Beekman Named MSU Athletic Director
Beekman Named MSU Athletic Director
Michigan State University Interim President John Engler appointed Bill Beekman
EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan State University Interim President John Engler appointed Bill Beekman as MSU's athletic director pending approval of the Board of Trustees during a special meeting on July 17. Beekman has served as interim athletic director since February.
"As I spoke with our coaches and consulted with trustees about a possible search, I heard from virtually everyone that they love the job Bill is doing," Engler said. "I'm very confident Bill will excel. He is described as a person of integrity, attentive, a great listener, someone who really knows the university and he has a calming influence."
Beekman will be responsible for oversight of MSU's 25 varsity sports teams as well as the care of more than 800 Spartan student athletes. The position provides leadership in the areas of sports management, game operations, financial administration, personnel, fundraising, corporate interaction, facility management, marketing and communication.
"Leading the proud tradition of Spartan athletics is a great honor," Beekman said. "Since I stepped in as interim athletic director, my focus has been the health, safety and education of our student athletes. My job, and the job of our department, is to give them the tools and support they need to be successful on the field, successful in the classroom and, most importantly, successful in life after they leave MSU. Spartan athletics has a championship history, and we will continue to chase those championship dreams, doing so with integrity and always striving to improve in every area."
An MSU alumnus, Beekman has served his alma mater since 1995, assuming his most recent role as vice president and secretary of the Board of Trustees in 2008. Previously, he served as executive director of the MSU Alumni Association, senior adviser to the provost and assistant dean for finance in the College of Human Medicine. In his prior roles, Beekman gained experience handling large budgets and managing large staffs, overseeing key negotiations and managing important relationships, including those with alumni, donors and corporate partners.
Beekman received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, his Juris Doctorate from Wayne State University Law School, and his undergraduate degree in justice, morality and constitutional democracy from James Madison College at MSU.
In accepting this position, Beekman is stepping down as secretary of the Board of Trustees. MSU will work to replace this position as soon as possible.
Michigan State Athletic Directors
Charles Bemies: 1899-1900
George Denham: 1901-1902
Chester Brewer: 1903-1910, 1917, 1919-1921
John Macklin: 1911-1915
George Gauthier: 1916, 1918
Albert Barron: 1922
Ralph Young: 1923-54
Clarence "Biggie" Munn: 1954-1972
J. Burt Smith: 1972-1975
John D. Shingleton: 1975-76
Joe Kearney: 1976-1980
Doug Weaver: 1980-1990
George Perles: 1990-1992
Merrily Dean Baker: 1992-1995
Merritt Norvell: 1995-1999
Clarence Underwood: 1999-2002
Ron Mason: 2002-2007
Mark Hollis: 2008-18
Complete Transcript From Today's Press Conference
Interim President John Engler
Well good morning everyone and welcome to a very important day in the history of Michigan State Athletics. I want to begin by saying thanks for joining us, for the worst kept secret, but at a University no secrets are kept so here we are to make an important announcement. I want to start by noticing that in the crowd we have our provost June Youatt here, and also our Executive Vice President for Government and External Relations, Dr. Kathy Wilbur is here as well. The leadership of our University the Board of Trustees are here, and Trustee (Brian) Breslin, the Chairmen of our Board will make those introductions when he follows me to the podium. We have a number of our coaches that are here from both our men's and women's programs. Let me just start by saying a Division I Athletic Director in 2018 is an individual with a lot of responsibility, recruiting, motivating, retaining a strong team of coaches and administrators. Certainly, so they can deliver high performance results, while fostering a balanced approach to sports and academics. The AD, especially in this day and age, is also responsible for insuring compliance of all the University, the Big Ten, the NCAA and Title IX rules policies and procedures. There are many of those. At MSU, our athletic director's responsibilities also include $133 million operating budget, approximately 240 employees and they are involved in everything from facilities management, marketing, promotions, sponsorship vendor relations, ticket sales, special events and no doubt, much, much more that I am not mentioning.
