By George B. Eichorn of The Detroit Monitor

Dr. Derrick Gragg has a tough job. Being a director of athletics at a college such as Eastern Michigan University is no small task. From academic and compliance issues to budgets, marketing and promotions, a college AD has a complex and stressful assignment.

The Eagles have a 38-year-old Huntsville, Alabama native who has honed his academic and work skills at Vanderbilt University, Wayne State University, the University of Arkansas and the University of Michigan. Besides athletics, Dr. Gragg has worked in the offices of student life, compliance, operations and as an academic advisor.

Now in his third year at EMU, he brings dedication and enthusiasm to the athletic program every day and the results are proving that his hiring was a wise move by the Ypsilanti-based school’s administration. Here is a Monitor interview with Dr. Gragg.

Q. What successes are going on in athletics at EMU?

Gragg: “I’ll give you an overall general perspective. Right now, things are going very well. I’m in my third year as the athletics director here and we just celebrated, at the beginning of the semester, our athletic program capturing the Reese Cup, which is the Mid-American Conference’s all-sports trophy for men’s athletics. That’s the fourth time in school history that we won that. The women came in fifth for the Jacoby Cup. It was our best overall combined finish since 1990-1991. We’re very happy about that.

“We also had a record number of student athletes make all-academic MAC teams this year. Combined excellence is one of the things we stress here so our student athletes are doing very well on and off the fields and courts. The year before that we won eight conference championships which is a MAC and a school record, and we’re very pleased with that as well. I’m very happy with the job that our student athletes and coaches are doing right now.”

Q. How difficult is it to get all the other college sports their fair play in the news media and on campus?

Gragg: “Obviously, football and basketball usually get much more of the publicity and the visibility yet our program here is the largest and most comprehensive in the Mid-American Conference. We have 21 sports programs and over 550 student athletes so that’s a lot of opportunity for a lot of students who compete here. Sixteen head coaches here are doing a very good job and in the last two years we’ve 13 MAC coaches of the year. It’s just been phenomenal. Again, those other sports get a lot of attention but we have some outstanding student athletes in other programs as well.”

Q. How important are promotions in your job and for your budget to be balanced?

Gragg: “Promotions are extremely important to us starting with our student promotions and I definitely want to commend our students here. At the last home football game we had more than 3,800 students here. That was the most students we’ve had come to a game in a decade. That’s fantastic and I really want to commend our marketing staff here especially Stephannie Harvey-Vandenberg and Scott Schultz as they interface with a lot of the student groups on campus and come up with a lot of the promotional activities.

“Every week we have an extensive marketing campaign and it’s about three pages long. We definitely try and pull out all the stops as far as promotions go. One of the specific things that we do is a pre-game we call Eagle Nation. It’s located north of the football field, in the baseball field area, and we have tents plus inflatables for kids and with EMU’s student groups there. It’s just a fantastic time. We encourage everyone to get out there a couple hours before kickoff and participate. We try to make our games into an event and a lot of things go on around them. Obviously the football game is the primary focus.”

Q. Over the years, EMU has experimented with football starting times, ranging from noon to later in the day. What is the ideal time for kickoff of your games?

Gragg: “We want to start football games at night especially when it is warmer. I think a Thursday night game is a perfect day and time for us. You need to get the other school and the Mid American Conference office to agree to that. Fortunately for us we only had only one had one conflict with the University of Michigan (just up the road in Ann Arbor). But that doesn’t happen every year. Because televisoon controls many of their kick times it’s really a difficult thing (to change). Maybe some later kickoffs would help us too.”

Q. The football team stands just 1-3 in the MAC and 2-6 overall in 2008; why is that?

Gragg: “We’re struggling a bit but the one thing about our student athletes — because I interface with them — is that they don’t quit. I’ve seen them working out in the summertime. This is the third summer that I’ve been here and I’ve seen an increased number of student athletes who stay here in the summertime. That is a credit to them because you win and lose football games during the off season.

“It’s not going really the way we want it to go but there is still a lot of football left to be played and we can still have a winning season in the Mid-American Conference. And we stress that. We want to focus mainly on the competition within the conference. Going down the stretch, there are all conference games and we can win them all. That’s what I hope we can do.”

Q. The conference has done a nice job by adding more bowl participation and a television contract so talk about the strides made.

Gragg: “I think it’s come a long way as a conference. Even when I worked at the University of Michigan from 1997 to 2000, it (MAC) just wasn’t as visible then as it is now. I look admirably at our MAC bowl tie-ins and our television contracts, and the other big thing is having our basketball tournament at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. It’s huge.

“We’re the only major conference that hosts its men’s and women’s tournaments in the same building simultaneously. It’s a logistical nightmare at times yet that’s when you get people talking about the student athlete experience. It’s out-of-the-box thinking. Also, just a few years ago there was only one bowl tie-in and now we have three (Motor City, GMAC and International Bowls). We’re looking at maybe going for a fourth. Those things are very important for visibility and sustainability within the college athletic landscape.”

Buy George Eichorn’s book, “Detroit Sports Broadcasters On the Air,” for $19.99 or less at

 

www.amazon.com. Reach him at geichorn@yahoo.com.

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