By JEROME SOLOMON, Houston ChronicleWhile issues from budget woes to an NCAA probe have some saying `the writing is on the wall,' AD Alois Blackwell begs to differ
TSU has seen its share of highs and lows since Alois Blackwell became athletic director in 2001:
Academics2001: USA Today/NCAA Foundation Academic Achievement Award recognition for graduation rate (plus-31 percent) compared to student body at large.
Today: In May, five programs — most of any school in the country — received NCAA warnings regarding poor academic progress reports.
Tennis2006: Men's and women's teams won first SWAC championships since 1977.
Today: Both men's and women's programs were suspended for spring semester in the wake of an NCAA investigation.
Men's basketball
2003: Made NCAA Tournament appearance after winning SWAC tournament championship.
Today: Head coach Ronnie Courtney was fired on July 19, and mere weeks before school begins, the program still has no coaching staff.
Football2005: Played first on-campus homecoming game.
Today: Program has gone 4-29 in last three seasons.
Today: Both men's and women's programs were suspended for spring semester in the wake of an NCAA investigation.
Men's basketball
2003: Made NCAA Tournament appearance after winning SWAC tournament championship.
Today: Head coach Ronnie Courtney was fired on July 19, and mere weeks before school begins, the program still has no coaching staff.
Football2005: Played first on-campus homecoming game.
Today: Program has gone 4-29 in last three seasons.
EARLY in the tenure of Texas Southern University athletic director Alois Blackwell, his bio claimed he was presiding over "what is truly becoming an exciting time to be a Tiger!"
When many talk about TSU athletics these days — 6 1/2 years after Blackwell took over the department — the exclamation point remains, but the words before it indicate the excitement is long gone.
"It's a complete mess," one athlete said.
Budget problems, an NCAA investigation, lingering academic issues and poor performances/attendance in money-making sports football and basketball have led to much yelling and screaming, with some suggesting the school might not have an athletic department for much longer.
"I don't really foresee any viable future for athletics at TSU in the NCAA if that organization hits the school with sanctions," former assistant basketball coach John Howie said. "Once they come in, it's too late.
"The university has allowed this situation to fester and grow, and the NCAA is going to make an example of TSU. It's something that could have been avoided if the (board of regents) had given proper oversight and demanded more stringent adherence to NCAA rules and ensured that student-athletes were being put first.
"I think the writing is on the wall."
Blackwell, who fired Howie and the rest of Ronnie Courtney's staff on July 19, says he recognizes there are problems within the athletic department, but he is working to fix them and doesn't think the program is in jeopardy of being shut down.
"I don't believe that," Blackwell said. "I believe they'll have athletics. Within the administration and some of the people that are in place now, they're moving in the right direction. Now, I think we can get some stuff done.
"I see some positive signs for athletics."
It appears the negatives far outnumber the positives. And some alumni are calling for Blackwell's ouster.
"I feel we're at a level of trust, hope and morale — as far as looking forward to the upcoming football season and school year — in the athletic department that TSU has never seen before," said Chris Le Blanc, the president of the TSU National Alumni Association. "The alumni feel it's time to go in a different direction with the leadership in the athletic department.
"We have diehards who have supported the athletic department for 30 to 40 years, and they don't know where to go or what to do to support the department because there is a disconnect with the current administration."
A cut in scholarships
Le Blanc knows of many alumni who steadfastly refuse to support TSU athletics until Blackwell is removed. A number of TSU supporters told the Chronicle they are embarrassed by what has happened in the athletic department recently.
In May, the university received warning letters from the NCAA concerning poor academic progress in five sports — men's basketball, men's tennis, women's golf, softball and women's soccer — the most of any school in the country. Without improvement, the sports could lose scholarships.
Blackwell said the school might have received only three warning letters and maybe fewer, but a misunderstanding about the reporting of numbers to the NCAA coming from the registrar rather than the compliance officer created the problem.
