Zippy87

Gary Miller would never

I just saw the Akron-Kent football game is listed as Youth Sports Day, perfect for a weekday school night game with a 7:30 PM start. 🤦‍♂️

Tickets for a Wednesday night game between two awful teams (Akron and Kent) are currently listed as $19 for GA and $31-38 for reserved. Our ticketing team is completely unserious.

Double-post, sorry

My biggest issue is the lack of engagement from athletics to its most loyal alumni and fans. The only time I hear from Athletics is when they're asking for money. Fundraising is obviously vital, but if, every time you hear from someone, all they're doing is asking for money, you're eventually going to ignore their calls/emails. My second biggest is the complete lack of marketing/promos/ticket specials. Don't tell me you need a huge budget to do it when the Rubberducks kill it every summer with a limited budget. It takes creativity and effort, two things our athletic department has lacked for years.

Plenty of schools who have had success without a successful (or any) football program. Depends what you invest in.

I didn't know where to put this in the forum, but I'm curious about everyone's thoughts on the state of Akron Athletics, in particular progress made under Charles Guthrie. Men's basketball, men's soccer, and swimming and diving remain strong. Football remains a joke. Fan engagement and marketing is about the same. The rebrand was poorly executed, and I still see "old" logos on "new" items when looking to purchase Zips gear. Does anyone feel we are moving in the right direction?

I'd be annoyed by the required "2023 Zips Athletic Fund Investment" myself.

Has anyone ever attended one of these? Curious what to expect.

Should we be worried that Ali hasn't been in any of the media day photo shoots? (From what I've seen)

We have the full schedule and final roster. Hopefully no major preseason injuries impact us like losing Dawson last year. I'm fascinated to see who gets minutes and how they're divided up. Freeman, Ali, Hunter, and Tribble will play a lot. They may manage Dawson's minutes a bit early on, but he'll play a lot too. I'd assume Thornton and Scott didn't transfer here to sit. Nate Johnson was 6th in MPG and started a few, so I'd expect him to play. That leaves: Tavari Johnson - averaged 15 MPG and started 9 games. I viewed him as a potential transfer last spring because there's so many backcourt players on the roster. The talent is there, though. Amani Lyles - Didn't play a ton last year. Would love to see him add to our frontcourt depth. Darrion Baker - Most freshmen are redshirt candidates, but Baker doesn't seem like a typical freshman. Will be watching this one closely. Ryan Prather Jr - Already used his redshirt. Good size for a guard and was an excellent scorer in HS. Marvin Musiime-Kamali - Defensive-juggernaut in HS. Guessing he's a redshirt as a freshman.

I'm going to push back on this. First, we have an example in-house to show winning doesn't necessarily = attendance (MBB). Second, there are glaring weaknesses this athletic department has had for *years* that have held it back. There's no creativity, no fun, barely any marketing/promotions - these are things you have to do to draw fans even when you're winning and especially when you're not. Different sport, but we go to quite a few Rubberducks games. It's not because they win - I couldn't even tell you their record this year and quite honestly, don't care if they win or lose. It's because they are super-creative with marketing/promotions/ticketing, they engage with their supporters and make them feel valued, and their in-game entertainment is fantastic. We always have fun at those game. I was so bored Saturday I probably won't go back. We do none of this well, and it's beyond embarrassing for a D1 Athletic Department to be so bad for so long.

I was there and aside from it being a tough loss, the game was incredibly boring. I'm not sure what the answer is, but the gameday experience as a whole just isn't anything that is going to bring people out.

The investment was/is.

Building that stadium will haunt us for a long, long time.

X worked out with six teams prior to the draft. Should get a good look in the summer league.

Odd to see KD being painted so negatively. They really show him walking off the court with 6 minutes left in the state championship lol (which, according to the movie, took place at the JAR!)

He definitely doesn't seem like a walk-on type, but I thought we were out of schollys?

Did we find out any other info on this? Is this a possible walk-on?

This isn't at all why people are reacting negatively to his words. I had a supervisor at UA who had an incredible impact on my life, probably moreso than anyone aside from my parents. He taught me (and others) about professionalism, responsibility, leadership, and so much more. Helped myself and countless people better our lives and our careers and become better people. Truly a remarkable man. He also happened to be gay. I recall one day my Junior year overhearing a classmate use disparaging remarks toward LGBT people. This supervisor heard it too. He was an educator first, so he approached the situation with love instead of anger and helped the student to understand why his words were wrong to use. But I could tell hearing one of his students say them was hurtful to him, and I never forgot it. You may not have been impacted by Huggins' words, and that's ok. But I promise they had an impact on others. A LGBT student-athlete hearing a powerful and respected coach use them, possibly even someone on his own team. Or another coach. Or a professor at the school. Or any WV student or employee, for that matter. Recognizing that although words may not have hurt us personally but likely hurt others isn't "herd mentality", it's having empathy for others. I don't know Huggins - I'm guessing most here don't. I don't know if this was a reflection of who he is or if he got caught up trying to be funny and had a really bad moment. I'm not going to say he should be fired or not fired.so much more context is needed to make that decision. But what he said was wrong and hurtful to many, and I hope he genuinely learns and becomes a better person and leader from this. Now, I move on. Go Zips.

I don't know you so I'm not going to get drawn into a personal beef. It's clear you think what he said wasn't a big deal (and even funny?), I think it was awful and bigoted...agree to disagree and move on. Go Zips.

That'd be really fun to see the core of that group together again!

Bob Huggins said a stupid, ignorant comment that was wrong and everyone but you seems to get that. Your defenses of him were all over the place and, quite frankly, ridiculous. I'm not going to go further than that because I'm not trying to get a vacation from the forum. Name-call all you want if it makes you feel better. Have a good one.

Nah, we probably don't need to go there. Nothing productive comes out of that and I want to be respectful to the mods and this forum. It is what it is.