MORE: Bobinski discusses Ross-Ade renovation and other facilities
Purdue has momentum. The basketball program is coming off a thrilling run to the Elite Eight, while the football team is thinking big led by a rising star coach who is coming off consecutive bowls. Athletic director Mike Bobinski wants to keep building, keep pushing, keep growing and keep winning. That was one of the messages he delivered to GoldandBlack.com during a recent interview that lasted almost two hours and covered a variety of subjects. Our Q&A with the Boilermaker boss.
GoldandBlack.com: Jeff Brohm has agreed to a contract reported to be worth $36.8 million over seven years. Where is the money coming from?
Bobinski: I think we have pushed ourselves and stretched … going further would have been illogical and borderline not responsible. But we feel like we can make it work. In order for it to work, we have to continue to grow attendance in the football stadium. We have to be smart about maximizing the opportunities in our control, which is ticket sales, which is fund raising, which is supporting our corporate partnership—all that has to keep operating at a high level in order for the whole wheel to go around. That’s the big assumption — we will continue progressing here.
We are gonna continue to operate on the trend line that has occurred over the last couple of years. If we do that, we’ll make it work. We’ll make it work. That is the challenge we have every day to our folks. Our externally focused people meet every Monday. It’s all about, ‘OK, where are we? What’s happening? Are we making progress? Are we making our marks?’ We have to do that. We can’t be sloppy or inefficient and compete at the level we are trying to compete at.
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GoldandBlack.com: Will ticket pricing in football be impacted?
Bobinski: Next year’s pricing is executing as we speak. When we put that together, we did it with a multi-year look in mind. That is one of the exciting things about a potential Ross-Ade renovation, is it would add potentially an additional level of seating options that would be higher price points, higher-revenue generating items. The gross number of seats probably won’t increase. They probably will decrease a little bit, gosh honest truth, not significantly. But probably a modest decrease to provide more chair-back seating, more higher end, more comfortable, more desired (seating), based on the survey … But that’s a ways off. That’s not imminent. But I know if we are able to pull off the renovations, that there are positive revenue implications associated with that.
The pricing, in the meantime, we try to strike a balance of not becoming unaware of who we are, where we live and what our constituents look like. Being reasonably aggressive and smart about it, but continuing to provide access, continuing to have multiple price points that people who want to come but aren’t in a position to pay really high prices for premium offerings can still come to Purdue football … or Purdue whatever.
GoldandBlack.com: Could you have envisioned Jeff Brohm having this much success this soon?
Bobinski: I tend to believe if you know what you are doing and get people to believe with you that you can make some pretty significant progress really quickly. When I hired Jeff, I knew the intensity, the fire, the pure football expertise that was coming with him was to our benefit. And I expected things to look and feel different. I certainly had no idea how that was gonna translate onto the field. I didn’t know if we’d win three games or 13 games.
GoldandBlack.com: Do the football assistants have multi-year contracts?
Bobinski: I think most are on two-year deals, in the second year now. Some started with one-year deals and began two-year deals last year. This will be the second year of two-year deals.
GoldandBlack.com: What’s the long-term vision of the John Purdue Club?
Bobinski: We talk a lot about the John Purdue Club meeting our scholarship needs. The reality is it’s about $3.5 to 4 million shy of doing that, at least at this point in time. If we were able to just close that gap over the next however many years, and all of a sudden fund our entire scholarship bill, that frees up $3.5 to $4 million of operating dollars to support the other things we are trying to do. We believe that our annual fund dollars generated to the John Purdue Club this year will be 15-20 percent (increase) at the end of the day hopefully of what we did a year ago. Which is a really great increase. But we need another 10-15 percent the next year, and on top of that, the next year. It needs to grow significantly to get us to where we are in fact fully funding our athletic scholarships.
At the same time, the John Purdue Club generates annual dollars but (the organization) also is our major gift fundraising arm which we will need all hands on deck. That will be a big part of what I do moving forward in concert with our development professionals at JPC.
GoldandBlack.com: How is fund-raising going for the Ross-Ade renovation?
Bobinski: We have had some soft conversations … most people are very visual (they want to see renderings, which will be done in June or July, according to Bobinski). A lot say, 'When you actually get something laid out, I’d love to see it and have a conversation.' The general response has been 'intrigued, excited by it, can’t wait for the next conversation.' "
GoldandBlack.com: Can you assess the women’s basketball program?