TSU has 18 sports teams — make that 16 since the tennis programs were shut down this past spring in the wake of mismanagement and what appear to be major NCAA violations — with more than 300 student-athletes. Its academic support staff consists of one person.
The loss of scholarships probably wouldn't even be felt, considering the drastic cut in scholarships the school already has planned for this year.
The department had a $2 million overage on last year's budget, but Blackwell said that number and phrasing is factually incorrect, an "illusion."
"The budget commitments — scholarship allotments and travel expenditures for games already scheduled, etc. — were already in place before they came to us on Sept. 1 with what they wanted the budget to be," he said. "The department never went into the red, as such."
This year's operating budget will be $5.5 million, and Blackwell said the department will grant only 118 scholarships after giving out 178 a year ago. And the scholarships that are honored will be for a lower amount.
'Full,' but not really
Athletic scholarships were $14,000 each last year but will be in the $12,000 range this year, meaning even those athletes on "full" scholarships will have to make up the difference in tuition, fees,
and room and board out of pocket.
"You don't penalize the student-athletes for the mismanagement of funds by the administration," Howie said. "You don't go to the kids to find money."
The scholarship cuts could mean as much as $1 million to the bottom line. Blackwell says scholarship costs have more than doubled during his tenure — from $5,600 to $14,000 — as tuition rose 23.1 percent.
"I don't want to make it sound like I'm crying or anything, but we didn't really have enough to work off of before the cuts," Blackwell said.
Tales of the pain of budget constraints abound among the athletes. The men's and women's basketball teams travel together by bus to all Southwestern Athletic Conference road contests. A university official said the bus used is a 46-passenger vehicle and the travel party is usually between 42-46 people, meaning the athletes are cramped for some rides as long as 16-18 hours.
"I don't even want to talk about it," said a basketball player. "It's that ridiculous."
Even more ridiculous to many are the circumstances that led to the suspension of the tennis teams. More than a half-dozen male players, who last year helped the program win men's and women's conference titles for the first time since 1977, thought they were on full scholarships, though the athletic department allotted a total of one scholarship for the men's team. (Athletes in minor sports are often given partial scholarships.)
An NCAA investigation into those events has not yet concluded.
A really tough road trip
Blackwell would not comment on the NCAA investigation, whether the university is doing an in-house investigation, or what he expects the NCAA ruling to be.
Regardless of what sanctions the NCAA hands down, TSU still faces financial problems. Winning would help. The athletic department runs on revenue brought in by the football and men's basketball teams, and both have struggled of late.
The Tigers won five football games in 2003 but have won only four since Steve Wilson took over as head coach in 2004. The men's basketball team, which plays a torturous non-conference schedule to earn money, last had a winning record in 2002-03.
When the new basketball coach is hired, he will face the same uphill battle that Courtney did. The Tigers began last season with a 1-10 mark, thanks in part to playing only two non-conference home games.
The men's basketball team is still steamed at Blackwell for taking games on back-to-back nights at Connecticut and Texas-El Paso a couple of seasons ago. Apparently, Blackwell promised to get a charter flight for the team to leave immediately after the game at UConn. That never happened, and the team ended up flying all day from Hartford to El Paso and playing a second night in a row.
TSU lost the first game to No. 3-ranked UConn 113-49 and the second one to the Miners 82-59.
A stadium would help
"Whoever comes in has to understand that we have to take guarantee games in order to help fund our program," Blackwell said. "Unless they come in and can come with some alternative ways to help supplement the program. Then we'll look at that.
"We take quite a few money games. That can be looked at several ways. If you play against good talent, it gives you an opportunity to know where you are and where you need to improve."
The football team looks to be improved after going 1-21 in Wilson's first two seasons.
But the program's ability to make money is hindered by longtime stadium issues. Enos Cabell, who served as the interim athletic director before Blackwell was hired in 2001, said that when he was there he helped put a plan in place to build an on-campus stadium that would seat 20,000 to 25,000. That proposal ended up being scratched.