Since February 5, Bill Beekman has served as Interim Athletic Director at Michigan State. When I first appointed Bill, I said that I had confidence that he would provide very capable leadership. Well Bill has done that and much, much more. I have spoken with our coaches, many of the coaches are here today, and I have consulted extensively with out trustees about the search for a permanent AD. You'll remember that I talked about the national search and I said that we would not go internal in the athletic department and that was part of the thinking when Bill was actually named. Well, as we started talking about the search, I kept hearing from virtually everyone that they loved the job that Bill was doing. The job that he was doing in the five and a half months on the job as interim athletic director, and the descriptions were marvelous. Bill was described first and foremost as a person with great integrity, very attentive, a terrific listener and someone who really knows the University. I had several people remark that Bill was a calming influence. Well, I didn't know Bill so well before coming to the University in February. I have to say I am among the many who have been very impressed by Bill, his understanding of our University, his knowledge about our community. He possesses an impressive range of experiences on many levels. First and foremost, he is an MSU graduate in the James Madison College. He has a law degree from Wayne State University, and he has a master's degree, an MBA, from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University. He has taught at the community college and University level, he has taught in our College of Medicine and the College of Law. He has experience as VP for Finance and Operations. He has experience in the Office of the Provost. He served as Executive Director of the MSU Alumni Association, and most recently as the Vice President and Secretary of the Board of Trustees.
What is notable is that time after time, Bill's performance in these various roles have earned him promotions, a request to take on even great responsibility. And so today, I am once again asking Bill to take on a greater role. I have asked Bill Beekman to accept the appointment as Vice President and Director of Athletics at Michigan State University, and I do this will the full concurrence of our Board of Trustees, the varsity coaches and University leadership. In a moment, you are going to hear from a few of these individuals, but I want to wrap up by saying that Bill is going to take on this new position with the enthusiastic support of Spartan Nation. In the last two days, I thought that maybe before the announcement was made public I'd be having the chance to be able to talk to some of our supporters around the country who have familiarity with some of our programs, but I have done that even with the announcement out there and the speculation. The response again has been overwhelming. So I am pretty confident that Bill Beekman with his integrity, his leadership, his dedication to excellence, will bring success and honor to MSU Athletics. Importantly, I believe that his commitment and respect for our student-athletes will serve them well on the field or in the classroom, and certainly will serve them well when they graduate and join our 500,000 alumni across the world. They will know that they have been strongly supported by an athletic director, who cares deeply about higher education and about them as individuals. So, I congratulate Bill and am delighted in him accepting this challenge. We will hear from him in a moment. The schedule is kind of a quick one. We had a video that we were going to show from our trustee and former Athletic Director, Trustee George Perles. Technical difficulties have apparently made that impossible. We will post that on our site. You will get a chance to see that. Now let me invite to the podium, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Michigan State University, Brian Breslin.
Chairman of the Board of Trustees Brian Breslin
Thanks John and good morning, welcom everyone. Thank you for being here. First thing I'd like to do is to introduce my fellow colleagues on the Board of Trustees. I will start over here on my left with the honorable Brian Mosallam of Dearborn. We move over here to the honorable Joel Ferguson from Lansing, he is the Vice Chair of the Board. Melanie Foster from East Lansing. Dan Kelly from Clarkston. Mitch Lyons from Rockford and Diane Byrum from Onondaga Township. As President Engler said, George (Perles) couldn't be with us today, but he sends you his best.
Well, I am here today as the Chairperson of the Michigan State University Board of Trustees offering our full support and unanimous support for Bill Beekman to be the next Athletic Director at Michigan State University. The board would like to echo Interim President Engler's comments regarding Bill's integrity, his leadership and Bill's ability to bring stability to Michigan State Athletics. I have known Bill now for about eight years. I think that I can speak to my board colleagues when I say that Bill displays the highest values that we strive to embody in Spartan women and men. He has left positive impressions in every single role that he has played at Michigan State. We believe that Bill's leadership in athletics will greatly benefit our student-athletes, our staff and our stakeholders. Over the past several months, the University has made significant improvements in campus safety, medical procedures, reporting practices, with the support and improved sexual assault prevention and response. The Board has confidence that Bill will uphold those changes and continue looking for improvements where athletics can be a leader. While winning championships will always be a goal for our individual athletes and teams, supporting our student-athletes in pursuit of their degrees and mentoring them to become the best possible versions of themselves and assets to our society is of paramount importance for our great University. We are confident that Bill will provide the leadership required to achieve both of these goals. So, Bill congratulations, and thank you all again for being here.
MSU Football Head Coach Mark Dantonio
Thank you, President Engler. Thank you everybody for coming today and being a part of this; I think it's another relevant moment in Michigan State history.
