Aggie Town Hall: Episode 6
Apr 27, 2020 | General
Mike Wright: We welcome you once again to the Aggie Town Hall presented by CHI St. Joseph Health, the official healthcare provider of Texas A&M Athletics. I'm Mike Wright, thank you for making us a part of your day and for your interest in Texas A&M. Joining us is the Voice of the Aggies, Andrew Monaco, Will Johnson from 12th Man Productions and, of course, our AD Ross Bjork. First question up belongs to you, Andrew Monaco.
Andrew: Mike, thank you very much. Howdy everyone, so glad that you are with us once again. Ross this comes from Sutton Turner, who used 12thman.com/askross, Fightin' Texas Aggie Class of 1993. A two-part question. In a state where our 14 days straight of lower numbers might come soon, do you think student-athletes could come back to campus to workout, get nutrition, tutoring and continue with online classes this summer? He also wants to tell you amazing job of communicating and being so available during this crisis, he thinks it's a great display of leadership.
Howdy, Sutton. Appreciate the question, and the greetings to everyone here on the call. We've also got our social distancing beards going, Will. I don't think Mike and Andrew can grow one, so I think they're jealous.
Mike: It just doesn't look good.
Andrew: Ross, I can't grow one in that color. Mine would be a whole lot greyer, I'm telling you that right now.
I'm getting a little grey right here. But we're learning new ways to groom ourselves with all this stuff. But, you know, it's a great question. And, you know, we're hopeful. We remain optimistic. We haven't really reached a date per se where we've had anything to tell us that we can't return. But we haven't been able to say that we can yet, right? So as we speak right now, it's a little after 3:00 on Monday, Governor Abbott was doing a press conference at 2:30 today, and we'll dissect that and we'll adapt to that, whatever he says. Sounds like it's sort of a phased reopening, and so we'll get details on that, and that'll really guide us in a lot of ways. The University is also a guide in all of this, and we have to work with them on the leadership. We have good data in Texas. We have good trends. We have good medical support, our hospitals are not overwhelmed in the state of Texas. So we have a lot of good things on our side. We just haven't been given that clear signal yet. But I think as we get into early May, I think we'll be able to map out timelines in a much more definitive manner. May not be ready quite yet, but I think timelines could be a little more clear as we get into these first couple weeks in May. So it's an evolving topic. It changes by the day, with different announcements and different protocols and things like that, and we're staying on top of it constantly as an athletic program.
Andrew: The second part of his question is do you in the university have a date that says if the players are not back and not getting in shape again, that we won't play that game on September 5th?
Most of our feedback talking to our football coaches, working through the SEC, working with our sports medicine folks, our strength and conditioning staff, we have a sports science expert here on our staff. You know, most of them say you need six to eight weeks to really prepare. And that includes training camp, that includes your fall practice lead-up to the first game. Six to eight weeks. Now, could you do it with four? Perhaps, but that's gonna take probably some virtual training before that happens. So we really need to be back on campus we believe by July 1st. Anything past that, you're gonna have to accelerate things or do some things virtually to get ready. But that's kind of what's in our mind, is July 1st. And again, we have time. We don't need to make any of those kind of decisions yet, but in talking to coaches, medical experts, trainers, sports science people, working within the SEC, we think July 1st is that date. But again, that's still a moving target based on all these other things that are happening around us.
Will: Ross, a similar type of question, but we wanted to throw this in because it comes directly from one of our student-athletes. Sam Thornton, he's with the swimming and diving program, Class of 2020, and we have an affection for Sam because he's a student worker with us at 12th Man Productions. So from the United Kingdom, Sam asked kind of what we've been talking about. Do we have an updated estimate when sports can continue practicing? He's just curious because he and his team were wondering. But this is also a chance for you to address a student-athlete directly here.
That's cool that Sam is paying attention. That means our student athletes are paying attention, either Twitter or our website or something, right? Getting updates from the United Kingdom. So, Sam, hopefully you're staying well over there across the seas. You know, that's really what we just talked about. I really do believe that based on, again, what we learn from the governor, how will our campus and University adapt to what the state rolls out. We may not be quite there yet, but it would least allow us to start planning things as we move forward. And I really want to see where we are these first couple weeks in May, because I think that will give us the timelines that we need. We do know that the first summer session starts on May 25th for summer school. Now that's online, but how are we servicing our student-athletes? Are we able to bring people back in smaller groups? Can we have academic sessions? Can we open up things in maybe smaller groups? Those are all the things that are still evolving. So let's see where we are in the first couple weeks in May. Let's see where we are when summer school does start, that first session, but see where you are as a state, as a region. The most important thing we want is safety, and we want health. But we also know that our student athletes are yearning to get back to their craft. We keep hearing that. And we want to do everything we can to get them back as safely but as soon as possible as well.
