UD had to hit bottom before rise of athletic programs

Season of success

How UD sports teams fared in the 2009-10 school year:

*All teams competed in the Atlantic 10 except football (Pioneer Football League) and women’s golf (Colonial Athletic Association).

**For scholarship purposes, the women’s cross country team is considered part of the track team at UD. During the outdoor track season, the Flyers finished second in the A-10.

Ted Kissell, the former University of Dayton athletic director, was faced with a chilling realization while leading a search for a conference for his school in 1995: The Flyers didn’t have much to offer any prospective league.

The basketball team had won a combined 17 games the previous three years. The football team was achieving success in nonscholarship circles, but the program wouldn’t be part of a move to another conference. And UD had been making only a half-hearted commitment to nonrevenue sports.

During five years in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference and two in the Great Midwest from 1988-95, the Flyers were perennial bottom-dwellers in the all-sports league standings. No wonder they were the one program left behind when the Great Midwest morphed into Conference USA.

“Clearly we were the worst program in both conferences,” Kissell said. “That’s where we were when they blew up the Great Midwest. We were not a program anybody wanted to be associated with at the time.”

Kissell and his staff may have had to endure some dark days after that snub, but the Flyers no longer have to worry about whether they belong with the company they’re keeping.

Pouncing on an invitation to join the Atlantic 10 in 1995, UD has evolved into one of the league’s premier programs, winning more titles last season than any other school. The Flyers grabbed A-10 crowns in men’s and women’s soccer, women’s cross country, volleyball and women’s indoor track. They also were co-champions in the Pioneer Football League.

The men’s basketball team captured the NIT championship, while the Flyer women reached the second round of the NCAA tournament. The baseball team is just two years removed from its first A-10 championship.

Going into this fall, volleyball, women’s soccer, women’s cross country and football were named preseason league favorites.

“I think in my mind, there was a tipping point, and that was being the one school left out (of Conference USA),” Kissell said. “There’s a saying about change, that you need a burning platform to get people’s attention. And what if you don’t have one? You set one on fire.

“I didn’t feel I could get people’s attention about how dire things were because of our excellence in football, our attendance in men’s basketball and because we’d have the NCAA tournament coming to the arena. We had this fantasy that we were better than we were.

“We got left out — we were the only program that did — and that was our burning platform.”

Hoop profits rise

Before being accepted as a member of the A-10, UD had to agree to make more of a financial commitment to its nonrevenue sports. And while the university planned to free up additional funds for athletics, Kissell knew that wouldn’t be enough. He figured the only way to make the Flyers competitive in more sports was for men’s basketball to carry an even bigger share of the load.

When UD Arena opened in 1969, fans in prime seats had to make donations of $500 to $1,000 in addition to the price of season tickets as part of the Arena Associates Program. But those making that initial investment were promised they wouldn’t be hit for any additional fees for the next 28 years, while the building was being paid off.

At the end of that period, though, Kissell implemented the Arena Seating Plan in 1997, requiring annual donations for virtually every seat in the lower arena. The majority of season-ticket holders now pay $500 to $1,250 per year.

Although it has produced some grumbling among fans, those annual contributions have bolstered the entire athletic department. Income from men’s basketball in 1993-94, when the arena associates program was in its final stages, was roughly $2 million. By 2008-09, that figure had more than quadrupled to $9.1 million.

Although men’s basketball revenue also has gotten a boost from increased corporate sponsorships, better NCAA tournament pay-outs and high-dollar items such as luxury suites and loge seating in the renovated arena, those seat-license fees have been the key to turning the hoops program into the athletic department’s cash cow.

UD basketball ranked 31st nationally in revenue in 2008-09, the latest fiscal year for which figures are available. Only one other team from a non-Bowl Championship Series conference — Nevada-Las Vegas, which raked in $9.2 million — generated more revenue.

Money reinvested

UD paid out $3.4 million in expenses for men’s basketball in 2008-09, leaving roughly $5.7 million to operate 16 other sports.

One major expense for the athletic department is scholarships, although the university provides much help in that area. The department forked out about $3 million for financial aid for athletes in the last fiscal year, about 17 percent of its $17.7 million budget.

The athletic department covers about 65 percent of its total expenses through revenues it generates, relying on the school for the rest. Only a handful of Division I college athletic departments are self-sustaining, and the ones that rely on Football Bowl Subdivision football (formerly Division I-A).

