beast of the east
Active member
Although it's no secret how much I like nearly everything about Villanova, there are about 100 reasons why every SJU fan and especially alum should be thrilled with Nova winning the NCAA championship.
First, from a basketball point of view:
1) Not only has a Big East school won the NCAA championship in the new league format, but a school roughly half the size of St. John's did it. (6500 undergrads, 10,000 overall students)
2) As a smaller private school, they won a championship competing against large public schools that have virtually unlimited budgets, slaying the reality that mostly state institutions compete for national championships.
3) They were a smaller team who played textbook basketball, beating a bigger team that killed them off the boards.
From a university point of view:
Villanova does nearly everything the right way. Like St. John's they are a Catholic school. Like St. John's, 40 years ago they were mostly a commuter school. Like St. John's 40 years ago they were a decent academic school.
In the interim, they have transformed into mostly a dormitory school, with a student population largely from the northeast but also from around the country and world. In the 40 years, they've upped their academic profile considerably, and recently attained national university status. Their business school has ranked from 12th to 25th nationally over the past ten years.
How did they do it, and how can SJU get on this path:
1) Villanova has consecutively had two outstanding presidents. Father Edmund Dobbin led the school to vast improvements academically and spent the money to hire top notch administrators and faculty, and built several new buildings along the way. Father Peter Donohue is a charismatic, outstanding president, who with half the alumni population of St. John's has had two successful capital campaigns with goals of 300-600 million dollars respectively. Father Peter engages students, administrations, alumni and parents with warmth and care. Their leadership compared to SJU (Cahill and Harrington) has been fantastic, and the results have been staggering.
2) To attract better students, SJU should establish an honors college. Hofstra has one with 1300 students enrolled, and it has helped them attract students with better academic credentials than would normally attend their school.
3) SJU alumni donate at an atrocious rate. Less than 4% of all alumni donate. If that is consistent with our basketball fan base, it means that 24 out of 25 St. John's alumni on redmen.com don't contribute to the school. Even when something as important to basketball fans as a Joe Lapchick statue, some alumni approached for donations questioned why the school didn't pay for the statue themselves. If we want championship caliber basketball that all costs money.
4) Jay Wright isn't just the visual face of Villanova University, he is totally enmeshed in university life. He speaks at freshman orientation, is the keynote speaker at the annual senior breakfast, teaches continuing education seminars, attends fundraising events, and is present at many university functions. He knows many active students on a first name basis, and encourages them to be proud Villanovans who represent the school well in everything they do. We must begin to utilize the iconic Chris Mullin in a similar way. We are paying Mullin $2 million per year without any experience but because of his intrinsic value to NYC and the university. To extract that value, the school must utilize him the same way Nova uses Wright, and Mullin has to be present to the university the way Wright is present to Villanova.
5) Hire a damned athletic director already. Perhaps thinking we are offsetting the Mullin salary by not hiring an AD, the school has appointed the General Counsel Joe Oliva as interim AD. The experiment of attorneys turned sports professional should have ended with Howard Cosell. There was an irrational notion that naming Mullin as head coach would immediately result in several million in donations to the athletic department, which did not happen.
6) The next university president must break the university of a mom and pop mentality. The campus has been beautified because of some capital campaigns that built stadiums, dormitories, a chapel, and other new buildings. Now administration must be "beautified" to attract top notch faculty and administrators to lead SJU to new heights.
SJU has what I am coming to the conclusion is an interim transitional president who will lead us past the Harrington darkness, but offers very little else. He lacks the warmth and charisma necessary to lead. While my personal failed attempts to engage him are anecdotal, others working at the university say he barely acknowledges them and won't even say thank you if someone holds the door for him. Entering his third year of a three year contract this July, he has yet to develop a strategic plan. Department budgets have been slashed. Employees complain that instead of leading, he micromanages even small decisions. The school is operating without an athletic director now for a year. He has cut the athletic depart from almost 90 employees to less than 40. Hopefully the BOT is paying attention and will hire an experienced university President with the vision, experience, and charisma to raise funds, spend money where money should be spent, and elevate the university. If they do, maybe in 10 years we will see a different SJU. If not, expect more of the same. After all, success starts at the top.
An NCAA championship is an incredible athletic achievement. A great university is a more enviable accomplishment. St. John's can have the latter, and compete well for the former. It's all up to our board of trustees. None of them settled for the middle or worse in their own careers. They shouldn't settle for what we have as a university ,either.