As things unfolded this spring, leadership was sort of thrust upon Bill Beekman in a rather, probably unusual way, coming from administration. I really think and believe though that leadership really takes its place in so many different forms. He's had a unifying force, really for our entire athletic department, since coming on. I've found him to be a great listener, as we've already heard, but also calm. He has a distinguished presence, I think, at this University. He knows so many different people across the scope of the University from our deans, to our athletic people, our coaches, our administration, and at every step of the way, I think he has been seen as a positive. He is a Spartan. I don't think there is any question about that, and he has the best interest of all Spartans at heart. I believe that at this point in time, by making this decision, President Engler has given our Michigan State Athletic Department a focus; one focus to be able to move forward with force. I think that's what we need at this point in time and I'm just thrilled to be a part of this. I want to thank him for having me up here and congratulate Bill. I look forward to working with him, thank you.
MSU Women's Basketball Head Coach Suzy Merchant
I'd like to echo a big thank you to all of you for showing up here at Michigan State and to support Bill. I would say welcome to the Spartan Family, but that's certainly not the case, I see your kids are all geared-up, too, so they know that well. But, officially, welcome to the Spartan Athletics Family. We appreciate you being here.
In the last five months as Bill has been our interim athletic director, he has just been a tremendous resource for all of us coaches and to guide us through some of the transitions that we've had to deal with. He's a wonderful man. I think all of us coaches that are standing here - I have an opportunity to speak with today - but we all feel that way. He's a great leader, and I think some of his past experiences, the roles he has had at this university certainly will translate extremely well within the athletic department. Mark mentioned leadership, and as he said it comes in many different forms and we are thrilled that Bill is going to be our new leader here in the athletic department. So, Bill, officially, welcome to the family, congratulations. We're so proud that you represent all of us and the great Spartan Nation. Go Green!
MSU Men's Basketball Head Coach Tom Izzo
Well, I too could just say 'ditto,' because everybody seems to have the same line of thought on this. We've been in a lot of meetings; I know Coach D and I talked a lot. There was a big concern when there's a void, and I think what President Engler talked about was the integrity, I think that's going to be very important right now as we move forward. From day one, he made an effort to meet with all these great coaches that we have behind us. I know all of our assistant coaches are back there, it seems like people from every part of our athletic department are here and that's the unity that I think we need. He found a way to meet with all of them and because I guess I'm the senior member here as far as having been here the longest, a lot of those people talked to me about how impressed they were; I think that's where the ball started to get rolling on why he could be the next AD. He's initially coming from outside athletics in a way, but as you look around the country that's getting to be pretty common now. The day of the old football coach (being AD) - George (Perles) I loved - but it just doesn't seem to be as acceptable with all the complexity that you have to deal with in modern day athletics.
But using and examining everything that he has done for us, I think there's no question that he has the skills to be a successful AD. What do those take? Number one would be the focus on the student-athlete, I think that's becoming more and more apparent. I guess what I've appreciated with Bill in our meetings that we've had, and I use this with my campers is 'You have to learn to listen and listen to learn.' And yet, I think as coaches, I think we talk more than we listen. I felt it was incredible the way Bill has listened to all of the people and every coach that came up to me from wrestling to rowing to basketball to football, talked about the fact that he could listen and wanted to make the changes that were necessary.
I also, before I close, would like to thank the Board. I think this time right now, having unanimous decisions on things is imperative as we heal and try to advance. I think the Board having a unanimous decision shows the strength - and they've dealt with Bill more than we have - and that's what I think is great about this. So, Bill, you and your family, I want to tell you that you have 25 coaches, a bunch assistant coaches and a bunch of workers that are probably going to work as hard as we can work to make your stint successful. A good assistant makes the head coach look good, well, you're our head coach, and we're going to do our best to make you look good and want to thank you and welcome you the best we can. Thank you.
Athletic Director Bill Beekman
First I'd like to thank Chairman Breslin and President Engler for your kind words. I'm thankful for the trustees that they came from far away on relatively last minute notice to be here with us today. I've very much enjoyed working with the board the last 10 and a half years. I've worked with 14 trustees and two presidents, and I've learned a tremendous amount from all of them. I'm very blessed to have had that experience.
