UTEP AD history (Natalicio tenure)

[SisyphusMiner]

I decided as a thought experiment to go back and try to consider UTEP sports from the point of view of Natalicio as it happened and how it may have affected where we are today.  This is very long, sorry.

1988 -- Natalicio named president of UTEP
            Brad Hovious is AD.  Stull is head football coach.  Team is 10-3 and headed for a bowl game.  Haskins is basketball coach.  Hardaway is a senior, basketball is riding high.
            Natalicio thinks:  Everything is great in athletics world.  I can focus on my goal of making UTEP a premier academic institution.

1989 -- December.  Stull has left, David Lee has had a bad 1st season.  Basketball still feeling good.  Hovious reports violations in the basketball program.
            Natalicio thinks:  These don't seem so bad.  Stay focused on academics

1990 -- More football suckage.    Basketball team is still pretty good.  Rumors are spreading internally that we have multiple violations.  Natalicio is probably having to start fielding questions from worried donors.
            Natalicio thinks:  What the hell?  This is a distraction.  Hovious, get it under control

1991 -- Football continues to suck.  Basketball struggling.  NCAA announced 13 violations.  Rumors swirls about death penalty due to 1986 track violations.  Ultimately sanctions are announced.  Natalicio is dealing with this way more than she ever wanted to. 
           Natalicio thinks:  What the hell happened?  Why am I spending so much time dealing with football suckage, basketball violations, etc.?  How am I supposed to focus on academics with all this crap going on?

1992 -- Football just keeps getting worse.  Basketball doing good.  Sweet 16  yay!   Maybe we survive these sanctions, people not happy about football but as long as basketball is OK the donors aren't too cranky.   What the hell?  September rolls around.  What the hell?  Now we have people gambling on college sports in Juarez and the NCAA is investigating that?  Somewhere in here Hovious gets replace by John Thompson.
          Natalicio thinks:  This shit has to stop. I am sick of dealing with sports.  That's all anyone wants to talk about.  Hovious obviously needs to go, maybe this guy John Thompson can get this back on track so I can focus on academics.

1993 -- Thompson fires Lee.  Football sucks.  Basketball seems to be losing some ground.
         Natalicio thinks:  OK, we're not doing great, but at least things are quieting down.  Back to academics

1994, 1995 -- Football sucks.  Basketball sucks.  Haskins seems to be aging and not keeping up.  Donors probably giving Natalicio an earful.
         Natalicio thinks :  I f***ing hate sports.

1996 -- Football sucks, basketball sucks.  Haskins has a heart attack.  New allegations against the athletic department, another investigation.
         Natalicio thinks: I really F***ING hate sports

1997 -- Sanctions announced.  UTEP appeals.  Football team wins 4 games.  basketball sucks.  Somehwere in here Thompson goes away.
         Natalicio thinks:  I've gotta get someone in here that will run a squeaky clean program

1998 -- Stull is hired.  Natalicio probably tells him "Priority #1.  Squeaky clean.  Not even a hint of a scandal.  Priority #2.  Do good enough in basketball to keep the donors away.  I don't want to hear about sports except in the paper.

1999 -- Pretty quiet.  Bad year in basketball, but donors are willing to take a wait and see on Rabaeaux.  Bailey goes 5-7.  Donor are pacified.
         Natalicio thinks :  Finally I can focus 100% on academics.

2000 to 2017.    Pretty quiet.  We are aggressively mediocre in basketball, vary from mediocre to absolute suckage in football, there is not a hint of a scandal, Stull plays it safe in hiring, handles the donors.
        Natalicio thinks:  This is great.  Making progress to Tier 1, and I don't have to deal with sports anymore.  I love Stull.  BEST. AD. EVER.


Late 2017 -- Stull retires.
        Natalicio thinks:  I am THIS CLOSE to Tier 1, and then I retire.  I just need someone to babysit the athletic program until then and keep it quiet.  I need the most buttoned-down guy I can find that can schmooze the donors.  Wow, does it get any straighter than the AD from the Citadel, and even better he's a fundraiser which means he can BS the donors.  YES!  Now I tell him to make the safest, most conservative, straight shooting football coach he can find.  The only thing I care about is no scandals.

