Senter

[kyyote]

From UTEP;

Jim Senter was named UTEP?s Director of Athletics on Nov. 22, 2017 and currently serves as Vice President and Director of Athletics.

To say that Senter has been busy since arriving in the Sun City would be quite the understatement.  He has hired head coaches for football (Dana Dimel), men?s basketball (Joe Golding), men's golf (Aaron Puetz), women's golf (Steve Sims), rifle (Andrea Palafox), soccer (Gibbs Keeton), softball (T.J. Hubbard) and volleyball (Ben Wallis).  With a firm belief that ?Every Person Makes a Difference,? Senter has engaged Miner supporters far and wide.  He organized a series of Town Hall meetings across El Paso, and established UTEP?s first-ever Fan Council.  He ushered in sweeping changes to the iconic Sun Bowl Stadium, with the addition of indoor and outdoor club seating, loge boxes, suites, the GECU Terrace, Hunt Family Sky Lounge and Paul and Alejandra Foster Tower.  He also orchestrated the addition of UTEP's 17th Division I sport, beach volleyball, which is scheduled to start competing in the spring of 2023.

On the field, highlights from the Senter era have included the football team earning its first bowl appearance in seven years, volleyball reaching postseason play for the first time ever, women?s cross country capturing its first conference championship, and women?s track and field winning the Conference USA Indoor title.  In 2022, a school-record 207 UTEP student-athletes made the Conference USA Commissioner?s Academic Honor Roll (minimum 3.0 GPA), and 65 Miners were recipients of C-USA Academic Medals (minimum 3.75 GPA).


So, he is responsible for Dimel and Golding.  All others are somewhat irrelevant.   He has made improvements to the rich folk's comfort at the Sun Bowl.  And, he is adding BEACH VOLLEYBALL!

He was hired in Novmber of 2017;

I didn't put Kugler's losses on him or Price's.  Dimel was 30-39 before UTEP as a head coach.  He won 43% of those games. At UTEP he is 47-74 a 37% winning percentage.  His overall record is 77-118 a 39% winning percentage.  That tells you that in a 12 game season he is going to win 4 maybe 5 games.  Who wants to look at our schedule for next year and pick our 4 or 5 wins?  Folks, if we expect 9 win seasons from a 4 win coach you have to ask who is the dumb ones. 

In Price's last season, he averaged 30 thousand in attendance.  Attendance since Senter;
2017  20k
18      14k
19      17k
20 covid
21       17k
22       19 (46k for the UNT game, averaged 12 for the rest of the games.

So, since Price averaged 30 thousand his last season, his worst season.  We are now at about half of that.  Let's just use some conservative numbers.  Say 10,000 tickets at a cheap $10.  That is $100,000 for 6 home games.  In football Senter has sat and watched, no, that is wrong.  He was busy making the dwindling fans more comfortable in watching to losing.  But the point is $600,000 a year for five years is 3 million dollars-LOST 

In 2015-16, Floyd averaged 7.3k attendance. 
Senter 2017
bb attendance;
17    6k
18    4.7
19    5.3
20 covid
21 couldn't find
22    4.7

Let's just say that since Senter attendance averages about 5 thousand(and just by watching the games I question that) and let's say UTEP was averaging 7k.  That is a 2 thousand ticket drop.  Two thousand times $10 is 20 thousand bucks times 18 home games would equal $360,000.  Times 5 years equals $1.8 million.

So, Senter has watched UTEP lose 5 million dollars in sports revenue.

And by the way, his is not only the AD, he is also the school's Vice Pesident!

But the rich folks are more comfy and we will be playing beach volleyball now!  Such a deal. 

[MinerInWisconsin]

Just some clarification about the vice president thing. A number of AD's are now called VP for athletics. UTEP has a number of VP's for various tasks and Senter is a VP in name only.

[kyyote]

Thanks for the clarification.

[kyyote]

from an interview 2019

?We work every day trying to change the culture, and what I mean by that is telling people we can win here, we will win here, we expect to win here, we are worthy of winning here, but we have to do all the things that are within our power to make sure we do.?

Senter explains that if you haven?t won someplace in a while, people tend to start dwelling on all the reasons why they can?t win.

?We?ve got to get more and more people on our team, our staff, our coaching teams, our university system to believe we are worthy of winning.?

In addition to culture, Senter knows that revenue must come into focus. He says they need to drive revenue back to the institutions so they can do the things that allow UTEP to be competitive and successful.

?The pouring rights and multimedia deals are a part of it, but what it comes down to is selling tickets, attendance, and development and fundraising. We want people to be invested with us. Instead of just being fans, they are stakeholders in our success.?

Who in the fuck thinks we aren't worthy of winning!  How about firing their ass!  How many of you think UTEP isn't worthy of winning?  What the fuck planet is he on and what the fuck is he talking about?  Worthy!?

So, I am glad that he recognizes that revenue and success and competitiveness are linked.  "...but what it comes down to is selling tickets, attendance..." 