"Not having a football facility really kills you," Cabell said. "It's all about money. When you don't succeed and don't draw a lot of people, you won't make money.
"You have to win in Texas for people to come to games."
This season, the Tigers will host five games — three on campus and two at Reliant Stadium — and, for what is almost surely the first time in school history, will play on television three times.
Marriage with the Dynamo?
When Blackwell took over a program that he said played its five home games in five different stadiums, one of his goals was to bring games to the campus. The field on campus was in such bad shape that the football team couldn't even practice there, using the former Oilers practice facility instead.
Blackwell got a new turf in place and the stadium up to code so the team could actually play on campus. But the school doesn't maximize the "rent-free" weekends because of the costs of renting temporary seating for games at Durley Stadium, which has only 4,100 permanent seats. The lack of permanent signage at the stadium also limits advertising revenue.
The Dynamo, defending Major League Soccer champions, are working with the city with hopes of having a minimum 20,000-seat stadium built near downtown, a short distance from the TSU campus.
Team president Oliver Luck said the Dynamo are interested in the new stadium's serving as home field for the Tigers.
"We have said to them that we would love to have a conversation with them about our stadium being the home field for TSU football," Luck said. "We think that would be a great little marriage. I can't imagine that not being a great long-term solution for the university."
While the Dynamo might receive a political boost from having TSU onboard with the stadium idea, Blackwell agrees that TSU's involvement with such a stadium could help stabilize the athletic department. But no one at the university has had any substantive talks with the Dynamo as yet.
Turmoil at the top level of the school's administration — former president Priscilla Slade, who has an upcoming trial on charges of misusing university funds, was fired by a group of regents, who were all subsequently replaced by the governor — has not made his job any easier, Blackwell said. Re-educating newcomers has slowed down all processes, and the difficulty in that is often underestimated in evaluations of his performance. Blackwell said budget-wise, the "athletic department has taken all the hits it can take."
Le Blanc says Blackwell has done a poor job building corporate relationships that could help the department, and losing alumni support has made the situation worse.
'It's not all on me'
Blackwell said he is an easy target for much larger issues.
"I'm the person that's still here," Blackwell said. "A lot of the other people are gone. I've been in my position for a while, and from that standpoint you're going to have more visibility in regard to people having opinions about what you do and don't do. That comes with the territory.
"I want to build a program that can compete with any program. Doing that takes time. It's not all on me. It's not all on me. I'm the athletic director, but it's not all on me. It requires more than me. Championships are not won by one person. Championships are won by multiple people doing their job, knowing what their job is and being able to do their job and being committed to it. And getting it done.
"Our expectations are a lot higher than where we are right now, but our expectations are a lot higher than what our commitment has been to it. How fast do you want to get there? There's a cost associated with speed. Do we want to pay that cost?"
When many talk about TSU athletics these days — 6 1/2 years after Blackwell took over the department — the exclamation point remains, but the words before it indicate the excitement is long gone.
"It's a complete mess," one athlete said.
Budget problems, an NCAA investigation, lingering academic issues and poor performances/attendance in money-making sports football and basketball have led to much yelling and screaming, with some suggesting the school might not have an athletic department for much longer.
"I don't really foresee any viable future for athletics at TSU in the NCAA if that organization hits the school with sanctions," former assistant basketball coach John Howie said. "Once they come in, it's too late.
"The university has allowed this situation to fester and grow, and the NCAA is going to make an example of TSU. It's something that could have been avoided if the (board of regents) had given proper oversight and demanded more stringent adherence to NCAA rules and ensured that student-athletes were being put first.
"I think the writing is on the wall."
Blackwell, who fired Howie and the rest of Ronnie Courtney's staff on July 19, says he recognizes there are problems within the athletic department, but he is working to fix them and doesn't think the program is in jeopardy of being shut down.
"I don't believe that," Blackwell said. "I believe they'll have athletics. Within the administration and some of the people that are in place now, they're moving in the right direction. Now, I think we can get some stuff done.
