Bjork Holds First Aggie Town Hall of New Year

Athletics Director Ross Bjork took questions from the 12th Man as he held his first Aggie Town Hall of 2021 on Tuesday afternoon. You can watch the event below, and we've have select quotes from the session posted below.

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The men's team was set to go against the Vanderbilt Commodores tomorrow in Nashville. That game has been postponed due to COVID issues within the Vanderbilt program. We could start right there, Ross. When you arrived here, we were talking before we put the headsets on. I think you've counted 45 weeks of COVID in this country. It still hasn't left us. We're still dealing with the effects, and the latest, the men's basketball team postponement tomorrow against Vanderbilt.

No doubt. And look, we knew all of these things were possible, right? Obviously, we missed a football game against Ole Miss. We couldn't make that game up. We've already had a women's basketball game postponed. We had some volleyball matches, some soccer... I mean, we've seen this disruption throughout, and that's why the protocols are in place. That's why you communicate. That's why you have relationships within the SEC. We got notified about mid-morning this morning that Vanderbilt had a positive test and they were going through contact tracing, and we were going to be notified before we obviously got on the bus and then on the airplane, so that way we don't land in Nashville and then it gets postponed. Good communication through the SEC and through Vanderbilt. 

Just so we clarify, that 45 weeks goes back to Friday, March 13. I think tomorrow, January 20th, was the first verified case in the U.S., in the Seattle area. That's a year ago. Then we had we had a little blip here at Texas A&M. If you remember late January, there was a university staff member who’d traveled back from China, who may have had it. And they went through all the testing, and it took that person a little while to get a test. Now we're testing so often. We actually were hosting a track meet that weekend and we had some of the visiting teams be hesitant about continuing to come here and run this track meet. So we got some information, we put out an email to all the athletic trainers who were coming with those visiting teams. We actually sent out an email to the all athletic staff on January 24th. So we're about a year into this. 

The 45 weeks is from the day that we shut down college sports, which was really Friday, March 13th. So that's the date that I'm using, as I count down these weeks. You think about that, we're only seven weeks away from being a full year into college athletics being shut down. In some ways, it has gone by so fast. In other ways, it's been this slow churn of protocols and being safe is possible and learning things and shutting down and restarting and just a lot of emotion.

I know people are tired. I know there's some weariness that we have among staff, coaches, athletes. But also, we just saw our softball team out here in the hallway doing a photo shoot for 12th Man Productions. Man, are they fired up about playing games. But we always said, if we're allowed to and if it's safe, then it's our obligation to move forward and put the athletes in the safest environment possible. We've never backed away from that. Protocols are in place. Safety parameters are in place. But when you see those young ladies out there in the hallway and they're fired up? Again, that's why we do what we do. We just have to keep that in mind and stay safe and keep the protocols. And if we have disruption, we'll deal with it. But our obligation is to keep moving forward as safe as possible. 

How far we've come from that track meet. From, you had no idea what a test would be to, how far we've come and all the tests available, and how rapid they can be, just in that time period.

Now we have saliva tests. We were testing a breathalyzer test through Texas A&M’s Engineering department back in December. So a lot of advancement in the science and the testing. And now it's obviously about the vaccine, right? How do we all get access to the vaccine? What phase are we in? All those kinds of things. A lot of advancement. Probably if we rewound the first town hall meeting back in April or May, think about all those conversations. And now we're having this one. It's pretty fascinating.

Have to ask you about your Orange Bowl experience in Miami. Texas A&M and Jimbo Fisher, this football team. They finished off a 9-1 campaign that saw him get to fourth in the country when it was all over, second highest finish in school history. Best since the national title team of ‘39. But how was Miami for you and just how thrilling was that night? 

