FAU's Basketball coach, Mike Jarvis, has been seeking a contract extension from Craig Angelos for the entire 2011-2012 season. And now that the season is over, and Angelos is gone, the Sun Belt Coach of the year (2010-2011 season) has been granted an contract extension by Melissa Dawson, Interim Athletic Director.
"We are excited to announce the extension of Coach Jarvis' contract. He has
transformed our team and created a tremendous amount of excitement about
our men's basketball program," said Dawson (www.fausports.com).
Jarvis is excited to know he will maintain at FAU for atleast another three years and stated, "With the administration's continued commitment to the men's basketball
program, my staff and I will continue to build the most comprehensive
and successful program that we can." Jarvis has aquired one of the best acclaimed recuiting classes this year, which will be much need now that many of the former Owls are looking to transfer or go professional. With this hype, there will be much excitement for the future of the Owls Basketball team!
On the other side of campus, FAU Football Coach Carl Pelini led his Owls to their first ever Spring Game under the lights of the 'FAU Stadium.' The running game looked very impressive on both sides (blue and white) with Jonathan Wallace rushing for 104 yards and scoring three touchdowns, Tony Moore rushing for 99 yeards (17 carries) and Damien Fortner adding 60 yards in nine carries. The Owls still have some work to do, and the work will only increase when the freshman come in in the Fall and challenge the veterans.
This will be an interesting and exciting year for Pelini and the entire Owl community!
Setting aside sports for a day, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, visited FAU in the Burrow and spoke about the economy and the importance of investing in our future. While inspiring the FAU students to strive to be more educated and inspired citizens, the speech quickly turned into a campaign movement. Nonetheless, a visit by the POTUS definitely puts FAU on the map and draws national recgonition. The Owls baseball team was forced to move their originally set home game to Fort Meyers due to the visit by Obama, which led to a defeat by the FGCU Eagles (6-5).
As a follow up to the previous post regarding Owl basketball players, Ray Taylor and Kore White leaving the team, recent news has leaked the transferring of freshman guard, Omari Grier. Omari was a hot topic within the FAU community early in the season, putting up a great game against cross town rival Miami Hurricanes, and draining a three pointer in the final seconds to force the game into overtime. Omari's season then took a drop once conference play began, where he spent most of his time on the bench watching his teammates play. The reason for the benching is somewhat unknown, and Omari is now looking into four schools to transfer to help him get to the next level.
Will this affect the Owls next season? It's hard to answer considering the signing of three new players, who will be a huge presence for the Owls in 2013. Javier Lacunza is one of the players that will help the Owls, with his 6'8'' frame, Lacunza is a 17 year old from Spain who is seeking some fierce college play and a fan support that hopefully won't be let down. (Lacunza highlight video is shown to the right). Along with Javier, is 6'7'' Devonte Thornton, and 6'4'' Jackson Trapp. These are just three of the five players that Jarvis has got to sign for next season,Trivante Bloodman and Stephan Moody signed int the Fall. Where the Owls are headed is hard to tell before practice even begins, be we have huge anticipation for Midnight Madness in the fall (the annual event that kicks off the season for the Owls basketball team).
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The term "Football in Paradise" could not be more appropriate for the Spring game that is set to be played by the Owls Football team on April 14 at 6pm. Pelini has been hard at work for the past 5 months in preparing his players to represent FAU in the way everyone is hoping for. While Spring games are a large hit at other college campuses, the Owls are hoping to attract many students, fans, and the people in the community to come out and get a sneak peek of what's to come for the Fall! Pelini has brought in many new players who are challenging the veterans for their spots, so this game will hopefully put the pressure on the Owls to prove themselves to the coaches, the University, and all FAU fans in attendance. While the QB situation has been one that has been of great uncertainty for the players and fans, it seems that Wilbert will be the starter for the Spring game. Which seems ironic considering he was the only palyer who had little to no experience in the spread offense. It will defenitely be something to pay attention to, and for us Owl fans to look forward to!
While Spring football is of great importance, Spring is also the time for baseball, and our Owl team has leaped burrows in proving that they are competable not only in the Sun Belt, but also on a National level, holding a record of 20-10, ranking 30th in this week's Collegiate Baseball NCAA Division 1 poll. The Owls pulled off a ninth inning victory on Wednesday, April 3 against hometown rival Lynn University. As the Owls continue to make strides to jump into the top 25 rankings, the crowd presences has been positive for the Owls and we can expect it to continue to grow as the FAU baseball team gives their fans something to cheer about!
With a new Football Coach, A new football stadium, and a new
Athletic Director, FAU football is in a time of change and the FAU football
brand is quite different than when football was first introduced to FAU. But
how can our FAU football 2012 program
tell the students, the parents, alumni, the community, and even the Nation they
are no longer a 1-11 team that plays 30 minutes away from its home campus?
This is a question that we hope will be
addressed in the search for the new Athletic Director, but without a doubt, the
marketing and advertising plan of our FAU Sports needs to be re-strategized and
work more aggressively to give people even a thought about the FAU team when
they drive through South Florida.
