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Notes, Quotes and Slants
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Pirate
Notebook No. 246
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
By Denny O'Brien |
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Leadership steering ECU back
on course
©2005 Bonesville.net
To this day, folks still reminisce about
the strong leadership former Chancellor Leo Jenkins provided for East
Carolina.
They tell their stories about his bold
vision for the school — that it would not only be the cultural beacon of
Eastern North Carolina, but also a nationally-acclaimed center for medical
research and innovation. They speak even more proudly about how Leo the
Lion roared so loudly that those Chapel Hill bureaucrats couldn't keep "ECTC"
from adding a medical school to its academic roster.
Another favorite tale is how Leo helped
usher East Carolina's ascension from an ambitious upstart football program
into the major college ranks. His belief was that ECU could develop its
athletics niche during the season when most of the schools in a hoops-crazed
state went into hibernation.
And it worked.
Football quickly became a
huge source of regional pride, and fall Saturdays served as a weekly revival
for a fan base so tightly knit that family trees with purple bloodlines
could dwarfed a forest of longleaf pines.
Having not witnessed this era in ECU's
history myself, I must take these stories at face value. If a wise sage
firmly believes Jenkins had more clout during his tenure than the governor,
that's good enough for me.
What I have observed first hand over the
past few years is how quickly that mission was derailed once it wound up in
the wrong hands. All it took was an
administration that was too focused on itself and had little
regard for the foundation that had been put in place before its arrival.
It was that modus operandi that essentially
left an athletics director powerless until he could find refuge elsewhere
and thrust a chancellor into the middle of an embarrassing investigation
before he was shown the door.
With East Carolina's new leadership, the
selfish motives and curious dealings are nowhere on the radar. On the
contrary, there appears to be a deliberate effort to resurrect the old
blueprint and make any necessary extensions to it that will help steer ECU
back on course.
In Steve Ballard, ECU again has a CEO with
a clear institutional vision. What's more, Ballard appears to have a firm handle on the
proper protocol for accomplishing the school's bold goals.
When that means
sounding off in the press,
he's not shy about spinning some old-fashioned rhetoric that gets Joe
Taxpayer's attention. If it calls for shedding the gloves and jabbing with
the North Carolina General Assembly, just call him Boom-Boom Ballard.
As for his ability to make shrewd
decisions, it took only a couple of months for him to prove his mettle. It
was barely more than a year ago when he heard the outcry from Purple
constituents
over the possibility that he may hire a talented but inexperienced athletics
administrator.
Ballard's 25th-hour decision to not hire
Rick Hart to oversee the athletics department showed that he wasn't driven
by an inflated ego. In fact, it drove home the fact that things had
changed — that the personal pride
of one would no longer dictate that the Pirate ship navigate straight into a
storm.
Not only that, it paid immeasurable
dividends with the
hiring of Terry Holland a few months later. Because if
you're looking for the single biggest hire in ECU's athletics history, that
quite possibly could be it.
Take last week for example. When Holland
unveiled East Carolina’s future lineup of high-profile, non-conference
opponents, it sent a groundswell of enthusiasm throughout Pirate Land that
hasn’t existed since the Pirates invaded Houston in 2000 and shot down Texas
Tech in a one-sided postseason gunfight.
The aftermath of that postseason victory celebration was marked by a civil war staged by ECU’s
leadership nucleus in which the school’s greatest assets — its loyal
supporters — were forced to choose sides and open fire against the segment of
the constituency with which they disagreed.
Now, after more than four years of unnecessary bloodshed, the healing has
begun.
It has begun because Holland was bold and
astute by pulling the trigger early on a football coach who either couldn't
comprehend East Carolina's blueprint for success, or deliberately chose to
ignore it. It has begun because Holland has restored the regional rivalries
that not only have helped define the Pirates' gridiron tradition, but
possibly could be the first step towards positioning ECU for an improved
conference situation in the future.
And certainly not to be overlooked is the
fact that Holland hired a football coach who seems to have a firm grasp on
the ingredients required to mix a winning recipe. Without that piece of the
puzzle, the healing process would be incomplete.
Because if we have learned one thing over
the past decade, it is this: For East Carolina to complete its mission, it
needs its three most visible figures reading from the same page.
Just a guess, but I think Leo would agree
with that.
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02/23/2007 02:00:07 AM |
