I didn't know, or forgot maybe, that they replaced Suguira. I knew he was gone. Any links to good Bishop articles?
He's writte a couple since this one, but I haven't read them yet (Ken has also written a couple this week that I haven't read yet). Anyway, this one by Chad from last week is very good IMO ---
Georgia Tech’s J Batt, who is nearing the one-year anniversary of when he was hired as athletic director, recently sat down with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for an interview. Here is what Batt said:
How do you feel about the current state of Tech athletics and where do you sense it is headed?
“First and foremost, it comes from a position of really great strength. There’s no other place in the country with as much tradition and history as we have here at Georgia Tech. From the places we play to the awards that have come from Georgia Tech – from the coach of the year, AD of the year, assistant coach of the year, player of the year in the Heisman (Trophy). All have their origins and connections to this place. Four national championships in football. We’ve been to Final Fours, we’ve been to the College World Series. We’ve had periods of great success. And, to be frank, it wasn’t that long ago that we were there.
“But if at the end of the day, if winning is key, which it absolutely is here, our recent success hasn’t measured up. We’re in a really good place to get back to that level of traditional success. National prominence for Georgia Tech athletics is not foreign, nor unachievable. Our goal is to regain that. There is a couple of things that lead us to that.
“One would be alignment. Alignment with our president, alignment with our campus, alignment with the system, alignment with our influential alums, the mayor, our donors. Clear priorities of where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. That clarity is really key. I think we’re all aligned.
“Part of the reason that I am here is that Dr. (Angel) Cabrera (Tech’s president) stepped forward and said we’re going to make Georgia Tech athletics as good as the rest of the institute. He’s doing that every day. Little stuff like, ‘Hey we’re going to launch the Competitive Drive (Initiative) the first week you’re on the job.’ That’s a huge step forward for us. ‘Hey we’re going to prioritize athletics and space.’ You’re sitting in the Wardlaw Building which has never been an athletics facility. It’s in the football stadium. Those things are difficult to do because campus is compact and you’re moving people’s space around. That’s the president walking the walk every day. He helped us to the largest budget we’ve ever had at $128 million. That’s a lot of the president supporting athletics and prioritizing it.
“Two, we’ve got to continue to generate revenue. Whether it’s this incredible partnership with Hyundai, which I think is really, really impactful for us, to the Competitive Drive, increasing annual dollars, increasing ticket sales, embarking on what will eventually be a really comprehensive masterplan for facilities and a fundraising campaign to match. Championships require championship-level resources. I think that’s not a secret, but at the end of the day, it is a point of emphasis for us.
“I’d say the third thing is we’re gonna win. That is the expectation. This is Georgia Tech. We’re going to have incredible students who do incredible work in the classroom. We have one of the most unbelievable legacies of student preparedness from our Total Person Program that Homer Rice started. We’re going to continue to do that well. But we’re gonna win ballgames. Comprehensively.
“I think setting that standard again – in some ways we’re a little bit of where Homer Rice was when he got here. He came in the late (1970s), he had to garner alignment, he had to raise dollars and the outcome of that successful effort was an unprecedented period of winning to see Georgia Tech win a national championship in football, go to Final Fours. I don’t think that’s unattainable.
“The last thing, and really one of the things that makes our position here so unique is that we’re gonna lean into a really, really strong institution. Georgia Tech is the third most selective public institution in America. We have tens of thousands, 50 thousand-plus applications for a couple thousand spots.
“This is a growing, vibrant institution. And we have to lean into Atlanta as, what I’ll say, is the best college sports city in America. As a city, with over seven million people, 43% of those people identify as college sports. That’s over 3 million college sports fans in our city. To lean into that strength, to lean into a place with all the Fortune 500 companies that are here that spend dollars and care about college sports, whether it’s the Peach Bowl and those sponsorships and Chick-fil-a and the Aflac kickoff (games) or the fact that we have the College Football Hall of Fame here. This is a tremendous college sports city. Leaning into that, partnering with the city, taking advantage of our unique position here in Midtown, finding those things together I think put us in this place where we can return to those levels of prominence.”
