The Spectrum: Can you speak about John B. Simpson leaving? Are you concerned at all about a drop off in the support you've had from his administration for athletics?
Warde Manuel: No I'm not. To be honest, Dr. Tripathi and I have a great relationship and I like him a lot as a person. As a provost he was very supportive of us when he could be. We're all dealing with tough times. He has a tough job as the provost, whoever will be the next provost will have a tough job, and he'll have a tough job as the president.
We all, given the economic times, have to be more creative with less and do what we need to do. Dr. Tripathi will be a great leader for this university. The UB Council has been very supportive. Jeremy Jacobs has had great support for the entire university and athletics is a part of that. So I don't sit here and worry about any drop in what we do in athletic and recreation for campus.
TS: What has been the crowning moment for you at UB?
WM: [UB winning the Mid-American Conference Championship for football in 2008-09 season] Nobody thought we had a chance to win. Nobody thought what myself or Turner [Gill] were saying about winning championships [was legitimate].
People thought maybe in Basketball, they made the run in '05, or maybe in another sport, but no way in football. So for me, that was probably the crowning achievement that we've had here. On top of that, that semester was also the highest academic GPA for the football team.
So the combination of those two things and the '58 team and the 50th anniversary with that team made it a magical achievement not only for me, but the football program and this institution. Floating on cloud nine, 10 or 11, whatever it goes up to. It was fun.
TS: The support for the program has grown immensely since you took over. However, many say that it's not at the level it should be. What do you think needs to be done to take that next step?
WM: Here's what helps, we need to win more consistently, because that I think drives people to want to come and not do other things. We've had our fits and starts, if you will, with that. That's No. 1, No. 2 is we do need to be out in the community, we do need to let people know who we are.
I want to support somebody that I know better than somebody I don't know, even in bad times. Lastly, we have to try and bring in opponents that people in this community recognize. We need to do a better job at talking about our conference. For example, the fact that we had not only James Starks in the championship game, but I want to say 14 former MAC student athletes were in the Super Bowl on those two teams; second only to the SEC.
That says something about this league and where we are. So people will start to see that we don't have to just look at the Big East or the Big Ten, which is at our footprint to see great talent. We can come [to UB] to see these kids come through our league. We're playing top-level football with great student athletes who can go on to the next level. So it sends a great message.
When we won, for example this year, our students turned out better than I thought they would for football, given where we were. It's still at a much higher level than when I first walked through the door. I think basketball was really an indication of that, where the students really turned out because we were more consistent this year.
Our non-conference was consistent, we started out consistently when students were on break, we had a good start to the MAC, and so that by the time students came back from break they had something to cheer about. Their team was doing well in basketball.
We struggled a bit in February but I think it was consistent student support because of the consistency of the team. I think that's the most important piece of it. But the community outreach, people getting to know us [is important]. We've sold a lot of tickets to people and when we don't do well you see it sort of wane. When we do well people come to individual games. I think this year with Connecticut coming that will be very helpful. We just have to win in our sports.
TS: Talk about the coach evaluation process and where Jeff Quinn is at this point in his tenure.
WS: I don't sit back and make decisions on a coach's ability after a first year. Transition is difficult in anything that you do. Obviously Jeff and I, and the team and the coaches wanted to do better than 2-10. I don't need to evaluate Jeff and sit him down and tell him that. He probably kicks himself about it more than I ever would in his first year.
I think Jeff is doing fine. I think the team is moving in a direction throughout this transition. He's been a great leader of that team, but like in any transition or change there are issues that you deal with. How you deal with them, whether it's kids transferring or leaving or a different style and it not working for certain kids, that's all in the mix and part of it.
On a whole Jeff is doing a great job and the expectations from him, his staff, the team, and from me is that we'll be better than we were last year and in a significant way. We have to show it on the field of play and we have to play the games. You can talk about it, you can feel like it, but ultimately you have to play the games and show people you're better and I think we'll do that.
TS: What do you say to the detractors of Reggie Witherspoon and to those who say he can't win the big game?
WM: Well, I think people have a right to their own opinion. Reggie has, in my opinion, this year done a much better job then I anticipated he would do this year. When you lose seven seniors, your top five leading scorers on the team, and you bring a point guard who was a walk on who sat out. You have a freshman come in who is the freshman of the year and who contributes significantly to the success of the team. You make it to the quarterfinals of the MAC tournament, although we lost to Kent State.
