Thursday, May 09, 2013

The challenge with any chat with a BC AD

Wednesday BC Alumni held a Q&A with Brad Bates. It was a great idea and holding it via Twitter was a new and welcome wrinkle. The issue with these sorts of chats is the predictability of the questions and the inability of any BC official to give candid answers. The questions are so repetitive, they have become a running joke among the most engaged BC fans. The BC Alumni Chat hosts understood that but still had to make sure that Bates did answer the men's lacrosse question or the one about tailgating. To Bates' credit, he did seem to enjoy the process (his predecessor often seemed exasperated answering questions regarding DBS or the air conditioning at Conte).

Of the most pressing issues regarding facilities Bates did reveal that a new master plan would be announced this summer. In my opinion this is most critical as it will hopefully address baseball/softball, the Plex, a football practice facility and enhancements to Alumni and Conte. Regardless of what happens on the field while he is AD, the facilities enhancements will probably be Bates' legacy. 


I  am encouraged by Bates' energy and hope he stays engaged with fans and alumni once the honeymoon is over.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I like the transparency about doing this on twitter (it's easy to search #AskBradBates to see all the questions that were asked, not just the ones that were chosen), but 140 characters can be limiting.

It would be nice if this Q&A session isn't left to drift off in the sea of tweets, but was consolidated and put on bceagles.com. That way, when they do this again, people can see what questions were already answered and we might get rid of the repetition.

we make our own movies said...

Having had the opportunity to meet him in person a few times now, I am sold that he is the right guy to improve many of the areas that we feel are lacking with Athletics, particularly those that impact the fan/alumni experience. To some extent, coaching hires will always be a crapshoot, but what became so exasperating about Gene was his stubbornness in both areas. As you said, hopefully he can maintain the upbeat attitude.

Ry said...

Why didn't anyone ask him when we'll get better pretzels at Conte and Alumni? Next time that has to be a priority.