Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/523134
Does that mean the sports on the
west side of campus moving east?
Not necessarily. It just means men's
volleyball has a need, women's volleyball
has needs, maybe wrestling has a need.
Instead of addressing those one at a
time, let's address them together so we
can take advantage of synergies. I don't
love the fact that we're in eight or nine
di;erent facilities all over campus, but it
is what it is and we have good facilities,
so I certainly don't want to give up on
that. But as we are addressing these
needs going forward, are there ways to
capture these synergies?
Does that also involve Holuba Hall?
Does any other major football pro-
gram have golf practice inside of its
football facility?
Yeah, see, that's taking advantage of [a
scheduling opportunity]. If you have a
facility that is only used by one sport,
even if that sport has huge needs, there
are lots of hours during which that facil-
ity goes unused, and I see that as waste-
ful for us. I guarantee you every football
program in the country has priority
scheduling and priority use in all the fa-
cilities that they utilize. So why
wouldn't you take advantage of that
space when your football program isn't
using it?
How do you think your #rst year has
gone, from an overall perspective?
For me, personally, it's been the
proverbial drinking from the :re hose.
It's gone by fast and it's been really furi-
ous with meeting a lot of great people.
I've learned so much. I've said from day
one that I have a lot to learn and I have
something to learn from everyone, and I
think that's absolutely been true.
From a competitive standpoint it's
been a very good year. We [are second in]
the Directors' Cup, a team national
championship, have had three individual
national championships, a lot of teams
qualifying for postseason and NCAAs,
and the academic pieces are good. I'm
always going to press on the [mantra
that] we could always be better.
My personal challenge, and it's a chal-
lenge on behalf of the department, has
been that there's so much opportunity.
You want to go attack it really quickly,
and you can't do that.
Is it a race against the clock?
I don't see it as a race against the
clock. We have to prioritize. Certainly
our :nancial stability, in order to be able
to resource what it is we're trying to do,
will have to be the priority, which is why
the people, the strategic plan, the physi-
cal assets, have gotten out of the starting
blocks :rst.
James [Franklin] talks about relation-
ships. I couldn't agree with him more.
That's probably been – I won't say the
di