Post by FIUBlue82 on May 23, 2007 8:03:43 GMT -5
www.miamiherald.com/418/story/115766.html
FIU's Garcia challenges competition
GREG COTE
gcote@MiamiHerald.com
Subtlety is not Pete Garcia's method of operation.
They are finding out at Florida International University, where the new athletic director aims to wake a sleeping giant with closer to a hard slap than a gentle nudge.
They are noticing in Coral Gables, too, where a different sort of sleeping giant -- the University of Miami, its monopoly on South Florida college sports long unchallenged -- surely lifts an eyelid to see who dares disturb the king's slumber with all of this ruckus.
That would be Mr. Garcia.
You might picture him holding a slingshot. And aiming high.
NOT SCARED
''I want our students, alumni and fans to know we will not be scared of playing anybody, anytime, anywhere,'' Garcia said Tuesday during a break in the Sun Belt Conference meetings upstate. ``I didn't take this job to continue to move FIU at the speed they were going and the level they were at. We're taking aim at the top programs in the country.''
Garcia envisions a day when FIU is to our area what Florida and Florida State are to the north in terms of public state universities competing nationally in sports. He also envisions a day when, locally, the Golden Panthers are competing with UM in all areas: on the field, in fan support, in local media coverage, in national attention -- everything.
The new AD said he is working to change the culture and attitude.
The coaches, too.
Quickly, Garcia changed football coaches, replacing local favorite Don Strock, whose five-year record of 15-41 -- 0-12 last season -- depleted the cache of goodwill accumulated in his term as a longtime Dolphins backup quarterback.
Next he changed soccer coaches, after Karl Kremser's robust record over 27 years at FIU gradually eroded to last season's 6-10-2. Kremser attempted to rescind his long-planned retirement and stay, but Garcia was moving on.
Most recently, the new AD changed baseball coaches, too. Danny Price had won more than 1,000 games in 28 years at the school, and this season was only his third with a losing record. But the program had seemed to decline since the 1990s. Baseball attendance was negligible and academics a mess, and it didn't help that Price's team had lost 20 of the past 26 games against local rivals UM and Florida Atlantic.
Price held a news conference across from the campus Tuesday and said he would have hoped for more loyalty from the university.
THE NEXT STEP
The thing is, Garcia had again proved his loyalty wasn't to any individuals, even those with great tenure, but to the athletic program at large. To this vision.
''It is time to take FIU baseball to a new level,'' he said.
You can only imagine that other coaches, including Sergio Rouco in men's basketball, are on call to produce improved programs or explain why they couldn't. Garcia has a habit of asking his employees, ``What did you do to make us better today?''
It wasn't a coincidence that FIU hired someone who is a Hurricane to lead the younger school's fight to catch up. Garcia, 45, Havana-born, is a 1984 UM graduate who served several years in Canes football operations and the year previous to switching universities as Miami's associate AD.
In turn, to replace Strock, Garcia snatched away one of UM's top young and hungry football assistants in Mario Cristobal. By 2008, his Golden Panthers will be in a new on-campus stadium, which breaks ground Friday. Even sooner, Cristobal wants his team to believe it can go from winless to excellent in one year.
Toward the end of his first spring practice recently, Cristobal held up before his team an empty picture frame inscribed, ''2007 Sun Belt Champions,'' challenging his players to be the ones in that picture.
Some 2,400 fans turned out for the spring game -- huge by former FIU standards.
''We were expecting birds chirping and crickets in the background,'' kidded Cristobal.
By halftime, he was on a microphone bellowing to the enthusiastic crowd: ``We didn't come here to mess around. We came here to build a championship program!''
The man who hired him, Garcia, would today be a strong heir apparent candidate to replace outgoing Miami AD Paul Dee in a year had he not left.
He might still be.
Garcia smartly deflected the question Tuesday, saying, ``When I get focused on a job, that is all that's on my mind day and night. I don't like distractions.''
For now, that job is raising FIU to national prominence, and marshaling the school's 38,000 students and more than 100,000 alumni in Miami-Dade and Broward counties to care as much as he does.
Garcia knows the climb to reach where Hurricanes and Gators reside will be neither easy nor instant. Plenty will doubt him. But he has taken the first step, which is to declare his intentions.
''I'm from South Florida,'' he said. ``At the end of my career, I want to say I had something to do with putting FIU at a level with anybody. At the highest level.''
