Mountain State Times

Ten (Questions) For Wren Baker

 Wren Baker recently surpassed his 60th day sitting in the big chair overseeing Mountaineer athletics, and while it's been somewhat chaotic, it's also been informative for the Valliant, Oklahoma, native.
 
"My family is still in Texas, and they are going to finish the school year before they come to Morgantown," he said.
 
The time away from his family has enabled Baker to focus solely on his first 100 days as West Virginia's director of athletics, and during that time, he's been able to learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of the department.
 
"I've had lots and lots of meetings," he said. "People keep asking me if I've bought a house yet, and I've only had a chance to look at one or two, so there just hasn't been a lot of time for that. After basketball season is over there will be a little more time on the schedule and we're also kind of getting past the listening-tour stage and starting to think about, 'Okay, what are the steps here that we need to take to build out a strategic plan and our five-year model for the things that we want to get accomplished?'"
 
Wren managed to carve out some time in his busy schedule recently to sit down for a quick Q&A, focusing on some of the key questions that he's been getting from Mountaineer fans during the last couple of months. 
 
Therefore, here's Ten for Wren, if you will:
 
WVUsports.com: It's my understanding that you get a lot of questions about uniforms. The school colors are Gold and Blue, but some would like to see the return of black uniforms. Knowing this can be a polarizing subject with some of our fans – what are your thoughts on uniforms?
 
Wren Baker: I think you have to respect your history and traditions. Our traditional Gold and Blue uniforms will always be a staple of what we do, but having coached and having two young daughters, I know how they feel about the opportunity to have some alternative uniforms and I think it's something that we really need to look at. As long as we stay true to our colors for the regular game day and then having those alternatives for special occasions, I think makes a lot of sense. It's something we will look at, but we'll look at it in a way that we will have a philosophy on it for all sports and not one-offs here and there.
 
WVUsports.com: Student seating at the WVU Coliseum is another subject that seems to come up a lot these days. With a 52-year-old arena that does not have a lot of premium seating options, there are really no perfect solutions to this dilemma, are there?
 
WB: No. Sometimes, I will see people who will say the way that we have our student seating isn't conducive to a great game-day environment, and I always wonder if those are people who are actually coming to games because I think we have a really good game-day environment. Could it be better? Of course, but we've had a really good year for women's basketball attendance, we've had a top-five year all-time for men's basketball attendance and I think our students are engaged and do a really good job. I've alluded to this before, but just coming in and doing some initial assessments, we have a budget that is in the bottom third of the conference, we have travel costs that are No. 1, and we have a pretty high debt-service cost. So, the reallocation of lower-level seats - and we already have a significant number of floor seats dedicated to our students - means we don't have a lot of premium seats to sell. That is our most expensive inventory so we're allocating a lot of seats to students and to give up additional lower-level seats to students would eat into our bottom line significantly, and we are just not in a position to do that. I get lots of suggestions on social media that I should do this or that, but a lot of those suggestions come at the expense of revenue. To be totally transparent and candid, game environment will be part of our strategic plan, but I can't imagine right now anything is going to get elevated above increasing revenue. Something that decreases revenue is going to be really hard for us to do in the foreseeable future.
 
WVUsports.com: Tip and kickoff times are not in your control; what do you want fans to know about game times?
 
WB: We desire our kickoff and tip times to be at a time that most people can either come and physically be at the game, but if not, to be able to watch the game. People have to understand there is a reason why TV has all of those windows throughout the day. There is a reason why the Big 12 strategically got into another time zone and why commissioner (Brett) Yormark talks abohereut picking up other time zones because the more windows you can fill, the more expensive your TV package is. Certainly, with where we're at right now, we have a lot of buckets of revenue, but our No. 1 bucket of revenue is our TV contract. TV is going to set those tip times and kickoff times, and we're going to fight for our homecoming to always be at a time that makes sense and to not have all noon kickoffs for football and not always have our games at 8 or 9 p.m. ET for basketball. However, the reality is we're going to have some games that are not at ideal kickoff and tip times, especially when BYU comes into the league. I would imagine we're going to have some that are later than what we've had here in the past, so it's just something that is a part of what we have to deal with. There are a lot of discussions about being able to set those times more in advance instead of having to wait for that 10-day window, and any time we can control those times we're going to put them for what is best for our fans.
 
WVUsports.com: Athletic facilities are always a popular topic among fans. I just saw where Oklahoma State revealed its ambitious facility master plan and Texas Tech continues to make preparations to add to what it has already done, and Baylor is moving into a new basketball arena next year. What is the next step, facility wise, for West Virginia University?
 
WB: As I get fully onboarded here, we're going to take some time to develop a strategic plan. There will be a public version where everyone can kind of follow the general progress, but we'll have five year's-worth of specific initiatives behind the scenes. Just for an example - and we haven't started the planning process - but to make sure our student-athletes have the very best access to nutrition advice, food and so forth, on the backend of that it might be hiring this many nutritionists, open this many training tables for athletes that we'll know, but the general public will just have a sense of what our goal is. One of the things that will definitely be a part of that strategic plan is to update our facility master plan. Oklahoma State's plan they released is very similar to the plan we had at North Texas in that we put out kind of a 20-year road map, instead of doing one project at a time. We wanted people to see the bigger vision and my philosophy is you never know who may have an affinity or a desire to partner with you on a project they don't know about. So, we might as well put it out there because you never know. Let's take money out of the equation for a second: who do we aspire to be when we grow up, so to speak? If there is a certain facility project, and we don't necessarily have a pathway for funding on it today, I'm of the opinion that we still go ahead and get it out there. 

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