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Source: Greeley Tribune, Colo.迷你倉Jan. 21--University of Northern Colorado athletic director Darren Dunn has been on the job less than a month, but a CT scan would show that his brain is already chock full of numbers, meeting times, meeting numbers, personnel information, spread sheets, schedules ... yada, yada, yada.Dunn, who came to UNC from the University of Houston where he was the Deputy Athletics Director in charge of athletic communications, development, marketing and promotions, isn't yet running around like a chicken with its head cut off, but the guy's day-timer is overflowing.So far, he's been smart enough to put up a caution light when discussing some issues, but also translates his ideas and opinions with ease.The following is a short session he agreed to while sharing his first impressions and more.Q -- Have there been any items or issues that have thrown up a red flag?A -- I would say things that jumped out at me ... Do we have enough people involved? I'm primarily talking about fan support. Do we have enough people, donors, sponsors? To me that's a concern, no question. For us to be great, we're going to have to engage more people. We have to do a better job working with the student body.I'm not sure if that's marketing or if we need to make that a priority. We need to spend more time getting to know the student leaders, student government. They're important to our environment.I think our environment is stale. I think that's something that I'm worried about, thinking about. The student body is a big part of that. To me, our fan base feeds off of our student body.Q -- What else caught your attention right away?A -- Customer focus. They all tie together. Are we really focused that when a fan wants to come to our football game, so we make it easy for them? Do we entertain them while they're here? It is easy to buy tickets? My concern is with all of those things. Are we doing everything we can to make it easy on our customers to come see our events? I'm not sure we're completely customer focused. I'm still learning, but those things jump out at me. I'm sure we want to get better in a lot of areas.Q -- What's your early impression of UNC fans?A -- We've got great fans. Those who support us whether we win or lose. Whether we do a great job or a bad job with customer service. That's great. We need more of them. We need to get better at other things to make them want to come.Q -- Any aspect of UNC athletics that made you say 'Wow, that's pretty top shelf.' Something that allowed you to think you didn't need to worry about it for awhile.A -- I'm the kind of person, no matter if you're getting an A+ in anything, I'm going to set the bar higher. A lot of our coaches are doing a great job. Can they get better? If you ask them, they all think they can get better. We're going to have goals and strategies that make us better.Q -- Fundraising. In terms of dollars, money talks and without it you have nothing. Is that an area where you want to set a higher goal?A -- We have great people who handle our fundraising. It's all centralized out of the advancement office. I think athletics has to do a better job of getting involved in fundraising. Our coaches and staff want to do it. We have to engage them and get them out in the community more.Q -- Does the school the size of UNC need one or two sugar daddy's so to speak? Somebody who's way above the norm? Does this school lack that?A -- I don't think so. There's a lot of people who have been extremely philanthropic. Extremely philanthropic. Do we lack that? Not at all. Do we need more of them? Absolutely.Q -- Do you take a beating-the-bushes approach to find those people?A -- I think so. I think we have to get out of our offices. That's my job. It's our coaches jobs to coach and recruit, but in a small town or community we need them involved and our staff will embrace that. Our staff needs to get out of the office more.If I'm in my office, I'm not doing my job.Q -- You've publicly stated that there's a good coaching staff on board for all the sports. Are you more than comfortable with who you have in these offices?A -- In a lot of conversations ... we have a pretty darn good staff. They work hard, they recruit hard. The part that's important to me is that they care about the success of the student-athlete. They want to win, no question. But we're more focused than I've ever seen to see that they're academically prepared and socially prepared. All of those things, people don't look at but that's important to me. I believe (our coaches) care about the student-athlete experience.Q -- Is it safe to say that no coach here is on the hot seat?A -- I don't have a hot seat, per se. I'm evaluating everybody. I'm evaluating every person up and down this hallway, every day. I think we have a good sta自存倉f right now. Can they get better? Absolutely. They work hard, but we all need to get better."Q -- Are there enough resources to take the first step to get better?A -- There isn't one person in the country, athletically, that thinks they have enough resources. Absolutely, we could use more resources. We have to do more on our end. We have to go out meeting people and get them involved. We have to give them a product that makes them be excited to be a part of. We have to do the little things to get them to come to our events.There's a lot of options in this state. We have to make our events attractive enough to make them want to come to our events above all of the other options in the state.Q -- You are indeed up against a lot of options. Across U.S. 34 or down the road. Do you agree that it can be a tough sell?A -- How about people sitting at home watching television in their basement. The basement is one of our competitors, no question.Q -- Where to you see UNC athletics in five years? Seven years?A -- I'm a competitive person and I want to win a championship in every sport we offer.Q -- Is that really feasible?A -- Other schools do it. Stanford does it.Q -- Is it more of a possibility than a probability?A -- Well, we're fortunate with our location. We have a great market ... Denver. We have a competitive advantage vs. all other schools in the Big Sky Conference. We need to take advantage of it and we need to hit it hard. I'm not just talking about recruiting and other things. I'm talking about us.We have a lot of alumni here in Weld County, but we have more down in Denver. We can't just have functions here. I'm not saying we haven't done that, but with our athletics we need to be more aggressive. Our alumni office will do anything with us to partner on.So, can we win a championship in every sport? I think so.Q -- Do you think that market hasn't been hit as well as it could? It's all been done before. It's been on the radar.A -- We haven't done well enough here on this campus. We need to do a better job with (the students). My philosophy is that you work in-out. We need to get everybody on the same page. We need to have focus, goals that we're all aware of. We need transparency, communication and all of those things where we need to focus here first. Then we need to take a few steps outside and talk to campus folks. We have a great faculty and staff here. Then we need to go to the students. Then we need to hit Greeley. We need to do more with that.We need to provide them with reasons to want to come. We need to be involved in their area. We need to be involved in their world.In Denver, we need to get more involved with alums.Q -- How do you do that when alumni have taken the next step in their lives? Their priorities are with family, etc.?A -- It's hard. We don't have lights at our (football) stadium. We play basketball games in the middle of the week. It's hard. We have to be smarter with our scheduling. What can get families come to.If we schedule a game at 7 p.m. in he middle of the week, we can't expect a Denver family to come here. That's foolish. Even 7 p.m. on a Saturday is hard. Let's mix in an afternoon game and provide a special offer for Denver families. You have to make it special for them.Q -- Let's talk budget. It's somewhere around $11-million. Is that enough? Do you think coaching salaries here in line with where they should be?A -- They're in line so we can be competitive in the Big Sky Conference. Would our coaches like more salary? Absolutely. Just like you. They work hard. When I get here at 5 a.m., they're already here. When I leave at 7 or 8 p.m., they're still here.For us not to be successful ... budget is not an excuse for me. Would we like more in the budget? Absolutely. Before that happens, we have to start generating more revenue.That's my job. It's going to be our staff's job.Q -- It sounds like generating revenue comes into play in every category.A -- It is. Hey, the University of Texas has $150-million in revenue and that's not enough for them. Of course, we don't generate enough. We need more, but we have to generate it. Athletics has to generate it.Q -- Seems like in about six months, you're going to turn into an accountant. Your focus is about deposits, and more deposits.A -- I'm fortunate enough that we have a great business manager and great people here. It's not (just) me. They don't want me getting in the middle of it and I appreciate that.Q -- Yeah, but you're the captain of this ship.A -- My job is to generate more revenue and that our coaches stay within the budget. I'm going to make sure that we do those two things.Copyright: ___ (c)2014 the Greeley Tribune (Greeley, Colo.) Visit the Greeley Tribune (Greeley, Colo.) at .greeleytribune.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉出租