MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – As we wind down another season of West Virginia University athletics, Wren Baker gets out from behind the athletic director's desk to take some more of our questions.
Here are Ten for Wren:
WVUsports.com: Rumor has it you recently bought a house in Morgantown and, of course, your family will be joining you next month. Certainly, you must be looking forward to finally getting settled.
Wren Baker: Not everything is finalized yet. As you can imagine, there are multiple steps to that, but we have found a place and I'm very excited to get them here. We really wrestled with the decision on rather to bring them back in January when I came or wait and let the girls finish school. We felt like the right thing for them was to be able to finish the school year. I think it's been hard on my wife, Heather, but it's been hard on me as well. When you work the hours we work and then go home, it's quiet and empty when you're used to activities. We're all excited to be under one roof again.
I miss those girls. Now my wife has tried to send the dogs to me a couple of times, but I told her it wouldn't be good for them to be stuck in a hotel room. The good news is they have gotten to come here a couple of times, and I've been back there three or four times so every three or four weeks we've been able to get together. We FaceTime every day, but it's not the same as being able to be around them.
WVUsports.com: Baseball has had a record attendance year for a team that has reached the top 10 for the first time in 60 years. What are your impressions of your first baseball season at WVU?
WB: It's been incredible. It really has been a Field of Dreams kind of story. Those who have been here a long time know that there was a period of time when there was consideration on whether to keep the baseball program or not. There were some questions of whether we could really compete in the Big 12 and a huge amount of credit goes to Oliver Luck during his time here. He helped put together the new ballpark with several local and state politicians and was able to build that facility, which has contributed to the development of all the commercial success up there, which has been great.
And then coach (Randy) Mazey has just come in here and done a marvelous job. He really understands how to win here, what the fit is and has consistently been competitive, and that's not easy to do given our geography in a conference that has several historically great programs. I couldn't be more ecstatic about the success of the team, but also more appreciative of our fans for showing up for some good weather games and some not-so-good weather games. We've had great crowds and great support for just about all of them.
WVUsports.com: There could possibly be a Big 12 championship in your first season as director of athletics. That would be very meaningful to you, wouldn't it?
WB: It would, especially given how long it's been since we've won a conference (baseball) championship. I think I was in high school or real close to being in high school the last time we won one. To be in a position to win our first Big 12, and to win our first conference baseball title in a long time, is pretty special. I think it's just a huge credit to our student-athletes and coaches to be where we are.
WVUsports.com: You recently got back from the Big 12 meetings. Do you have any updates to share with Mountaineer fans?
WB: We've had a lot of conversations and discussions on how we can continue to grow and improve our brand and to find revenue opportunities to extend the power of the Big 12. When you look at the work that has been done by commissioner (Brett) Yormark and even before him commissioner (Bob) Bowlsby to position the league after the shockwaves of Oklahoma and Texas announcing their departures. You went from a league that a lot of people thought was going to collapse to a league that not only has survived, but I think most people would say is the third-most stable league in the country. That's really saying something. I give commissioner Yormark a lot of credit, as well as the presidents and the ADs before I arrived, for stabilizing the league and coming up with a solid plan.
As we look into the future, commissioner Yormark does a great job of challenging us to think differently. You've seen things leak out about potentially playing games in Mexico to extend our brand and reach in other countries. He created some premium areas at the Big 12 men's basketball tournament that brought a new revenue stream to the conference. He's taken the media rights and was able to extend those in terms of what is coming in, so he thinks differently. He brings that professional and business-like mentality to the conference, and I think it meshes well with the ADs and CEOs on each campus to put us on a path toward sustainable success.
The reality is, to use a biblical term,
there is an unquenchable thirst for more. Our league understands that. We're trying to compete with Big Ten and SEC programs that have at least a 50% higher budget and some of them a 100% higher budget. So, I think if you are going to thrive in today's environment, and you are not in the SEC or Big Ten, you are going to have to find a way to make a dollar every time you can make a dollar. That's not meant to sound greedy or to take advantage of anything, that's just to point out that our coaches and staff here at WVU, and our league, have fared very well with less money, and you must do everything you can for that gap not to continue to increase.
