Geoff Brown and Janine Purcaro Released from Duties in Athletic Department
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Of course, that's the answer. Getting hard to remember since it's been so long but in 2006, I heard people talking up Rutgers that never did before and only did again this year because they saw negative things like 78-0 on ESPN and Deadspin.
Yes, taxes will go down, employment will go up, crime will decrease, our tunnels and bridges will be repaired, pollution will end and the glaciers will stop melting.
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I was trying to gently make fun of everybody claiming to be in the know about the firings. Didn't work, apparently. :(
Even if those who actually did the firing or those who were fired directly spoke to me about it, I STILL wouldn't be confident I had the whole story, human nature being what it is. Yet people here are making these confident proclamations about all sorts of stuff. I guess I just find that kind of funny in a "people are funny" way.
The biggest problem with anything relating to "marketing" at the University has been the wall that has been consistently put up by Trademark & Licensing Office at the University for anything and everything that is presented as an idea. The example @MrsScrew gives of the driver cover is an example. Another is the stupidity of the two and a half years that it took for another person and me to get the Stone Mascots Scarlet Knight to be actually approved by T&L. Even the Stone Mascots staff was laughing about how slow and inept Marybeth Schmutz and Elyse Carlson are in terms of working through stuff. The lack of branding awareness is mind-numbing. I have found stuff from M.L. Hart, Wilton-Armatale, GustBusters, Big Sports Gifts, Fanatics.com, etc. Part of this is a lack of drive by Athletics to get these items licensed in a timely fashion. But another is the outright lunacy in how long it takes to get anything through T&L.
That said, there have been numerous - more than 50 - ideas that I have sent the way of "Athletics" that have fallen on deaf ears. Honestly, Geoff is a great guy who gave it a good shot. But what was and has been missing is the collegiate atmosphere that makes the game day interesting and fascinating for diehard fans and, more importantly, the student fans.
That said, there have been numerous - more than 50 - ideas that I have sent the way of "Athletics" that have fallen on deaf ears. Honestly, Geoff is a great guy who gave it a good shot. But what was and has been missing is the collegiate atmosphere that makes the game day interesting and fascinating for diehard fans and, more importantly, the student fans.
Honest question, no flaming. Have we ever "maintained" that atmosphere. Aside from the occasional UL in 06, USF, UM & PSU?
I was commenting on there not being enough RU merchandise in various stores, and yes, I did write that we needed an M Den equivalent (even an RU section, small area in a store, with all RU stuff). We're growing as an athlete department, and I'm certainly enjoying the ride.
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That's just summarizing the problem. Marketing's job is to come up with solutions to address problems. The above just sounds like punting to me. If someone who worked for me gave me that response, I would not be very happy about.
How many local TV stations in Ohio include OSU info in their sports reports?. How many in NJ? Oh that's right there are none. NJ residents get their sports news on stations in NY and Phila. and that is mostly Pro team news.
Oh come on.. you know it doesn't work like that.
When state-controlled seats (the majority) on the Rutgers BOG terms end the Governor gets to nominate/appoint replacements. Here's a story on 2 such appointments by Christie in 2014.
In turn, the Rutgers President is selected by that BOG and answers to them for most big decisions.
Remember when political appointee BOG member Zoffinger started that campaign against Mulcahy over the stadium expansion? When the political bosses saw Rutgers spending $100M on the stadium without going to them for advice as to who should get the contracts, that's it, open season on the AD. Sure Mulcahy was a political operative as well.. just not that of the current "machine".
Exactly. That there are limited retail outlets for Rutgers gear is an opportunity for Rutgers to take more profit from sales of such items by making them all available online and sell direct. Or at least have a better licensing department that can make it easy for the type so motivated people we have seen in this thread to go cut their own deals.
This whole thing is a "team" effort.
The problem is that the real teams in question have (along with the stuff @mkollar told us) have made it really difficult for the other part of the "team" to have any success at their part of the job.
You have a guy (@SF88) in the thread who does this for a living and another (@mkollar) inside the University who both have said how hard it is to get moving on the Rutgers end. I used the analogy earlier in the thread about trying to tie your shoes with one arm around your back...it can be done by some but it makes it much harder and time consuming to complete the task.
As for 2006 all that really showed was the potential from the marketing angle. Remember also as somebody pointed out, we didn't win anything just had a good year.
For the good stuff to happen we need to either win consistently or WIN once in awhile. We have never done either. There is a difference WIN >win. Until either happens in the revenue sports nobody will care and nobody will buy Rutgers stuff besides us no matter who the Marketing person is sitting in that chair.
Oh I don't mean just one year. Besides, it was.... to a limited extent. I started to see Rutgers gear in stores where previously there was only Notre Dame and Pedd St. stuff. Guys I know who never expressed any interest in Rutgers suddenly were wearing #23 jerseys. I swear it could have been very interesting if GS had stuck around.
Good question. And the short answer is a resounding "no".
