mike cragg

rcatalano said:
Eliminating the baseball program? Arguably it is probably as successful as the basketball program! They have reached the College World Series 38 times which places them in the top 10 nationally! For a school whose location is in the northeast that’s a remarkable achievement! NO I don’t think so!
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College World Series only 6 times and that was 45-50 years ago. We might have had 38 appearances lifetime.
 
yes. the school needs an AD.

but more importantly, the school needs a Chief Revenue Officer. forget this fundraiser BS. that's very mom and pop.

a chief revenue officer, comes from the corporate world, has all the connections, is a pitbull, and all they care about is making revenue.

elon musk poached one of the best in the business when he hired Linda Yaccarino, to run twitter. she was a legend at nbc.

the school needs to think differently. today's ADs aren't built for what the future will require.
 
redmen4life said:
yes. the school needs an AD.

but more importantly, the school needs a Chief Revenue Officer. forget this fundraiser BS. that's very mom and pop.

a chief revenue officer, comes from the corporate world, has all the connections, is a pitbull, and all they care about is making revenue.

elon musk poached one of the best in the business when he hired Linda Yaccarino, to run twitter. she was a legend at nbc.

the school needs to think differently. today's ADs aren't built for what the future will require.
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Cecilia Chang was our first unofficial CRO
 
RedStormNC said:
If any AD superhero can raise the funds needed, all for what AH calls for that's needed.

If not possible, I'd suggest we become a men & women's basketball school only and seriously consider eliminating all other sports and repurpose the tons of real estate toward more dorms and other general student experience or academic facilities that would increase applicants and enrollment.
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That’s a non-starter. If the school were to do that, the remaining two programs would no longer be D1 as we would not have enough D1 programs (7 Men’s and 7 Women's programs are required as a minimum) to remain so.
 
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SJU85 said:
That’s a non-starter. If the school were to do that, the remaining two programs would no longer be D1 as we would not have enough D1 programs (7 Men’s and 7 Womens programs are required as a minimum) to remain so.
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Thanks...didn't know that.
 
rcatalano said:
Eliminating the baseball program? Arguably it is probably as successful as the basketball program! They have reached the College World Series 38 times which places them in the top 10 nationally! For a school whose location is in the northeast that’s a remarkable achievement! NO I don’t think so!
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The Baseball program has been to the College World Series 6 times with the last being in 1980. They have been to the NCAA Tourny 38 times with this year as I pointed out on earlier on this thread being the first time since 2018.
 
SJU85 said:
The Baseball program has been to the College World Series 6 times with the last being in 1980. They have been to the NCAA Tourny 38 times with this year as I pointed out on earlier on this thread being the first time since 2018.
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The Men’s Soccer team won a national championship, as did men’s fencing. My heart personally breaks that we no longer have men’s track. Let’s get a visionary in that position who can also raise money. Our university is in the greatest city in the world, and the financial capitol. Unlimited potential.
 
RedStormNC said:
I get that...but what value is it really bringing to school? Other than the ~30 players on team, other students don't go go to watch them nor do very few local residents.

The land Kaiser Stadium sits unused most days of year except a few hours for games, practices and maybe a few summer camps etc.

I'd build more high end dorms and recruit more students to live on campus
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Isn't there a minimum number of men's and women's sports that a school is required to field in order to have D-1 status?
 
Ralph318! said:
The Men’s Soccer team won a national championship, as did men’s fencing. My heart personally breaks that we no longer have men’s track. Let’s get a visionary in that position who can also raise money. Our university is in the greatest city in the world, and the financial capitol. Unlimited potential.
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Getting rid of any track team was not forward thinking when you can hire the same coach for indoor/outdoor and IIRC, the NCAA provides money for schools to maintain track and field programs.

The Soccer team has been up and down lately not sure about fencing but as I said earlier in this thread and Alumni Hall pointed out regarding facilities and NIL, it is going to be even tougher in this new landscape to right those ships.
 
RedStormNC said:
I get that...but what value is it really bringing to school? Other than the ~30 players on team, other students don't go go to watch them nor do very few local residents.

The land Kaiser Stadium sits unused most days of year except a few hours for games, practices and maybe a few summer camps etc.

I'd build more high end dorms and recruit more students to live on campus
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Yikes, RNC!
You make '$$s & cents', but it'd be unusual punishment for St. John's to eliminate baseball--one of its most successful and storied sports programs.
Plus, gawd, nothing's more American than baseball!
Hope we don't have to go down that road.
 
Alumni Hall said:
Really have to think…who in their right mind would want this job? All the athletic facilities are outdated and sub par (ever wonder why SJU does not host a single Big East Olympic sport championship on campus) and it is a very daunting task to make major upgrades. We’ve done the lipstick on a pig thing for the past 25 plus years. Mike Cragg tried his best, even having a great facility upgrade plan in place until Covid ended that. Whoever takes this job will need to fund raise at least $200-300 million not counting the new hoops practice facility. As we’ve discussed ad nauseam previously, we are still viewed as a mom/pop show with all our sport athletes dressing in Carnesecca like a high school and with no restroom or changing facilities outside (except Belson) and we still have port-o-potties all over campus. That’s IF the President and the Board are really serious about the plight of our Olympic sport athletes and not just M/W Hoops.

