Here is my (lengthy) take on Dr. Toro and athletics at CCSU and her threshold for success.
First of all, I know her fairly well. We hit it off a couple years ago and the fact that my Spanish is pretty good surely didn’t hurt.
She’s tough as nails and, in my opinion, is doing a great job cleaning house and pointing CCSU in the right direction. She has garnered a lot respect from many of those directly reporting to her.
She has a lot on her plate and some of that, primarily the stuff we have been reading about, was inherited and now she’s left trying to clean up a mess that she had no part in creating.
She’s an academician first and foremost and in my opinion, she’s focusing on CCSU’s academic image including reversing the declining enrollment trend and of course reversing the image of inappropriate behavior by members of the university’s public safety and academic staff.
I have nothing to base this on other than my gut feeling, but I think she’s fine with CCSU remaining at the D-1 level BUT has little interest in moving up in profile. To paraphrase our previous president when I spoke to him about this “I’m not going to spend millions on a new arena when we literally have pigeons living under the roofs of our academic buildings”.
I see his point and I can definitely understand it if Dr. Toro places our athletic profile on the back burner.
Having said that, the last thing she wants is to have the athletic department face the same issues she’s trying to clean up in other areas but I also feel that she really wants the athletic director to run the show while she focuses on academic and administrative concerns. This is why I feel that she’s fine staying at the D-1 level but has no desire to change conferences. The NEC is a “safe” low profile conference that won’t cause headaches or undue pressure for the university president.
Now, I do think she understands that intercollegiate athletics is an “ambassador” to any university and most people know of schools like CCSU by their athletics as opposed to academics. M & W basketball surely isn’t helping that situation so I think her immediate threshold is to at least change the embarrassment these two sports bring to the school.
With several of CCSU’s other sports having a good deal of success, if the athletic department can just get 500 seasons out of M&W basketball, her short term thresholds would be met.
Interim AD
Re: Interim AD
Thanks Sky!
Re: Interim AD
You are welcome.
Again though...it’s just my opinion/feeling.
Again though...it’s just my opinion/feeling.
- Larryl9797
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Re: Interim AD
Well thought out Sky! This stability really starts at the top.... I mean thats what we are talking about.... Stability in the Presidents office and stability in the AD department.
“You can be as talented as you want, but if you don’t play together and as a team, you’re not going to win.” -Donyell Marshall 1-21-2019