The University of Mississippi Athletics
Transcript Of Ole Miss Athletics Press Conference Announcing Pete Boone As Athletics Director
May 24, 2002
May 6, 2002
Chancellor Dr. Robert C. Khayat Opening Remarks
This is a happy day at the University of Mississippi. It is truly uncommon to be able to attract as a top administrative person someone who is emotionally invested into the University, someone who has spent time here as a student, has been supportive through his years as an alumnus, has served three years as Director of Athletics. To attract someone whose blood relatives are members of this University and whose extended family includes Ole Miss people.
Up here with Pete Boone and myself is Professor Dr. Robert Weems, who is the chair of the Athletic Committee and also chaired the search committee. Mr. Weems is available today to answer questions regarding the search process. Mr. Weems and I formed a committee, a diverse committee to perform the search. There were members of the faculty, students and staff on the committee. They received the applications and reviewed the applications. They then recommended three finalists to me. They did not rank the finalists. I reviewed the three finalists. Andy Mullins in my office was the keeper of the files. He has contacted the other applicants and I have called the other applicants. It was clear, after reviewing those finalists, that Pete (Boone) was the person that we wanted to be our Director of Athletics. He is the person who we want to be the Director of Athletics as long as I am the Chancellor and even beyond that. It is really a great day for Ole Miss athletics and for me personally to welcome Pete back.
Just as a reminder to you all, when Pete came here in 1995, he inherited a football program that was on NCAA probation. He set about the business of trying to move forward with that burden and did it in a model way. He was exemplary in his performance of Director of Athletics with regard to that challenge we faced. He inherited a fine athletics department from Warner Alford. Warner had done a good job. There was a nice financial balance, but there was a lot of work that had to be done. Warner was here 17 years. Pete picked it up and ran with it. He had the total support of the Ole Miss community. I would highlight his work by saying to you that one of the challenges he faced was trying to make the coaches' salaries more competitive. He understood the world of the marketplace. He took that challenge on and Ole Miss' salaries became much more competitive. They are more competitive today than they have been ever before.
Secondly, we needed to increase the seating of the football stadium. Pete took that responsibility on. We have a major addition to the east side of the stadium with the Rebel Club seating. It enhanced the stadium. We have a much more attractive, larger football stadium, which is again being increased at this time. He will be responsible for seeing the completion of that work and seeing that 60,000 seats are occupied seven Saturdays next year. Coach Cutcliffe and his troops will be helping with that too.
Pete supported our being a major basketball power. He and I spent a couple of long nights at the Chancellor's house trying to work through getting Rod Barnes to accept the job to be the head coach at Ole Miss, which was a big selling job for us. We both had great confidence in Coach Barnes and that confidence has been affirmed by his performance. Pete understands the comprehensive nature of athletics, that you cannot be a one-sport athletics department and that athletics must be an integral part of the University. So you will see the continued improvement in graduation rates, academic performance and personal behavior of our athletes. You will see a cohesive, united department of athletics that is value-based - that embraces the same values that the University as a whole embraces. In addition to the stadium addition, we are planning on improving the Coliseum and salary enhancements. We now have the Gillom Center that we did not have before Pete got here, a facility for women's athletics with three indoor tennis courts. We did not have the nationally competitive women's soccer field or softball stadium that we have now. You are going to see Ole Miss athletics move - although it's a worn-out phrase - to a different level. The truth is we have been nationally competitive in some sports (tennis, women's basketball, football, basketball and baseball), but what you are going to see now is Ole Miss athletics move from where we have been to a higher level. You are going to see us being a program-based department - a program that is physically sound, that has the very best people, that is in tune with contemporary expectations of a Division I-A college athletics program.
Pete was a critical player when we put together a seven-year long range plan for the University in 1996 at a retreat down at Old Waverly. What has happened on our campus generally is a result of that planning process. He brought to that process the business prospective along with his abiding affection for the University.
This is a happy day for Ole Miss. We have had a meeting with our staff. I think they are excited about this leadership. I would like to welcome back Pete Boone.
