Brad Edwards Named New Athletic Director

[MasonFanatic]

I think we have other pressing needs in our athletic department without taking on an enormous football project. Edwards and Mason should take these things in stages. Let's take care of our existing sports first (while Edwards builds connections and experience), then in 4 or 5 years, if everything goes well, he will have built a bigger donor base, and we can start talking about 9 figure projects. If we can demonstrate visible results on smaller projects, won't more people be willing to donate to bigger projects?

 

[GMURaider]

Home run post

I think we have other pressing needs in our athletic department without taking on an enormous football project. Edwards and Mason should take these things in stages. Let's take care of our existing sports first (while Edwards builds connections and experience), then in 4 or 5 years, if everything goes well, he will have built a bigger donor base, and we can start talking about 9 figure projects. If we can demonstrate visible results on smaller projects, won't more people be willing to donate to bigger projects?

 

[Harry]

People in this area don't care about small time football. Do Georgetown and Howard have strong fan support at their games? No. Are there Mason students who would continue to wear VA Tech football tshirts? Yes....

With football, South Florida and ODU have shown how it's done. Hire a good coach about three seasons before you play the first game. Let him start building a programs. Start small, in the Football Championship Series (formerly Divsion 1 AA). Add a few FBS schools to your schedule each year. Within 3 to 5 years move up to the FBS and compete for bowl games. USF moved up to the Big East and ODU to Conference USA.

However, a school must have a 35,000 seat stadium to be eligible for FBS. Hence, as Pablo said, the design must be "enlargeable."

 

[GMUgemini]

I think we have other pressing needs in our athletic department without taking on an enormous football project. Edwards and Mason should take these things in stages. Let's take care of our existing sports first (while Edwards builds connections and experience), then in 4 or 5 years, if everything goes well, he will have built a bigger donor base, and we can start talking about 9 figure projects. If we can demonstrate visible results on smaller projects, won't more people be willing to donate to bigger projects?

I don't think anyone is expecting Edwards to come in and announce FCS plans in year one, just that we will look at it again with fresh eyes.

 

[GSII]

Good to see you're already setting unrealistic expectations so when they aren't reached immediately you can continue to troll about how much the AD sucks. Well played.

Joe,
Im not sure what you're problem is, but try to keep things positive in this thread. These aren't my ideas. They have been mentioned before by our former president. Try and keep up. Thats my only expectation for you. I know unrealistic.

 

[Pikapppatri8]

Why can't we all just be happy about the second major decision from the Cabrera Administration regarding athletics being a solid one.

1.) Quickly accepting invitation to A10
2.) The new AD hire.

The decision was done in a methodical process, that was efficient and resulted in a very strong outcome.

For the love of Pete - Just say welcome aboard and take my money.

 

[gmutom]

Here is a write up on the Redskins blog. No surprise the Post has yet to put anything up on its site. I guess they're too busy pretending UVa, Tech and vcu are local programs.

http://blog.redskins.com/2014/06/02...edwards-named-george-mason-athletic-director/

 

[GSII]

Here is a write up on the Redskins blog. No surprise the Post has yet to put anything up on its site. I guess they're too busy pretending UVa, Tech and vcu are local programs.

http://blog.redskins.com/2014/06/02...edwards-named-george-mason-athletic-director/

Goff tweeted a few lines. Im sure hell have a huge write up tomorrow about the changing of the guard.

 

[Patriot Lawdog]

Why can't we all just be happy about the second major decision from the Cabrera Administration regarding athletics being a solid one.

1.) Quickly accepting invitation to A10
2.) The new AD hire.

The decision was done in a methodical process, that was efficient and resulted in a very strong outcome.

For the love of Pete - Just say welcome aboard and take my money.

Seriously, can't we just celebrate the administration not botching this for at least a day or two. Then we can start in on the football stuff.

 

[gmutom]

Goff tweeted a few lines. Im sure hell have a huge write up tomorrow about the changing of the guard.

I'm sure they'll have something tomorrow, but it never ceases to amaze me how slow they are about getting our news on their website. Hell, even the Sacramento Bee has something about Edwards on their site.

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/02/6451085/ex-nfl-s-brad-edwards-is-new-ad.html

 

[Pikapppatri8]

Considering how often in the past we could bank money on the admin botching it...this recent spate has to be seen as awesome.

Viva Cabrera

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

 

[Harry]

For the love of Pete - Just say welcome aboard and take my money.

Welcome aboard and here's (even more of) my money!

 

[Five Two]

Congrats to Cabrera on the hire and welcome to Mason, Mr. Edwards.

I love the fundraising experience. If his track record for bringing in lots of $$ is as good as it seems, that trumps my concern that he doesn't have experience at a big time basketball school.

It will be interesting to see what staff (non-coaches) stay on and which leave or are forced out. When GW got their new AD a few years ago, he cleaned house within weeks.

 

[KAOriginal]

Considering how often in the past we could bank money on the admin botching it...this recent spate has to be seen as awesome.

Viva Cabrera

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

Merten would have hired Kelly Mehrtens and then the terrorists would have won.

Today is a blessed day.

 

[masonjoe]

It will be interesting to see what staff (non-coaches) stay on and which leave or are forced out. When GW got their new AD a few years ago, he cleaned house within weeks.

Do you mean coaches or overall staff within the athletic dept?

 

[MasonCrew]

Great hire. Hope he shakes things up.

 

[Vurbel]

We hired the celtics coach!?! Yes!

 

[wijg]

Why can't we all just be happy about the second major decision from the Cabrera Administration regarding athletics being a solid one.

1.) Quickly accepting invitation to A10
2.) The new AD hire.

The decision was done in a methodical process, that was efficient and resulted in a very strong outcome.

For the love of Pete - Just say welcome aboard and take my money.

Love the hire on paper (with Gunnie's two concerns). Those are two great decisions so far. As others were worried about, this could have gone really bad. The only criticism I have is the timing that Cabrera allowed to happen. If he had pushed for this to happen at the beginning of the year when TOC came to him, instead of letting it wait until now, we might have had a better chance of having a new coach by now, or at least Edwards could have evaluated the situation for himself this past year. The other is the fact that TOC will be lingering around. Nothing against TOC, but having the previous guy around could complicate things. Hopefully Edwards does not allow it to.

But, back to the hire, it is probably one of the best outcomes I could have hoped for at this point.

 

[Herndon]

Folks who have been here a while will tell you I am FAR from a Pollyanna on this kind of thing, but at first blush, this looks like a home run.

Time will tell, of course, but his extensive fundraising experience is VERY encouraging.

I have been one of the big football cheerleaders in the past, but I agree with the poster who said, essentially "let's get our house in order before we start on on a new wing for it".

I'd love to see Mason football, and would be a season ticket holder, but I'd settle for a well run basketball program, and competent other sports.

 

[Five Two]

Do you mean coaches or overall staff within the athletic dept?

It will be interesting to see what staff (non-coaches) stay on and which leave or are forced out. When GW got their new AD a few years ago, he cleaned house within weeks.