Andrea Grove-Mcdonough leaving ISU for UNC

Land Shark

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You realize when Kindler left to go to OU, Jamie worked hard to keep her. However, she wanted a brand new facility and JP told her we didn't have the money to give her a new facility. What else was he supposed to do at the time?
Actually, she only wanted air conditioning for Beyer. That said, she went about it poorly. It was hard for many at the time, myself included but it is time we move on. KJ has.
 

Land Shark

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Jamie couldn’t keep Cael or Fred around either. He clearly only cares about men’s CC.
Joking aside, they have a top 5 team this season that has an outside shot at an NCAA title if Thomas Pollard is healthy. Northern Arizona will have to have some misfortune to lose but ISU is likely as good as anyone else in the country heading into the season. Women have a top 15 team assuming everyone sticks around. Considering practice starts in the next two weeks, I am assuming they will
 

Jnecker4cy

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You realize when Kindler left to go to OU, Jamie worked hard to keep her. However, she wanted a brand new facility and JP told her we didn't have the money to give her a new facility. What else was he supposed to do at the time?

Actually KJ would have stayed for slot less than a brand new facility. Air conditioning would have been a start and possible the thing that would have made her stay.
 
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Tornado man

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Actually, she only wanted air conditioning for Beyer. That said, she went about it poorly. It was hard for many at the time, myself included but it is time we move on. KJ has.
This is a fact. Now, KJ Kindler is an assertive, confident woman who had her differences with Pollard...don't know whose fault that is. It's no surprise she has built OU into national champions. The open checkbook in Norman doesn't hurt either.
 

Land Shark

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My question would be why did JP let Ihmels leave for Boise St.
My understanding of it is totally something Corey wanted. Two things came in play on it and the first is location. He really did want to live there and try it out as Boise is an outdoorsman playground and being a guy from the Dakotas, it fit what he wanted. Second, he had the women's program rolling but getting the men's program up to his standard was a struggle and he was becoming frustrated that he could not get it where he wanted it. He was losing sleep and the stress was taking a toll.

Frankly, I would love to pay him 150k and see if he would come back for that role but I know he won't. Corey produces elite women runners.
 

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Regarding facilities for non-revenue sports, using the Beyer pool for competitive swimming is embarrassing. Even schools half our size, in much smaller conferences, have shimmering aquatic centers for their swim teams.
 
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sclotz

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Looking at the OU gymanastics roster, they’ve enjoyed lots of success under Kindler, but the indivudual photos look like the wives of Orange County. Is that what confidence looks like? Is that the kind of adults that program is molding. Maybe a reflection of what JP did not wamt at ISU. I’m a track/XC fan and do not want to see our teams showing off our rings like that.
 

Cycsk

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You realize when Kindler left to go to OU, Jamie worked hard to keep her. However, she wanted a brand new facility and JP told her we didn't have the money to give her a new facility. What else was he supposed to do at the time?


Agreed. Once OU decided they really wanted KJ, it was going to be next to impossible to keep her without a huge donor to throw money at our program like Penn State did with wrestling.
 

Cycsk

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Actually KJ would have stayed for slot less than a brand new facility. Air conditioning would have been a start and possible the thing that would have made her stay.


As I recall, there was a possibility of AC, but it came too late in the negotiations.

The bottom line is that KJ wanted to win championships, not have to negotiate about basic facility matters. It was clear which school wanted the championships more, even though at the time, ours was a much better program with much better community support than OU.

And I can't blame JP, especially at the time, he was new and didn't have a lot of money to be throwing at non-revenue sports. If the same situation came up today, it might have been handled differently.
 
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BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
As I recall, there was a possibility of AC, but it came too late in the negotiations.

The bottom line is that KJ wanted to win championships, not have to negotiate about basic facility matters. It was clear which school wanted the championships more, even though at the time, ours was a much better program with much better community support than OU.

And I can't blame JP, especially at the time, he was new and didn't have a lot of money to be throwing at non-revenue sports. If the same situation came up today, it might have been handled differently.