Ole Miss Director of Athletics Pete Boone's Opening Remarks
I certainly want to thank the Chancellor for giving me this opportunity. As I mentioned in talking with our staff, it is not often that you are able to have your dream job twice and I think that is what has happened with our family. I do want to thank Dr. Weems for not ranking the finalists. I am very blessed. The Lord has blessed our family in many ways and this is another one of those. We are just about as happy as a family can be, being here at Ole Miss with our extended family. I think that is what separates Ole Miss apart from a lot of places. I think that word family is used a lot, but rarely is it real. At Ole Miss, it is real. It is chemistry and how we relate to each other and how we have been associated with each other over the years and have developed something that other schools talk about wanting, but have not achieved as well as Ole Miss folks do.
It is almost good having a smaller athletics budget than some of those other schools. We want them to see that we can perform just as well, if not better than them. That is one of the things we want folks to realize across the country - not just in Mississippi or in the Southeastern Conference, but across the nation - we want people to see that we are a first class place to be. We are obviously a first class University. It has been said over the years that we have a first class University. Over the years since Chancellor Khayat has been here, Ole Miss has received national recognition. The image of the University of Mississippi has been enhanced I do not know how many fold because of that. We need that same sort of image with the athletics department and all the functions that we have in it, all the sports that we have in it. We need people to see that this is a unique place for a student-athlete to attend. They can get a well-rounded experience, athletically, academically and spiritually. We have a lot to offer here and that is something that I hope to continue. We are looking forward to it. We have a lot of goals that are attainable with nothing but hard work and good effort. I am really looking forward to the opportunity and the challenge.
Q: What kind of perspective has three years away from here given you ?
A: I have never really looked back about anything that I have done, with the exception of being self critical of things that I could have done better or things that I could have said or not said. But all roads lead to where we are and everything I have done or you have done leads to where we are right now and we cannot take those things back and we should not want to because we grow from each experience. I had great experiences here and have had great experiences the past four years at the bank. I have met wonderful people and a tremendous amount of things have been accomplished personally for a lot of people that I have been associated with. It has just been another of life's four years of learning. One of the things I would probably focus on, going forward, would be to listen more, think more and speak less.
Q: You are facing a different set of challenges this time, as opposed to the last time when you had to come in and revive a probation-strapped athletics department. Now, you have a successful athletics program that you are trying to take to a new level. What are the challenges you see this time around?
A: I think I need to first identify what's going on. Successful is a generic term that really doesn't say that much to me. Unless I know what it is that is being defined by the word successful, it's hard for me to say what I am going to do. One of my immediate goals is to build relationships with the coaches. That is very important so they don't have to worry where I stand on anything, and I don't have to worry about where they stand. That is critical.
Next is to identify the operation and see what's going on. What are the things that are going well and what are the areas we need to work on? What about the chemistry among the staff members within the department and how is that? How can the department be more efficient? How can we make the jobs something our staff members enjoy doing? Those are what I see as my primary challenges as I head into this job.
Q: How closely have you watched Ole Miss over the last four years?
A: I have not watched the Ole Miss athletics department in the sense of the internal part. I'm not sure how they got from whatever our budget was at the time (during his previous stint as athletics director) - $13 to $15 million - to the approximate $23 million they have now. I don't know anything about that part of the athletics department. The only thing I have watched are the successes our athletic programs have had.
Q: Do see any areas among the athletics programs that need improvements right now?
A: If you talk to all the coaches, they would tell you that they all want to improve. But, I haven't looked at any sport yet.
Q: When you resigned after your first stint as athletics director, someone asked you 'how would you like to be remembered?' You responded that you were not here long enough to screw it up. How long do you plan to stay this time?
A: Well, I don't mind messing up a few things. One of the things my wife and I talk over a lot - as I grow older and she doesn't (Laughter) - is where do we really want to be. Baton Rouge, where we live now, is a great place, and I do have some friends there, but it is measured. Friends are not acquaintances and there is a world of difference. Ninety percent of the people we know and have relationships with are either here at Ole Miss or come through Oxford on a regular basis. So, when we started looking at where we wanted to spend the rest of our lives, we couldn't think of a place in the world would be any grander than here. If I mess up things and am not employed gainfully at Ole Miss, we're still going to live in Oxford.
Q: What's the timetable for you to begin full-time duties?
A: (Chancellor Khayat). The way the process works is that we have to make a recommendation to the College Board (IHL Board), which will happen the third Thursday of this month. I'll make the recommendation to the Board. We expect the Board to approve the recommendation, and we hope that Pete will be on board June 1.