The experience itself, a normal bowl experience, you're there for six or seven days, and there's multiple events every single day, and they do things for the players. And this was really like a normal road trip. We played on Saturday. Jimbo, on a normal road trip, leaves on Thursday. Gets there, guys can sleep in on Friday. We do academics on Friday. This is obviously for a regular-season game. So that's what this schedule was like. We got there late afternoon on Thursday. There was a welcome dinner. They did a lot of the programming virtually. We spread out in the hotel lobby, up on the second floor. Friday was like a normal workday for the football team. A lot of film, a lot of meetings. We did a walk-through outside the hotel. They had this huge outside Astroturf space. We were out there watching, and we were like, this is kind of cool. Downtown Miami, doing a walk through by the water, with the humid wind coming off Biscayne Bay. Then obviously Saturday was game day. So for me personally, I left the hotel four times. I went for a run on Friday morning and run on Saturday morning, went to the game and then left for the airport on Sunday. Otherwise, I stayed at the hotel, trying to stay safe, trying to just keep our protocols in place. 

But the Orange Bowl, they did a great job. Really, what we said is, look, there's a lot of fanfare and a lot of hospitality stuff that the bowl likes to do for the administration and the coaches and things like that. But it's got to be about the players. Let's make sure the players have the right experience. Let's make sure they feel like this is a big-time setting. And that's what the Orange Bowl did. They did a great job of providing that platform for the student-athletes. They got all the gear. We had the game room for the student-athletes, they got to do all those things. And then you go play the game. Obviously, winning helps. I don't think anyone slept after the game. I think we all just got on the got on the bus.

The bowl committee themselves were really welcoming. With bowls being canceled, they didn't know how things would go...the Orange Bowl was friendly anyway. But it was really nice, and I felt really welcome.

They did a great job. Eric Poms is the CEO of the Orange Bowl, and I've known Eric for a long time. Normally the top ranked team or the champion would go to the Sugar Bowl. The Sugar Bowl was a semifinal game, so having the Orange Bowl available this year and for us to be able to be qualified for that game, that’s big time for our program. That's only the fourth Florida bowl game that we've ever played in the history of the program. So to win that game, be on that stage...to me, it just it sent a lot of signals for our program, long term, that we're not going anywhere, Jimbo’s quote, ‘We ain't done yet’, it just sent signals. People better be paying attention to the A&M program moving forward. They mean business. And I think the way we play, the style of how we play, you saw a lot of young guys making plays in that game, offense and defense. You better watch out for the Aggies. And I think that message is going to continue to be sent. That stage, a Saturday night game, prime time, there's a lot of layers to what this all means. And now we have to capitalize. We have to do our job. We have to capitalize on the momentum. We're going to ask the 12th Man to do their part. We’ve got season ticket renewals going out in early February. So now we have to do our job and capitalize. The 12th man, our donors, everybody now can be a part of this rebirth, this rebuilding. Get to that next stage and be a playoff contender every single year. That’s the goal here. 

Any idea when we might see a fall football schedule? 

Actually, we have a regularly-scheduled SEC athletic director meeting next week. That's a normal meeting where we go over all the football stuff. So we go over the season, we talk about officiating, we talk about scheduling, we talk about data, we talk about TV. Obviously this year we'll talk a lot about COVID and what all that means moving forward. So, soon after that. I don't know the exact date, but soon after. So I’d look towards the end of January, we should be able to announce our 2021 schedule. And it's important for us too because we're planning the whole 12th Man Centennial. We need those dates. There's a lot of programming that that will happen around that. I'd say late January, maybe even into early February, that we'd announce the 2021 football schedule. 

When will we know the baseball schedule and seating capacity at Blue Bell Park? Along those lines, will fans be allowed? 

Fans will be allowed. We've been fortunate here at Texas A&M. We've got great protocols in place. We've had fans at all of our games. We haven't had to eliminate fans from attending. Saturday at the basketball game, we had about 1,500 people there, which is the most we've had all year. One of our basketball staff members said this is the most amount of people that we played in front of all year. At Mississippi State, they had around 400-500. South Carolina had a few hundred. So we're fortunate that we’re able to host fans in a safe-as-possible environment. So there will be fans. The exact capacity, it’s going to be a socially-distanced stadium. So it depends on how many people actually buy the tickets. We have people that have opted in, and some have chosen to opt out. We're still finalizing what the season ticket number is going to be. That'll really dictate the final capacity. Rule of thumb, when we socially distance all of our stadiums, it kind of comes out to that 25 to 30 percent mark. So we anticipate it will be somewhere in that in that range. We released the SEC softball schedule last week. The SEC baseball schedule got released today. Because all the other conferences are changing scheduling formats, some conferences have gone to four games, both in softball and baseball, our non-conference pretty much had to be reset in both sports, softball and baseball. So the coaching staffs and our administration are working through those dates and those opponents. Hopefully we have something I'd say in the coming days. But again, we know that things could change. We could schedule a series with a non-conference opponent and bam. Something may happen. So we’ve got to be flexible. But the great thing about our schedules, we're going to schedule a full schedule on the front end, and then let's see what happens. And if we have to move things around, our coaches are ready to be nimble and provide the opportunity. That's what we said we’d do, provide the opportunity. The players want to play, and that's how everything is being mapped out. 

