By: Karen M. Carty, Assistant AD for Marketing and Communications
GRAMBLING, La. – On November 30, 2016, Paul A. Bryant was named director of athletics at Grambling State University. On January 3, 2017, he reported to campus, ready to take on all the challenges that were waiting for him.
Some of those challenges included inadequate staffing, subpar academic progress rates, impending NCAA violations, financial issues, and facilities that needed to be upgraded.
STAFFING ADDITIONS
Never one to shy away from a challenge, Bryant dove right in to correcting the issues his department was facing. He started out by filling the open positions within his department and adding key staff members to ensure success in all areas of the department. To complete his administrative team, Bryant added the following individuals to his staff:
With a full administrative team in place, Bryant set out to beef up his staff in other areas. He corrected some of the department's Title IX issues by hiring assistant coaches for all Olympic sports and added support staff in vital areas. Some of his other hires include:
COMPLIANCE/ACADEMIC IMPROVEMENTS
Once Bryant had qualified and experienced people in place, he turned his sights on fixing the academic problems. In July 2017, the NCAA disciplined GSU for a number of violations including improper certification of student-athletes and failing to meet the NCAA's academic progress rate (APR) benchmark score in three sports.
Sykes and the compliance staff worked diligently during the summer to revamp the certification process, working closely with other campus constituents to ensure a smooth and efficient process. To resolve the academic issues, the athletics department applied for and was awarded a $430,000 grant from the NCAA to enhance its academic area.
The funds were used to hire additional academic staff and to purchase laptop computers to create a mobile study hall that will allow student-athletes to have computers with them while they are traveling to compete. A comprehensive academic improvement plan was also created to systematically improve the APR scores of teams that had previously been under NCAA penalty.
As a result of the on-going improvements in the academic area, a total of 290 student-athletes were named to the Athletics Director's Honor Roll in the Spring and Fall semesters of 2017. Bryant started the AD's Honor Roll when he arrived at GSU to recognize student-athletes who achieved a 3.0 GPA or higher during each semester.
FACILITY UPGRADES
Beginning in February 2017, Bryant oversaw improvements to four of the five athletic facilities on campus. The enhancements started with the baseball and softball fields each getting upgrades to their playing surfaces with newly installed field grass and warning tracks. The soccer field also went through a major renovation, being rotated 90 degrees and having new sod installed.
The most notable transformations took place at the Eddie G. Robinson Memorial Stadium with the installation of state-of-the-art field turf and a new digital videoboard. It was the first major upgrade at the stadium since its completion in 1983. The field turf added to the aesthetics of "The Hole", while also reducing potential injuries and lowering on-field temperatures with a hi-tech cooling system.
The videoboard served as a revenue generator for the department and gave fans a true "game day" experience. Athletics brought in over $420,000 in sponsorship during the 2017 football season, due largely in part to the addition of the board. Prior to Bryant's arrival, the department raised about $60,000 in 2016. Fans also got a more interactive experience by being able to see replays and be engaged during sponsorship activations and on-field presentations.
Other enhancements to the football game day experience included a newly created RV Park and a safe area for kids to play for up to two hours prior to each game. The RV Park let tailgaters to park their RV's on a leveled area that was closer to the stadium than other RV parking spots and provided more space to fully enjoy the tailgating experience. The added space allowed GSU to offer an increased number of RV parking spaces, which helped meet the high demand for RV parking.
Bryant partnered with GSU's Family & Consumer Sciences department to sponsor the "Prez Rick's Kid's zone" during home football games. The Kid's Zone was an area where parents could drop off their 4-10 year olds to play games and spend time in the bouncy houses.
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES
As a staunch proponent of integrating technology into everyday life, Bryant wasted no time in moving the GSU athletics department forward with some vital technological upgrades. In January 2017, he oversaw the redesign of the athletics website – gsutigers.com – which upgraded the site to the newest version offered by SideArm Sports. The new site is now much easier to navigate and offers fans more options like live stats so they can follow the action for all the Tigers' home games.
Fans near and far also enjoyed being able to purchase season and single-game tickets for GSU games online for the first time ever. Despite having Ticketmaster as its ticket vendor, the athletics department did not sell game tickets online. Bryant changed that in June 2017, allowing fans to conveniently purchase tickets wherever they were instead of calling or going to the GSU Ticket Office.
In an effort to expand the ability to broadcast GSU's athletic events, Bryant partnered with the GSU TV Center to build a mobile production unit that allows coverage of athletic events anywhere on or off campus. The mobile unit will aid in the production of high quality streams of games and can be used to produce other events like coaches shows and award shows. An added benefit of the mobile unit is that GSU students can get hands-on experience in sports television and multiple camera production.
TEAM SUCCESS
In 2017, several athletics team achieved championship status, including the women's basketball, baseball, men's outdoor track and football teams.
The women's basketball program claimed a share of the regular-season SWAC championship, the team's first since 2000. The baseball team won the SWAC West Division Championship, while the men's outdoor track and field team won the SWAC Championship, and the football program won its third consecutive SWAC West Division Championship, second consecutive SWAC Football Championship, and became the first program ever to play in consecutive Celebration Bowl games.
Some of the other accomplishments that happened during Bryant's first 365 days include:
- Graduating 28 players, including the valedictorian, in the spring and 30 in the fall.
- Having his coaches earn five Coach of the Year Awards.
- Having 42 players earn All-SWAC honors, while several more earned other regional and national awards.
- Opening "The Maul", a fueling station for GSU student-athletes that offers nutritious snacks to help meet their daily energy requirements.
- Increasing the athletics department's social media presence. With enhanced content and more consistent posting, GSU's Twitter following grew from 21,400 to 26,000 between August 2017 and December 2017. The department's Facebook fan page also grew significantly, gaining over 5,000 new followers in the same four-month period. A new Instagram page was created at the end of October 2017 and had over 1,000 by the end of the year.
- Garnering national media attention when the women's basketball made history by becoming the first SWAC school to win a postseason game after the Lady Tigers' 78-75 WNIT win over Ole Miss on March 16, 2017. Additionally, junior guard Shakyla Hill made national headlines on January 3, 2018 after recording an elusive quadruple-double in points, rebounds, steals and assists in a 93-71 win over Alabama State.
With year one in the books, Bryant is eagerly looking forward to his second year at GSU where he plans to keep the momentum going.
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here for a comprehensive look at the athletics teams' successes in 2017.