"I see some positive signs for athletics."
It appears the negatives far outnumber the positives. And some alumni are calling for Blackwell's ouster.
"I feel we're at a level of trust, hope and morale — as far as looking forward to the upcoming football season and school year — in the athletic department that TSU has never seen before," said Chris Le Blanc, the president of the TSU National Alumni Association. "The alumni feel it's time to go in a different direction with the leadership in the athletic department.
"We have diehards who have supported the athletic department for 30 to 40 years, and they don't know where to go or what to do to support the department because there is a disconnect with the current administration."
A cut in scholarships
Le Blanc knows of many alumni who steadfastly refuse to support TSU athletics until Blackwell is removed. A number of TSU supporters told the Chronicle they are embarrassed by what has happened in the athletic department recently.
In May, the university received warning letters from the NCAA concerning poor academic progress in five sports — men's basketball, men's tennis, women's golf, softball and women's soccer — the most of any school in the country. Without improvement, the sports could lose scholarships.
Blackwell said the school might have received only three warning letters and maybe fewer, but a misunderstanding about the reporting of numbers to the NCAA coming from the registrar rather than the compliance officer created the problem.
TSU has 18 sports teams — make that 16 since the tennis programs were shut down this past spring in the wake of mismanagement and what appear to be major NCAA violations — with more than 300 student-athletes. Its academic support staff consists of one person.
The loss of scholarships probably wouldn't even be felt, considering the drastic cut in scholarships the school already has planned for this year.
The department had a $2 million overage on last year's budget, but Blackwell said that number and phrasing is factually incorrect, an "illusion."
"The budget commitments — scholarship allotments and travel expenditures for games already scheduled, etc. — were already in place before they came to us on Sept. 1 with what they wanted the budget to be," he said. "The department never went into the red, as such."
This year's operating budget will be $5.5 million, and Blackwell said the department will grant only 118 scholarships after giving out 178 a year ago. And the scholarships that are honored will be for a lower amount.
'Full,' but not really
Athletic scholarships were $14,000 each last year but will be in the $12,000 range this year, meaning even those athletes on "full" scholarships will have to make up the difference in tuition, fees,
and room and board out of pocket.
"You don't penalize the student-athletes for the mismanagement of funds by the administration," Howie said. "You don't go to the kids to find money."
The scholarship cuts could mean as much as $1 million to the bottom line. Blackwell says scholarship costs have more than doubled during his tenure — from $5,600 to $14,000 — as tuition rose 23.1 percent.
"I don't want to make it sound like I'm crying or anything, but we didn't really have enough to work off of before the cuts," Blackwell said.
Tales of the pain of budget constraints abound among the athletes. The men's and women's basketball teams travel together by bus to all Southwestern Athletic Conference road contests. A university official said the bus used is a 46-passenger vehicle and the travel party is usually between 42-46 people, meaning the athletes are cramped for some rides as long as 16-18 hours.
"I don't even want to talk about it," said a basketball player. "It's that ridiculous."
Even more ridiculous to many are the circumstances that led to the suspension of the tennis teams. More than a half-dozen male players, who last year helped the program win men's and women's conference titles for the first time since 1977, thought they were on full scholarships, though the athletic department allotted a total of one scholarship for the men's team. (Athletes in minor sports are often given partial scholarships.)
An NCAA investigation into those events has not yet concluded.
A really tough road trip
Blackwell would not comment on the NCAA investigation, whether the university is doing an in-house investigation, or what he expects the NCAA ruling to be.
Regardless of what sanctions the NCAA hands down, TSU still faces financial problems. Winning would help. The athletic department runs on revenue brought in by the football and men's basketball teams, and both have struggled of late.
The Tigers won five football games in 2003 but have won only four since Steve Wilson took over as head coach in 2004. The men's basketball team, which plays a torturous non-conference schedule to earn money, last had a winning record in 2002-03.
When the new basketball coach is hired, he will face the same uphill battle that Courtney did. The Tigers began last season with a 1-10 mark, thanks in part to playing only two non-conference home games.