The things you read going on in the ACC right now are real concerns. Everybody talks about a Power 5, but within the Power 5 there are two leagues that would be Superpowers in terms of the resources that they currently have and what they're going to have as you project out future years and TV contracts. We know that our fans expect us to compete, and they really don't care what our budget is compared to, say, Kentucky. Their budget is now almost two times ours. If we play Kentucky in something, people expect that we're going to beat them, and sitting in this chair and knowing this reality, it's imperative that we find ways to increase our revenue because that's a significant part of this job.
WVUsports.com: Along those lines, construction is ongoing at the Coliseum to add another club area on the concourse. What benefits will a new premium club space provide to fans, the department and your quest to introduce new revenue streams?
WB: This will bring a variety of things to the department. First and foremost, it will be used daily by our student-athletes as a training table. We currently do training tables in different forms and formats with different sports, but this will be a place where all our student-athletes, with the exception of football, can come and eat together and eat food that was designed by our nutritionists to help them get through a season and experience the breakdowns of muscles and tissues. The second thing is it provides another game-day club with amenities. We had great success with the club we opened last year, and this would be a club on the apron that would allow for many more users. I think the cutoff in Club 35 is 130 or so, and this will be able to accommodate three to four times that to give us a chance to have another opportunity for people at a donor level to be able to have access to a great space.
It will drive our Mountaineer Athletic Club donations and revenue, and it will be set up to where we can use it for receptions, birthday parties, weddings, events and other things during the offseason. My hope is, over the course of time, we can do another 50-plus events annually in that area. Year one that won't probably happen, but if we can grow that then it should be a revenue producer for us.
Also, this will be an aesthetic improvement to the Coliseum. It takes a big chunk of the apron out and makes it more appealing so we will have a great face when you look at Mon Boulevard. The apron digs at me every day when I walk across it. I want to do something about it at some point, and this at least gives us a start.
WVUsports.com: Your department posted some strong academic numbers during the past year with record APR scores and team GPAs. Can you comment on that in terms of finding the right blend of athletic and academic success?
WB: I don't believe those two are mutually exclusive. (senior associate athletics director for student services and wellness) Brittney O'Dell and her team do a great job and our coaches have done a great job of recruiting student-athletes and enforcing high academic standards. Our academic staff doesn't have a lot of teeth in enforcing being on time for study halls or not missing tutor sessions, but our coaches do, and they're doing a really good job of emphasizing these things. Academic success is just as important, if not more important, than athletic success. I really believe if we're approaching things the right way those two areas complement each other, not cannibalize each other. My hope is you continue to see us do very, very well in both.
WVUsports.com: As we approach Memorial Day and transition to a new fiscal year, what are some of your goals for the department as it begins?
WB: We have taken a deep dive into our budget, and we need to make sure we continue to use our resources in a way to maximize our ability to compete. I shared the challenge before and will continue to share it that we face, when you take out debt service, which is the payments we make every month on facility improvements, and you take out travel, what we must work with is the least in the conference. There is not a lot of excess or fat in our budget, but we do need to make sure, one, that we are utilizing every dollar; we must maximize it to its full ability. Then, two, that we are finding ways to bring in more money. I think many of our teams are competing at a very high level given where they are from a resource perspective. We don't need the biggest budget in the league. We really don't. I think it's ingrained in West Virginians to do more with less, but we need to find a way in a reconstituted Big 12 to kind of be in the middle somewhere. If we can do that, I'm confident we can be highly competitive in all the sports we sponsor, which is what we want to do.
We were able to do that at North Texas over time and eventually got to where we were in the top two or three in the league in every sport. We didn't start there, but we tried to get to the midpoint. Take season tickets, for instance. You never want to increase the price so much that you start to lose a fan following, so we kind of had a five-year plan to show people where we are at and where we aspire to be, this is the conference average, now develop a plan of how we are going to get there. We did that in every revenue category and then we looked for new revenue categories. When you put all those things together it starts to add up. It's almost like compound interest on your money in the bank. It all starts to build on each other and become really additive.
