Yow makes good first impression

Click the photo above to see more pictures from Friday's press conference via the N&O.

Debbie Yow made her first remarks as NC State’s director of athletics Friday a little after 2, and from initial reaction most people were quite pleased with what they heard. The straight talking Yow talked openly about her goals for NC State athletics and did not mince words about those goals being accomplished. She talked some about the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk. The walk is yet to come, but she certainly gets an A+ in the talking department.

Debbie Yow Audio

Yow’s journey technically will not begin until July 15, but she seems ready to get the ball rolling on here goals for NC State.

Another interesting portion of today’s press conference was the question and answer session between the assembled media and Yow. Bobby Purcell came up more than once and both Yow and Chancellor Randy Woodson had to answer some tough questions about the process of her hire.

It turns out that Yow was not on the list of six candidates handed Chancellor Woodson by the search committee headed by Smedes York. Woodson said Yow was always on “his list” but that when someone of Yow’s stature is involved in a search there has to be a certain level of privacy that could not be guaranteed by a search committee. Regardless of whether or not you agree with Woodson on that matter, the end seems to have justified the means, at least for now.

There is a lot more to learn about Debbie Yow and her goals for NC State, something that I’m sure will take place throughout the rest of the summer. Yow has a reputation for being tough but fair and also is known for being fairly open with new media (including message boards). Despite knowing so much about the Yow family, Debbie is somewhat of an unknown entity for some Wolfpack fans. It will be interesting to learn more about her. The following is a clip from an interview conducted after the press conference concluded. Yow and Woodson made themselves available to the media in attendance for a good thirty minutes following the press conference.

More Yow Audio

Below are some bulleted points from Debbie Yow’s contract, which was included in the media packet handed out prior to Friday’s press conference.

  • Yow’s initial contract begins July 15,2010 and will run through July 14, 2015. She will be evaluated annually by Chancellor Randy Woodson.
  • Yow’s base salary will be $350,000 with the opportunity for bonus money based on performance

Football Bonus Opportunities (they are not cumulative)

  • $50,000 if the football team wins the ACC Championship
  • $25,o00 if the football team finishes the regular season in second, third or fourth place
  • $15,000 if the football team finished in fifth or sixth place
  • $100,000 if the football team wins the National Championship

Men’s and Women’s Basketball Bonus Opportunities

  • $25,000 if the team wins the ACC regular season championship
  • $10,000 if the team wins the ACC Tournament
  • $20,000 if the team participates in the NCAA Tournament (years 1-3) and $15,000 in years four through five
  • $25,000 if the team participates in the Final Four
  • $50,000 if the team is named National Champions

Other Bonus Opportunities

  • $5,000 if a varsity team wins an ACC regular season championship
  • $2,500 if a varsity team participates in a post-season NCAA competition
  • $10,000 if a varsity sports team wins an NCAA Championship

There are also opportunities for Yow to earn bonuses based on APR numbers and Directors Cup standings. Woodson referenced the importance of both of those ratings several times during Friday’s press conference and interviews.

Here’s a complete list of Yow’s duties as director of athletics in her contract. Some of these are paraphrased to keep heads from spinning.

  1. Devote her best efforts full-time to leadership, supervision and promotion of NC State’s athletic programs
  2. Be responsible for direction, interpretation and review of NC State’s intercollegiate athletic programs and policies
  3. Assure than NC State has plans, policies, procedures and programs that are in compliance with the bylaws of the ACC and the NCAA
  4. Understand, observe and uphold all academic standards, requirements and policies of NC State as well as the constitution and bylaws of the ACC and NCAA
  5. Use her best efforts to ensure that all academic standards, requirements and policies of NC State are observed including those in connection with recruiting and eligibility of perspective and current athletes
  6. Develop procedures and programs that assure the welfare of student-athletes
  7. Promote athletic excellence and a competitive program on local, conference and national levels for the men’s and women’s intercollegiate varsity sports programs
  8. Maintain and enforce any and all disciplinary policies and drug/alcohol policies of NC State
  9. Maintain effective relations with governing boards, associations conferences committees, alumni, students, faculty and staff
  10. Direct the athletic fundraising and marketing
  11. Coordinate and support activities that promote the SAA member and alumni participation through support of athletic-related events in Raleigh and at other locations in North Carolina and elsewhere
  12. Consult regularly with the Faculty Athletics Representative and the assistant Athletic Director for Compliance
  13. Submit reports, recommendations and supporting documentation to the Athletics Council and the Chancellor, as necessary
  14. Direct NC State’s intercollegiate athletic events and activities, including management of staff, maintenance and development of athletic facilities, responsibility for budget and other resources while operating in a sound fiscal manner
  15. Annually evaluate coaches and athletics staff
  16. Promote NC State’s commitment to equal opportunity and affirmative action and compliance with Title IX
  17. Perform such other duties as assigned from timt to time by the Chancellor

There have been a ton of opinions about this hire already, and we’re not even 24 hours into it. Some people hate it, others love it. Some people are taking the wait and see approach (I highly recommend this method) while others are too numb to care. Alpha Wolf got the ball rolling for SFN this afternoon with his thoughts on the hire. There will certainly be more to come in the next few days and weeks. In the interim, continue to check out the message forums to get more opinions on the Yow hire.

