MOVING FORWARDE: A Column by Athletic Director Warde Manuel

An Exciting Year,
A Promising Future

As I draw closer to my first anniversary as Director of Athletics at the University at Buffalo I wanted to share with you my thoughts on the direction of our program, a few high points from the past year and how we can all continue to shape the very promising future of Bulls’ athletics.

This will be a semi-regular column on our website and I would like to encourage you to share any feedback or questions you might have for future columns by clicking on the e-mail address at the bottom of this story.

I’ve loved learning about UB in my more than 10 months on the job, as well as the rich heritage and special pride that exists in the Western New York Community. UB Athletics will never be about me. As my staff has learned, I am only as good as those around me, and in a similar vein, we as an athletic department are only as good as the support we receive from both those within the University, as well as our alumni, fans and the Western New York community.

That seems a good place to start this column. First off, let me acknowledge the leadership and support that President John Simpson has provided to athletics. As I’ve stated before publicly, President Simpson was one of the primary factors in my decision to become a part of Buffalo’s athletic program and he has provided tremendous stability for our program as we haved moved aggressively towards our vision of being consistent Mid-American Conference champions.

Prior to my hiring, President Simpson very wisely elected to bring in Mr. Gene Corrigan, the former Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner, to draft a report on the state of UB Athletics. This document, “The Corrigan Report,” has proven extremely useful in my orientation to UB and still has several critical questions that need to be answered. While we have moved forward in several key areas that the report outlined - facility upgrades, overall budgetary support, personnel hirings – there are still questions of sport sponsorship and participation that need more ardent study. This will occur in the near future, and, quite frankly, sport sponsorship is one of the most persistent questions I receive. While nothing is set in stone, I can tell you that it is, and has always been, my primary goal to retain all of UB’s Division I sport offerings.

The Corrigan Report touched on several other critical issues relevant to Buffalo’s chances of securing Mid-American Conference titles in the future and I’m happy to report that both logistically and competitively we are closer than ever to reaching those goals.

This past year saw us receive a $500,000 gift from Mr. Robert and Carol Morris to build a state-of-the-art Sports Performance building. This building, a 6,000 square foot facility located at the Northwest corner of UB Stadium, will double our weight room space for our student-athletes. My experiences as both a student-athlete at Michigan as well as an administrator at both Georgia Tech and Michigan have taught me the critical importance of strength and conditioning to athletic performance and success. Put another way, it is THE most critical aspect of a student-athlete’s success on the field after the recruiting process. Mr. and Mrs. Morris’ generosity, which will be fully realized with the building’s opening in November, will pay immediate dividends for UB Athletics.

Why do I think this building is so important? Because we are so close now to realizing MAC Championships. Just look at the past year. Both our men’s soccer and women’s tennis teams reached the MAC Championship match against nationally-ranked programs. Both teams had spectacular seasons. Right along with them was our women’s rowing program, who elevated themselves into the Top 30 programs in the nation with their performance this spring including finishing second at the ECAC Metro Championships against long-time rowing powers UMass, Rhode Island, Boston College, Villanova, and the like.

Rowing wasn’t our only sport getting national recognition. Men’s soccer earned a No. 20 national ranking during the season, while wrestling also cracked the Top 25 poll in several wrestling publications. Not to be outdone, our men’s basketball program, by virtue of an 11-1 start to its season, earned votes in the Associated Press Top 25 poll for the first time in school history. These are impressive accomplishments and speak to the work that has been done in those sports and how close we are to breaking through nationally as an institution.

Based on these exciting accomplishments, I can hardly wait for our fall seasons to begin. Of course, I must admit one of the other things that has me excited is the hiring of Turner Gill to lead our football program. When I hired Turner I felt that he was absolutely the right man for the job. My feelings have not changed one iota after spending the past seven months watching him shape our program. Like all of our programs, he will need my support, your support as well as everyone around him in the formative stages of his program. I can tell you that I am looking forward to being a part of one of the most exciting chapters in UB’s long and storied football history in the coming years.

That is of course, where you come in. Simply put, we can’t do it alone. Not our swimming and diving teams, our basketball teams or our track and field squads. We each need you to be part of this process of becoming a Division I-A championship level program. How, you might say?

• Come to the games! Our tickets are among the most afforadable family entertainment options in all of Western New York.

• Join the Blue and White Club. Watch your dollars create talented and terrific young men and women who will make UB, our community and country a better place to live.

• Support us with corporate dollars. As our Division I program grows, so will the value of your sponsorship. We have all seen what the success of Reggie Witherspoon’s men’s basketball team has done for the University. Alumni Arena has become a feared venue to play in, and a wonderful place to be on a winter night.

Most of all, have pride in the University at Buffalo. It’s a fantastic University and a vital part of what makes Western New York a great place to live. Pride is just one third of the buzzwords I have used this year among our staff, what I have called “The Three P’s,” which will be our touchstones for growth.

Pride, passion and perseverance.

Pride in our University, our programs and Western New York, passion to get better every day and truly love what we are doing, and perseverance through the inevitable ups and downs that everyone encounters in competitive Division I athletics.

We’ll need to live those words through action to reach our goals.

Join us and we will get there together…and I promise we’ll have a lot of fun along the way.

Go Bulls!

Warde

Share your feedback or questions with us at ub-bullsnews@buffalo.edu