In Jerry Maguire, a staple of the college DVD collection, Tom Cruise sweats through the night writing a mission statement--25 pages of coffee-filled B.S., a statement for the future, a Duke public policy memo, what have you. It was called "The Things We Think and Do Not Say," Jerry's honest vision for his fellow sports agents.
In October 2002, after two "encouraging" wins by the Duke football team, athletic director Joe Alleva released his own mission statement. For his title, Alleva went with "Rebuilding Duke Football."
The right sentiment was there: an acknowledgment that it was finally time for the forever-crumbling football team to shape up. Alleva and Nan Keohane released the statement together, pledging to take it a bit easier on admissions standards, to give coaches fatter contracts and to let rich alums help out in the recruiting process (without tampering with the NCAA's regulations, of course).
Now this mission statement got some serious fanfare, just like Jerry did. In the movie, Jerry comes to the hotel lobby the next morning to a round of applause. One of his peers yells, "Finally, someone said it!" But two others in the corner mutter, "How long you give him?" "Ehh, about a week." Jerry lost his job a few scenes later.
Well I don't know if Joe Alleva's seen Jerry Maguire, but he might want to get the hint that mission statements are as fluffy as their name sounds. He might want to get started on an initiative that served as a breakthrough for an athletic department that revolves around just one revenue sport. He might want to look at the box score from
Saturday's blowout football loss. He might want to start giving us some answers.
Lowering the standard for admissions was the major point of controversy in the mission statement, and probably the reason there hasn't been much talk of it since last year. It's probably also the hardest aspect of the rebuilding process to set in motion logistically and in terms of the school's reputation.
As for those ten fewer SAT points shaved off Christoph Guttentag's expectations? Well, you've got to start somewhere.
Easier to handle is upping coaches' salaries. It's a way to bring in big names--even modest ones would do at this point--and attract big players. So what happens when Duke needs a new offensive coordinator earlier this year? The program promotes Jim Pry, the ever-successful quarterback coach who had a stellar, primetime career as offensive coordinator at intimidating East Stroudsburg for 13 years. And in his first test against Virginia this past weekend, Pry planned out one hell of an offensive threat, all right: new contract, no points.
Most egregious of all, though, was Alleva boldly handing Carl Franks a three-year contract extension almost as soon as last season ended. "Continuity is a key factor," Alleva said then, calling Franks--who has a 4-41 record as a head coach--"the right man" for rebuilding.
The third part of this ever-depressing mission was the "show me the money" clause--a combination of getting help from alumni and beefing up the facilities (read: a nice little addition to tack on when the former-Head of the Board has already given $20 million to put his name in front of some shiny new work-out equipment).
Now I don't want to get ahead of myself; Alleva did make sure to say "the mission is long-term." As in when Miami and Virginia Tech march in here too and start smoking us.
I'm just going to hope, then, that Alleva has been too busy with the madness of ACC expansion and the befuddlement of basketball recruit Kris Humphries' transfer to give a second thought to "Rebuilding Duke Football." I'm just going to hope that we don't lose to Western Carolina this Saturday. I'm just going to hope that we get around to this mission of ours.
Mr. Alleva, complete me.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.