Stay tuned for more.

ACC & Other AD & Department Athletics Directors Debbie Yow

32 Responses to Yow makes good first impression

  1. wufpup76 06/26/2010 at 2:55 AM #

    If the Feinstein article is to be believed that certainly would give one pause.

    But, I will trust Randy and Debbie for now. Clean slate here – let’s see what happens.

    I thought a rebuttal to the Feinstein article was equally as interesting, seeing as how “media” and “conflict of interest” seem to go hand-in-hand now:

    “Shocker! A John Feinstein article bashing Debbie Yow on her way out the door, on behalf of his long-time buddy, Gary Williams, who can be every bit as thin-skinned as Feinstein made Yow appear in his blog.

    It’s common knowledge among Maryland fans that Friedgen made several staff hiring mistakes over the years that cost the program dearly, and Gary failed to capitalize on recruiting after a National Championship and moving to a new arena. That was chronicled last year in the same paper that employes Mr. Feinstein.

    I think Debbie Yow has been a very respectable AD in her time at Maryland, and acknowledge that she made mistakes. I found the blog to be less than balanced. But, hey, that’s what friends are for I suppose.”

    Two sides to every story. Things tend to devolve quickly at NC State though, so I guess we’ll see …

  2. wolfonthehill 06/26/2010 at 6:16 AM #

    I love that there are targeted performance-based bonuses (and big ones) in her incentive package.

    I’m confused about what some of them are… the ACC tourney should be worth more than the ACC regular season, for example, since the regular season really just gives you the #1 seed in the ACC tourney.

    But overall, I haven’t heard anything the past two days that isn’t a MAJOR step forward for our athletics department.

  3. McCallum 06/26/2010 at 6:17 AM #

    A couple of items one should note:

    1) That little Wolf hand gesture is the dumbest thing to fly out of west Raleigh since Phil Philpott climbed the physical plant smokestack back in 1989. (RIP Phil)

    2) Notice how there was very little information leaked about where or who the university was going towards. Silence is a good thing. It tells me that someone from the top is giving out very detailed instructions on what to do and what not to do……….and to keep your yap shut.

    Hot as usually here in God forsaken Georgia. Have I told you all lately how great the Dawgs are?

    McCallum

  4. Plz2BStateFan 06/26/2010 at 11:00 AM #

    The dark clouds above the NC State Athletics Department are breaking up.

  5. 61Packer 06/26/2010 at 12:04 PM #

    I’m assuming the football bonus opportunity of $15,000 for finishing fifth or sixth is referring to the overall conference standings and not the division standings.

  6. WolftownVA81 06/26/2010 at 2:02 PM #

    Now let’s see some of those performance based metrics get pushed down to the coaches and staff. Can’t wait to see Debbie walk the walk. Count me in the impressed camp (as far as credentials, experience and first impressions go.)

  7. StateFans 06/26/2010 at 9:13 PM #

    Great entry, Derek! Lots to see & catch-up on here. Thanks for sharing

  8. StateFans 06/26/2010 at 9:22 PM #

    I think this is a good place to link this article — http://www.statefansnationforums.com/topic.php?id=2048

  9. bradleyb123 06/27/2010 at 12:42 PM #

    Good grief. Is that a press conference, or a Janet Napolitano haircut convention?

    +1

    That’s good stuff! 🙂

  10. Primewolf 06/27/2010 at 3:57 PM #

    LMAO, non seq——————

    However, love the hire. This hire bodes well for Woodson. He quickly sees the search committee has proposes a bunch of folks that haven’t been successful in Div I AD. Ol Smedes has blown it again. Talk about lack of critical thinking, the search commttee was typical NC State.

    Now, the question will be—will she get any backing from the BOT. We will need money to make some things happen. Like hire a bunch of competent proven winner coaches in the non revenue sports. that won’t take a ton of cash, but it will take some.

    Hire proven winners and lets get a winner or two in some non revenue sports. then put the moneh to those sports to build a NC calibre program.

    I guess Sid and Tom have another year or two to prove they can at least get into the upper half of the conference.

    Man, am I excited about a new AD, bad hair and all.

  11. wolfpackdawg 06/27/2010 at 5:16 PM #

    McCallum

    The Junkyard D better be back between the hedges this year dammit.

  12. Clarksa 06/27/2010 at 6:45 PM #

    “I guess Sid and Tom have another year or two to prove they can at least get into the upper half of the conference.”

    I’ll go out on a limb and say Coach Lowe gets one…and Coach TOB only gets two if we have another redunkuless amount of injuries…but I’m not so sure about that.

  13. PoppaJohn 06/27/2010 at 7:56 PM #

    Been on vacation for the last week, this is great news to come back to!!
    Woodson installing his own candidate outside the recommended pool is excellent, better than hoped for. That lessens the possibility of bringing in a good ol boy, loved by the local community but not prepared to lead a major university athletic department on a national stage.
    And to end up with someone like Yow with strong connections, but experience outside the family is great.