WVUsports.com: Rule changes in football are on the horizon to shorten the time of games. What are your thoughts on these?
WB: I think the number of games has increased and the number of snaps and plays have increased so if there are ways that we can shorten the game and reduce the wear and tear on student-athletes' bodies I think that's a positive thing. I think fans still love coming to the games. Baseball has been sold out basically for the last two months, and we've had a bunch of men's basketball sellouts. I think fans still love to watch live sports, but I will tell you I enjoy watching baseball a lot more with the pitch clock than I did without it. Most fans will appreciate if there are ways to shorten the game, and I know student-athletes will appreciate that.
If you can take as much as a half-hour out of it, over the course of a year that's a lot of time the student-athletes are getting back to rest and recover and not to be under all that strain.
WVUsports.com: You have now had an opportunity to visit places throughout the state of West Virginia during the Mountaineer Caravan. How have your visits gone so far?
WB: It's been awesome. At different schools over the years, I've done them different ways, but to do all back-to-back … I think we did the Charleston Scholarship Dinner and then we had the four in a row and then we did the golf tournament in Bridgeport. To be able to do all of those in a matter of a couple of weeks was a lot of long days, but it really was energizing for me to get out and see the passion and love people have for the Mountaineers. I've gotten to see the beauty of the state. I got to thinking West Virginia all looks like Morgantown – lots of lush, green trees, mountains, hills, rivers, but all the corners of the state are a little bit different. I have enjoyed getting out and seeing some places that I can follow up and take my family this summer. I'm getting a chance to hear the different viewpoints from different fans, and it was fun. I enjoyed it and I learned a lot just in that short period of time.
I don't play a lot of golf. I used to play when I was in my early 20s, but when my first daughter was born, I was 32 and I probably haven't played three times since she was born. There are so many nights, weekends and events that keep me from being around my kids. I love to fish. I have two dozen rods and reels and every year I have to re-string them because I haven't used them in a year, and I'm worried that the line has rotted. Until my daughters get a little older, I am probably not going to do a whole lot that takes time away from them, and golf is a game that you just can't show up and play four or five times a year. If it's going to be enjoyable you must work at it a little bit. At some point, I will probably pick it back up, but for right now I'm going to chase these two girls around at dance recitals, gymnastics events and the things that they like to do.
Now, I do want to do some fly fishing. I've always been a bait caster, and I've actually talked to a couple of people who have recommended locations and can teach you how to do it that first time or two.
WVUsports.com: Finally, what do you want to tell Mountaineer fans about the decision to retain men's basketball coach Bob Huggins?
WB: First of all, I think the statement we put out and coach's statement he put out said most of what I would say. What he said was wrong and hurtful. He knows that; we know that, and I know when you must make decisions there is always going to be a continuum of opinions on what's the right decision and the right penalties. I would tell people that we tried to consider all angles and all aspects, and we tried to set a precedent that this not okay. It's not who we are and not what we stand for, and then chart a course for how can we learn and grow as a community and get better.
From the very first conversation we had, coach was remorseful, apologetic, and I felt his genuine and sincere sorrow for what he said and the way it reflected on this community. Now, we're going to focus on the future and how we can grow and learn and get better, while understanding that there are different viewpoints on how something should be handled. I can understand and respect all those viewpoints, and I just want people to know we tried to chart a path we felt would make us better and help us learn from it.
I also felt the need to communicate this to our staff in a letter I sent out to them earlier this week. I wanted our staff to hear from me because we have staff members from both communities that were addressed in coach's remarks. I wanted them to know that's not who we are, it's not what we stand for and there are resources and avenues for them to express themselves, including visiting with me if they would like to share their thoughts. We are going to learn from this and get better as an athletics family, along with our community.