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Rhoades would like to see $150-200M in
facilities improvements at Missouri |
Missouri AD Mack Rhoades, "ahead of his first fall on the job," spoke on topics that "range from facilities to staff/coaching decisions to cost of attendance" during a Q&A with Tod Palmer of the K.C. STAR. Below are excerpts from the interview:
Q: What is the status of the south end-zone complex?
Rhoades: We had an initial meeting probably at the beginning of the summer really just talking about philosophy in terms of the facility with [football coach Gary Pinkel] and myself, [Dir of Football Operations] Dan Hopkins and [Exec Associate ADs] Tim Hickman and Bryan Maggard. ... This needs to be a facility that hopefully will catapult us ahead and not just catch us up to people. ... Our next step is to get our master planner on campus, which I think we have coming on campus this month, to really present him this information and then challenge him to say, is the south end zone really the best place or are there other places.
Q: What are some other facilities priorities for you?
Rhoades: Certainly, the priority is this football facility. I’d like them, candidly, to all be priorities and put them all at the same level. But part of what’s going to dictate what becomes priority is certainly our ability to raise money and fund each of the different projects. Those that are on the list include, certainly, the Hearnes Center. It’s been a great facility, but it’s antiquated and we need to do something for those three programs that are there full time -- wrestling, gymnastics and volleyball. We need to do something for our student-athletes and our coaches. We’ve got to figure out what we’d do with indoor track.
Q: What kind of price tag are you looking at for that ambitious list of facilities improvements?
Rhoades: If all the things that we talked about or we’ve mentioned, you’re looking realistically, depending on what you end up doing with baseball, you’re looking at probably $150-200 million. ... That’s a big number, but we’re going to fight, scratch and claw to get there.
Q: Have you had any conversations with campus leadership about how cost of attendance figures are calculated here at Missouri?
Rhoades: I haven’t personally, but our compliance people have and have been in conversations. Across the board, at every campus, the athletics department has nothing to do with setting that cost of attendance number. It’s the financial aid office. They’re regulated. They can’t just pick and choose, but there’s a formula that they have to use in terms of coming up with that full cost of attendance. Like everything else, this is the first year and I think it will evolve. There’s some questions in terms of some of the areas that are factored in cost of attendance, and one of them is this kind of nebulous miscellaneous expense. Again, because we’re all so competitive, I think there will be more transparency in terms of the miscellaneous-expense component and how is that factored. Do we ever get to a point in time where it’s ever standardized across all campuses? I could see that happen in the future.
Q: Would you like to see it become a flat-rate type of thing or is that even feasible?
Rhoades: Not necessarily. I’d be in favor of more transparency in terms of how numbers are factored and just make sure that there’s a check system. Everybody’s going to use it as a recruiting piece.
Q: Are you comfortable with how cost of attendance is calculated here at MU?
Rhoades: Yeah, absolutely, I’m comfortable. That’s not to say none of us wouldn’t like it to be certainly more, but we’re comfortable (K.C. STAR, 8/13).
