Sgt. Schultz said:
GymBroFisher said:
The big pull to get Schloss here was that he was going to be the only SEC baseball coach in Texas. He knows Texas has immense talent and we were the best job in Texas due to SEC's great commitment to baseball. Thereby making us potentially even the best job in the country.
Texas entering the SEC switched that. Texas has better player development facilities for baseball, a better city surrounding it, easier to travel to, a more storied program, and Texas is more marketable from a general standpoint, it's your basic big state school. Schloss bolted for that reason just as much as his buddy CDC in my opinion. I think the best stadium in the country was the only thing that was potentially going to keep him here.
A&M will not compete with Texas until it fixes some marketing issues and it has to provide the absolute best facilities to it's coaches to make up for the location disadvantage. Otherwise, in general some coaches and some players will see Texas as a better option. If A&M doesn't fix a few things, I can see Texas picking up another coach from us in the future.
I really don't give a **** about the sips. We need to fix A&M to where it can be all it can be. Thing is, we usually manage to crap the bed some way, some how. It doesn't matter the sport, you can bank on it. The issues we have are much larger and I think its part of a culture problem that stems from our loyalty, fervent support, and the deserved/undeserved hero status that is thrust upon our athletes. I also think there is an attitude within the athletic department that exudes "we are A&M, we are the best, we have the best, and we do things 1st class." I think this subtly tamps down the sense of urgency to get things done.
Thread Derailer
As it stands now, Easterwood is only a shuttle airport for AA to DFW. If Bryan/College Station were serious, they upgrade the terminal at Easterwood to have probably triple the number of gates and then market themselves to lower cost airlines like Avelo and/or Breeze as a mid-continent stopover hub and as a reliever airport for Southwest. You market to Southwest for routes to BNA and PHX, along with to Love Field. You could easily market to Northwest Houston & Katy residents to fly out of Easterwood versus doing the madness that is IAH and Hobby because in total time to the gate, its probably quicker and a whole lot less stressful.
I say this because I used to travel by air often out of Easterwood to not hassle with IAH, Hobby, and Bergstrom. Timewise, it was quicker for me and the fare differences on UAL and AA were not much different from Houston or Austin if you shopped it. Traveling on UAL sucked because once you took off, you flew for about 15 minutes only to be thrown into the mess at IAH. Point is, B/CS could do a lot to solve some of its travel logistics nightmares.
I feel like A&M ONLY lets money talk. We have been able to swing for hot coaches in most sports by throwing big paychecks at them. We often way overpay, which any good coach is going to listen. We have to overpay in many sports. However, I also think we have a habit of being very tight and bureaucratic once the coach is procured. We let the big donors get too involved with the program. We ratchet back anything resembling big marketing pushes, we stall on facilities (of course until we start losing steam and need a new coach), prioritize head coach over asst coaching packages, and are generally afraid to push all the chips in on athletics. We don't have a sports identity. It's practically a mirror image of the school makeup. We love to build stuff (engineering), we are bureaucratic/dogmatic (military history), afraid to market ourselves (marketing is the redheaded step child at Mays), and way too stuck in tradition (all male, all military, only we "get it"). IMO, what you get is a fantastic school, full of honorable people, very safe for students, insulated from the outside, and generally very conservative/religious. The problem is we don't really understand what it takes to be successful in sports. We think its buildings, not culture. We refuse to allow outside influences make decisions (marketing). We even struggle with this concept that we need to hire people that "get" A&M. I am of the opinion that we need to hire people that "get" marketing, compensation, sports management, fan experience, etc. I don't care that they are Aggies, and frankly probably need to NOT be Aggies to move us outside of the current culture rut we are in.
On the airport suggestion. I am of the same opinion. The economic centerline of Houston is expected to move to West Highway 6 by mid 2035. Houston has nowhere to grow but north and west. College Station could, and should be like a Bakersfield in LA. A distant suburb of one of the 3 or 4 biggest cities in America. It's part of the reason, despite the flaws and challenges to the speed rail, that I am fully in favor of it. College Station is a stop (maybe THE stop) on that line to DFW. A change like that makes a world of difference for BCS. The airport piece is also really interesting, because it could feed/seed the speed rail. Southwest dropping into to College Station, jump on the rail and get to Dallas/Houston. But that requires people in BCS wanting to get bigger and stronger, which I seriously doubt they really want.