UD’s profits from the early installments of the Arena Seating Plan went toward scholarships. The athletic department is charged the full amount for every full ride it picks up, each carrying a price tag of $41,458.

Volleyball and women’s basketball have been fully funded for years (a maximum 12 and 15 scholarships, respectively), and men’s and women’s soccer are nearly there. And while UD lags behind most of its A-10 brethren in full rides for other sports, the school has significantly upgraded facilities through philanthropic gifts to help pave the way for more department-wide success.

The latest projects have been the Athletic Practice Facility (formerly the PAC building) adjacent to the Frericks Center, which gives all teams a place to hold winter workouts. UD just opened an academic center for athletes. Also, the softball stadium recently was furnished with a new locker room, press box and seating.

The next undertaking, once funds become available, will be expanded offices for all sports in the practice facility and modernized fitness and training rooms.

The upgrades have come in response to a Kissell initiative to huddle after each season with his coaches and ask what they needed to push their programs forward. Current AD Tim Wabler has adopted that practice, too.

“That’s something I hadn’t seen before in my coaching career,” sixth-year men’s soccer coach Dennis Currier said. “Right after the season, it’s, hey, what can we do to elevate ourselves and get better? That’s when you feel the support and care about your program.

“Even through these tough times in the economy, they’re saying, ‘How can we grow, how can we get better?’ That’s rewarding.”

Perception changed

Third-year volleyball coach Kelly Sheffield — whose team was ranked in the national preseason poll for the first time at No. 21 — has been surprised over how sports have been embraced by top administrators.

“You go to volleyball matches and see the AD at most of them. You’re seeing the president (Dr. Dan Curran) behind you during timeouts. You have the leadership waving the flag and being energetic and cheering,” Sheffield said. “They’re making good decisions on who they’re hiring. They’re putting money into it. They’re creating (a positive) image.

“What they weren’t doing in the past was putting support behind the other programs, whether it’s scholarships, marketing, stuff on the websites. You had this quality school in this fun student environment that (top prospects) didn’t want to come to because they could tell the administration didn’t care. Well, the administration has started caring about more than just one sport.”

The first-rate treatment given to women’s soccer — and the team’s success — certainly had an impact on goalkeeper Katherine Boone, the A-10 preseason defensive player of the year, when she was picking a college.

The sophomore from Kirkland, Wash., had followed big-time programs such as North Carolina but realized she had underestimated UD during her visit here.

“I had actually never heard of Dayton, but once I started looking at their record, I was like, ‘Wow, they’re a really good squad. Why haven’t I been keeping track of them a little more?’ ” she said.

“The facilities are great. The staff is perfect. They’re attentive to the players’ needs. I was really surprised. It’s the perfect size (with an enrollment of 7,000-plus). The training room was big enough for the team, and the weight-lifting room was absolutely phenomenal.”

Success by a few teams has had a ripple effect throughout the department, creating some healthy competition.

“We’re next to the women’s volleyball office, and they come in and have all these trophies everywhere, and you think, ‘I’ve got to make a difference here,’ ” said Currier, who led the men’s soccer team to its first NCAA tournament appearance two years ago.

“I go out to Baujan Field when I first got out here, and women’s soccer has the banner with all their championships. I said, ‘That’s got to change. I’ve got to match that. I’ve got to get better than that.’ ”

Room to improve

The strategy for improving UD athletics 15 years ago was “selective excellence,” in the words of Kissell. That meant funneling available resources into a handful of sports that wouldn’t be at a competitive disadvantage against warm-weather schools (soccer, volleyball and basketball).

Wabler, who replaced Kissell in 2008, was on staff during the transition to the A-10 and is gratified by the progress made since then, but he still sees too many sports at UD falling far below the maximum amount of scholarships allowed by the NCAA.

Baseball, for instance, has the equivalent of seven full rides, 4.7 short of the limit. Individual sports generally make do with only one full scholarship each.

Wabler’s motto is “win one more game, graduate one more player, touch one more life in the community.” But he knows there’s still work to be done to make sure his coaches are properly armed.

“We’re not where we think we can be,” Wabler said. “Now it’s, ‘What’s the real potential of the Dayton Flyers?’ That’s where we’re at. And I think that’s true in almost every one of our programs. I don’t know what the top is for any of them, but we’re certainly not operating as if there’s a ceiling.”

Contact this writer at (937) 225-2125 or dharris@DaytonDailyNews.com.