Bowling Green State University Athletics
An Open Letter From Athletics Director Chris Kingston
September 23, 2015 | General, Falcon Club
Dear Friends of Falcon Athletics,
As I wrap up day 800, I am incredibly humbled to have the opportunity to lead the athletic department of Bowling Green State University. I came up with 800 reasons why I cannot wait to get to "work" everyday, but I decided not to list all of them in this letter. In a little over two years as your Director of Athletics, my focus has never wavered from the mission I brought to Bowling Green: Honor the Past, Create the Future, Make History Now! Our incredibly talented students and coaches are making history everyday for BGSU and I encourage you to visit our History Tracker to see for yourself.
Everything that we do is centered on the developmental experience of our students who have selected Bowling Green State University as the place where they will use athletics as the vehicle to earn their degree. To help us achieve at a high level, we prioritized our top sustainment needs: (1) Scholarships, (2) Facilities, (3) Coaches. The most critical aspect of our success is the recruitment and retention of the best and brightest student-athletes. Bowling Green State University is a place for winners, a University that owns a rich tradition, and a present full of promise. As we look to the future, the only limits we can put on our success would come from the limits we put on our coaches in bringing the next generation of talent to Bowling Green.
Scholarships
As you may have heard, our annual scholarship bill to support our 425+ student-athletes has risen to almost $6.4 million this year. A portion of this increased commitment is a function of the NCAA's new "Cost of Attendance" permissive legislation, passed in January, which allows all schools to provide stipends, determined by institutions under federally created guidelines, expected to generally range between $2,000 to $4,000 per full scholarship equivalency, annually. These stipends are designed to cover the cost-of-living expenses that fall outside athletic scholarships. Group of Five conferences like the Mid-American Conference (MAC) have opted to adopt this permissive legislation and we have been assessing our capability to provide these stipends since January.
The generous support of Falcon Club members helps provide the bridge to fully funding our student-athlete scholarships, including cost of attendance stipends. Here are some exciting examples of how Falcon Club members have responded to this, our number one need:
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When the 2015-16 athletics budget was submitted last spring, we made several projections that required growth, and a redirection of funding from restricted to unrestricted gifts. The budgeted growth we projected in unrestricted gifts designated towards scholarships have allowed for great things to happen for all of our sports programs in the upcoming year. For example:
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Facilities
We are focused on sustaining our current fields and facilities at a high level, while investigating the opportunities to improve. We are blessed with a number of first-class facilities, as a direct result of Falcon Club private giving. We also have a responsibility to ensure that we find ways to make the necessary capital improvements to ensure that what both the student and fan experiences on game days are second to none. Some of the improvements we need to address are simple, basic needs like the layout and accessibility of our concessions operations and our restroom facilities.
There is a real need for us to consider artificial turf for many of our outdoor surfaces that will provide better predictability and playability for both practice and competition. From baseball and softball to a practice pitch for men's and women's soccer, we are evaluating how we can provide upgrades with the dual purpose of supporting our students and providing opportunities to generate revenue while showcasing our campus to visitors.
Doyt Perry Stadium and the surrounding complex is another facility in need of some improvements and as a result of a generous, private gift, we started the process by protecting the investment we made in improving the surface of the football practice fields. A storage building on the south side will complete the enclosure of the practice fields and I hope to continue the same type of fencing in future projects.
While Doyt Perry Stadium requires some infrastructure improvements that should begin within the next 9 months, we are currently working to determine what other improvements could improve the experience. Some of those items are: an arrival plaza, improved seating in the bowl, suite and press area upgrades, updated restrooms, and concession points of sale redesign. Private giving, sponsorships and other generated revenues will be the main sources of funding for our additional facility project needs.
Coaches
I have an obligation to the students and University community to hire and retain the best coaches. The coaches whom we hire are the individuals with the day-to-day interaction with our students and my charge is to find and keep tremendous leaders for BGSU. A big part of my job is to ensure that our coaches have everything they need and a lot of what they want in order to provide an environment in which students graduate and compete at the highest levels with the goal of winning championships. Bowling Green State University is a special place where I truly believe that coaches have a tremendous impact on young men and women who want to do those two things. Our coaches are individuals of high character and integrity and I am so very proud of the impact they make everyday.
Falcon Club
In this era of collegiate athletics, we will continue to make talent acquisition, in the form of funding student-athlete scholarships at the highest level, our No. 1 departmental priority. Falcon Club members have played a critical role in allowing us to push ahead on these initiatives, and I simply thought it was time to lay out in clear terms the direct impact that unrestricted membership gifts are making. We appreciate ALL contributors to the Falcon Club, and we are thankful for the continued generous support. As we continue to press forward to fully fund all of our programs with scholarship support to the NCAA's allowable limits, focus on our facilities and work to bring / retain the best coaches to BGSU, I urge you to consider unrestricted scholarship gifts in the future, giving our student-athletes and coaches a greater chance at a successful present, as they create the future for BGSU Athletics.