    Continuing this summer’s theme, more reason for cautious optimism about State.

  14. spudmarsh 06/27/2010 at 10:38 PM #

    Hopefully with her experience at Maryland, she can help return men’s (and women’s) lacrosse to NC State.

  15. BJD95 06/27/2010 at 10:39 PM #

    I think TOB had better win 7+ and make a bowl game, and Sid had better make the NCAAT. This season. I think she will want to make a statement and bring her own people in unless she sees immediate results from those two.

    It’s key to establishing a culture of accountability. Which is what we ever so desperately need.

  16. McCallum 06/27/2010 at 11:17 PM #

    wolfpackdawg,

    Color me unimpressed with Georgia. They have tons of talent and do not do a great deal with it. The defense plays stupid and if it were not for the lax SEC officials they’d be worse. They have no competition for fans in this state and they really remind me of unc. Lots of unc basketball fans down here and UGA football fans, I pity the fools.

    FYI: I’ve got season tickets on the 35 yd line scoreboard end 12 rows behind the Georgia bench. I make it a ritual to give the North Carolina boys at UGA hell for leaving NC.

    McCallum

  17. blpack 06/28/2010 at 12:22 AM #

    This looks to be a good hire, could be great. An outsider who is tough, has high expectations, performance oriented, and doesn’t mind saying what is on her mind. Could be just what the doctor ordered. I would like to see her clean house at the SIDs office on July 15, but we’ll see what happens. I believe our coaches have been served notice. Here’s to better days.

  18. packalum44 06/28/2010 at 9:44 AM #

    Love the Feinstein article. It actually made me smile because Debbie sounds like exactly what we need. Feinstein basically vented his personal grief with Debbie without once criticizing her on a substantial work related issue. He basically blasted her fro not being popular with the coaches. I assume Feinstein voted Lee as AD of the year.

    Trying to fire under-performing coaches is her job and I commend her for trying. Ralph sucks and Gary, as talented as he is at raw coaching, would piss me off as a fan because he sucks balls at recruiting which last time I checked is just as important as coaching.

  19. DFMo 06/28/2010 at 11:31 AM #

    Some more of the same talking points from my UMD alumni friend:

    I am serious, nice hire. She actually turned MD athletics around. 16 Championships in 16 years (not counting the silly competitive cheerleading) Sure, a lot of it was women’s field hockey and lacrosse, but our soccer team won two championships and men’s and women’s basketball each won one.

    She cut the Athletic Dept deficit which had gotten totally out of control. Towards the end, there were some issues between her and Gary Williams and Ralph Friedgen, but given some of their track records and lousy graduation percentages, it wasn’t totally unreasonable. Gary has since turned graduation rates around, and I think Ralph deserves one last chance.

    I think she’ll be good for you guys if they can warm up to having a female AD down there…

  20. WolftownVA81 06/28/2010 at 12:15 PM #

    DFMo, I got a similar response from my friend who is a UMD Alumni:

    WRT Yow….She has been a great AD (20 national titles in 16 years is stout and a balanced budget to boot) but I think that it is time with the issues with Gary and Ralph and NC is home for her. She is an excellent hire for NCST.

  21. BSIE80 06/28/2010 at 1:57 PM #

    Yow is a good choice.
    However, why did we have a search committee, when we did not utilize them. Nothing pisses more people off than to ask them to do something and then totally disregard their work. I think Woodson has some explaining to do! He did assembly this team didn’t he? Sounds like we wasted a significant amount of money with this diversion act….

  22. packbackr04 06/28/2010 at 2:09 PM #

    ^^”I think Woodson has some explaining to do!”

    ever think that the search committee did a crappy job? that maybe it was more of the same from west Raleigh? A little “test” by woodson to see if he could trust some of the good ole’ boys to run an objective search and come out with the right candidate (which was Yow from day one) to which they ultimately failed. Then randy had to come out and just from a PR perspective say that Yows profile made it impossible to contact her through a search firm?

  23. gotohe11carolina 06/28/2010 at 2:22 PM #

    I am happy with this hire. Too answer a question in an earlier post, no, first day is not too early to give tarrantini his walking papers. My only worry is without a strong leader at maryland, if all this conference expansion non-sense cranks back up and the big ten comes calling, will maryland take a walk to the big ten… even though the new acc deal is probably gonna be the biggest cash grab available until the economy turns around.

    oh and mccallum, seriously jealous of the tix, my wife would kill for those.

  24. Plz2BStateFan 06/28/2010 at 3:31 PM #

    It is my assertion that Woodson used the search commitee as a distraction with regards to Yow. If the commitee turned up something that was on par or better than Yow he would entertain it. Otherwise he probably had his short list ready to go. And nobody on the commitee knew about it.

    Thats how you keep a secret my friends. There is no plane tracking, no wide spread rumors, etc

    Nice Woodson….nice… The NC State internets might have to turn it up a notch. Tap his phones, track his personal GPS on his car or phone. I think we have people with those kind of resources.

  25. john of sparta 06/28/2010 at 6:52 PM #

    until we do this:
    http://www.wral.com/news/local/politics/story/7869604/
    we will not count. at least, worldwide.

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