2019 -- UTEP achieves Tier 1.  Natalicio Resigns


I think this is very close to how it all went down and why the Stull years were what they were.

Now we are in the Heather Wilson era.

2019 -- AD, football head coach, basketball head coach have all been hired by previous administration.  Football coach on long-term contract, and not doing well at all.  Basketball looks promising.
Wilson thinks: ?

I don't know what she's thinking, but I'll bet two things:  1.  Whatever she is thinking, and whatever is said in private stays that way.  I bet she doesn't throw anyone under the bus publicly.  2.  I bet she's strategic.  She's not going to react emotionally.  She has probably already charted out what constitutes success, failure, milestones along the way, and is planning backup strategies to deal with them.  And demanding the same from Senter.

[BREVO]

Sounds about right!

[Chanson]

Great back tracking, Sisy.
If I may add. Both bball & football coaches will stay the coarse for now.
Terry- had nothing coming in & made the most of it with transfers. He's on the right track.
Dimel- took over a dumpster fire. Last year was about putting it out & this year he is building. I read other idiots wanting his head because he is not winning & that isn't fair. If between years 3-4 he is still not producing, it is up to Senter to have raised the money to pay him to leave.
Senter- is the best at finding $ this school has ever seen. So much he is temporarily holding the VP of Asset Mngnt for UTEP until Wilson finds someone. This guy is doing a fenominal job. Please remember, Dimel was already picked by Adouto & Stull before he got here.
Adouto- no longer is managing sports. Before Wilson got here, Senter answered to Adouto 1st. Now it's directly to Wilson. He is back to what he was hired to do and that is being head of legal for UTEP.

[SisyphusMiner]

Senter- is the best at finding $ this school has ever seen. So much he is temporarily holding the VP of Asset Mngnt for UTEP until Wilson finds someone. This guy is doing a fenominal job. Please remember, Dimel was already picked by Adouto & Stull before he got here.

Thanks for the reminder about the timeline on Dimel.

Is any information on the fundraising success by Senter available publicly?

[kyyote]

Seems reasonable to me Sis.  Wilson said the football program represents the front porch of the university.  I will think about it in literal terms.  Say the front porch of your house had been burned, it was dilapidated, run down or just a pig pen.  You would take the correct action to fix it.  You can't just clean up a burned porch, but you wouldn't replace all of the boards when all it needed was cleaning up and maybe a trip to the dumps.  I think we can assume that everyone thinks they are doing what is right.  But here's the thing.  If I am the owner how long am I going to be patient with my front porch being unusable.  At what point is it taking too damned long and when I determine that it is, what do I do?  If I reach the point that I have lost faith in the person doing the job, I either think he was wrong on how long it would take or he was just blowing smoke up my ass to begin with.  If it is either one of those, I don't wait a day longer to get them off of my property.  They can't be trusted AND they will probably screw things up worse.  Now, that the problem's problem is gone I can find a way to solve the problem.

[Chanson]

[/quote]

Thanks for the reminder about the timeline on Dimel.

Is any information on the fundraising success by Senter available publicly?
[/quote]
You would think that info is available. Heck, we can find what coaches & ADs make. Anyway, if it is available, I wouldn't know where to go.

[SisyphusMiner]

So I was able to find this on minerathleticclub.com 

1383 donors -- goal 4000 donors
$1.5M -- goal $2M by Dec 31, 2019


Obviously we ain't UT and we are never going to be, but they raised $214M in 2018.
In 2017 La Tech raised a record $1.5M
Couldn't find fundraising numbers for W Ky, but their fundraising website says they have a $6M gap in meeting scholarships, and make it up from other means including the university.
UNM says they raise about $3M per year and scholarships cost about $4.3M per year

[stanman505]

You forgot the scandal about UTEP having to forfeit the WAC tournament win over Hawaii in 1990, because Kevin Beal was declared ineligible.