Mike: Blake, a member of the class of 2021 from Spokane, Washington writes in with your loaded question of the day, he says as a young student that has ambitions to become an athletic director like you, what can be taken away from this particular period of time?
Boy, you know it was funny. I was typing up things early this morning, just kind of getting organized. I was typing up all the new words that we've learned. They were out there, obviously, but we weren't saying them. They weren't part of our vocabulary. One of them was I heard the U.S. Army, they're not saying social distancing. They're saying tactical dispersion. So I think that's what we need to start saying is tactical dispersion in our vocabulary. So we've learned some new words, Blake, that's for sure. But I think one of the things that is gonna come out of this is, you know, we're doing this session right now in a virtual setting and bam, we're gonna be able to get this out there to thousands of people in a matter of minutes. I think the way we utilize technology to engage with our fans and our constituents and our donors and our students...I've seen so many positive things. I think the way the NFL operated the draft in a virtual setting, where you actually saw some raw emotion in the homes of those young men and their families, I think I was really powerful and really cool. So I think technology is something that we're going to be able to utilize. And then I do believe that we are missing that human contact, right? We need that. I think that's part of being a human being is being able to see someone, look them in the eye. We do miss that part of it. But I think these new technologies that are emerging and ways to engage people that we didn't think of before, I think that's going to be something that we do take away from this. And the other thing is the financial impact, and that could be severe in some ways, but it could also make us more efficient where we realize hey, maybe we really don't need that. And we can save on that and deploy those resources elsewhere. So there's gonna be a lot of aftermath and sort of debriefing that goes on. But those are some of the things that come to mind.
Andrew: Matt used the hashtag #AskRoss on Twitter, and he asked, can we stick to one signature sing along song at football games, like If You're Gonna Play in Texas? He thinks that song did really well and could be a fun thing at games to come.
Hey, I'm all for it. We're doing these meetings called 365s. So football 365, men's basketball, women's basketball, soccer...and we talk about all these fan experience things. So I think what we need to do is have one of you guys take that to the Football 365 meeting, put it on the agenda and let's talk it through, right? What do you think about that?
Andrew: I'm thinking Mike at Kyle could kind of just start singing from the booth.
Mike: Not gonna happen.
He could have the playlist and hit play.
Will: Andrew, if Mike sung it I don't think it'd catch on.
Mike: That's right!
But you know, we do a lot of survey work. We hired Michael Thompson to oversee all of our external relations, and this is part of what we want to do is gather this type of feedback. And if there's things out there...obviously, you know, tradition is big time here at Texas A&M and we don't want to disrupt tradition. But if there's cool elements that we can integrate, let's hear them out and let's see if they work.
Will: Talk of the new uniform has been big this summer in regard to the football team. But Pete from Twitter, he wants to know Mr. Bjork, why is A&M still adidas? This is a legit concern about most alums.
Oh, wow, I hadn't heard it was a legit concern. Look, adidas, by all accounts...I've worked with them at another institution. When I was at UCLA, I worked with them for five years. You know, they have a great company. They're one of the best in class in this realm, sports apparel, equipment. Their strategy is they like to go and really secure a very few amount of partners in universities. And so we're one of an elite group that adidas has versus, you know, Nike, their approach is we want to try to get as many people as possible. So with that we get more attention. We get more specialty things. And then, frankly, the financial bottom line is one of the top agreements in the country. So there's a lot of factors that go into that. But it's a great contract. It does expire in 2022 and we're talking to adidas about what the future holds. And so we think that A&M should be a premier property in all of college sports in this category. Once we get through all this Covid-19 process, we think our viability for adidas will be at the highest end of their priorities. It could be a really sizable agreement that we can strike with adidas, once we get back to the discussion table.
Mike: Before we wrap up for this week ... I think the teams that got Justin and Braden, man they got bargains in that draft. Congratulations to all the guys, but those two were two of the best bargains left in the later rounds.
Yeah, it was really cool listening to Mel Kiper talk really Thursday night and a little bit into Friday about Justin, saying that hey, he's out there. He's one of my top guys. Can't believe he hasn't gone yet. So I think there's no doubt that the Ravens got a steal there in the third round. And then I tweeted about Braden. I said the Jets are gonna have to change their name to the Bombers or the Rockets after they see him kick the ball. He's a great young man. He's one of the most interesting young men I've been around. Kickers are kind of unique anyway, but it was really cool getting to know Braden this year. And he was always so friendly and professional. Just a neat guy. The fans are gonna love him in New York.
Mike: Yeah, and he can take your head off tackling, too.
Oh yeah, he's not afraid.