FIU's Garcia challenges competition
GREG COTE
gcote@MiamiHerald.com
Subtlety is not Pete Garcia's method of operation.
They are finding out at Florida International University, where the new athletic director aims to wake a sleeping giant with closer to a hard slap than a gentle nudge.
They are noticing in Coral Gables, too, where a different sort of sleeping giant -- the University of Miami, its monopoly on South Florida college sports long unchallenged -- surely lifts an eyelid to see who dares disturb the king's slumber with all of this ruckus.
That would be Mr. Garcia.
You might picture him holding a slingshot. And aiming high.
NOT SCARED
''I want our students, alumni and fans to know we will not be scared of playing anybody, anytime, anywhere,'' Garcia said Tuesday during a break in the Sun Belt Conference meetings upstate. ``I didn't take this job to continue to move FIU at the speed they were going and the level they were at. We're taking aim at the top programs in the country.''
Garcia envisions a day when FIU is to our area what Florida and Florida State are to the north in terms of public state universities competing nationally in sports. He also envisions a day when, locally, the Golden Panthers are competing with UM in all areas: on the field, in fan support, in local media coverage, in national attention -- everything.
The new AD said he is working to change the culture and attitude.
The coaches, too.
Quickly, Garcia changed football coaches, replacing local favorite Don Strock, whose five-year record of 15-41 -- 0-12 last season -- depleted the cache of goodwill accumulated in his term as a longtime Dolphins backup quarterback.
Next he changed soccer coaches, after Karl Kremser's robust record over 27 years at FIU gradually eroded to last season's 6-10-2. Kremser attempted to rescind his long-planned retirement and stay, but Garcia was moving on.
Most recently, the new AD changed baseball coaches, too. Danny Price had won more than 1,000 games in 28 years at the school, and this season was only his third with a losing record. But the program had seemed to decline since the 1990s. Baseball attendance was negligible and academics a mess, and it didn't help that Price's team had lost 20 of the past 26 games against local rivals UM and Florida Atlantic.
Price held a news conference across from the campus Tuesday and said he would have hoped for more loyalty from the university.
THE NEXT STEP
The thing is, Garcia had again proved his loyalty wasn't to any individuals, even those with great tenure, but to the athletic program at large. To this vision.
''It is time to take FIU baseball to a new level,'' he said.
You can only imagine that other coaches, including Sergio Rouco in men's basketball, are on call to produce improved programs or explain why they couldn't. Garcia has a habit of asking his employees, ``What did you do to make us better today?''
It wasn't a coincidence that FIU hired someone who is a Hurricane to lead the younger school's fight to catch up. Garcia, 45, Havana-born, is a 1984 UM graduate who served several years in Canes football operations and the year previous to switching universities as Miami's associate AD.
In turn, to replace Strock, Garcia snatched away one of UM's top young and hungry football assistants in Mario Cristobal. By 2008, his Golden Panthers will be in a new on-campus stadium, which breaks ground Friday. Even sooner, Cristobal wants his team to believe it can go from winless to excellent in one year.
Toward the end of his first spring practice recently, Cristobal held up before his team an empty picture frame inscribed, ''2007 Sun Belt Champions,'' challenging his players to be the ones in that picture.
Some 2,400 fans turned out for the spring game -- huge by former FIU standards.
''We were expecting birds chirping and crickets in the background,'' kidded Cristobal.
By halftime, he was on a microphone bellowing to the enthusiastic crowd: ``We didn't come here to mess around. We came here to build a championship program!''
The man who hired him, Garcia, would today be a strong heir apparent candidate to replace outgoing Miami AD Paul Dee in a year had he not left.
He might still be.
Garcia smartly deflected the question Tuesday, saying, ``When I get focused on a job, that is all that's on my mind day and night. I don't like distractions.''
For now, that job is raising FIU to national prominence, and marshaling the school's 38,000 students and more than 100,000 alumni in Miami-Dade and Broward counties to care as much as he does.
Garcia knows the climb to reach where Hurricanes and Gators reside will be neither easy nor instant. Plenty will doubt him. But he has taken the first step, which is to declare his intentions.
''I'm from South Florida,'' he said. ``At the end of my career, I want to say I had something to do with putting FIU at a level with anybody. At the highest level.''
