Ask the AD: February 4, 2022

Brian Smoller (BS): "Welcome to another edition of AD, glad you could join us. Director of Athletics Gene Taylor, I'm Brian Smoller. We've got plenty of topics to get to. We last saw you in December of 21 and now here we are in February looking forward to the end of basketball, beginning of baseball and construction projects underway. We'll get into all those things."

Gene Taylor (GT): "Happy New Year, everybody."

BS: "Yeah, we really haven't been able to do that. It's good to see local numbers starting to go down as far as illness and hopefully people are staying safe and staying warm out there. Let's start with construction because even despite frigid temperatures and snowstorms and ice and all that, everyone's going like gangbusters out there when it comes to football and volleyball and the Olympic Training Center."

GT: "Yes, Brian, appreciate that. It's really exciting to see it starting to unfold. There's a lot of groundwork being done. You're not gonna see anything being erected in the air yet, but there's a lot of underground work that had to be completed but right now things are going well. Obviously the indoor football facility will be completed next October of 2022, and the volleyball Olympic Training Center will be in June of 23, but driving by it is always exciting to see construction going on."

BS: "And on Kimball before too long also, we'll see the next phase of the North End Corridor also coming along the line. This project, obviously the football indoor, it has a lot of people concerned about parking. So I guess for the most people seem to have been updated at least on what the plans are."

GT: "Our Ahearn Fund staff has really done a tremendous job of working through it, talking to folks on the east side, kind of getting their sense of what they would like to see happen. There have been letters that have been mailed out. There's been a few folks on the west side that'll be impacted, but not as many on the east side. But the folks on the east side should be getting letters to explain to them how to go about getting a different parking spot. I will say that anybody who's currently in a reserved spot on the east side will still have a reserved spot on the side. We have captured what was known as lot nine was kind of the general admission lot that is now a reserve lot that we're going to be able to capture and pick up a lot of those spaces that we're losing and then some additional parking as well. So all that should be hitting the mail if they haven't already. They should get it this week. If they have questions, certainly talk to the Ahearn Fund staff, but everybody who currently has a reserved spot will have a reserved spot on the East side."

BS: "It's important to remember and anybody that's traveled around the Big 12 around the country to other games, you look and see K-State's parking situation. It's hard sometimes. We're here, we see it all the time, but boy, it's far and away better than almost everybody else."

GT: "It really is. And I've been fortunate, we all have been, to go to a lot of different stadiums and you go to West Virginia and you see people parking on the side of the street miles away and they're walking in. So not only the parking that we have here right next to Bill Snyder Family Stadium, but the additional lots that we have around are still a very, very close proximity. That's a good thing."

BS: "All right, let's transition out of this and get to our first fan question of the day. He's asking about what you're wearing today, the gray pullovers that Bruce Weber and Jeff Mittie have been wearing and also an apparel question about the baseball jerseys that can be purchased this year. So the item that you're wearing, how is that available?"

GT: "What's great about our fan base is they see what our coaches and our teams are wearing, they want it immediately from a retail perspective and we have great retailers that work with us all the time and we try to predict which are going to be hot items and which aren't. But in the retail world they have to order so many pieces that they want to be cautious to make sure it is going to be a hot item before they go out and order in bulk and all of a sudden they have a bunch of items that aren't good sellers. Some of the things like jerseys are really expensive. So they have to manage that very, very closely from a retail perspective, but we work with them on a regular basis to say hey, here's an item our fans are requesting. And then they start to look at that and hopefully they'll get out on the retail market at some point but I can't say that everything you see that's being worn is going to be retail but we work with them as much as we can to get as much out there."

BS: "That's right and I should mention that the lavender stuff which has been immensely popular here the last year or two there was one note passed along from our folks and on the fan experience and marketing side that there was quite a backlog because those were specially made in Asia and as you know, with COVID and shipping and all those sorts of things that Nike's a little bit backed up so they're going to get those. Just keep checking retailers for more information and we'll see. This kind of ties into another question that comes up quite a bit that we were emailed about and that's football uniforms. People want to know are we ever going to get different football uniforms? I'm a lover of the old traditional standard. I know you are as well but what can you tell us there?"

GT: "Yeah, I think our equipment staff continues to talk to coach and see what's out there that they like. We changed things his first couple years. This year we were very traditional in what we wore almost every game. We wore traditional uniforms, but I do think there's a willingness. It's just again, it's a matter of finding the right look, what's coach feel comfortable with? What does the team feel comfortable with? That's about a two year cycle. By the time you figure out what you want by the time you get it in production and get it here because you're ordering, you know 100-plus, more than that because you have multiple numbers, but our equipment staff has been working. I don't know what they've come up with. Hopefully we'll see something soon."