Mike: All right. Will Johnson, Andrew Monaco, thanks as always for joining us on this segment. Ross Bjork it's an honor being with you during these trying times. Thanks for being so accessible. We do appreciate your time.
Absolutely. We'll see everyone soon. Thank you.
Andrew: Mike, thank you very much. Howdy everyone, so glad that you are with us once again. Ross this comes from Sutton Turner, who used 12thman.com/askross, Fightin' Texas Aggie Class of 1993. A two-part question. In a state where our 14 days straight of lower numbers might come soon, do you think student-athletes could come back to campus to workout, get nutrition, tutoring and continue with online classes this summer? He also wants to tell you amazing job of communicating and being so available during this crisis, he thinks it's a great display of leadership.
Howdy, Sutton. Appreciate the question, and the greetings to everyone here on the call. We've also got our social distancing beards going, Will. I don't think Mike and Andrew can grow one, so I think they're jealous.
Mike: It just doesn't look good.
Andrew: Ross, I can't grow one in that color. Mine would be a whole lot greyer, I'm telling you that right now.
I'm getting a little grey right here. But we're learning new ways to groom ourselves with all this stuff. But, you know, it's a great question. And, you know, we're hopeful. We remain optimistic. We haven't really reached a date per se where we've had anything to tell us that we can't return. But we haven't been able to say that we can yet, right? So as we speak right now, it's a little after 3:00 on Monday, Governor Abbott was doing a press conference at 2:30 today, and we'll dissect that and we'll adapt to that, whatever he says. Sounds like it's sort of a phased reopening, and so we'll get details on that, and that'll really guide us in a lot of ways. The University is also a guide in all of this, and we have to work with them on the leadership. We have good data in Texas. We have good trends. We have good medical support, our hospitals are not overwhelmed in the state of Texas. So we have a lot of good things on our side. We just haven't been given that clear signal yet. But I think as we get into early May, I think we'll be able to map out timelines in a much more definitive manner. May not be ready quite yet, but I think timelines could be a little more clear as we get into these first couple weeks in May. So it's an evolving topic. It changes by the day, with different announcements and different protocols and things like that, and we're staying on top of it constantly as an athletic program.
Andrew: The second part of his question is do you in the university have a date that says if the players are not back and not getting in shape again, that we won't play that game on September 5th?
Most of our feedback talking to our football coaches, working through the SEC, working with our sports medicine folks, our strength and conditioning staff, we have a sports science expert here on our staff. You know, most of them say you need six to eight weeks to really prepare. And that includes training camp, that includes your fall practice lead-up to the first game. Six to eight weeks. Now, could you do it with four? Perhaps, but that's gonna take probably some virtual training before that happens. So we really need to be back on campus we believe by July 1st. Anything past that, you're gonna have to accelerate things or do some things virtually to get ready. But that's kind of what's in our mind, is July 1st. And again, we have time. We don't need to make any of those kind of decisions yet, but in talking to coaches, medical experts, trainers, sports science people, working within the SEC, we think July 1st is that date. But again, that's still a moving target based on all these other things that are happening around us.
Will: Ross, a similar type of question, but we wanted to throw this in because it comes directly from one of our student-athletes. Sam Thornton, he's with the swimming and diving program, Class of 2020, and we have an affection for Sam because he's a student worker with us at 12th Man Productions. So from the United Kingdom, Sam asked kind of what we've been talking about. Do we have an updated estimate when sports can continue practicing? He's just curious because he and his team were wondering. But this is also a chance for you to address a student-athlete directly here.
That's cool that Sam is paying attention. That means our student athletes are paying attention, either Twitter or our website or something, right? Getting updates from the United Kingdom. So, Sam, hopefully you're staying well over there across the seas. You know, that's really what we just talked about. I really do believe that based on, again, what we learn from the governor, how will our campus and University adapt to what the state rolls out. We may not be quite there yet, but it would least allow us to start planning things as we move forward. And I really want to see where we are these first couple weeks in May, because I think that will give us the timelines that we need. We do know that the first summer session starts on May 25th for summer school. Now that's online, but how are we servicing our student-athletes? Are we able to bring people back in smaller groups? Can we have academic sessions? Can we open up things in maybe smaller groups? Those are all the things that are still evolving. So let's see where we are in the first couple weeks in May. Let's see where we are when summer school does start, that first session, but see where you are as a state, as a region. The most important thing we want is safety, and we want health. But we also know that our student athletes are yearning to get back to their craft. We keep hearing that. And we want to do everything we can to get them back as safely but as soon as possible as well.
Mike: Blake, a member of the class of 2021 from Spokane, Washington writes in with your loaded question of the day, he says as a young student that has ambitions to become an athletic director like you, what can be taken away from this particular period of time?
