When he was hired as director of intercollegiate athletics in November, Tom Collins said he was ready to take Ball State University athletics to the next level. He stayed true to his world, already firing two coaches in his five months at Ball State. In an interview conducted last week, Collins talks about subjects ranging from the new coaches, priority seating for men's basketball and the football stadium renovation.
What's been the most difficult aspect of making the transition here from Arizona State?
Probably just to have patience to make sure and understand and get a full range of what the issues are here so we can put a plan together and go after those things. As I meet with the staff, we'll start to draft our plan for next year, raise some more resources so we can help our coaches and our student athletes. And to competitively compete in the MAC in all of the sports that we're sponsoring.-á
What you've been known for so far is hiring Ronny Thompson. He's been here for about three months now. What are your impressions of him since he has come to Muncie?
Ronny has done a great job of hiring a basketball staff. He took his time and looked at people he thought could complement him and could help him in areas he might be deficient or not an expert in. I think they hit the ground running trying to do the recruiting. They've done a marvelous job of getting the existing kids back in line, getting them working out and getting them headed in the right direction. I think Ronny knows what the expectations are, and he's still learning the Ball State culture and some of the systems we have. And you try to get them all on the same page so they know what we're doing here, but they're working extremely hard and I think people will be impressed with Ronny. I think he's worked very hard to get to this position. Ronny's a new head coach; he's going to make a mistake or two along the way. The thing with Ronny is that he's willing to learn and listen to people. I get excited every time I sit down and meet with him. I think he's got a pretty good view of where he's at and where he's going.-á
What's your biggest highlight since you got here?
The baseball team getting into postseason for the first time since 1969 and beating [University of] Kentucky. Also, I think getting the PASS plan through and starting to do that. I think the other things are just a lot of small things that we're trying to do. I'm hoping that Brady [Hoke] has a really good fall. I think he has had a good spring; I think he felt really good about that. There are a lot of things that are in motion here, and we need to start off the fall very positively, both from a football and volleyball perspective.-á
How great was it to see the baseball team perform at a high level like that?
The game against Kentucky was a great college baseball game. I have been around some good college baseball games. That's as good as any one I've been around - to be in a hostile environment and win that game. We had a chance even in that third game. If you get another guy to rack a single, we're either tied or ahead. Now the thing is, take that effort and hopefully the young kids will all learn from that and figure out what they've got to do for next year. That's the thing that I would notice from a baseball perspective. There are very few teams that win the regional the first time they got there. It's almost like they got to learn how to take a step every time; that's part of the process. But I think Greg Beals and the staff did a great job and got everybody excited. We had a nice crowd-ádown there.-á
When are the final plans for the stadium project going to be unveiled?
Pretty quick here. There's one more hurdle to go through from a governmental checkpoint. They're getting ready to try and bid that project out here in the next month. I think it's going to be pretty exciting. We'll unveil the plans as soon as they're finalized and we get things out.-á
There's been some talk about changes made in the plans, specifically the north end zone. I think the original plans said there were seats there, now it's going be a hill.-áSo what's going on there?
It's a little bit more complicated than that. It all involves the Americans with Disabilities Act. You have to make the whole stadium accessible from one side to another. I think the original plans called for four to eight rows of seats in the north end zone. And now I think there's going be a grass seating berm, and behind that there's going to be an area where people can go in a wheelchair from one side, of the stadium to the other side and there's going to be some tent areas that will be back there. I still think there's going to be some seating. I don't think we precluded ourselves in the future from coming in and bringing end zone seats; I think what everybody thought was we've already got enough end zone seats we don't need any more additional end zone seats. So I think that was one of the things we were looking at in the plans was trying to stretch the dollar as far as we can and make sure we're getting the best bang for our buck.-á
Field turf, is still that in the plans?
That won't happen until after the football season. There's a little bit of infrastructure work that will have to be done. I guess my hope would be that we'll put the field turf in before Brady [Hoke] has spring ball next year.
The work on the hill in the north end zone, are they making the hill now? Will it be done before football season?
It won't be done before the football season. My understanding is that they were doing the McKinley [construction] project and they were cleaning out the Duck Pond and building a second Duck Pond. All they're doing is shaping [the north end zone] over there so when the contractor gets over there, he's got a little bit of a heads up, and I think that was the university's way to get rid of the dirt instead of shipping the dirt somewhere else. Obviously, you don't have to pay to pull it just down the road.-á
Will we see any other facility changes in the near future?-á
We've been talking about that. The thing I want to do is make sure we get all of our facility needs down in writing and prioritize those. I think there are things that we're looking at in Worthen Arena. We're looking at upgrading the sound system in there, and we need to look at the scoreboards. We need to look at baseball, and we need to look at softball. I've got to work hard trying to match donors up to some of those things and start to go after those things and see if we can start picking them off one at a time.-á
You've made two changes already in the coaching ranks. You let go of Tim Buckley in men's basketball and Terri Laux in softball. What were the factors there that led to you deciding to make that change?
I think that it wasn't one single factor. It was a group of things I looked at over the course of the two months I was here-¡ - where the program was, where it needed to go, whether or not Tim could provide that leadership, whether or not he could get to where I felt we needed to get to. Ultimately, at the end of the day, I just felt like we needed to make a change in leadership and try something different, and I would say the same thing about Terri. You take the body of their work and see where they're at, where they're going. You got to ask yourself, "Are they the ones that can get you to where you want to be?" Because in softball, there's no reason to believe that we can't compete in the MAC and get to postseason play. A lot of those teams that get to the College World Series, they only got one girl that pitches them all the way through. I'm not going to sit here and tell you we can go out and get the no. 1 pitcher in America and have her come to Ball State. But what it tells you that it doesn't take nine of them. You get one pitcher and all of the sudden, you can dominate. As I looked at everything, I just felt like those were the two sports we needed to make leadership changes in. I want us to be competitive in the MAC. I think that's important. There's a reason we keep score, and that's part of it. There's a reason there's a sports page, and people read it.-á
How's the search for a new softball coach coming along?-á
There has been a lot of interest in it. I think that's one of those things where we are just trying to make sure we comb the nation, we comb the area and we get the very best people. We have a great, diverse pool of candidates. There seems to be an awful lot of interest in that job.-áI've gotten an number of e-mails locally, within the state and outside the state. I think women's softball is a really healthy sport nationally. I think a lot of teams have done very well. I'd say in the last 10 to 15 years a lot of conferences have really put an emphasis on that sport.
The PAC-10 is one of the most dominant softball conferences in the nation. Are you going to use your PAC-10 ties to get an assistant from one of those power schools like Oregon State, UCLA or Arizona?
I don't know if I could attract the no. 1 assistant, but obviously I have got some contacts out there. We'll talk to those people, and they'll tell me who can coach and who can recruit. I think that's the two things. To recruit kids who can come here and be successful but also being able to be a teacher. We're not going to get the best kids in America. We need to figure out how you develop that talent at that next level. I think softball is no different than football or men's basketball: you've got to have a really good strategy. -á
In your very first press conference, you said "I think Ball State is ready to explode." What have you done up to this point to ensure this is going to happen? What specific things do you have on your mind?
I think I just try and do a little bit more prior planning so we're ready for stuff. Football, I think we got four of our first five games at home at night. We're planning on having success. We're planning on students coming out. We're working to make sure we reach the students when they get here. That's the type of stuff I think you've got to plan on it now. Hopefully, we can get the football team off to a good start. Once that happens, I think that's a natural effect. You win a couple football games and everyone wants to jump on-board.
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