My wife Cindy is here today. We met during our freshman year at MSU, when we both lived over in Case Hall, 6 North. She's our family's greatest and most passionate Spartan. Before I have to answer to any of you about the state of our department or our University, I have to answer to Cindy. And when it comes to the University she loves, she's a force to be reckoned with. Cindy is the chief play-caller and captain of our team. The rest of the team includes our three children, who are also here today: Katie, Nick and Will. I'd also like to introduce my parents, Kay and Ted Beekman. Their Spartan passion runs as deep as mine. My earliest memories of Michigan State are attending band day football games with my father. My parents met at Groesbeck Golf Course in Lansing, so if it weren't for their interest in athletics, I literally wouldn't be here today.
I'd also like to thank our Provost June Youatt for joining us. In addition to being a great athletic institution, MSU is a land grant university, it is one of 62 members of the prestigious Association of American universities, and MSU is widely regarded as one of the world's top 100 universities. While many refer to athletics as the front porch of the university, our academic excellence is driven by Provost Youatt and our deans. Our department will work hand and glove with our academic colleagues to ensure that MSU's best days are ahead of them.
When Mark Hollis became athletic director in January 2008, at his press conference, he said: "There will be no rest until it is the norm to open a football season and anticipate that the season will end with the paint of roses staining our cleats." Mark kept his word, and our success on the football field, as well as the basketball court, has been extraordinary. Our job going forward is to continue that work, providing our Olympic sports with the tools they need and ensuring they have every opportunity to succeed, while continuing to support and develop our successful football and basketball programs.
We're on the cusp of greatness in many of our Olympic sports. Our volleyball program, under the leadership of Coach George, finished in the Elite Eight last season. Our men's soccer program, under the leadership of Coach Rensing, has achieved three Elite Eights in the last five years. And our women's golf program, under the leadership of Coach Slobodnik-Stoll, is the two-time defending Big Ten Champion. And those are but three examples. Indeed, we have a strong base in which to grow. The Hall of Champions, in which we now stand, presents 27 National Championships and 131 Big Ten Championships achieved by Spartan athletic teams. We will continue to add plaques to these walls.
Our athletic department will only be successful if every student has the opportunity to succeed on the field of play, in the classroom, and in life. While we will be judged primarily by our success on the field of play, we will have failed if we cannot also graduate our students and ensure that they are well prepared for life's journey.
As I've told our coaches, I view our athletic department as a set of concentric circles. The innermost circle represents our student-athletes. The next circle represents the individuals who impact those students on a daily basis: their coaches, athletic trainers, tutors, our strength and conditioning team, and so on. The next several concentric circles represent our administrative team. And our job, those of us on the outer circles, is to be laser focused on the success of that innermost circle - our students.
Miles Bridges famously said, "It's not about me, it's about us." I'll paraphrase Miles to say, "It's not about me or us, it's about them." It's about our 700 student-athletes and their success on the field, in the classroom, and in life. That success is not possible unless we can assure the health, safety and wellness of every student-athlete. That hasn't always been the case. As a result, the last several years have been among the darkest in our history. Among the over 300 survivors who came forward that were subject to Larry Nassar's horrific acts, over 30 were MSU students, and several of those students were student-athletes. We must do better and we will. We have improved and increased training at all levels. We've developed polices to ensure the availability of, and access to, chaperones for our students when they visit medical professionals, and we've reviewed all reporting protocols, to name just a few measures that we've taken.
But all of the rules in the world won't make a difference unless we have a culture committed to the health, safety and wellness of every member of our community. That commitment will permeate everything we do. Achieving our goals requires a team effort, and we've got a strong and seasoned team. Of our 25 varsity sports, 17 have had the same head coach for 10 years or more. And of the remaining eight, two are now coached by a longtime assistant coach. Several of our coaches were available to join us this morning. Those that were not were on recruiting trips or are working with students across the university in sports camps. I want to thank all of them for taking time out of their busy schedules to join us today. It certainly means the world to me.
We also have a strong administrative team. Greg Ianni is our Deputy Director and our facilities lead, he works everyday to give our teams the tools they need to win. Our Senior Women's Administrator and Compliance lead, Jennifer Smith, and our Chief of Staff and Sports Administration lead, Alan Haller, bring decades of experience, judgment and wisdom to our team. They, along with the rest of our athletic department will come to work everyday, focused on the inner most circle: our student-athletes. I come to this role without the benefit of having managed an athletic department. In fact, my only personal foray into competitive athletics was my high school cross country team, more than a few pounds ago (laughter). What I do bring to the role is 25 years of administrative experience, and a calling to serve this University, the University I love, and its land-grant mission to make our world a better place. Kirk Cousins once said that 'champions are built on a thousand invisible mornings.' I can't think of many more phrases that more accurately capture the land-grant spirit, and our commitment to excellence. Excellence isn't easy, success comes with struggle, but I commit to each of you, and our Spartan family across the globe, that each and every morning we will come to this building with a complete and total focus on victory: victory on the field, victory in the classroom and victory in creating the opportunities for a life well-lived. Spartans Will! Thank you!