Boy, you know it was funny. I was typing up things early this morning, just kind of getting organized. I was typing up all the new words that we've learned. They were out there, obviously, but we weren't saying them. They weren't part of our vocabulary. One of them was I heard the U.S. Army, they're not saying social distancing. They're saying tactical dispersion. So I think that's what we need to start saying is tactical dispersion in our vocabulary. So we've learned some new words, Blake, that's for sure. But I think one of the things that is gonna come out of this is, you know, we're doing this session right now in a virtual setting and bam, we're gonna be able to get this out there to thousands of people in a matter of minutes. I think the way we utilize technology to engage with our fans and our constituents and our donors and our students...I've seen so many positive things. I think the way the NFL operated the draft in a virtual setting, where you actually saw some raw emotion in the homes of those young men and their families, I think I was really powerful and really cool. So I think technology is something that we're going to be able to utilize. And then I do believe that we are missing that human contact, right? We need that. I think that's part of being a human being is being able to see someone, look them in the eye. We do miss that part of it. But I think these new technologies that are emerging and ways to engage people that we didn't think of before, I think that's going to be something that we do take away from this. And the other thing is the financial impact, and that could be severe in some ways, but it could also make us more efficient where we realize hey, maybe we really don't need that. And we can save on that and deploy those resources elsewhere. So there's gonna be a lot of aftermath and sort of debriefing that goes on. But those are some of the things that come to mind.
Andrew: Matt used the hashtag #AskRoss on Twitter, and he asked, can we stick to one signature sing along song at football games, like If You're Gonna Play in Texas? He thinks that song did really well and could be a fun thing at games to come.
Hey, I'm all for it. We're doing these meetings called 365s. So football 365, men's basketball, women's basketball, soccer...and we talk about all these fan experience things. So I think what we need to do is have one of you guys take that to the Football 365 meeting, put it on the agenda and let's talk it through, right? What do you think about that?
Andrew: I'm thinking Mike at Kyle could kind of just start singing from the booth.
Mike: Not gonna happen.
He could have the playlist and hit play.
Will: Andrew, if Mike sung it I don't think it'd catch on.
Mike: That's right!
But you know, we do a lot of survey work. We hired Michael Thompson to oversee all of our external relations, and this is part of what we want to do is gather this type of feedback. And if there's things out there...obviously, you know, tradition is big time here at Texas A&M and we don't want to disrupt tradition. But if there's cool elements that we can integrate, let's hear them out and let's see if they work.
Will: Talk of the new uniform has been big this summer in regard to the football team. But Pete from Twitter, he wants to know Mr. Bjork, why is A&M still adidas? This is a legit concern about most alums.
Oh, wow, I hadn't heard it was a legit concern. Look, adidas, by all accounts...I've worked with them at another institution. When I was at UCLA, I worked with them for five years. You know, they have a great company. They're one of the best in class in this realm, sports apparel, equipment. Their strategy is they like to go and really secure a very few amount of partners in universities. And so we're one of an elite group that adidas has versus, you know, Nike, their approach is we want to try to get as many people as possible. So with that we get more attention. We get more specialty things. And then, frankly, the financial bottom line is one of the top agreements in the country. So there's a lot of factors that go into that. But it's a great contract. It does expire in 2022 and we're talking to adidas about what the future holds. And so we think that A&M should be a premier property in all of college sports in this category. Once we get through all this Covid-19 process, we think our viability for adidas will be at the highest end of their priorities. It could be a really sizable agreement that we can strike with adidas, once we get back to the discussion table.
Mike: Before we wrap up for this week ... I think the teams that got Justin and Braden, man they got bargains in that draft. Congratulations to all the guys, but those two were two of the best bargains left in the later rounds.
Yeah, it was really cool listening to Mel Kiper talk really Thursday night and a little bit into Friday about Justin, saying that hey, he's out there. He's one of my top guys. Can't believe he hasn't gone yet. So I think there's no doubt that the Ravens got a steal there in the third round. And then I tweeted about Braden. I said the Jets are gonna have to change their name to the Bombers or the Rockets after they see him kick the ball. He's a great young man. He's one of the most interesting young men I've been around. Kickers are kind of unique anyway, but it was really cool getting to know Braden this year. And he was always so friendly and professional. Just a neat guy. The fans are gonna love him in New York.
Mike: Yeah, and he can take your head off tackling, too.
Oh yeah, he's not afraid.
Mike: All right. Will Johnson, Andrew Monaco, thanks as always for joining us on this segment. Ross Bjork it's an honor being with you during these trying times. Thanks for being so accessible. We do appreciate your time.
Absolutely. We'll see everyone soon. Thank you.
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