Add that with the bleak future of a probable reorganization of D1 athletics with football controlling the show and leaving crumbs for non football schools (the reason we need an experience D1 AD who has dealt with these issues) Throw in the NIL arms race and my guess is they will hire from inside where the lipstick on the pig culture will continue! Not only don’t they have the funds to design and construct these new athletic facilities, but they don’t have the maintenance budget for additional ground crew and team room cleaning personel required to keep them looking sharp in the overall University budget. Repole might save the hoops program with a large donation but the days of placating the Olympic sports athletes with donated energy bars and Gatorade in a makeshift room won’t cut it in recruiting anymore!

Let’s get an AD with the experience of fund raising, NIL, building facilities, improving budgets and making the overall college sport experience better for our 450 athletes and the fans who support them!
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Cragg knew what had to be done at StJ’s but was handicapped in doing so by a lack of money.

Here is my story: 2 or so years ago StJ’s was looking for a head men’s lacrosse coach. I am friends with a retired D1 men’s head lacrosse coach who had won a handful of NCAA national championships. The friend told me he was not necessarily interested in the StJ’s job but was intrigued by the opportunity and would agree to be interviewed if StJ’s would like to do so. I called Cragg to inform him of the willingness of the blue chip coach to be interviewed. Cragg told me that he would respectfully pass on the blue chip candidate because he said that his StJ’s budget would not allow him to hire anyone except a “young up and comer”.

The point being that Mike knew what should be done (hire an experienced winning coach) but the financial limitations he was required to work prevented him from doing so.
 
Wolfie said:
Yikes, RNC!
You make '$$s & cents', but it'd be unusual punishment for St. John's to eliminate baseball--one of its most successful and storied sports programs.
Plus, gawd, nothing's more American than baseball!
Hope we don't have to go down that road.
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Actually it is not uncommon when schools look to cut programs for baseball programs to be amongst the programs to go, especially in the Northeast.

Providence had a baseball program and actually won the BE Baseball Tournament twice including 1999 which was the last season they sponsored the sport.
 
otis said:
Cragg knew what had to be done at StJ’s but was handicapped in doing so by a lack of money.

Here is my story: 2 or so years ago StJ’s was looking for a head men’s lacrosse coach. I am friends with a retired D1 men’s head lacrosse coach who had won a handful of NCAA national championships. The friend told me he was not necessarily interested in the StJ’s job but was intrigued by the opportunity and would agree to be interviewed if StJ’s would like to do so. I called Cragg to inform him of the willingness of the blue chip coach to be interviewed. Cragg told me that he would respectfully pass on the blue chip candidate because he said that his StJ’s budget would not allow him to hire anyone except a “young up and comer”.

The point being that Mike knew what should be done (hire an experienced winning coach) but the financial limitations he was required to work prevented him from doing so.
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Good move there.. fine w/ up & comer coaches and save $... in any sport but men's basketball
 
Anthony Mattia said:
If it's not Kuhl, and he's not locked up ajead of time, what are we doing? I get it if we want Repole's guy to make him happy, or Shanley and Pitino get their guy, if it needs to be framed that way. But if there is even a question about Kuhl coming, why let Cragg leave?
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Quoting myself here because it needs repeating based on what I'm reading which is we aren't going to get pur number 1 choice and maybe aren't getting our number 2 choice, but certainly neither were locked up ahead of Cragg being shown the door.

I'm not certain Cragg was the problem, and I'm way less certain that we have a better replacement coming. Guess we'll see.
 
Presently the rule is 14 sponsored sports to retain NCAA status BUT there is a movement to bring an anti-trust suit against the NCAA for that rule. With all the changes in the NCAA with NIL and football rules changing, I’m hearing the NCAA might consider reducing that number as schools are having difficulty paying NIL money to that many athletes. IMO, you will see colleges dropping either sports or capping the number of athletes in order to meet their NIL financial obligations.

I just read an article today about Louisville not filling open athletic staff positions, delaying needed facility improvements and capping the number of student athletes. The AD also mentioned that they are looking at reducing athletic department staff sizes in areas like Sports Information, Marketing, Ticket Office and others. Times are a changing!
 
SJU85 said:
Actually it is not uncommon when schools look to cut programs for baseball programs to be amongst the programs to go, especially in the Northeast.

Providence had a baseball program and actually won the BE Baseball Tournament twice including 1999 which was the last season they sponsored the sport.
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You make '$$'s & cents' too, '85.

I just wouldn't cut one of St.John's' more storied programs.

I'd make cuts elsewhere, and hope $$$'s could be raised to minimize program eliminations.
 
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