From The Desk Of Terry Holland
August 26, 2005 | Football
Aug. 19, 2005
CIRCLE OF EXCELLENCE/HARVEY HALL
In my opinion, the Circle of Excellence Campaign was absolutely essential to any plans to move this athletic department forward. Without the practice field renovations and new functional meeting space for position meetings, our football coaching staff would be severely hampered in recruiting against some of the newer facilities of our nearby competitors as well as being severely handicapped in coaching and developing those players who chose to come to ECU.
We also need COE funding for a first-class Academic Center that will affect recruiting and graduation rates for all sports. And, the COE will provide the funding to plan our next big facility project which will need to become a reality within three to five years.
The COE project literally asks 200 donors to create a new "net" million dollars annually for these specific needs. That means we are asking less than 3% of our Pirate Club membership to add another 30% in funding for the next five years to the $3+ million that the Pirate Club provides to athletics each year for athletic scholarships.
The COE gifts are in addition to those members' current commitments to the Pirate Club. The intent was to allow the remaining 97% of the Pirate Club membership to focus on closing the almost $1.5 million gap between current scholarship costs and the $3+ million budgeted from the Pirate Club annual fund as well as expanding the membership base.
Last December, I asked the Pirate Club to allow the Circle of Excellence members to use Harvey Hall as the major reward for their commitment. At that time, I also expressed my concern that the athletic department and the Pirate Club were sponsoring functions in too many locations over too large an area, preventing us from creating a critical mass of Pirates in one location and also making it impossible for me to visit the various venues.
I asked if it would be possible to move all of those events to the Minges Plaza area to create a critical mass of Pirates and great game day atmosphere prior to kick-off. It was my feeling that if we had a great number of Pirates right outside the gates, then they might be more visible to the team members and coaches and might go into the stadium on a more timely basis.
The athletic department and Alumni Association agreed to move their events to the lower level entrances of Minges - tents outside the entrances with catering out of the concession stands by each entrance and, of course, better bathroom facilities and access to immediately available indoor space if weather becomes a problem.
However, the Pirate Club did not seem to warm up to my idea of using the upper level of Minges (there are numerous separate entrances to the upper level). I thought that we could use each of the four large concession areas to have four different types of meals available from local favorite eateries and that the corner areas of the upper level would be perfect for four cash bars overlooking the festivities outside.
The ability to use the seating area and the video boards as well as the television sets located throughout the upper level offered a lot of exciting options as far as I was concerned. This would also put the COE event and the Pirate Club event in essentially the same location, making it possible for me to spend time with both groups and to walk down a level to visit athletic department and alumni events.
The Pirate Club elected to use the Pat Draughon Lounge and the Old Pirate Club location next to the ticket office for their events this season. It is still my hope that some day we will have all events in the same location (Minges) to create a game day Pirate atmosphere second to none.
The idea that Pirates who contributed substantially to the Murphy Center would be denied access to that building is a needless worry. First and foremost, if 90+% of those same people are not able and/or willing to support the COE, this initiative will fail. And, if some percentage of those donors are unable to participate, they would certainly be guests of the Pirate Club at the COE functions in Harvey Hall. I am definitely not concerned about loyal Pirates who are proven long time donors all of a sudden becoming "freeloaders".
However, this is a separate and critically important campaign. I do not believe that gifts to previous campaigns provided donors with seating rights in Clark-LeClair Stadium nor did the fact that a Pirate Club member had loyally attended every baseball game played in prior stadiums.
I believe that our staff will do their absolute best to make things work and to recognize those who have gotten Pirate athletics to this point while making room for those who can help us get to the next level. It is a problem that every athletic department faces in this highly competitive environment and we will never be able to totally satisfy everyone's needs - but we will pledge to do our best.
TH
