What Dave Brandon Changes Do You Want to Keep After He Is Gone?

Submitted by stephenrjking on

When people anxiously follow twitter accounts of Regent meetings, hoping for any sign that the current Athletic Director will be thrown to the wolves, it seems clear that his days are numbered.

If and when the (proverbial, people, let's not get carried away) guillotine falls, we hope for a competent and passionate replacement. I look forward to an introduction at a basketball halftime, where, like arch-nemesis Jim Tressel, the new AD announces: "You will be proud of your team--in the Stadium (which will have no advertising and lower ticket prices), in their uniforms (which are awesome exactly the way they are and will be the same for every game), and especially next November, on the field, led by new coach Jim Harbaugh."

Ok, maybe not exactly. But I hope for some walkbacks of the recent "innovations" shepherded into the program by DB. 

However, not every "innovation" is necessarily bad. There have been good developments in the past few years that we tend not to associate with Brandon precisely because we don't associate him with good things; yet some of his decisions, like retaining John Beilein and choosing to pay football assistant coaches market prices, are unquestionably good.

DB has made night games a thing. The lights installed in the Stadium for that purpose are classy and effective. He has also worked, successfully, to bring other major events (The Winter Classic, the soccer game, etc) to the Big House. These seem to be popular moves.

We all want ticket prices to go down and stupid stunts like skywriting to stop; however, not everything has been bad. What DB-era innovations do you want to see continue?

 

Moonlight Graham

October 16th, 2014 at 10:48 PM ^

had just focused on being an athletic director and not a marketer, he would have done fine. The incessant complaints about teh "noodle" and the curly fries and even the fireworks are kind of silly because in the big picture they're not a big deal. The noodle and fries weren't there on a football game day (god, I can't believe I said that out loud). 

The skywriting and chicken dance were just dumb and embarrassing, and it's all on him that he let such silly stunts tarnish any legacy that he'd started to build.  

 

laxalum

October 17th, 2014 at 11:46 AM ^

Varsity lacrosse (obviously).

Night football games.  I wish we played one or two every year.  Best atmosphere I've seen in my 50 years of going to games.  The wins in those games don't hurt.

Support for all non-revenue sports.  Important to remember that new facilities come from donor gifts, not from ticket revenues.  Many of those donors wouldn't give for other causes.  They want to see their names on buildings and/or direct their money that way.  More power to them.  Also important to note that while lacrosse is a non-revenue sport, they raised a ton of money on their own to kickstart the varsity program and probably brought of lot of additional potential donor support in the future.