buckley wrote the article before the presser yesterday:
https://theathletic.com/1861478/2020/06 ... n-college/Buckley: Here’s some advice for the new AD at Boston College. He’ll need it
By Steve Buckley 3h ago 7
Boston College held a video press conference Monday to introduce Patrick Kraft as its new director of athletics. My three takeaways are as follows:
1. Nobody cares about Boston College athletics.
2. Nobody cares that Kraft, formerly the AD at Temple, has landed his “dream” job.
3. Nobody cares about Boston College athletics.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s extend a great, big Boston welcome to Pat Kraft! Here’s hoping your transition from Philly to Boston is smooth and problem-free — no easy task during these troubled times. You’ll find Boston to be a friendly, exciting, vibrant city, and in that spirit please know that we are all at your service.
The man certainly brings some stellar credentials to his new job. BC’s president, the Rev. William Leahy, spoke of Kraft’s “personal integrity,” praising his new AD for his focus on academic excellence. Kraft, 43, is a Chicago native who played football at Indiana, where he later earned a doctorate in sports management. He was associate AD at Loyola University in Chicago, and he took over the Temple athletic program in 2015.
He comes across as a sturdy, blue-collar guy, such as when he said, “For those of you don’t know me I’ll give you the CliffsNotes version. I’m a Chicago kid who grew up in a Catholic family. I’m full of passion and enthusiasm for school and sports.”
And he can be believed when he says, and he said it several times Monday, that the welfare of his student-athletes trumps all.
“I never forget — never — why I do what I do,” he said. “Simply put, the student-athletes. Period. They’re at the center of every single decision I make. I always will ask, ‘Will this benefit the student-athlete? Will this give them a better experience? Will this help them in life, and everything that comes their way?’”
What’s not to like about this guy?
Nothing … as long as he remembers the following:
1. Nobody cares about Boston College athletics.
2. Nobody cares that Kraft, formerly the AD at Temple, has landed his “dream” job.
3. Nobody cares about Boston College athletics.
(And we’ll pause here for a moment while diehard Boston College fans collect themselves.)
Pause.
Everybody OK? Good. Let’s get to work. We’ll begin here: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, there are plenty of people who have tremendous respect and admiration for the BC athletic program. And guess what: I’m one of them. I speak as a 1978 UMass grad who in late December 1984 flew to Dallas and on Jan. 1, 1985, paid my way into the Cotton Bowl and then froze my nose off while watching Doug Flutie and his Eagles teammates emerge with a 45-28 victory over Houston. No way did I want to go through life never having seen Flutie play a college football game.
So when I say “nobody cares about Boston College athletics,” please consider it a vitally necessary tough-love stance. Let’s be honest: BC athletics isn’t much of a talker these days, and it hasn’t been for a while. We get spurts here and there, such as Matt Ryan emerging as a top college quarterback during the first decade of this century, followed by several stellar seasons from future seven-time Pro Bowl linebacker Luke Kuechly. The men’s hockey team has produced a busload of NHL players, which reminds me of the time I interviewed a skinny kid named Johnny Gaudreau and then asked Eagles coach Jerry York, “Aren’t you worried he’ll get pushed around in the NHL?” To which York replied, “They’ll have to catch him first.” For the most part, they haven’t.
Kraft spoke enthusiastically about Boston College, but he didn’t acknowledge the obvious, which is that interest in the school’s athletic program is pretty much limited to parents and alums once you get a quarter-mile off campus. And judging from the snarky comments I get from my own friends who are BC graduates, even the alumni support is suspect.
Most of what Kraft said Monday was boilerplate, and one could practically hear “For Boston” humming in the background as he spoke: “We will outwork every program in the country and it will start with me, and it will go all there way down to the interns and student-athletes and the (graduate assistants) and everybody in this department. We will be champions, and we will not allow excuses to get in our way. We will represent BC with pride. We will compete in everything we do. We will strive for excellence at all times. It is our time, Boston College.”
And, yes, inevitably, Kraft said something that practically every new BC athletics hire says.
“This was really a dream job for me,” he said.
Or, as I like to put it, he Addazio’d.
Emma Healy, the sports editor of BC’s student newspaper, The Heights, posed one of the most important questions of the day. After Kraft spoke of “the Boston College family,” Healy wanted to know what he planned to do about “building on and expanding” that family.
“I think it’s constant engagement,” Kraft said. “We have to communicate … it comes from coaches to all staff members. We have to engage. This is a very passionate alumni base. The students are very passionate … and I will tell you this, the students are going to drive the energy and the excitement. Students are so critical to that. There’s such a critical piece of the, of the whole operation.”
But the students can’t lure thousands of sports fans from around New England to attend BC sporting events, as once was the norm. And it won’t change the fact that Boston is … wait for it, wait for it … a pro sports town.
To his credit, Kraft channeled his time working in Philly in responding to that question.
“Look, I’m in Philadelphia and it’s very similar,” he said. “It’s Eagles all the time.”
(He was referring to the Eagles who beat the Malcolm Butler-less Patriots in Super Bowl LII, of course, not the Boston College Eagles.)
Kraft sees Boston’s pro sports dominance this century — six championships by the Patriots, four by the Red Sox, one each by the Celtics and Bruins — as “a real positive. You all know sports, you appreciate sports. And so winning doesn’t cure all, but winning does help.”
Kraft’s rising-tides-lift-all-boats outlook seems fine, except for the fact that a lot of people, alums included, do not believe BC can win in the ACC.
Kraft doesn’t see it that way.
“Do I think we can compete in the ACC? There’s no doubt,” he said. “We’ve got to roll our sleeves up, we’ve got to grind. We gotta go compete. So I look at this, I mean I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t think there was an incredible opportunity and incredible chance to go win championships and compete at the highest level.”
But, Kraft conceded, “There is no magic bullet. It’s not just like we’re all of a sudden going to flip the switch.”
Rather than just saying it, here’s hoping he also believes it.
Even more importantly, he needs to know this: Nobody cares about Boston College athletics. He needs to write it in his day planner. He needs to sing it in the shower. I’ll stop short of saying he needs to tattoo it on his forearm, but maybe he could make a little sign and put it on his desk, which is where President Truman famously kept his “The Buck Stops Here” sign.
It’s good that Pat Kraft knows where he wants to take Boston College athletics. But he also needs to know where the departure gate is.