fire compher

Editor,

Unfortunately, this summer, the East Carolina Board of Trustees made the incorrect decision to sign our athletic director, Jeff Compher, to a five-year extension. This was done despite declining athletic revenue, poor performance of our athletic programs and multiple questionable decisions involving East Carolina athletics. Many people have raised their displeasure over this, however, the administration has remained tone deaf, including Cecil Staton, chancellor, whose public comments and letter showed absolutely no understanding of the mindset of the fan base. We have reasonable expectations of competitiveness at East Carolina University, and under Compher and Staton, these have not been achieved. However, we remain committed to our student-athletes, Pirate Club scholarships and other endeavors of East Carolina athletics. Given the lack of response from the chancellor and the athletic director despite the outpouring of our proud fan base, I decided that further action should be taken to advocate for Pirate Nation. Until full accountability is taken for this decision, peaceful protests solely against ECU administration will continue this season.

Positives:

Team GPA of 3.02.

Creating a life skills division to assist student-athlete development and community outreach

Spearheaded the Southside expansion— however, project completion was revised due to “construction estimates received by university officials…were significantly higher than anticipated and initially forecast. The increasing demand for projects in the state of North Carolina, along with added contractor premiums to complete the work within a nine-month window, were cited as primary reasons for the surge in prices.” (ECU Athletics Communications)

Served as Chair of AAC AD committee and serves on finance committee

Baseball Super Regional appearance in 2016

Neutral/debatable:

Added women’s lacrosse at a cost of approximately 500,000 per year. While this was reportedly done due to Title IX issues, it will increase the ECU Athletic budget deficits

Attempted innovative marketing platform with NASCAR - however, the platform failed “because the sponsorships it expected the purple and gold car to generate did not materialize.” (www.reflector.com)

Scheduling— new series with Marshall University, Old Dominion University and Appalachian State University were negotiated. An away game at the University of Florida was arranged that was viewed on national TV and provided a significant payout to ECU. South Carolina was allowed to buy out of a return game in Greenville.

Logo redesign provided branding under one official logo, but reportedly cost approximately $500,000

- Negotiated the Adidas contract with misleading information about an "elite 11" classification and its ability to help fund the Cost of Attendance. However, despite the $840,000 saved on uniforms, the budget deficit has increased.

Negative:

Mismanagement of the Ruffin McNeill firing in terms of public relations– Per Jeff Compher, “We came to the conclusion that our football team was not meeting competitive expectations, and–in my opinion– the trajectory of the football program was not going in the right direction.” Cited “attendance” as a factor “as well as ticket sales and other things.” However, since McNeil was fired after a 5-7 campaign, we have gone 3-9 and finished last in the American Athletic Conference East in football and are off to a 1-6 start this year. The firing absolutely fractured the fan base and coverage by national media was negative.

ECU lost to an Football Championship Subdivision team for first time since 1980 after a 34-14 defeat at home to James Madison. Most of the losses have been blowouts, many of which have been televised nationally. We have had the smallest crowds since 2006 in consecutive weeks at home games.

Despite firing a football coach with a record of 42-34 for not meeting “competitive expectations,” Jeff Lebo has amassed a record of 97-119 in 7 seasons as Men’s basketball coach against D1 opponents and padded his record against non-D1 opponents.

Season ticket sales the last seven years: 22,832, 20,299, 18,719, 18,641, 18,123, 19,050, 16,130 (9/1/17)

2016-17 Athletics budget loss: 439,035; 2017-2018 projected 979,050 loss (ref BOT minutes 9/2017)

The ECU Athletics budget, which ranks behind Old Dominion University and James Madison University, is among the lowest in the AAC.

Presided of swim team hazing scandal

2015-16 EADA (Equality in Athletic Data Analysis) ranks ECU 10th in the AAC in revenues at $43.045 million– ahead of only Tulsa at $40.465 million and Wichita State at $27.25 million. Student fees account for almost $15 million of ECU’s Athletics operating revenue, which is exorbitant.

ECU had zero Capital One cup points in 2016-17 secondary to globally poor athletic performance. ECU’s teams finished at the following: Football (1-7, last AAC), Men’s basketball (6-12, ninth in AAC), Women’s basketball (2-14 last), baseball (7-17, last), softball 5-13 (next to last), women’s soccer (1-7-1, last)

Budget surplus has eroded into a budget deficit during Compher’s tenure despite increased revenue from AAC TV deal, Adidas contract. ECU Board of Trustees meeting data shows the following: 2011-12: 3,501,218 reserve; 2012-13: 2,157,785 (-1,343,433) reserve; 2013-14: -847,187 (-3,004,972) reserve; 2014-15: -795,568 (+48,362) reserve; 2015-16: -1,879,747 (-1,084,747) reserve; 2016-17: -2,318,782 (-439,035) reserve

Compher has campaigned for other AD jobs (Missouri, Richmond and SDSU)

Each team has had 10 percent budget cut, but Compher got a $70,000 raise. In other words, teams cut its budget by 10 percent, while Compher got a 20 percent raise.

Decreased football attendance has an overall negative effect on the local economy

In my opinion, the Jeff Compher-led ECU Athletic administration has failed to meet the expectations of Pirate Nation. I have laid my argument out transparently, and encourage those who agree to like my Facebook page, Fire Compher, and to consider supporting my protests that have been started on gofundme.com so that your voice may also be heard. For those who support our administration, I’d like to see the contrarian argument to what I have laid out in this letter– in particular from ECU administration. As a proud Pirate and Pirate Club member, it pains me to take these steps. However, I feel compelled to do so for the sake of my alma mater’s future.

Go pirates!

John Bream, MD, FACEP

ECU alumnus c/o 2005, BSOM alumnus c/o2009

(1) comment

MArgggh

Why do y'all keep giving this dude a platform?!

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