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Texas AD Chris Del Conte

Machinator

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Mittens
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No CR:  

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Here you go

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JFKFC

Fortunate?!? There are 2 sports that matter: Football & Men's basketball. CDC's hires for both have been absolute abortions. 

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rickyspub

rickyspub 801

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27 minutes ago, Forty Acres said:

Does he still like grass on this board too?

One of my favorite CDC tweets:

"We are looking at a cross of Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia. The amazing stuff about this is, that you can play 4 quarters on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on this stuff."

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Katfid54

Katfid54 9005

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1 minute ago, TrashMaster G said:

Nothing "eminent"? That's embarrassing.

It's a state public institution joke.  Nothing "eminent" because we haven't used eminent domain to take a grass football field away from private citizens yet.  Get it?  Get it???

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Pancho

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I know some people keep saying we need to rid Bellmont of the bloat, but it doesn't seem like that's going to be a lot of people...

https://www.hookem.com/columns/bohls-high-energy-del-conte-working-spark-turnaround-texas-athletics/

Quote

Chris Del Conte has barely wrinkled his bed sheets, no surprise given the little time he spends lying on them.

He typically doesn’t settle into his bed at the AT&T Hotel & Conference Center until midnight or 1 a.m., but he still beats the roosters up, rising at 5 in the morning. Del Conte will then get in a workout on a stationary cycle in the exercise room, and he’ll down a breakfast of blueberries or raspberries with a little oatmeal on the side, going “easy on the swine.”

And then it’s all business.

From 7 to 7, Del Conte, Texas’ new athletic director, is an energetic workaholic who’s constantly pressing the flesh with fans and boosters, hitting up well-heeled donors for gifts, meeting with staff members and attending basketball games, tennis matches, swimming meets or whatever’s next up on the Longhorns’ sports schedule.

Then the next day he starts all over again.

“He’s tireless,” said Longhorns football spokesman John Bianco. “The energy and passion that he has and uses to manage a pretty daunting job is unbelievable.”

The first 100 days on the job for the Longhorns’ new boss have come and gone, and Del Conte, who’s by way of TCU, has tried to pack 200 days of work into that span. This self-described “simple guy from Taos, New Mexico” was a dynamic hire who’s been universally celebrated and has hit the ground running. When asked who was Texas President Gregory Fenves’ second choice if Del Conte had said no, one official with knowledge about the search said, “There was none.”

Fenves, who sealed the deal with Del Conte over drinks in New York City, said Monday, “I knew he was the right person to lead Texas athletics. I had high expectations, and Chris Del Conte has exceeded them.”

The tributes pour in from everywhere.

“He’ll do a terrific job there,” said Florida AD Scott Stricklin, part of a half dozen ADs who regularly meet with Del Conte and others to bounce ideas off one another.

Prominent Longhorn Don Evans, a former U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President George W. Bush, praised the hiring and said he thinks Del Conte is off to a strong start. “He’s been great.”

Del Conte hasn’t made any missteps, but he isn’t prone to over-deliberation. Last month, he fired track and field coach Mario Sategna in a desire for “a change in leadership,” but otherwise he hasn’t made many changes. Those are yet to come, later this spring or early this summer, which has many on pins and needles.

“I’m up to speed enough,” Del Conte said. “My goal coming in was to learn the culture. I wanted to see through the eyes of the people who work here and get a better understanding of what this place means inside out and outside in.”

And what has he learned?

“I understand more the gravitas of the job and what it means to be working for the University of Texas,” he said recently in Nashville during the abbreviated NCAA Tournament stay of the men’s basketball team. “But there’s always a curve ball coming.”

Not to mention, some brushback pitches.

Del Conte knows people are watching, and he’s fine with that. He embraces the scrutiny. And he said any restructuring of the department “won’t take too long. Before September? Oh yeah, for sure, but I don’t think we’re heavy (in personnel).”

Expectations are high. And should be at a place that’s grown uncomfortable about its jaw-dropping mediocrity during the past decade. Fortunately, he’s the exact right person to fix what’s broken in UT athletics.

One athletic administrator in the state called the addition of Del Conte “the greatest hire by Texas in the last 20 years.”

“I agree with that,” said Steve Hicks, the athletic liaison on the University of Texas board of regents. “Can he fix Texas? I’m counting on it.”

Former Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas recalled that “Chris talked probably 50 percent of the time at league meetings when he was the TCU AD. I’m assuming he’ll talk all the time now.”

He is a talker.

