Long wants alums, students to get on board and support Beaty, football
One of the hottest topics going into Jeff Long’s first press conference was, what would his comments on the football program be?
“It’s time to break the cycle,” he said.
Long said those words during his introductory part of the press conference before the Q&A session. You can break that down in different ways in what he meant. But after he fielded questions from the media it was clear he meant it was time to win and everybody needs to get on board to do their part.
“Coach Beaty is our coach, and we all need to support this program and we need to support the young men that play the game,” Long said. “Our student athletes are working incredibly hard to win for Kansas. They are Jayhawks and they need your support and this program needs your support: Become a season ticket holder, buy a single game ticket, join the Williams Fund. Do whatever you can do to help us be successful. It's time to break the cycle.”
If you read message boards and listen to talk shows there was some belief that Long would arrive in Lawrence looking to find cracks in the program that would give him the chance to bring in “his guy.”
But that message was the opposite after listening to Long. Remember Long is a seasoned athletic director who is starting his third Power Five job. He’s been around the business and football for a long time.
“I’ve been around football my entire career and has been very directly involved in football my entire career,” he said. “One of my challenges will be to get in and start assessing our program. I've had good conversations with Coach Beaty and seeing how he goes about business on the inside and then certainly they are preparing for that first game on September 1. We will really start to know the progress of the program on September 1 when the season begins.”
Beaty started vacation with his family and wasn’t able to attend the press conference. Long said he insisted to Beaty to remain on his vacation because July offers one of the rare times a coach can get away from the office.
Long said he would get to learn more about the program once he starts in August.
“We haven't had any detailed discussions about the football program,” Long said. “You know, I need to get here and see firsthand. I know he's a good person. I know he works hard. But we have not gotten in depth about his program, but I look forward to doing that and look forward to talk to him about his approach and his coaches and recruiting and everything that's involved with the football program.
As Long kicks off his start as the athletic director he wants to be able to support Beaty and his coaches with everything he can do for them to be successful.
“I just want to make sure that we have the resources we currently have committed to the right areas of the football program to help it be successful and then it's obvious to me that my job will be to go out to raise more money and find new revenue streams to our program to support the football program, and really, all of our programs,” Long said.
The effort won’t just be on the financial side. Long hopes the alumni and students embrace the football program. He wants to get an early start on finding ways to get more people into Memorial Stadium.
“It's really important for us to get students engaged because students actually help bring other fans to the stadium because of their enthusiasm,” he said. “I think our staff and I, we'll go to work on that early on, trying to engage with students or continuing to engage with students, and try and find the things out that are important to them to get them into our venues.”