The fans need a new AD to lift their spirits

The IU Athletics Department has had a rough past 12 months.

Real rough.

Things were much better for the IU faithful just a year ago on the week of Hoosier Hysteria. Former men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson and the Hoosiers had high expectations heading into the season. Some even thought the duo of Eric Gordon and D.J. White could lead the team to the Final Four.

Sampson had several blue-chip recruits in for Hoosier Hysteria – recruits he hoped to be the future of the program. All was well at Assembly Hall.

Across the parking lot at Memorial Stadium, football coach Bill Lynch and the football team were in the midst of a successful season. After the heartbreaking death of former coach Terry Hoeppner, the team responded by earning it’s first bowl bid since 1993.

The soccer programs also were playing well, as the always-strong men’s team won another Big Ten regular season title, while the women’s team advanced to the round of 16 in the NCAA Tournament.

A Hoosier fan would think IU Director of Athletics Rick Greenspan would have been the happiest man in Bloomington last year during the Hoosier Hysteria festivities. That Hoosier fan would have been mistaken.

Greenspan sat in Assembly Hall knowing what Hoosier fans would find out two days later – that the University was self-reporting Sampson and his staff to the NCAA for rules violations.

Now that Greenspan will be gone at the end of the calendar year, the new AD will need to turn around an athletic department desperate for a fresh start.

The demise of the basketball program has been well-chronicled, but the other two most visible programs of the athletic department – football and men’s soccer – have also suffered.

The football team is 2-4 and looks as though it will not win another game this season. Not surprisingly, Memorial Stadium has fewer and fewer fans each game.
Even the men’s soccer team has faltered this year. Midway through the season, the Hoosiers have not lived up to their lofty expectations, and they’ve fallen out of the top 25.

With the three most visible programs of the department struggling, Greenspan’s successor will inherit an impatient fan base that needs comforting after years of sub-par performances.

Hoosier nation expects a certain level of success from its teams, and the new AD will have to do everything in his or her power to satisfy these expectations.

For basketball, nothing less than being a top program in the country is acceptable. In football, the fans expect a competitive team that contends for a bowl every year.
The new AD will have to deliver winning programs in football and basketball, but perhaps even more importantly, they will have to inspire confidence in a deflated fan base.

Love him or hate him, the Rick Greenspan era needs to come to an end. Hoosier fans everywhere need to be united, something even the popular hire of Tom Crean couldn’t accomplish.

So please, search committee, please name a replacement soon, so the transition to a new era in Hoosier athletics – and the healing – can begin.