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Tom Archdeacon: Kissell has confidence in coach
Count University of Dayton AD among Flyer faithful
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Down on the Frericks Center basketball courts, all of the Dayton Flyers players on next season's team — already on campus taking summer classes — were helping run one of coach Brian Gregory's youth camps.
Out in the community, the new premium seating campaign that will require many UD season-ticket holders to pay from $50 to $500 more per year to watch these guys play was well under way.
University of Dayton head basketball coach Brian Gregory motivates young players at one of his summer basketball camps at the old UD Fieldhouse. Athletic Director Ted Kissell's take on the coach? 'The thing I'm most impressed with is his openness and willingness to learn. ... He's a confident guy and carries himself with confidence, but he's not egotistical.'And up in his second-floor athletic director's office, Ted Kissell sat and talked about the hoops program and funding campaign he oversees. He talked about the head coach, the handful of players who've left the program in the past four years, the need for the Flyers to be "a consistent postseason program" and Reality TV.
With the new Premium program, fans who sit in the middle four sections of the lower arena now must pay an annual $1,250 seat license in addition to $399 for a season ticket. For 17 home games and two exhibitions that comes out to nearly $87 a game. Other seats are cheaper, but those along press row will cost $205 a game.
Asked if he'd heard an outcry — especially since the rebuilding basketball program has not produced a postseason tournament team in three years — Kissell said he had not:
"Honestly I haven't heard a lot of complaints. We now have 80 percent of our results in and just 1.1 percent have canceled. About 2 percent have requested a move to less costly seats, and 4 percent have asked to move to sections costing more."
Asked if the ante had been raised by crosstown Wright State making the NCAA tournament last season, Kissell shook his head:
"If anything has raised the ante, it's Xavier. I think Wright State and us are completely independent of each other.
"There are a dozen similar schools — the seven private Catholic schools in the Big East, Xavier, St. Louis and us in the A-10 and Creighton and Gonzaga — and our performance has been solid with that group. But people here don't compare us against the whole benchmark group, they just look 50 miles down the road to Xavier."
Here's Kissell's take on some other topics:
Departing players: "Maybe across the country people are seeing a transferring pattern that wasn't here before, but I'm not at all concerned based on what I know."
Although neither he nor Gregory would expound, I believe exiled Norman Plummer had the best leadership qualities on the team, but too often led down the wrong fork in the road. As for departed Desmond Adedeji, he went from 270 to 310 pounds in two seasons and couldn't equate poorer shape with more time on the bench.
Gregory: After restocking a talent-bare program, he now has a team with all his recruits, and that raises expectations, just as increased ticket prices raise the pressure on him.
While Kissell admitted the jury is still out on Gregory among some fans, he said "I'm confident he's the right guy, and I believe everybody is pulling for him. He's a throwback, he has old-school values, no pretensions. He embraced our basketball tradition and at the same time he's ramped up our talent level. His fit with this institution is extraordinary."
Reality TV: Before we spoke, Kissell said he met with marketing folks to find ways with promotions and half-time acts to "improve the quality of the experience" for fans:
"We want to tap into some of those ideas from the popular Reality TV shows, where everybody is a celebrity, a star for 15 minutes."
But down deep he knows the only reality show that matters to the Flyer Faithful is what happens on the court. And rather than 15 minutes of stardom, there has to be enough for a whole season and an NCAA tournament bid to boot.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2156
or tarchdeacon@DaytonDailyNews.com.