Bobinski: I have had a couple of years that I don’t think anyone is particularly pleased with. That’s just a fact. That isn’t talking out of school … that’s what the general sense is. We expect and have every reason to believe that we should perform at a higher level. We should be more successful. Got lots of great things in place. We just haven’t—particularly this year—finished well. There was a point earlier in the year when the women’s program was doing well and the men’s side was struggling. Then they went in directly opposite directions. In any isolated year, that can happen. But for me, it’s about the general sense of momentum and energy … the vibe around the program, it needs to improve. I am saying that because I said it directly to Coach (Sharon) Versyp. She knows that. That is not a secret. She is absolutely up for that challenge. I will be excited to see where we go.
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GoldandBlack.com: How do you handle your job when things aren’t going well on the field?
Bobinski: I really believe it is important at those times when things are not going great that I almost go the other way. Not that I become unrealistically opportunistic. But I certainly don’t in any visible way start wringing my hands or hanging my head or start acting like the sky has fallen here. For instance, on the football side, I spent more time with Jeff (Brohm) rather than less time when we started 0-3. We talked a lot more than if we had won all three. This isn’t how any of us envisioned this starting. So I need to make sure he knows, ‘Hey, stick with it. We are gonna get where we need to go. I don’t know when. I don’t know if it’s this week, next week, next year or the next two years. But we are gonna get there.’
Likewise, I went to more practices when we were struggling in basketball than after we got going. Matt is very experienced and has been through the wars here. But I also think there is point where people wanna know you are in it with them. And you are supportive of them. I know this, I was in the locker room post-Crossroads Classic down in Indy when Matt laid it out pretty clearly to the guys about what wasn’t getting done and what needed to change (after a loss to Notre Dame made Purdue 6-5). And I was in the gym on Monday, Sunday was off and Monday was the next practice, and that is when it changed to me and anybody that was around it. That practice is when the whole thing flipped. All of a sudden, the players’ level of intensity, attention to detail , the coaches ramped up their focus — everybody. There clearly was a different vibe and approach from that point forward. I said, ‘I don’t know where we are going, but you are on the right track here.’ And it all started to click from there.
GoldandBlack.com: Schools are more aware of taking care of student-athletes, taking an holistic approach to their well-being. To that end, what has Purdue done?
Bobinski: We have hired a sports psychologist. And we have a second one we have hired that will be here July 1st. As we look around at the pure needs of today’s population of students and by extension student-athletes, maybe even more so because of the intensity in the life that they lead and the fishbowl existence some of them certainly feel like they are in … It’s undeniable. I think it’s healthy that people are willing to want to talk about things that are causing them anxiety that they are struggling to deal with whether it be personal, school, performance-related, you name it.
The doc that we have here now his name is (sports psychologist) Brad Foltz. I think he’s terrific. He got here in January or so of this year. He came to us from Georgetown. He is booked solid every day. Hence, we’ve got a second (psychologist coming), a female from Oklahoma. She will be joining us in the summer. It will be nice to have a male and a female in that role.
GoldandBlack.com: How about the medical side of things?
Bobinski: The medical side of things, we now have a full-time head team physician for the first time in our history, someone who has no other responsibilities other than the care of our athletes, all day, every day. Plus, we have retained (team physician) Greg Rowdon and added another part-time physician. We have really three primary care physicians that work with our teams right now. (Head team physician) Dr. Carly Day is here every day.
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GoldandBlack.com: What else is the school doing for student-athletes?
Bobinski: I think we do a pretty good job these days of the on-board orientation of new student-athletes when they come in. And we are OK in the middle. But we haven’t been great on the back-end, helping them transition to what’s next. We are spending a lot more time and energy thinking about: Do we have the right resources in place to really make that work effectively? Are we taking full advantage of the resources on campus, because we have some really great career and counseling placement assistance? We are resolved to be better at that. Some of our current staff is working really hard at that. (Assistant director/academic support services) Lacee Carmon-Johnson has made it a personal point of focus for her. She has a career preparation camp she will run this summer.
GoldandBlack.com: What about nutrition?
Bobinski: The last piece is the nutrition side of it. We don’t have a space to feed everybody that’s suitable. Honestly, we don’t have the resources to feed everyone every meal. But very few people do. But we need to be better at that. We have staff. We have three nutritionists. Three licensed dietitians on staff. So, from a pure people perspective, we have probably as many people as anybody does. But we don’t always give them the best setting and best environment to operate it. We want to make sure we kinda finish the job as soon as we can--at the latest, when that south end zone gets renovated. In the meantime, we are trying to be creative and find ways to supplement what we are doing today nutritionally.
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