“I wouldn’t say he’s bombastic,” said Bob Bowlsby, the current Big 12 commissioner. “I’d call it engaging. He’s type A, for sure.”

Jeff Orth, an associate AD at Texas, admires Del Conte’s approach and said, “He’s curious about everything. He’s energetic, super confident and self-deprecating. He’s been awesome.”

Already Del Conte has met with more than half of the 429 staffers in the athletic department, whether it was for 20 minutes in his office or a half hour somewhere in Royal-Memorial Stadium. He did the same when he took the TCU job more than eight years ago, but there were only 150 employees he had to meet there. At UT, he’s met with deans and faculty members, donors and custodians and many of the 500-plus Longhorns athletes.

How busy has Del Conte been over the past three months? Well, consider that:

  • He has instituted a monthly coaches meeting in which all head coaches get together to talk.
  • He’s met with “countless” prominent donors from Pearland to Palm Springs and come away with about $32 million in pledged gifts.
  • He’s asked every coach for his or her wish list as he goes about building not so much a consensus but a comprehensive plan moving forward.
  • He’s raised close to three-fourths of the $10 million needed to build an indoor baseball lab, if you will, that will include batting cages, a players’ lounge and a weight room. He’s also in the process of securing the $9 million needed to renovate the swimming locker rooms and build an outdoor pool that will likely be adjacent to the Jamail Swimming Center. Replacing the Erwin Center and then renovating UT’s football and softball facilities are next in line. “Our facilities are lacking,” Del Conte said. “We used to be the standard.”
  • He interacts with fans and embraces their input as well, tweeting answers to their questions on social media. He’ll arrive at UT sports events five hours before the start to check on everything from trash pickup to concessions. On Monday, he sat in the student section for the Texas women’s second-round NCAA game.

All in all, Del Conte wants to listen as much as he wants to be heard. His managerial style reminds me of Drayton McLane’s, including a mix-with-the-customer persona. No detail is too small, no voice is unimportant.

“I think it’s important to meet with everybody,” he said. “Texas over the last 10 years has had a lot of turmoil. I think it’s gone from good to bad to indifferent. The school lost three iconic coaches in Mack Brown, Rick Barnes and Augie Garrido as well as presidents and athletic directors. Anytime you lose 100 years of leadership, the employees are going to be pensive. I take a lot of input. I want them to see how I operate.”

What he’ll do is provide one voice for what has largely been a fractured athletic department since DeLoss Dodds retired in 2011 after 31 years. That’s important for a program that has endured abysmal results in its major sports, and suffered as a result of finger-pointing, back-biting and territorial standoffs between the formerly separate men and women’s athletic departments . (To her credit, Chris Plonsky has fought tirelessly for the women’s teams at UT.)

“I haven’t sensed friction that way,” Del Conte said. “It’s not the men versus the women. They don’t have to be mano a mano. It’s not tit for tat.”

He’s all about accountability, and he wants to empower decision-makers so he doesn’t have to waste time on every detail. Perhaps the role of Plonsky, the former women’s AD, will change, but Del Conte said, “Changing the culture, not titles, is what’s important to me. Let’s provide the coaches with what they need, then hold them accountable.”

That’s been missing of late. Of the school’s 14 national titles since the turn of the century, seven have come from Eddie Reese’s male swimmers. Although men’s swimming, men’s golf and women’s track have produced 11 national titles since 2000, football and baseball haven’t produced one since 2005 and men’s basketball has one modern-day Final Four appearance that came in 2003.

This school year, Texas has been able to celebrate only a 7-6 football record that included a victory in a lower-tier bowl; a first-round loss in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament; two postseason victories so far by the women’s hoops team; and a 12-9 record in baseball entering Tuesday. Modest results, at best. There’s work to be done.

For their part, the Longhorns coaches back Del Conte.

“Chris brings an amazing amount of energy for all of us,” said football coach Tom Herman. “He’s brilliant, driven, passionate and determined to get Texas back to the top. Chris will challenge everyone and hold them accountable, but do it in a positive way. The thing I love so much about him is he really cares about positioning our programs to be successful, supporting us and putting student-athletes first. He’s done an amazing job already, and I’m really excited about the future under his leadership.”

But just as the pioneering Donna Lopiano did before him at Texas, he expects big success and he should. He wants every sport to be part of top-10 conversations nationally while also competing regularly for championships. And most figure Del Conte is the man to make it happen.

“He’s a combination of people,” said a businessman who works with the Big 12. “He’s the same as DeLoss in his message. He’s up front. He can sell anything. He’s outgoing. He works his ass off. He empowers his employees. That’s a $200 million a year company. I think Texas is really lucky to have him.”