President Engler: Bill, thank you very much, and this is a not an invisible morning at all, this is a morning to celebrate your career to date and to wish you well in this new role, with all of the support that you have here across the University. We'll take a few questions, maybe five or six, maybe, and then we'll do some maybe one-on-one if there's appetite for that, but if there's a question or two now, we'll be happy to do that.
Q: You mentioned initially how you would have a nationally search and then you kind of zeroed in on Bill as it went, but was there a search beyond this or were other people interviewed, or did you identify him pretty early?
President Engler: That was the intention, and as we started to make preparations for the search, and starting to talk about the qualities that we wanted to have in an athletic director, it was pressed on me as I talked to members of our coaching staff and members outside the University community, about the kind of qualities there needs to be, with a high commitment to compliance, with Bill's legal training... I went to my first Big Ten meeting with Bill in Rosemont, Illinois, and was struck by the fact that the entire agenda was all about legal matters. It was really an interesting meeting, but in talking with other ADs from other schools, about what qualities they had to draw upon, and what qualities need to have available to an athletic director, I kept hearing about things that I thought Bill already possessed. Then as I talked to some of the people that know best: our coaching staff here, it kept being reinforced the job that Bill was doing. If you go back to Bill's predecessor, Mark Hollis, Mark came up through the institution here and was a longtime part of the athletics department, and went on to have great success. I'm very confident in Bill and his qualities, as I said, his integrity and leadership, that's been mentioned this morning. He has all of the skills necessary, and I think we could have looked across the country, but we would have been hard-pressed to find somebody would know Michigan State the way Bill does with the qualities that he has. So we ended up not needing to do the national search.
Q: Obviously, there's a lot of great candidates around the country, but when your two foundation coaches in Tom Izzo and Mark Dantonio so strongly supported him, how resounding of a statement was that to you?
President Engler: That's pretty powerful, and these are two men that have conducted their programs and their entire lives, frankly, with integrity and they're run the kind of programs that everyone else would like to have around the country. They've had success on the field, they've had success off the field, and when you've got ringing endorsements from those two... plus I think it's important that Suzy (Merchant) is here today, but I saw Cathy George (head MSU volleyball coach), I saw Danton Cole (head MSU hockey coach), I'm not sure who else is all here, I didn't catch all the other members of the coaching staff when I came down, but I talked to our men's golf coach (Casey Lubahn), he's out in California, but very supportive, our baseball coach Jake (Boss Jr.) is the same way, Jake is very supportive... and those are the kinds of endorsements, and these aren't people that are front and center every day, you don't give them as many inches in your publications or as much time on the air, but boy, it's the kind of endorsement that I wish I could have.
Q: Bill was perceived as a long-shot in our world, but shows you what we know, but when you brought him on in the interim, was it the long-range plan that he would grow into this or did he win you over?
President Engler: No, there was no... at that point, we had a vacancy and we needed to bring leadership into the department, and Bill was, and is, highly regarded by the trustees and the trustees that have worked with Bill, you heard that from Brian (Breslin) on behalf of the board, and he mentioned the unanimous support that he enjoys, I mean I don't enjoy unanimous support, so kudos to Bill (laughter), but seriously, I think the people on the board, who have known Bill, they know his qualities and they know the kind of integrity that he has. He was a little bit of an outsider coming into the department, that was deliberate, and I thought that was an important statement at the time, but there was no plan and truly the thought was a national search, but I mean, he did... and Tom Izzo kind of touched on this, these meetings and Bill has had a lot of meetings and a lot of conversations with a lot coaches, and the feedback consistently has been good. He's done more than listen, he's actually made changes here, and there's been some adjustments already, and I think there will be more to come, he's leading, he's listening but he's also leading.
Q: I'm just wondering about the timing of making this move. Obviously, you're serving in interim position. Was there any thought waiting until a permanent president to do this? What led you to decide that then?
President Engler: No. No.