You know what drives attendance? Fun.  Is it fun to win?   Yes.  I can make people downright giddy.  Is losing fun?  No!  It makes people cranky as fuck!  There are no guarantees of wins, and therein lies the excitement of the challenge.  But when fans know that the outcome is in little doubt that they will be left cranky and saddened, only the people who no longer care about winning or losing and the people who like being cranky are left.

Senter has watched 5 million lost to the West Texas wind, and has been in control of our latest being ditched by teams leaving us in a skeleton of a conference.  It may end up being alright, but it will be luck and not Senter's strategic thinking and moving us into our best position.

Dimel is 17-40 a 30% winning percentage.  If you want to blame his first two seasons of 1-11 football on Kugler, Dimel is 15-18 for a winning percentage of 45%.  I believe UTEP is right around 40% since 1956.  Our kind of guy.  Price ended up with a 44% winning record at UTEP.  And was fired for not winning enough. 
So, Dimel has had plenty of time to see what he has with Dimel.  He seems to be fine with winning a few games and watching the UTEP football fans fading like cheap paint in the El Paso sun.  All while sitting in the newly comfortable donor seating.

For basketball, if you watch the games you know that we are now playing in a newly empty Don.  The reported average of 5k would be almost half of the Don would be full.  Watching the games, the lower section at mid-court on one side is about half full and there is a sprinkling of maybe a hundred or so on the bench side.  Nearly empty.  They got to watch the Miners win ten games and lose 6 so far this season.  Haskins used to say, win all of your home games and half of the road games.  His formula.  We are ten and three on the road.

Since Senter, not including the Floyd bail, 65 wins and 78 losses(45%).  Since 2005-06 until and including Floyd's bail year we were 251 and 176(55%)

In 2015-16, the year before Senter UTEP was 58th natinally in bb attendance.

"In UTEP?s 16 homes games, the Miners drew 135,322 fans good for an average of 8,458, ahead of schools like California, Missouri, Oklahoma State, Notre Dame, and UCLA."

I don't know if Senter is killing UTEP basketball or just watching it die.

But, we will have beach volleyball.

I know.  I know.  I'm bitching.  Sorry, but so far I am not impressed with Senter.  The Joe Golding hire was just plain stupid.  Go look at Golding's record.  Senter hired him off of one game.  And Joe Golding is a fine man.  No problem.  But his coaching record had absolutely nothing to hire him and pay him what he is making.  He won with Terry's players and then had a clean slate to put together his team and it is well below .500.  It is crazy out there what with the portal and all, but it was exactly the same for everyone else.  I don't know, can we even qualify to play in the conference tournament?

Again.  Sorry for the negativity, but I have watched UTEP football fighting to not be the worst team in college football for decades, but at least had a basketball team.  In the last few years I have watched UTEP basketball dwindle down to almost nothing.  And Senter is bringing beach volleyball.  It isn't just winning and losing.  It is the being fine with it that drives me nuts!  It is giving losing coaches extensions like we have to worry that someone was going to sweep in and steal Dimel or Terry, or Golding.  I am so tired of us playing the we are too poor to compete card.  That is flat out bullshit!  We can't afford to pay a good coach because we are too busy losing fans with our losing coaches.  I don't have the answers, but my opinion is that Senter doesn't either, and he is supposed to.  Beach fucking volleyball!  Because being in the middle of one of the largest beaches in the world without water we have enormous interest in that sport!

Senter D
Dimel C- (I'm an easy grader)
Golding D  this reflects the place we hold in the conference.  The only rson it isn't a failing grade is because of the effort shown)

[MinerInWisconsin]

I don't blame you or any other Miner fan for complaining. Apparently the UTEP Prez likes him but she may be the only one. I admit that when Senter was hired I thought his ideas about ticket sales, etc would really help. I was shocked when Dimels 1st game only had 14k. Why in the world Senter didn't hire an up and coming coach from fcs or div 2 that coached an exciting offense that would sell tickets, I'll never know. If Dimel has another lack luster season but isn't fired then I guess we're just screwed as a fanbase.

Same for Golding. If he doesn't produce a good quality, winning team in year 3 then he should be gone as well and Senter should be gone with him. Lot's of Miner fans wanted Golding but you're right, his overall record was poor.

Why does it have to be so damn hard to be a Miner fan?

With all that said, I want UTEP to win big in mbb and fb next year. Not realistic, I know.

[kyyote]

I counted the people in sections. I doubled what I counted and totaled buy section.  Then I doubled it again. The total was still under a thousand. I don?t care what they say. People may have season tickets but the butts in seats are what I saw. We generate money from concessions. It was around 35k per game in one report. Gone. Fans. Gone.
Look at the football schedule. I can see where 2 wins is not a crazy outlook. We could win more. Would you bet you house on it?  Not me. We have to hope that we are better than lower division teams and that is real iffy. Let?s look at it another way. Does anyone think we will compete for the championship in this new version of cusa?
What about basketball?  Is this year?s team going to win the championship next year?  Not likely. So before we start we are just putting teams out to play games just to go through the motions.
That?s on Senter!  And it is draining the revenue down to nothing. Senter and Wilson are killing UTEP athletics and they would have a hard time doing a better job if they were trying.