Like Dodds Del Conte was a track and field athlete in college. While Dodds favored the 440-yard dash at Kansas State, Del Conte was a high jumper at UC-Santa Barbara. “And he’s still jumping high,” Bowlsby said.

Del Conte will raise the bar at Texas — and fairly quickly. Although his wife and two daughters will soon leave Fort Worth for a house in West Austin, Del Conte will continue to pour himself into the job.

“He’s building a wealth of information in an effort to establish a longterm plan to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire athletic department,” Bianco said. “As a staff member, he inspires you to get better, find new ways of doing things, grow professionally.

Del Conte is aware of all the layers of bureaucracy at Texas and knows he has to wear a political hard hat at times. Some might say instituting changes at UT can be painfully slow, but Del Conte said he doesn’t sense desperation inside Belmont Hall. He talks of “reprogramming” and “re-flipping the script” as he looks ahead.

“I don’t look backward,” he said. “I didn’t come in to break everything. Let’s move on (from the past)."

 

 

 

 

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closetojumping

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30 minutes ago, Pancho Negro said:

I know some people keep saying we need to rid Bellmont of the bloat, but it doesn't seem like that's going to be a lot of people...

https://www.hookem.com/columns/bohls-high-energy-del-conte-working-spark-turnaround-texas-athletics/

 

I disagree. He's saying that to assuage concerns. I wrote this on 3/2/2018 on Shaggy based on what I'd from someone who would know this stuff. Here you go:

"There are almost 500 people working within the AD. TCU was winning across numerous fronts with 100 employees. Something like 130-150 of these employees are part of the Erwin Center operation and will go with, or be removed due to, the new basketball arena and the private operator. So you're looking at 350-ish versus 100. Say because Texas is bigger and the audience is larger, UT needs 50% more folks. That's 150. Say entrenched entitlement keeps another 50 around. That still leaves 150 employees that can be shown the door, and many of them are well-titled, highly paid middle to upper middle managers. Taking out that headcount, when accounting for support and burden costs, comes in at $166,667/employee if the targeted cost savings of $25million are met. That's pretty achievable and the savings could be higher. You've got that, Erwin Center, EC employees, getting Mack Brown off the books, and sweet Chuck off the books, will lead to annual savings for the org of something like $40million. 

There are fun tennis and baseball projects being worked up and almost fully funded. Then basketball and the SEZ in major capital efforts with a twist. Del Conte is not messing around. All coaches have been asked the old "What do you need from me to be successful" maneuver. That includes The Hermanist. Smart leaders ask that question of their subordinates and then ensure the subordinates get what they asked for, and then elite performance is expected. If the subordinates don't achieve elite performance in the aftermath, they only have themselves to blame when they're given a cardboard box for their belongings and then shown the door."

Notice how on point the info is compared to that article, with the exception of the house cleaning? It has nothing to do with me, I was passing on info. I'm highlighting that the article is nails for where CDC is going, but he's understating the headcount shift, and he absolutely should. It would do him no good to announce that he was going to slice through 120-150 roles over the next year. It will begin in the next few months with something like the announcement that some 40-60 positions will be merged with other positions. The news of the follow-on removals will be almost nonexistent because a lot of it will be attrition based. The change, when looking back, will be substantial, but as it occurs, will likely look softer.

Also for future reference regarding Shaka, but more importantly how feedback will be handled around pressure to fire a coach:

"I've touched on this a bit on the basketball board, but my view is that the buyout is too large and the interest in sending Smart off is too small. If you want someone to go, the question allegedly that will be asked back is how much you are willing to put into the buyout to make it happen. The important thing to think about at this point is that the wins matter now, in every sport. I think the softball coach is going to be fired after this season, and I've been resolute that Smart won't be, simply due to the sheer size of what's needed. 

That all said, the basketball capital project is going to be big, and if it is done in the specific way I've heard about it, then the pressure to win within that program will be enormous. That might be enough to spur starting with a clean slate ahead of the 18-19 academic year."