These things can be deceiving. Just because more people show up, it doesn't mean everything. Community support also means donating to help fund the needs. One thing that has always lagged at ISU is the general donation levels. We are way behind other schools in this category. Even our ticket purchases are low, we may get many to games, but many of these are low priced seats. We need to start getting to the point where our donations and ticket sales combined (some schools will mix these so its hard to tell exacts) are competitive with the top programs just below the blue bloods.
 

drlove

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Honest question: How many of these other schools only have women's swimming? If you don't have both men's and women's swimming, what more do you need beyond a 10 Meter platform for the divers?

Too bad this couldn't have been addressed when State Gym was renovated.
 
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Cycsk

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Looking at the OU gymanastics roster, they’ve enjoyed lots of success under Kindler, but the indivudual photos look like the wives of Orange County. Is that what confidence looks like? Is that the kind of adults that program is molding. Maybe a reflection of what JP did not wamt at ISU. I’m a track/XC fan and do not want to see our teams showing off our rings like that.


In an odd way, those photos are indicative of the difference between our programs. OU goes all out with photographers, events, and presentation on their website. It isn't just flaunting the rings, but adding a glamour perspective. They have been doing it since before the championships. It sets a tone for the team and reflects the overall philosophy of the athletic department, not just KJ, namely expectations of championships.
 
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Cycsk

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These things can be deceiving. Just because more people show up, it doesn't mean everything. Community support also means donating to help fund the needs. One thing that has always lagged at ISU is the general donation levels. We are way behind other schools in this category. Even our ticket purchases are low, we may get many to games, but many of these are low priced seats. We need to start getting to the point where our donations and ticket sales combined (some schools will mix these so its hard to tell exacts) are competitive with the top programs just below the blue bloods.


All of our ticket sales for gymnastics are low priced seats. In fact, many are non-revenue tickets for those of us in the Cyclone Club or special feature nights. However, the fact of the high attendance (albeit inflated in numbers reported) is indicative of good community support.

Donations are a tricky thing because Iowa State in the past has discouraged separate fundraising for individual low- or non-revenue sports (wrestling is an exception). If I wanted to donate specifically to gymnastics, I don't think I can, unless I'm making a huge donation for a facility upgrade or something like that.
 

BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
All of our ticket sales for gymnastics are low priced seats. In fact, many are non-revenue tickets for those of us in the Cyclone Club or special feature nights. However, the fact of the high attendance (albeit inflated in numbers reported) is indicative of good community support.

Donations are a tricky thing because Iowa State in the past has discouraged separate fundraising for individual low- or non-revenue sports (wrestling is an exception). If I wanted to donate specifically to gymnastics, I don't think I can, unless I'm making a huge donation for a facility upgrade or something like that.


I did sidetrack my post a little, I admit. When talking about the low price tickets, I had ventured to the main revenue sports. I knew that the other sports are low cost tickets, basically hoping to have people there, no issues one bit at all with that. I agree with it.

The donations in general I was talking about, we will struggle until we can basically double what we have in donations right now. (not double in 7 years, but we need to proportionally double where we are now whenever that happens). We also need to double the tickets sales revenue.

I guess when I reanalyze my post, the biggest issue we have with the non revenue sports is our revenue sports still lagging, so maybe my whole post was about revenue sports, sorry about that. So basically, until we can get our revenue streams up, we probably will struggle to hold elite non revenue sport coaches.
 

Cycsk

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I did sidetrack my post a little, I admit. When talking about the low price tickets, I had ventured to the main revenue sports. I knew that the other sports are low cost tickets, basically hoping to have people there, no issues one bit at all with that. I agree with it.

The donations in general I was talking about, we will struggle until we can basically double what we have in donations right now. (not double in 7 years, but we need to proportionally double where we are now whenever that happens). We also need to double the tickets sales revenue.

I guess when I reanalyze my post, the biggest issue we have with the non revenue sports is our revenue sports still lagging, so maybe my whole post was about revenue sports, sorry about that. So basically, until we can get our revenue streams up, we probably will struggle to hold elite non revenue sport coaches.


And I think that the problem with an overall low athletic budget was probably the biggest issue is losing KJ. There is no way that JP could throw big money at gymnastics when he first got here. It was much later that he started doing so with track and wrestling. I think JP might have started in a different place in the negotiations with her if it was today instead of 10+ years ago when she left. We still have a long ways to go, but we are in such better shape overall than we were when he arrived. Some due to his work and some just because of being in the Big 12 when the TV deal took off.
 

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