Talons Up,
D. Christopher Kingston
Director of Athletics
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As I wrap up day 800, I am incredibly humbled to have the opportunity to lead the athletic department of Bowling Green State University. I came up with 800 reasons why I cannot wait to get to "work" everyday, but I decided not to list all of them in this letter. In a little over two years as your Director of Athletics, my focus has never wavered from the mission I brought to Bowling Green: Honor the Past, Create the Future, Make History Now! Our incredibly talented students and coaches are making history everyday for BGSU and I encourage you to visit our History Tracker to see for yourself.Everything that we do is centered on the developmental experience of our students who have selected Bowling Green State University as the place where they will use athletics as the vehicle to earn their degree. To help us achieve at a high level, we prioritized our top sustainment needs: (1) Scholarships, (2) Facilities, (3) Coaches. The most critical aspect of our success is the recruitment and retention of the best and brightest student-athletes. Bowling Green State University is a place for winners, a University that owns a rich tradition, and a present full of promise. As we look to the future, the only limits we can put on our success would come from the limits we put on our coaches in bringing the next generation of talent to Bowling Green.
Scholarships
As you may have heard, our annual scholarship bill to support our 425+ student-athletes has risen to almost $6.4 million this year. A portion of this increased commitment is a function of the NCAA's new "Cost of Attendance" permissive legislation, passed in January, which allows all schools to provide stipends, determined by institutions under federally created guidelines, expected to generally range between $2,000 to $4,000 per full scholarship equivalency, annually. These stipends are designed to cover the cost-of-living expenses that fall outside athletic scholarships. Group of Five conferences like the Mid-American Conference (MAC) have opted to adopt this permissive legislation and we have been assessing our capability to provide these stipends since January.
The generous support of Falcon Club members helps provide the bridge to fully funding our student-athlete scholarships, including cost of attendance stipends. Here are some exciting examples of how Falcon Club members have responded to this, our number one need:
Â
- Through the first six weeks of the current fiscal year, Falcon Club membership is up almost 14% over last year-to-date.
- More impressive, the dollars contributed to the Falcon Club have increased by more than 24% over last year-to-date.
When the 2015-16 athletics budget was submitted last spring, we made several projections that required growth, and a redirection of funding from restricted to unrestricted gifts. The budgeted growth we projected in unrestricted gifts designated towards scholarships have allowed for great things to happen for all of our sports programs in the upcoming year. For example:
Â
- We have been able to designate over $470,000 towards cost of attendance stipends
- Summer scholarship aid continues to rise to an all-time high of $160,000
- 14 programs received increases in scholarship support for the 2015-16 season
Facilities
We are focused on sustaining our current fields and facilities at a high level, while investigating the opportunities to improve. We are blessed with a number of first-class facilities, as a direct result of Falcon Club private giving. We also have a responsibility to ensure that we find ways to make the necessary capital improvements to ensure that what both the student and fan experiences on game days are second to none. Some of the improvements we need to address are simple, basic needs like the layout and accessibility of our concessions operations and our restroom facilities.
There is a real need for us to consider artificial turf for many of our outdoor surfaces that will provide better predictability and playability for both practice and competition. From baseball and softball to a practice pitch for men's and women's soccer, we are evaluating how we can provide upgrades with the dual purpose of supporting our students and providing opportunities to generate revenue while showcasing our campus to visitors.
Doyt Perry Stadium and the surrounding complex is another facility in need of some improvements and as a result of a generous, private gift, we started the process by protecting the investment we made in improving the surface of the football practice fields. A storage building on the south side will complete the enclosure of the practice fields and I hope to continue the same type of fencing in future projects.
While Doyt Perry Stadium requires some infrastructure improvements that should begin within the next 9 months, we are currently working to determine what other improvements could improve the experience. Some of those items are: an arrival plaza, improved seating in the bowl, suite and press area upgrades, updated restrooms, and concession points of sale redesign. Private giving, sponsorships and other generated revenues will be the main sources of funding for our additional facility project needs.
Coaches
I have an obligation to the students and University community to hire and retain the best coaches. The coaches whom we hire are the individuals with the day-to-day interaction with our students and my charge is to find and keep tremendous leaders for BGSU. A big part of my job is to ensure that our coaches have everything they need and a lot of what they want in order to provide an environment in which students graduate and compete at the highest levels with the goal of winning championships. Bowling Green State University is a special place where I truly believe that coaches have a tremendous impact on young men and women who want to do those two things. Our coaches are individuals of high character and integrity and I am so very proud of the impact they make everyday.
Falcon Club
In this era of collegiate athletics, we will continue to make talent acquisition, in the form of funding student-athlete scholarships at the highest level, our No. 1 departmental priority. Falcon Club members have played a critical role in allowing us to push ahead on these initiatives, and I simply thought it was time to lay out in clear terms the direct impact that unrestricted membership gifts are making. We appreciate ALL contributors to the Falcon Club, and we are thankful for the continued generous support. As we continue to press forward to fully fund all of our programs with scholarship support to the NCAA's allowable limits, focus on our facilities and work to bring / retain the best coaches to BGSU, I urge you to consider unrestricted scholarship gifts in the future, giving our student-athletes and coaches a greater chance at a successful present, as they create the future for BGSU Athletics.
Talons Up,
D. Christopher Kingston
Director of Athletics
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