Do you have a, when I say a Plan B, not for the entire schedule but do you have a Plan B of who you can contact? Let's say a school can't come down on a on a Wednesday?

It's almost like a rain delay, right? The coaches kind of know who's looking for games, who might be available. So I look at it kind of in a similar mindset of, we got rained out. Hey, a COVID issue popped up with the visiting team. We know so and so just had a game canceled and they need a game. They can drive. It's a bus ride. So that's how we're going to stay nimble. And really, like in football, the scheduling is done by the administration in consultation with the football coach. I don't get involved in baseball scheduling. I don't get involved in softball scheduling. The coaches have all those relationships. They know how to do it. They have their board. They have their matrix. Of course, there's administrators that work hand in hand with them, but I don't have to say, hey, how come we're not playing so and so in baseball? The coaches have got all that figured out.

Nine teams in the SEC are in the preseason baseball poll. That's one preseason baseball poll released. If you watch college baseball, they work off five legitimate polls. It doesn't mean A&M is unranked yet to start the season, but baseball, also softball, going in unranked. It's always a debate kind as to which sport has it the hardest in the SEC. Maybe you don't look any further than the diamond with baseball and softball, the way this conference is so loaded in both sports.

No doubt, especially the emergence of softball. The SEC has invested in softball to make it a premiere sport. You're exactly right, which is harder? I don't know. So yeah, we're not ranked in either softball or baseball preseason, depending on which poll you look at. It's all about how you finish. We have high expectations. We understand the dynamic of how people support baseball and softball here. Our coaches understand that. Our goal is going to be to support our student-athletes at the highest level. Yeah, sure, maybe we're disappointed we don't have a little preseason hype if you will. But the one thing that the SEC provides you is, if you do well, you'll be ranked pretty quick. You'll be hosting a softball regional. You'll be hosting an NCAA Regional. That sets you up to host a Super Regional, then obviously get to Omaha and to Oklahoma City. The vision that we have for both those programs is that we compete at the highest level. All of our coaches know that, and so we're going to support them. We're just thankful to be playing this year, because we got canceled last year. That’s how we're going to approach the expectations for this year. Let's play. Let's compete. Let's use this stage to get better. And if we do the right things, we’ll be ranked and we'll be hosting. And that's the goal. 

One more here. Is a statue of Johnny planned and if so, do you have any information to share? 

There's nothing planned. Obviously, we know that we have the John David Crow statue, he won the Heisman. We know Johnny Manziel won the Heisman. There’s university protocols that we have to follow. If you notice there's not just a bountiful number of statues on our campus. It's reserved for very few people. So it's a dialogue. There's a process. There's university approvals and things like that. And at the right time, Johnny Manziel will have a statue. I don't know when that is. We love Johnny. We love what he did for the program. I know he's been back more. We want him involved in the program and all those kind of things. I don't have any information, but I know that it's a process. But right now there's nothing in the planning phase or anything like that. 

You talked about him coming back. When you see the social media of former A&M players talking about our football, that's exciting, isn't it? 

It’s so cool. There's no doubt about it. You can't really put a value on that, what that means when they're hyping the players or hyping the program. Johnny talking about Kellen after the Orange Bowl game...everybody says, well, Johnny set all the records in two years and Kellen did in four years...But he still set the record. He still is a record-setting SEC Texas A&M quarterback. You can't take that away. You can't just put an asterisk by that. So to see Johnny support him...it's great momentum, to see the former players dialed into the program. Absolutely.