Issue link: http://catalog.e-digitaleditions.com/i/106818
What makes me feel good and what should make our community and our state feel good, the event was not even over and the representatives from USA Wrestling were already saying they needed to bring the event back to Iowa City again because of the incredible job everyone that was involved did. So that's just one event. That same year we hosted a NCAA diving championship event, we hosted the Big Ten field hockey championship and several other championship events. It wore our staff out, but what a great testament to our community, to our staff, to our state, our fans. hs.com: Earlier you talked about one of the three pillars of our operation, "Winning." In December you had to restructure two departments that play very significant roles in the other two, "Doing it right" and "Graduating." Can you talk a little about the restructuring and how the UI Athletics Department will come out of that process stronger? Now about the decision to split academic services and compliance into two areas. Let me start by saying our graduation rates the last two years have set records. We went from 74 percent graduation rate two years ago to 77 percent on this year's report. People may or may not know how good that is, but it is extraordinary compared to our peers in the Big Ten, compared to our peers nationally. Then we have a compliance environment where the NCAA recognizes us as being a leader in terms of doing things right, following the rules. So I see two areas where the results have been terrific for a long time and where we have a history of having those two programs run by one administrator. Over the years those two areas have grown so much. Now we're taking the opportunity to do something we've been thinking about and making ourselves better from it, by having a director that will oversee academic services and another director that will oversee compliance. "Well, anybody who is familiar with Hawkeye incredible athletics has either met, Again, those staffs have done organized, work the way we're currently spent time with, been the but now we're looking at ways for us to get even better. beneficiary of John Streif. He is the classic example hs.com: Let's dig a little deeper on of 'Servant Leadership.'" the value you place on our student- GB: As I mentioned earlier – and it continues to be a theme that this discussion – whenever we make decisions, we might talk about one piece of the decision, but it usually factors into the big picture. I keep talking about strategic planning because as you make individual decisions, it's going to affect other things. It certainly is no secret that we had a challenge, an issue that arose in our academic services area. The name Peter Gray is now familiar to a lot of people. I would never sign up to go through what that academic staff had to go through, what our department had to go through, what the University has had to go through. But, whenever there's a challenge, we need to learn from it and we need to take that situation and see how we can make ourselves better. athletes getting their degrees. We've had great success with our graduation rates thanks, in great measure, to great work by our student-athletes. What do you say to the fan who may suggest to you to compromise a little on academic piece of the puzzle in an effort to maybe win another game here or there? GB: Well, what I would say to that fan is I understand the angst of 48. Believe me, I live it and think about it every day. Our football coaches live it and think about it every day. But, historically, we have proven at Iowa you don't have to compromise. We know that we can excel in the classroom and we can excel competitively. So you have to avoid the temptation to look for some quick fix that compromises one of your principles. Our three principles are not going to change as long as I'm here. We need to win, and if we don't win, I won't be here. I understand that, I embrace it, and I spend time focusing on it. We also need to graduate, and I won't back off on that principle, and we need to do those two things and everything else we do with integrity, do it the right way. I've been in this business almost 30 years. I've always worked 48