Whether people say he can't win the big game, that's certainly an analysis they can make and I can see why they'd say that, but that doesn't go into the ability of a coach or where you go and how you direct a program and what you decide to do. Reggie is an ambassador for the University at Buffalo, the city of Buffalo, and for Western New York. He's done a great job in terms of recruiting and getting to those big games. Reggie knows that he has to do better at winning the big games. We've been in the two tournament championship games, we've lost them both, but we've gotten there. I think people have to understand while we have to push for success, and our ultimate success is championships and winning, we also have to realize that the journey is not as easy as people can sit back and think it is.
Now we continue to be on that journey to win that championship. Two years ago Reggie won the regular season championship, we went to the tournament championship and lost. This year, he's done a great job at turning what I thought would be a rebuilding year into a year where we competed. Reggie knows what he has to fix and I believe he will. I believe in what Reggie is doing and the direction he's going in. I know the future is bright for us as it relates to basketball.
TS: With all the NCAA violations over the past few years, what are your thoughts on what is a rampant problem in college athletics in terms of cheating and players taking money?
WM: I think it comes down to a couple things. One, you have to demand that people follow the rules and when they don't you have to adhere to the rules and deal with it effectively. Knock on wood, we haven't had any issues. I have great coaches who I think are doing the right thing, head and assistants. I have a great compliance staff. Kelly Cruttenden, my assistant A.D. for compliance, does a great job and her staff, and the sports administrators. It's really a team effort.
We all have to be diligent at what we do. Like many of my colleagues around the country that have had to deal with the problem, you have to have a zero tolerance policy and deal with it effectively when it happens. We work, like many others, at insuring that our people are doing things the right way, filling out forms, turning in the things we need to insure that we're following the NCAA rules. It's important but I think it starts with the people you have around you and there understanding of what needs to go on.
I don't really tolerate any missteps around NCAA rules, I mean, it just can't be. We have to have some semblance of control of interacting within the rules. While the NCAA gets the brunt of the focus, we have to understand that it's us who makes the rules. We make the rules as individual institutions or conferences and our representatives within the system. So it's not Mark Emmert (President of NCAA) saying from on high "This is a rule I'm going to put down on you," it comes from us. We can only get mad at ourselves.
TS: It's been reported in the past that you're a hockey supporter. Has there been any movement in the possibility of bringing hockey to UB?
WM: Right now, no. Mainly because right now, financially, it would be extremely difficult to add any other team. While if I started over, if someone said ‘Everybody in the NCAA is going to start over from scratch, you can have all the sports you want to add.' I'd have football, men's and women's basketball, hockey, and other sports.
I'm saying to you I would add hockey immediately. I look back on the history of UB and dropping sports, they dropped hockey in the '80s and I wish I would've been here, because I never would've dropped it. But that's not something I can automatically bring back because I love hockey and enjoy the sport.
Hopefully one day, I won't say soon or later, but hopefully one day UB will have a hockey team once again, because it makes the most sense for where we sit geographically. Men's and women's lacrosse makes sense because of where we sit geographically, and probably men's volleyball. Even though I believe that, I can't just automatically add any of them, particularly where we are economically as a country and as a state.
TS: Is the marketing department at UB doing everything it can to get people out to the games?
WM: I think given the resources that it has, yes it is. We're also smart about it, we're not going to throw a whole bunch of marketing dollars to get people to come out if we're not doing things consistently, particularly towards the end of the year. I think what you saw this year was a big push that we did with the students.
Paul Hutchings (manager of university awareness and special events) has done a good job in his outreach to the students, and particularly around men's and women's basketball. We do a lot around football, particularly at the beginning of the year, but throughout the year with the students. We're also not going to spend a lot of money when we're not doing well.
We're going to publicize so people know when the games are, in The Buffalo News and The Spectrum will have advertisements about the games, but we're not going to do radio and TV when we're 2-8 or 2-9 to get people out. I personally don't believe great marketing will overcome a poor performing team. But great marketing when your team is performing; both of them add value to it.
We did better in basketball than we did the previous year in terms of ticket sales. We were below our goal in football but I don't blame that on marketing, we weren't that far off on our football revenue. If there's blame, I'd blame that on the performance of the team. So I think if the team would've performed better we would have hit our goal and maybe even plus. In basketball, we set our goal a little bit higher, and while we did better than last year we didn't necessarily meet our goals in terms of ticket sales and money, but it wasn't that far off.
To get to the crux of your question, could they do better? Yes. Can I do better? Yes. Look, success starts with all of us doing better no matter what or where we are. Unless we're 12-0 and doubling our sales and going so far beyond, then I'd say you've done all you could. We can all do better. You will rarely ever here me say that I'm satisfied with what we're doing in any area, because it's just not how I've been brought up or how I've been taught. No matter how good you do, you can always do better, is my philosophy.
Email: sports@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Paul Hokanson / UB Athletics
Photo: Courtesy of UB Athletics
