In a three-part interview with The Wolfpacker last week, Debbie Yow talked about uniform changes, the search for a new school-wide apparel deal, the new videoboard at Carter-Finley as well as other projects, scheduling philosophy, etc. It's an excellent read.
This is from part I:
Has there been anything that has surprised you in the last 10 months about the job?
"There have been a couple of positive surprises and then a couple of other that are not as positive. I have been mildly surprised at the level of passion of our fans. I knew that we were passionate. I knew that from my relationship with Kay, the 34 years she was women's basketball coach, but it's still different in a day-to-day basis. So I was mildly surprised by the volume of mail that I received, which is a reflection of that passion.
"Our position that we would answer every email has been taxing, but we said we would and we have to continue to. It's important because our fans need to know that we respect them. We are still going to continue down that road.
Here Yow is gently suggesting that maybe you people don't need to ask questions or offer unsolicited advice all the damn time. For example, it's not necessary to send an email advocating the merits of Tim Miles every day during the search for a new basketball coach. Not that I, uh, you know, not that anyone would do this highly hypothetical thing in particular.
In other news, Stanford may be on the schedule this season, and in the future Yow and Gottfried will look to schedule guarantee games against schools in the 100-200 RPI range and avoid the dregs, which is something a lot of folks have been calling for over the years.
"I do believe in stronger scheduling, and so does Coach Gottfried. Hopefully we have a chance, perhaps, to play Stanford at Stanford this coming season with their returning the next year. There is no contract signed yet, but we hope that is going to happen. We are in a new tournament that first two rounds will be played in the RBC Center and if we win we go to Madison Square Garden, very high profile tournament.
"He too is a believer in a stronger scheduling model. We'll still see a certain number of buy games that we don't have to return, but they are going to be better buy games than teams with an RPI 200 to 350 or 348, whatever the number, it will be between 100 and 200, so even those will be more fan friendly and more interesting games."