Fitts Townhall Meeting

[Jonathan]

And tell him why diplomatically our Athletic Director,Head Men's and Women's basketball coaches and head baseball coach all need to retire now and bring in young aggressive coaches and a new AD that are all willing to but in 20 hour days recruiting and promoting Tulane. Keep head football coach CJ. Also the immediate need for a new state of the art indoor football trainng facility and a new basketball arena,not a high school gym as we presently have. Please Google both the Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School named Michael Fitts,get his email address and then email him in a positive way about our major athletic problems. Try this email address. deanfitts @law.upenn.edu

[OUG]

Curious: have you emailed him? What did you say and what was the response?

[DfromCT]

how about posting a copy of your email to the new Pres?

[JerseyWave]

I will attemp to contact him and post the response if I get one.

[LSU Law Greenie]

Personally, I think you all should wait until the man actually starts his job at Tulane. Several in the media have tried to get an interview and have not been able to do so. He is still working as dean of the law school and trying to get that wrapped up before moving to Nola.

If you want any credibility, don't email him with a list of Tulane coaches you want fired. Why not ask him what his vision for athletics is - you'll learn more from that than anything else.

Just my $0.02

[Bigschtick]

Personally, I think you all should wait until the man actually starts his job at Tulane. Several in the media have tried to get an interview and have not been able to do so. He is still working as dean of the law school and trying to get that wrapped up before moving to Nola.

If you want any credibility, don't email him with a list of Tulane coaches you want fired. Why not ask him what his vision for athletics is - you'll learn more from that than anything else.

Just my $0.02

plus 1 This is no time to be bugging the guy. Let him come on board then fire away!

[ajcalhoun]

I have a feeling Jonathan is already in Fitts's spam box.

[Fred Dowler]

Dean Fitts is going to be having a whole lot on his plate when he rolls into town and probably more than what President Cowen has let him on to him. I suspect that athletics is not going to be front and center at least for a while.

[jonathanjoseph]

Dean Fitts is going to be having a whole lot on his plate when he rolls into town and probably more than what President Cowen has let him on to him. I suspect that athletics is not going to be front and center at least for a while.

Only at Tulane is it still an acceptable idea that athletics are some afterthought that is addressed "whenever we get around to it". When a new CEO comes into a company, sure, product and sales the obvious most important things come first, but you don't just ignore the marketing function until you figure out the other problems. You still have to understand the marketing function to understand its impact on sales etc.

Assuming Fitts is walking into Cowen's fat salary, he's making the big boy bucks now and will be expected to be able to handle multiple things at once. Athletics is one of the most important parts of the university, despite what Cowen and the other dying/legacy educators would prefer, and the leadership and strategy of the Athletics program should be something that Fitts is juggling on day one.

[Fred Dowler]

Dean Fitts is going to be having a whole lot on his plate when he rolls into town and probably more than what President Cowen has let him on to him. I suspect that athletics is not going to be front and center at least for a while.

Only at Tulane is it still an acceptable idea that athletics are some afterthought that is addressed "whenever we get around to it". When a new CEO comes into a company, sure, product and sales the obvious most important things come first, but you don't just ignore the marketing function until you figure out the other problems. You still have to understand the marketing function to understand its impact on sales etc.

Assuming Fitts is walking into Cowen's fat salary, he's making the big boy bucks now and will be expected to be able to handle multiple things at once. Athletics is one of the most important parts of the university, despite what Cowen and the other dying/legacy educators would prefer, and the leadership and strategy of the Athletics program should be something that Fitts is juggling on day one.

Not meant to say what should happen.

Just that there's no doubt that Pres. Cowen is probably feeding him rosy reports of personal seat license sales, etc. with the new football stadium and expected revenues with the membership in the American Conference, and so he isn't going to be thinking that there's a major problem there, and then beyond a doubt there's a lot of other serious obvious issues that are going to be there to grab his attention and be there front and center. It's likely going to be that only after a few years and with novelty of the new stadium starting to fade and maybe Cowen having slipped away that issues with athletics, probably financial ones, are going to start to be grabbing his attention.

[jonathanjoseph]

Dean Fitts is going to be having a whole lot on his plate when he rolls into town and probably more than what President Cowen has let him on to him. I suspect that athletics is not going to be front and center at least for a while.

Only at Tulane is it still an acceptable idea that athletics are some afterthought that is addressed "whenever we get around to it". When a new CEO comes into a company, sure, product and sales the obvious most important things come first, but you don't just ignore the marketing function until you figure out the other problems. You still have to understand the marketing function to understand its impact on sales etc.

Assuming Fitts is walking into Cowen's fat salary, he's making the big boy bucks now and will be expected to be able to handle multiple things at once. Athletics is one of the most important parts of the university, despite what Cowen and the other dying/legacy educators would prefer, and the leadership and strategy of the Athletics program should be something that Fitts is juggling on day one.

Not meant to say what should happen.

Just that there's no doubt that Pres. Cowen is probably feeding him rosy reports of personal seat license sales, etc. with the new football stadium and expected revenues with the membership in the American Conference, and so he isn't going to be thinking that there's a major problem there, and then beyond a doubt there's a lot of other serious obvious issues that are going to be there to grab his attention and be there front and center. It's likely going to be that only after a few years and with novelty of the new stadium starting to fade and maybe Cowen having slipped away that issues with athletics, probably financial ones, are going to start to be grabbing his attention.

Oh no doubt. I don't believe Fitts has any idea what a dysfunctional mess he's stepping into. He'll start immediately but it will take many months if not years to understand.

[Jonathan]

Several of us gotula.net board members should contact him by email at Penn and tell him humbly without being negative to Cowen (hold your nose) our concerns and problems.
1 Conroy and Rick Dickson need to go quickly. 2 Fire Conroy and kick Lisa Stockton and Rick Jones upstairs. 3 Hire three young aggressive talented coaches, baseball coach and men's and ladies basketball coaches now. 4 Increase the endowment for the athletic program drastically upward. 5 build a new state of the art basketball arena and indoor practice facility for football on campus.

[JDTulane]

I'm sure he has bigger fish to fry than a bunch of 45+ year old men emailing him 6 months in advance about problems he's already been reported on/read about


Leave the poor man alone until it's closer to the beginning of his tenure.

[cheesefries]

http://tulane.edu/administration/presid ... l-2014.cfm

[wavefan03]

Thanks for the post.

[nawlinspete]

Not encouraging; from answers sounding like a 'let's set up a committee to evaluate' type instead of a 'let's get this done' type.

[Dave breslin]

A quote from Cowen,"I gave the fans fits for years by lowering our standards, downsizing athletics, whining in public because we were not good enough, and keeping a comatose AD. I now bow out and leave you with a new Fitts. So, throw your fits - no one can overcome the position I left you in. I saved NO !!!!! "

[MicMan]

Ivy League sports=for the students. D1 sports=for the money.