First, from a basketball point of view:
1) Not only has a Big East school won the NCAA championship in the new league format, but a school roughly half the size of St. John's did it. (6500 undergrads, 10,000 overall students)
2) As a smaller private school, they won a championship competing against large public schools that have virtually unlimited budgets, slaying the reality that mostly state institutions compete for national championships.
3) They were a smaller team who played textbook basketball, beating a bigger team that killed them off the boards.
From a university point of view:
Villanova does nearly everything the right way. Like St. John's they are a Catholic school. Like St. John's, 40 years ago they were mostly a commuter school. Like St. John's 40 years ago they were a decent academic school.
In the interim, they have transformed into mostly a dormitory school, with a student population largely from the northeast but also from around the country and world. In the 40 years, they've upped their academic profile considerably, and recently attained national university status. Their business school has ranked from 12th to 25th nationally over the past ten years.
How did they do it, and how can SJU get on this path:
1) Villanova has consecutively had two outstanding presidents. Father Edmund Dobbin led the school to vast improvements academically and spent the money to hire top notch administrators and faculty, and built several new buildings along the way. Father Peter Donohue is a charismatic, outstanding president, who with half the alumni population of St. John's has had two successful capital campaigns with goals of 300-600 million dollars respectively. Father Peter engages students, administrations, alumni and parents with warmth and care. Their leadership compared to SJU (Cahill and Harrington) has been fantastic, and the results have been staggering.
2) To attract better students, SJU should establish an honors college. Hofstra has one with 1300 students enrolled, and it has helped them attract students with better academic credentials than would normally attend their school.
3) SJU alumni donate at an atrocious rate. Less than 4% of all alumni donate. If that is consistent with our basketball fan base, it means that 24 out of 25 St. John's alumni on redmen.com don't contribute to the school. Even when something as important to basketball fans as a Joe Lapchick statue, some alumni approached for donations questioned why the school didn't pay for the statue themselves. If we want championship caliber basketball that all costs money.
4) Jay Wright isn't just the visual face of Villanova University, he is totally enmeshed in university life. He speaks at freshman orientation, is the keynote speaker at the annual senior breakfast, teaches continuing education seminars, attends fundraising events, and is present at many university functions. He knows many active students on a first name basis, and encourages them to be proud Villanovans who represent the school well in everything they do. We must begin to utilize the iconic Chris Mullin in a similar way. We are paying Mullin $2 million per year without any experience but because of his intrinsic value to NYC and the university. To extract that value, the school must utilize him the same way Nova uses Wright, and Mullin has to be present to the university the way Wright is present to Villanova.
5) Hire a damned athletic director already. Perhaps thinking we are offsetting the Mullin salary by not hiring an AD, the school has appointed the General Counsel Joe Oliva as interim AD. The experiment of attorneys turned sports professional should have ended with Howard Cosell. There was an irrational notion that naming Mullin as head coach would immediately result in several million in donations to the athletic department, which did not happen.
6) The next university president must break the university of a mom and pop mentality. The campus has been beautified because of some capital campaigns that built stadiums, dormitories, a chapel, and other new buildings. Now administration must be "beautified" to attract top notch faculty and administrators to lead SJU to new heights.
SJU has what I am coming to the conclusion is an interim transitional president who will lead us past the Harrington darkness, but offers very little else. He lacks the warmth and charisma necessary to lead. While my personal failed attempts to engage him are anecdotal, others working at the university say he barely acknowledges them and won't even say thank you if someone holds the door for him. Entering his third year of a three year contract this July, he has yet to develop a strategic plan. Department budgets have been slashed. Employees complain that instead of leading, he micromanages even small decisions. The school is operating without an athletic director now for a year. He has cut the athletic depart from almost 90 employees to less than 40. Hopefully the BOT is paying attention and will hire an experienced university President with the vision, experience, and charisma to raise funds, spend money where money should be spent, and elevate the university. If they do, maybe in 10 years we will see a different SJU. If not, expect more of the same. After all, success starts at the top.
An NCAA championship is an incredible athletic achievement. A great university is a more enviable accomplishment. St. John's can have the latter, and compete well for the former. It's all up to our board of trustees. None of them settled for the middle or worse in their own careers. They shouldn't settle for what we have as a university ,either.