In fact, he is mentally and emotionally on board right now. He will be having conversations with the coaches and athletic staff, as well as with me, over the next month before he officially joins the staff.
Q: Is he going to get paid for working during May? (Laughter)
A: (Chancellor Khayat) It's funny you bring that up because we haven't talked about pay. That subject has yet to be discussed. He wants to be here, and I want him to be here. We'll work the subject of pay out later.
We met Saturday to talk, and I asked if he wanted to discuss salary. He responded that he didn't want to talk about that right now, and we could talk about that later. Anybody on our faculty and staff that wants to talk about salary later, I will talk about salary later. (Laughter)
Q: What has changed over the last four years that made you want to come back to Ole Miss?
A: It may be one, two, three or even a dozen reasons. It was a combination of a lot of things, and I have already mentioned some of those in terms of the environment and atmosphere here. (The last time I was here) I didn't spend as much time on relationships. We've got a great group of people here. I know some of the coaches really well and some fairly well. We have a great staff too. I want to develop personal relationships with these folks. I just can't wait to get back in that environment, and that's going to be a lot of fun.
I guess there is also the sense of unfinished business. I hope that is the case 10 years from now, that there is unfinished business. I think most coaches would have that feeling year after year no matter how well they have done. There is just something left to do, another goal to achieve or another step they want to make.
I'll tell you that it's really hard - since 1968 when I came on campus as a 6-foot-4, 185-pound offensive lineman - to stay away. You just fall in love with Ole Miss. No matter what happens or how long we stay away, Ole Miss keeps drawing us back.
Q: Is there any feeling of regret that you left the first time?
A: No, and I hate to say that because it would be the easy thing to say that I wish I had never left. I left, and Scottye (wife) and I went to Baton Rouge and we had a grand time there. We have a great team in the bank that I worked with in Baton Rouge. That was fun.
I think we all know that every day we live we have new experiences, and had we not been where we were that day, we wouldn't have had that. So, I have really enjoyed the last four years being in Baton Rouge. I wouldn't trade that experience for the world, and I wouldn't trade this day for the world.
Q: As an athletics director, what are you willing to do to retain one of the best group of coaches in the nation?
A: I would concur with you in saying that we have one of the greatest group of coaches in the nation because of not just what they do in their events, whether on the field or court. This group of coaches have high moral and ethical standards that our kids nowadays need to have. If we ever get to the point where we are competing for dollars, then that is the wrong thing to be competing for. I think you have to mix in fair salaries and fair compensation for incentives for a job well done that year. Just as equally important is for the coaches to have confidence in the athletics director, and not just as an athletics director, but also as a person. One of the things I learned before as athletics director is security is a major issue, and a lot of that has to do with relationships.
Q: Do you think that you are more qualified for the job that you were the first time?
A: I think there is no doubt about it. Like what was written in The Clarion Ledger this morning about what was perceived to be risk with the hiring of Coach Barnes, Chancellor Khayat and I both didn't believe it was a risk. Certainly, one of the biggest risks was hiring me as athletics director the first time. I was a guy who had never been in the business. There are things you have to learn. I remember that I wanted to be president of Sunburst Bank when I was 35 years old, and that would have been a disaster because I didn't have the skills it took to do that. But, that didn't keep me from trying to reach that goal. I wanted to be athletics director, and thank goodness, we worked through a lot of my mistakes that first time. Yes, I think that I have grown. I have grown a lot from a philosophical standpoint, from a maturing standpoint, and hopefully and to some extent, from a wisdom standpoint to be able to handle things better - and not just things relating to athletics or the University, but also general issues concerning life.
Q: Is the multi-purpose indoor practice facility priority No. 1 other than that of building those personal relationships you spoke of earlier?
A: That is very, very important, and the indoor facility has to be a priority. Although there will be a lot of priorities to deal when I first come in, that is an issue that is important. I will have to get up to date on where it is. I was at a meeting that Chancellor had several weeks ago to raise money for this project. I got to see the phases of the project and the cost of it. I know it's a commitment that has been made, and I know it is something that we're going to attack, as well as the basketball coliseum. One of the main things is going to be to run an efficient operation, but we also have to raise our level of contributions to the Loyalty Foundation so we can provide the coaches the opportunity to train these student-athletes in the best environment possible.