The men's basketball team is still steamed at Blackwell for taking games on back-to-back nights at Connecticut and Texas-El Paso a couple of seasons ago. Apparently, Blackwell promised to get a charter flight for the team to leave immediately after the game at UConn. That never happened, and the team ended up flying all day from Hartford to El Paso and playing a second night in a row.
TSU lost the first game to No. 3-ranked UConn 113-49 and the second one to the Miners 82-59.
A stadium would help
"Whoever comes in has to understand that we have to take guarantee games in order to help fund our program," Blackwell said. "Unless they come in and can come with some alternative ways to help supplement the program. Then we'll look at that.
"We take quite a few money games. That can be looked at several ways. If you play against good talent, it gives you an opportunity to know where you are and where you need to improve."
The football team looks to be improved after going 1-21 in Wilson's first two seasons.
But the program's ability to make money is hindered by longtime stadium issues. Enos Cabell, who served as the interim athletic director before Blackwell was hired in 2001, said that when he was there he helped put a plan in place to build an on-campus stadium that would seat 20,000 to 25,000. That proposal ended up being scratched.
"Not having a football facility really kills you," Cabell said. "It's all about money. When you don't succeed and don't draw a lot of people, you won't make money.
"You have to win in Texas for people to come to games."
This season, the Tigers will host five games — three on campus and two at Reliant Stadium — and, for what is almost surely the first time in school history, will play on television three times.
Marriage with the Dynamo?
When Blackwell took over a program that he said played its five home games in five different stadiums, one of his goals was to bring games to the campus. The field on campus was in such bad shape that the football team couldn't even practice there, using the former Oilers practice facility instead.
Blackwell got a new turf in place and the stadium up to code so the team could actually play on campus. But the school doesn't maximize the "rent-free" weekends because of the costs of renting temporary seating for games at Durley Stadium, which has only 4,100 permanent seats. The lack of permanent signage at the stadium also limits advertising revenue.
The Dynamo, defending Major League Soccer champions, are working with the city with hopes of having a minimum 20,000-seat stadium built near downtown, a short distance from the TSU campus.
Team president Oliver Luck said the Dynamo are interested in the new stadium's serving as home field for the Tigers.
"We have said to them that we would love to have a conversation with them about our stadium being the home field for TSU football," Luck said. "We think that would be a great little marriage. I can't imagine that not being a great long-term solution for the university."
While the Dynamo might receive a political boost from having TSU onboard with the stadium idea, Blackwell agrees that TSU's involvement with such a stadium could help stabilize the athletic department. But no one at the university has had any substantive talks with the Dynamo as yet.
Turmoil at the top level of the school's administration — former president Priscilla Slade, who has an upcoming trial on charges of misusing university funds, was fired by a group of regents, who were all subsequently replaced by the governor — has not made his job any easier, Blackwell said. Re-educating newcomers has slowed down all processes, and the difficulty in that is often underestimated in evaluations of his performance. Blackwell said budget-wise, the "athletic department has taken all the hits it can take."
Le Blanc says Blackwell has done a poor job building corporate relationships that could help the department, and losing alumni support has made the situation worse.
'It's not all on me'
Blackwell said he is an easy target for much larger issues.
"I'm the person that's still here," Blackwell said. "A lot of the other people are gone. I've been in my position for a while, and from that standpoint you're going to have more visibility in regard to people having opinions about what you do and don't do. That comes with the territory.
"I want to build a program that can compete with any program. Doing that takes time. It's not all on me. It's not all on me. I'm the athletic director, but it's not all on me. It requires more than me. Championships are not won by one person. Championships are won by multiple people doing their job, knowing what their job is and being able to do their job and being committed to it. And getting it done.
"Our expectations are a lot higher than where we are right now, but our expectations are a lot higher than what our commitment has been to it. How fast do you want to get there? There's a cost associated with speed. Do we want to pay that cost?"
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