Matthew Schwanke
The new Athletic Director of Mount Saint Mary’s University, Brad Davis, has brought with him new ideas for improvement. His focus will be using athletics to help further the reach of Mount St. Mary’s University in the region and nationally.
One of the areas that Davis specializes in is marketing, which includes social media and videos. That reach can already be seen as the Mount has athletic hype videos playing all over the school already. Davis’s belief is that “athletics can tell the story of the university, it can serve as that front porch, and that is our job.”
Davis also has the hope that he can improve the facilities at the Mount, something that he did very successfully at Mercyhurst University, the school where he worked.
He said one of his first goals was to complete the Rooney Center, something that has been in the plans for the Mount for years. He also stated that some of the improvements will be implemented throughout this year, specifically in the concourse area of the ARCC.
Another change that Davis will be making is the addition of new sports teams. Although Davis declined to state which ones in particular, he suggested that they will be ones with big rosters, and ones that can use already existing facilities.
In Davis’s five-year plan, he outlined wanting to become big on fundraising. As it stands now, most of the coaches do their own fundraising. Instead of that, however, he hopes to move fundraising into a different department so that coaches have more time to coach. He also plans on having another 100 student athletes enrolled in the university. This would help to stabilize the enrollment numbers of the university.
The third goal of Davis is to position the Mount in a way to be ready for the next wave of conference realignment. He stated that would allow MSMU to be proactive rather than be reactive when that time comes.
Another thing that he hopes to bring is a different look to fundraising. This is something that he referenced repeatedly. The key to all his ideas is motivated by the ability to fundraise. He believes that the Mount has done well in the past, but it could do better.
Brad Davis
Photo by: Tyler Kraft