 

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Pancho

Pancho 46057

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25 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

I disagree. He's saying that to assuage concerns. I wrote this on 3/2/2018 on Shaggy based on what I'd from someone who would know this stuff. Here you go:

"There are almost 500 people working within the AD. TCU was winning across numerous fronts with 100 employees. Something like 130-150 of these employees are part of the Erwin Center operation and will go with, or be removed due to, the new basketball arena and the private operator. So you're looking at 350-ish versus 100. Say because Texas is bigger and the audience is larger, UT needs 50% more folks. That's 150. Say entrenched entitlement keeps another 50 around. That still leaves 150 employees that can be shown the door, and many of them are well-titled, highly paid middle to upper middle managers. Taking out that headcount, when accounting for support and burden costs, comes in at $166,667/employee if the targeted cost savings of $25million are met. That's pretty achievable and the savings could be higher. You've got that, Erwin Center, EC employees, getting Mack Brown off the books, and sweet Chuck off the books, will lead to annual savings for the org of something like $40million. 

There are fun tennis and baseball projects being worked up and almost fully funded. Then basketball and the SEZ in major capital efforts with a twist. Del Conte is not messing around. All coaches have been asked the old "What do you need from me to be successful" maneuver. That includes The Hermanist. Smart leaders ask that question of their subordinates and then ensure the subordinates get what they asked for, and then elite performance is expected. If the subordinates don't achieve elite performance in the aftermath, they only have themselves to blame when they're given a cardboard box for their belongings and then shown the door."

Notice how on point the info is compared to that article, with the exception of the house cleaning? It has nothing to do with me, I was passing on info. I'm highlighting that the article is nails for where CDC is going, but he's understating the headcount shift, and he absolutely should. It would do him no good to announce that he was going to slice through 120-150 roles over the next year. It will begin in the next few months with something like the announcement that some 40-60 positions will be merged with other positions. The news of the follow-on removals will be almost nonexistent because a lot of it will be attrition based. The change, when looking back, will be substantial, but as it occurs, will likely look softer.

Also for future reference regarding Shaka, but more importantly how feedback will be handled around pressure to fire a coach:

"I've touched on this a bit on the basketball board, but my view is that the buyout is too large and the interest in sending Smart off is too small. If you want someone to go, the question allegedly that will be asked back is how much you are willing to put into the buyout to make it happen. The important thing to think about at this point is that the wins matter now, in every sport. I think the softball coach is going to be fired after this season, and I've been resolute that Smart won't be, simply due to the sheer size of what's needed. 

That all said, the basketball capital project is going to be big, and if it is done in the specific way I've heard about it, then the pressure to win within that program will be enormous. That might be enough to spur starting with a clean slate ahead of the 18-19 academic year."

 

 

Yeah, I get why you can't state "hey we'ere firing lots of folks" in an article like that.  

I thought I read somewhere where the buyout for Shaka even next season is still $15 million?  Is that correct or nah?

Any idea how they will model the new arena?  What I mean here is, is there an arena already built that they are looking at as a guide?  I remember reading Fenves touring USC's arena during the USC game.  (Actually Fenves posted a pic of him doing that on twitter.)

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jdhorn92

jdhorn92 1588

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On 3/26/2018 at 12:02 AM, Biscuits And Groovy said:

I think CDC is the best hire that the university has made in 20 years(or since Mack). But that's not really saying too much. 

I don’t know, I’d say Mack and Augie we’re both great hires.  Mack’s run was pretty damn solid. I love the CDC hire but let’s play this one out before we put his hire on par with the two mentioned above.  As far as an AD, I love what he’s doing and more importantly , how he’s doing it.  Let’s face it, optics are important to us Texas fans and so far he’s grading out well.  Must have W’s in the big 3 though. 

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WBT

WBT 20884

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1 hour ago, jdhorn92 said:

I don’t know, I’d say Mack and Augie we’re both great hires.  Mack’s run was pretty damn solid. I love the CDC hire but let’s play this one out before we put his hire on par with the two mentioned above.  As far as an AD, I love what he’s doing and more importantly , how he’s doing it.  Let’s face it, optics are important to us Texas fans and so far he’s grading out well.  Must have W’s in the big 3 though. 

Mack and Augie were both more than 20 years before CDC.  I thought the statement parsed that out deliberately but maybe I'm just reading into it.

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Knoxtnhorn

Knoxtnhorn 6262

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Don't know much about him other than what I've read on here/Shaggy.

I did see a segment a couple of nights ago where he had ok'd removing the green fence in left field of Disch-Falk.  He then showed up to mingle with the fans.  That was enough for me.  Dickhead Patterson would have doubled the height of the fence and covered it with ads.

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Bullneck

Bullneck 19454

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On 3/26/2018 at 3:20 PM, rickyspub said:

One of my favorite CDC tweets:

"We are looking at a cross of Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia. The amazing stuff about this is, that you can play 4 quarters on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on this stuff."

That can't be real.