FAU Football 2012
has a chance to recreate what it means to be an Owl fan, while still giving all
respect and honor to our legend Howard Schnellenberger.While Schnellenberger laid the
foundation for FAU football, Pelini will have the opportunity to build a
franchise that can compete nationally, with our great location that attracts
recruits from all over the country, our exquisite new stadium, our unique and
‘new’ sense of school pride that grows year after year.Creating a perception that FAU Football 2012 is ahead of other schools
in all aspects of the game such as talent, motivation, pride, style, ‘swag’,
speed, and size will draw the attention that we have been seeking and craving
for years now.
In order to create this image of FAU Football 2012, many strategies can be taken into consideration.
However, starting with the basics is high on the priority list considering the
‘FAU Owl Athletics’ facebook page has less than 800 likes when the student
population is over 28,000 students at Florida Atlantic University.With that said, FAU Athletics should
first start off with a full time Sports Marketing Director, who will then
create a staff comprised of 8-10 interns that are currently enrolled at FAU and
are looking to get involved in a sports marketing career. This team would be
responsible for updating and marketing the social media outlets such as
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and any others that can reach out to potential
fans.Also, creating and posting
signage around campus and the community about upcoming events is a great and
easy way to get the word out about games, but more importantly creates a
presence of the team within the community and informs the average person that a
team exist in the area.Again,
these are simple strategies, but are easy and have yet to be fully accomplished
therefore, they will be a quick jump start for our marketing campaign.Although I am definitely not the only
one with ideas for our Athletic Department, the more ideas the better, so by
allowing more students to be a part of the team offers great experience and
helps the overall brand awareness of FAU
Football 2012!Until a new AD
is hired, we will have to settle to dreaming and hopefully sooner than later we
can begin a marketing plan, create a notable perception of FAU Sports.
“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars.
You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” -C.S. Lewis
Change is in the air for the Owls of Florida Atlantic University. Over the past week, FAU Athletics has taken a turn and a profound leap in what we hope will be the right direction! Athletic Director, Craig Angelos, will not be returning to FAU next year, with FAU hoping to bring in a new face to the Athletics Dept. and a passionate voice for the Owls. While Craig has helped move FAU up to Division 1A and witnessed many great victories in his time as AD, the potential for FAU is outstanding and it is apparent that the Administration is seeking something different for the coming years. In searching for a new AD, we can only hope that a few factors are looked at that some might say have been missing in the passed few years, that is passion for FAU sports and national/local marketing of the FAU teams.
While FAU has surpassed some of its struggles over the years with regards to the student fan base, students are finally beginning to embrace their University and are proud to call them self an Owl. This is something that took much time and hard work to get the students to Rally behind the team. With Coach Howard Schnellenberger ending his coaching career last year, he is now an Ambassador for the University and is looking to take his Owl passion to the Student Body by creating an army of students to promote school pride and spread the passion throughout the entire student population. This will be further discussed in upcoming posts, but it will definitely be something to look forward to considering everything Coach has led has risen to be something great and contagious to his followers.
FAU's struggle to market to the surrounding community is another aspect that should be considered in seeking a new AD. Gathering support from local fans is crucial in meeting ticket sale objectives and creating a buzz within the cities that FAU inhabits. This has always been a struggle for FAU; however, with FAU becoming very close to the dream of having banners on Glades Road, we'll have to see just how far the city will let us claim it as the Hometown of FAU!
Jarvis and his Owls had a decent season this year, ending in a dissapointing 1st round loss in the Sun Belt Tournament. But, to look back any further and complain about our season is something not too many Owl fans want to do, especially Mike Jarvis.
Coach Jarvis and his team of assistant coaches have been working hard for the past year recruiting players for next season. Many of you might recall the 7' Baylor transfer, Dragan Sekelja, who looks to bring the Owls a 'large' prescence in the paint, but has surprised many in practice by his long range ability knocking down 4 out of 4 three's at practice the other day. The Owls are losing two seniors that will be extremely missed by the fans, Alex Tucker and Shavar Richardson. However, I don't think the Owl fans will be too sad once they see the new team take the court next year.
Jarvis has a few surprises for the Owl community bringing in probably 5 new players, plus Dragan (as mentioned above). Starting some buzz on the web, a 5'9'' guard from Orlando is Stefan Moody. Moody has amazed many coaches from around the country, and after some confusion in thinking he was committed to the University of Florida on a football scholarship, Moody is very interested in the Owls and Jarvis looks to rap him up very soon.
With the students at FAU beginning to follow the Owl team over the past few years, the hype and excitement grows as a new organization called "the 6th Man Club" will look to get the student attendance 'up up and away' in the Burrow. SG Coordinator Mike Burdman has volunteered to be the faculty advisor and has very large hopes of the organization, and continuing the traditions of FAU Basketball success. With the Student Section in the Burrow still yet to be named, "the 6th Man Club" is definitley an attractive possibility. Looks like we have something to look forward to for the 2012-2013 season!
Jarvis is excited to know he will maintain at FAU for atleast another three years and stated, "With the administration's continued commitment to the men's basketball
program, my staff and I will continue to build the most comprehensive
and successful program that we can." Jarvis has aquired one of the best acclaimed recuiting classes this year, which will be much need now that many of the former Owls are looking to transfer or go professional. With this hype, there will be much excitement for the future of the Owls Basketball team!