Q: You mention about Bill not having the athletic experience, he mentioned it in his bio. Not having the athletic department experience in navigating some of those things with athletic department issues, can yotu alk a little bit about the team around him to help him navigate that? Is that a help or hindrance?
President Engler: I should probably let Bill do that. He mentioned Jen (Smith) and Alan (Haller) and Jim (Pignataro). Those are three who have been here and played very strong roles. I will point out, Bill is now the third attorney to be an AD inside the Big Ten Conference. And if you count a Big Ten wanna-be, Notre Dame, he'd be the fourth. So that's a pretty good recommendation. If you look around the country, there are also a number of what I'd call non-traditional selections. The biggest challenge we've got right now, is to make sure that Comcast listens to the needs of the Big Ten in the new contract negotiations. They've already denied Spartans in Texas and Florida, for example, access to the Big Ten Network. That doesn't make us very happy. There's those kinds of negotiations. We've got litigation out in California relative to what is the impact of compensation of student-athletes. That's a tough, hard question. That's a legal issue that's being fought through and there's constitutional claims being asserted. So there's some of that kind of stuff that I think it's helpful. Bill's MBA, he's a good manager. He's got a $133 million budget and we've got what are described as, I guess, by you all, I don't know if it's an official categorization, what they're calling non-revenue - in other words, they're not making lots of money, but they're awfully important sports here - but how can we support those programs and, as Bill says, put more plaques up here on the wall. So he's got a lot of work. I'll let Bill speak about his team because I know he's very proud of them.
Beekman: I think we have a very strong team in the athletic department both in terms of our folks who work in this building, as well as our coaches, assistant coaches, our athletic training staff, our strength and conditioning staff. I think from top to bottom we've got, if not the best, one of the very best groups in the Big Ten. This is going to seem a little bizarre to say with a $133 million budget, but we've got a group of people who work really hard to do more with less relative to the other schools in the conference that might have budges of $30, $40 or $50 million more than ours. I'm very pleased with the team we've got and I think as we align ourselves, we'll make great progress.
Q: There's a portion of the Michigan State student body, faculty and community that have expressed they want fresh ideas and new leadership to come in when you make administrative changes. What would you say to that group to assuage their fears that Bill's vast experience hereâ ‚¬ ¦?
President Engler: I'd say check the box. We've got that in Bill Beekman. He's fresh; he's new. He's not been here in the department before. He comes in with a great background to make the kind of changes that are necessary but know what went into the past. You build from strength. One of the things you do at a university is you take, say the nationally-ranked physics department, you build on that strength. You take our nationally-ranked education school, you build on that. You take a nationally regarded program like we've got in athletics and you build on it. You go to places that are weak and you build those up. But where you've got strength, you build on that. Other program around the country, I think, are envious of the integrity and performance of Michigan State Athletics. That's true even inside the conference.
Q: You have maintained a remarkably low profile during the interim. None of us have heard from you, we've barely seen you. Was that by design or were you busy managing? Will that change? What was behind that?
Beekman: When you have a face made for radio â ‚¬ ¦. from my perspective, as I said in my prepared remarks, I feel very strongly that it's about our student-athletes, it's not about me. I'm not opposed to talking to you all, and I'm sure I will many times going forward, but we've been working. We're sort of like a duck; you may have noticed a whole lot above water, but below water, we're doing a lot of churning. We're working really hard. We've taken a hard look at the budget, we've reorganized sports administration, we've worked really hard to shore up our health, safety and wellness issues, so in the last five months we've been doing a lot of work.
I'm not opposed to talking to you all, I'm happy to do so. From my perspective, very practically, the media will probably tend to report on two things - wins and losses and bad behavior. What I'd like to encourage you to focus on is the extraordinary accomplishments of so many of our student-athletes.
I'll just say one other thing. When I came into this role, I will never forget sitting over at Cole's house on a Sunday afternoon, with President Engler and some of his team. It was our first meeting and I had a list of about 15 things that I thought we needed to tackle with him coming on board. I started with the interim athletic director role. I made a variety of suggestions and he said, I'd like you to do that. It was about the furthest thing from my mind. But as I've had an opportunity to meet with the coaches, to meet with many of the student-athletes, it's just been an extraordinary experience just learning how wonderful these young men and women are and how much of their lives our coaches to give to make sure they're successful. And successful not only on the field, but really more importantly, academically and in life.
So I will look forward to conversations, and I will look forward to pestering you all about the extraordinary young men and women we have at Michigan State.