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Machinator

Machinator 32102

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Someone on another board attended CDC's talk at the UT Golf Club. Their Cliffnotes:

Quote

CDC gave a great rambling talk for about an hour with the Q&A. Here’s a loose playback. I really like this guy and think he can bring Texas to where we belong. 

He started by saying his job is to serve us. It’s a tough job because it means bringing rationality to a passionate fan base that sometimes lacks that. 

He noted that every AD at Texas since and including DeLoss won their first national title with men’s swimming, so when he was at the NCAA meet last weekend and one of our divers landed on his back, he was worried he’d really ****ed it up! 

Eddie Reese reminds him of yoda. A swimmer asks him something and he says something really minor and they walk away super motivated and kick butt in the pool. How the hell does he do that?

He’s focused his first 100 days on listening and learning. He’s learned that we have the best and most passionate fan base. But we’ve had a tough 10 years, from our president warring with the governor on the education model, to 4 schools leaving and blaming UT, and the loss of 100+ years of leadership, from university pres to Brown-Barnes-Garrido. 

Patterson screwed things up because he didn’t care about people. Perrin calmed the waters. I came in and bought some Depends diapers (XL). 

Royal talked about putting BBs back in box, and this is what we have to do. How do we create alignment and row in the same direction? 

How do we change the game experience? The experience at Disney starts when you park. You endure the lines and all that hassle because of they deliver a great experience. How do we get rid of parking garages and make it affordable? A 50 cent water shouldn’t cost $5. Fans have whatever they want in the comfort of their living room so we need to compete with that. How do we appeal to students? We used to sell 9000 OU tickets to students but now we sell 3000 because we’re competing with ACL. I want to focus on our of game experience. Austin and the festivals are famous for food trucks and music. So let’s do that on Clark Field. We don’t have a homecoming! Why not? Ole Miss with the Grove, every academic department holds parties there, why don’t we? It would bring students out. 

If we ever play a&m, it will be early in season, not at thanksgiving. Games are scheduled 10 years out, so it’s not likely to happen soon. We need a meaningful conference opponent at thanksgiving, not KU, that can become a new tradition. OU has OSU. Who’s our OSU?

I want a Texas sports hall of fame. Why don’t we have one? We have 52 national title trophies in 3 storage units in Georgetown. We need to celebrate our history. I want to build this in the stadium where the food court is now. Does anyone have $10m in loose change? 

There’s no impetus to change the football playoff given that the 4 team format earns $500m and we have 9 more years in the contract. But this league is built for UT and OU to win every year and be in the playoff. We just need to take care of our own business. 

If realignment happens, it will be in 2023-25 when contracts expire. 

LHN a great recruiting tool, but it hurts game attendance. And we can’t keep anything private. Gary Patterson and Nick Saban lock down practices. We broadcast ours. TCU knew what we were running out of every formation because of LHN. We made a deal with the devil. 

Hoops arena. Every musician has said they must tour Houston, Dallas and Austin. We want to do a deal to build a new 16,000 seat arena where we own it 35 days a year and the venue gets the other 330. I think we could do 16,000 where the upper 6,000 are high and vertical and the bottom 10,000 are all club seating and it feels really small. 

I hate one and done, but what can you do to stop it? Bamba can make $100m, he has to go. It’s no different than Michael Dell and Bill Gates, who made more money by leaving school. The NBA needs a farm league for HS players.

Should we add Lacrosse? We’d need it to become huge in UIL first, not just private schools. Who will we play in our region? No one in our league plays it. We don’t want to go to the coasts to play every game. One challenge with our league is each school plays very different sports (eg equestrian).

 

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Richter

Richter 2373

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My Aggy buddy works for a local restaurant chain and gave me tickets to the baseball game in a suite on Friday.  CDC was a few suites a way but I watched him chat up some older guy for about 7 innings before moving on.  When the old guy went to the bathroom or left for whatever reason, I’d start seeing CDC start answering people on Twitter.  Dude is a crazy hard worker.

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TheFlyingBoat

TheFlyingBoat 913

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Wow, with all the politics that have been happening recently I completely forgot that the Governor went to war with the flagship university in an attempt to convert into a trade school. We've already been fucked enough by the state in the past twenty years, but for that to then happen was ridiculous. We should be competing with the UC Berkeley and Michigan's of the world not the Aggies. I almost am willing to tolerate the BORG to get more research money. Fuck Rick Perry and his ilk [/nocr] Not to mention we also have to deal with stupid ass Ags on the board of regents who essentially kill any forward progress Texas tries to make in the race to the top. Jesus christ I made a frustrated me even more frustrated.

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