Part of the problem is that the "atmosphere" of being unified as a University is recent as within the last decade at Rutgers. Just about every other university in each of the Power 5 Conferences have been unified for generations of alumni. It is that unification of being a "Michigan Man" or a graduate of "VTech" or "Georgia" or "USC" that has focused alumni attention to having a strong, cohesive desire to see the school do well whether it is on the court, the field, or in support of each other in the chosen field of work. As an example, at least 30 years ago, there was a man of acquaintance who graduated from Tennessee. This man lives and breathes everything UT and he's culturally Indian.
Unfortunately, Rutgers has been an amorphous blob for 250 years with individual colleges each pulling their own way with their own desires for "image". In doing so, "Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey" takes on a sidelight standing in the thinking of alumni. That is ass-backwards. Yet, ask many of the graduates in the 1940s through the 1990s and you will be told that they graduated from "[Name of College]" with no mention of Rutgers. Ask alumni from other schools and it will usually be "I graduated from [Name of University]" never mind that they graduated from one of the colleges or schools within that university.
While I appreciate and respect the collegiate experience of alumni from each of the schools that make up Rutgers, there comes a point in time where that mindset needs to change for two reasons:
- The strength is found in the University, not the school,
- Whether we want to admit it or not, we all attended Rutgers first.
So in a nutshell we still don't know what we want to be.
Once we answer that question as a University we can move onto how to "sell" it on and off the court/field.
:smiley: Oh "we" know what we want to be. The way I put it is:
"Sometimes we get this inferiority complex being sandwiched between NYC & Philly. We need to overcome that; we're Rutgers University. We're the best."
Trap wasn't talking about political appointments to governing boards, which are required by law. He was talking about new Governors using political influence to clean house at Rutgers and appoint their cronies to staff and executive positions.
And even though the political appointments to the BOG have a majority of 1, theoretically a Governor can control the BOG, but since BOG members serve for six years, it would take a new Governor six years to replace all the BOG appointees of the previous Governor.
Why is it so hard to believe this is something to watch out for?
This is exactly what happened at UMDNJ and now UMDNJ is part of Rutgers and we have seen Hobbs named AD largely because of political connections. How Hobbs got the job
It is a very real concern and is definitely something to watch out for.
Barchi made the call to make Hobbs the permanent AD, the original plan was that he was just going to be an interim.
It was great news for RU to get the medical school.
You just cited 2 positives as reasons to watch for: Hobbs and medical school.
I'm sorry for the late reply I haven't been on the boards.
Thank you for your response. No was my answer as well. My eldest daughter (up until last year) only knew Rutgers (I am only speaking about football, this is the football forum, I typically don't "Rutgers" anything but football & Agfield/Rutgers Day) as being good/decent. She enjoyed the games/atmosphere. NOTHING here compares to those games I mentioned. Other schools get that atmosphere EVERY game, not all but a great many. It comes with winning. I am a friend of Geoff's no bones about it. If we won a "name" bowl, his job would have been easier, the Rose Bowl, hell I'd want his job. But you're right graduates identify with their respective colleges I write CC'91 but say I graduated from Rutgers, wear RU gear constantly. From what we are reading about licensing the school itself needs to get on board. Unfortunately by not winning people unaffiliated with the school won't buy our merchandise. I've been to Princeton dozens of times in the past year, live just a few miles from Monmouth. Do I buy their merchandise nope. Before I hear the (they're private) I wouldn't buy anything from the other state schools. Winning does more for marketing than anything. Including beer at games, better parking, water bottle permission & napkins.
Im in agreement with you as I own my business. What solutions do you think WE can come up with? If your employees tried to sell Christie tshirts to the NJEA & they didn't want to purchase them because no one would buy them, what would you do? Its supply & demand. Our competitors (literally) put out a better product on the field. That in turn makes the public (wrong as they are) associate their SCHOOL as being superior. When I was attending & shortly after graduating I can't tell you how many times I heard PSU is "better than Rutgers". My answer, "they have a better football team". That's what people see/think. Not "let me buy a Rutgers hat or go to the basketball game bc it's our state U". Win at football & basketball demand will increase & so will sales and marketing. Ask @SF88 how sales were during the Schiano run, guaranteed that's when he hit his tipping point . I was in post grad school I had to contact Starter to buy the pullover Graber was wearing. Winning cures most if not all.
That's not what he is saying!!! Sooner or later the medical school will garner far more respect from politicians, donors and demand more latitude on how Rutgers allocated State funding, how the Indirect Cost Recovery component from every research grant is parceled out. Think about it this way, when the chairman from the Cancer Institute sits across from the chairman from the English department who will garner more respect? A guy who tells you where to put a comma or an individual who saves lives for a living? A medical department that generates 30+ million in indirect cost (gravy) or an English Department that's a fiscal liability? Sooner or later the Medical School, it's Researchers and Professors will demand more authority and if the Chancellor's or University President don't capitulate they will align themselves politically with a sitting Governor to change the scenery up top. I personally know three RU college professors who live in my neighborhood and all three had reservations regarding the merger for the reasons I mentioned above.
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