BS: "I think the concern that gets mentioned, a lot of people think that gives us a step down in recruiting. It doesn't seem like that's the case for Chris and his staff."

GT: "I have not heard that it's an issue. We do have a lot of things that we offer in terms of our facilities and all the great things. I don't know that uniform is at the top of a recruits list. I think it's kind of a cool thing that they come here that they get to be a part of but I don't think it's something that's number one on their list in terms of why they come to K-State."

BS: "We'll get into what could also be factoring into recruiting and NIL in a moment, but first let's go to another question that's a little bit more lighthearted. What's the likelihood of having a first ever boxing event or match at Kansas State University and along with that outside events held at K-State facilities? How much do you look at those sorts of things?"

GT: "I think one of the things we're talking about with the Volleyball Olympic Training Center, the volleyball venue, is an eSports opportunity and make sure we talk to architects that we have the infrastructure that if we wanted to host eSports events, big events is something we would look at. Other maybe smaller concert venues, who knows? Maybe a boxing opportunity. When I was at the Naval Academy, we had a brigade boxing that was phenomenal. It was absolutely one of the best things that they were obviously trained in that combat, but I don't know. I think that the volleyball venue gives us another arena of a smaller version to maybe host some different events and we'll look at all that and that's certainly things we've talked about as we designed it as other things besides volleyball knowing that that's the number one priority, make sure we don't take anything away from our student athletes."

BS: "Alright, so speaking of student athletes, NIL, it's a hot button issue in college athletics right now. One of the discussion points here recently has been around guardrails, should there be guardrails in place for NIL and the collectives that people want to form? I'm sure there's K-Staters that want to form a collective which is kind of a resource for kids who are with NIL. What's your thoughts?"

GT: "Well, I have a lot of thoughts. I actually just got off a phone call this morning with our ADs and presidents. And that was one of the main topics was it's very much the Wild Wild West in terms of what's going on in the Name, Image and Likeness space. And that being said, I do wish we would have put guard rails around from the very beginning. We didn't and so can we get it back in the box in some areas? Also, one of the things we do have is we have donors and friends of our program that want to help. They understand that they also want to do it the right way. We had a great meeting with our national leadership circle donors. We had a panel that we put together and we talked about collectives, we talked about how to do it the right way. That it can be a recruiting inducement, but what are ways that we can set up opportunities for athletes that know if they come here, there will be name image and likeness opportunities for them. And that's what we're working on right now. And so we need to be in the name, image, and likeness space. Our coaches want us to be. Our athletes come here and it's a benefit. We already have athletes that are benefiting from it in really positive ways. And we just need to make sure we help our donors and folks that want to help us make sure they do it the right way. And that's what we're working on."

BS: "I think most K-State fans will appreciate that and being able to do the process as mindful of what rules there are in place as there can be. Alright, you mentioned talking with ADs and presidents across the league. What can you update us about the Big 12l? There's a lot of conversation about new schools coming in when they get here."

GT: "Yeah, so we pretty much believe that everybody, the new members are gonna be in the 23-24 season. So we'll have 14 schools 23-24 and 24-25 and then we'll go back to 12. So right now we're working on the various scheduling options. In football we will do divisional play. We don't know what those divisions will look like yet because to host a championship you have to have more than 10 teams. You have to do divisions. We have some folks working on the basketball schedules and how many games and all that. We think right now we're focused on nine conference games in football, I think 18 in the two basketballs, and so we're just really starting to have those conversations. We're getting a little deeper as to what that looks like. Our goal is to present this as an AD group to each other to vote on in ourf March meetings or talk about in March meetings and vote on final approval of those divisions in May. But it has been talked about and that's kind of the plan right now."

BS: "Last thing on that. You mentioned nine conference games. There are some conversations in other leagues about reducing conference games down to eight. Do you keep an eye on what happens with other leagues and that mindset or does it not matter?"

GT: "No, it's very much a part of the conversation as what are the other schools or the conferences doing? For us, we have a great situation where we played nine. We have the 10th game being a Power Five non-conference opponent, and we like that makeup right now. If teams go to eight, that could open up some opportunities for other teams. But if the PAC 12 And the Big Ten and the ACC make this alliance, then there are going to be fewer teams to be able to find those games. So we have to consider all that when we talk about it."

Kansas State University Athletics

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