA tournament, greeting fans, and at countless football/basketball games at SMU and Houston.
Yes, UTEP got fat, dumb and happy in the small success it had in the Price/Gillespie/Barbee era and got complacent, instead of getting aggressive and looking for ways to keep improving. UTEP's predicament is not tied to a singular event or person. It's a system failure that is clearly evident, but the imminent failure signs were there already and multiple people/departments didn't or couldn't do anything about it.
I think it does show she is interested and engaged in UTEP athletics. Both she and Senter reportedly want UTEP in the mwc. Hopefully our univ leadership will begin that $100M fund raiser we are all anxious to contribute to very soon.
I appreciate what Wilson is trying to do with the high fives, the push-ups, and the Halloween costume but she needs to look around her.
CUSA is on the brink of extinction and we need a plan that doesn't involve going down with the ship.
CUSA is on the brink of extinction and we need a plan that doesn't involve going down with the ship.
We all have unrealistic “wants” in life. They can want the MWC all they want, it’s just not happening in the near future. Maybe that changes.
Here’s a perfect example of how much attention they have to athletics. The CUSA Football Championship and the NMSU home basketball game are on the same ****ing date. On 12/3 the football game is at 5pm and the basketball game just got moved to 6pm so it can be broadcast on Stadium. The date of the football championship was decided way before they made or finalized the basketball schedule.
They didn’t have the confidence or bothered to look at the calendar to see a potential conflict. If UTEP wins out, they would play in and host the CUSA Championship and 1 hour later, they would tip-off versus NMSU. Even if they get the basketball game pushed back till 9pm or something. It probably won’t be televised anymore. Not even sure if they have the option.
They don’t pay attention. It probably won’t matter, but it’s still possible for this to happen 1 month out. I know you guys will shit on this post because of blah, blah, blah, but come on. Stuff like this shouldn’t happen.
To make matters worse, we didn't even get a buyout from the UT hire of Terry. No worries Jim, we'll promote you to VP. I hate beating a dead horse, but it bothers me to see where we are heading.
Stull is retired and Natalicio is dead. Stull will hang up the phone and there is no secret note attached to Diana's hair stick holding her bun in within the casket, "Exit fee's were too high!".
The only complacency was Stull not firing Kugler and Floyd sooner. Who knew Terry was going to be bust and Kansas State would work behind the scenes to get Dimel hired here (Don't deny it Senter, Snyder admitted publicly that he called you to plead his case to hire him and you did). Senter passed up on good (asst coaches and hc names) and Dimel was willing to take less money.
Yeah for sure. If you think he’s doing a good job, fine, but who was/is coming for Jim Senter? No need to extend him. Especially after a baffling decision to extend him.
I get your point but I also see theirs. You don't pass up on a televised game on the rare chance your football team, who many thought would have a losing season, makes the CUSA championship game.
It also seems NMSU pissed off UNM with their schedule availability.
Some things are just out of their control. Scheduling games where both teams can make it work is one of those.
They just recently released the TV schedule and the game is on Stadium. Not ESPN or even CBSSN. Stadium. They had the date before Stadium even came into the equation.
I guess they could have worked out a different date. Maybe towards the end of the season. I consider myself to be a realistic UTEP cheerleader, and never would I have imagined we even had a chance to host the football championship game.
Yes she did great things, but having rejected the MWC invite twice was a HUGE MISTAKE. Is exactly what led us to this APOCALIPSE.
Yes, can't disagree with that.
I was just reading an article on Patterson and his big extension in 2017. Boy, how the worm turns for some.
I think people overlook the investment Rice has made in football. Their football performance center was $ 35 million and has three times more square footage than the Durham Center. They also have a newly constructed indoor practice bubble.
Without the investment Rice still may of have made the cuts because University presidents love partnering with them because of their ivy league quality academics. They're also in Houston but the investments in facilities certainly helped push them over the top.
Without the investment Rice still may of have made the cuts because University presidents love partnering with them because of their ivy league quality academics. They're also in Houston but the investments in facilities certainly helped push them over the top.
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