{"id":7642,"date":"2015-04-14T21:55:57","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T01:55:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7642"},"modified":"2015-04-14T22:04:18","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T02:04:18","slug":"the-infamous-strategic-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7642","title":{"rendered":"The Infamous Strategic Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"good-duke-dog-J\"<\/a>Let’s start with what has to be a [very happy, if somewhat unexpected] JMUSB first, a second note on the Softball Dukes in just over a week. #23 Softball destroyed<\/a> another CAA opponent last weekend in cruising past UNCW and ran\u00a0their overall record to a gaudy 32-6 overall (a cool 11-0 in the CAA) as their assault on the major polls seems likely to keep plugging along. JMU is scheduled to be back in action at ECU tonight (Wednesday) before traveling to face a Delaware team that just fired their coach<\/a> under odd circumstances this weekend.\u00a0While we know very little about softball, we do know when we’re looking at a potentially historic season and a Dukes’ team with a real shot at a serious postseason run. Check out what ESPN had to say about the Dukes last\u00a0week.<\/a>\u00a0(see #4 in the article).<\/p>\n

Now, onto exactly the kind of midweek morning reading many of you are sitting in your cars or on the Metro dreading about an hour from now. You know, the ever-thrilling world of consultants delivering reports to management! Just think, you could be out enjoying some spring weather, but really wouldn’t you rather listen to a guy in a knit tie give a Powerpoint presentation? Or in our case, read the JMU Athletics Strategic Plan<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Seriously, before you go nuts one way or another, do yourself a favor and if you really care about JMU Sports (and you probably do if you’re willing to read us for any length of time), take a few minutes and check this thing out. This has been cannon fodder for message board trolling for months. We usually try and keep this spot a bit more positive than the boards, but even we have been skeptical – me because I rightly assumed there wouldn’t be anything conference-related and Rob because he actually works with these things for a living and figured it would be filled with corporate nonsense and double-speak. But to our surprise, it ain’t that bad. In fact, Rob’s comment to me when we first discussed it was “it’s really pretty good as these things go” and even I have to admit the same after some time to ponder. A few highlights and notes from our first pass:<\/p>\n

– New Convo – this is the highlight and while it’s been discussed, and even approved in Richmond, it’s great to see it in ink.<\/p>\n

– Pretty solid measurables for revenue numbers, academics, and most notably on the field\/court, how many conference titles (5) and NCAA berths (7) are expected each year to show whether the AD and the coaches are meeting their goals. Needless to say, those are strong numbers and JMU hasn’t been anywhere close to meeting those lately so it’ll be interesting to see how Bourne addresses this in the next two years.<\/p>\n

– Focus on revenue. To us, if nothing else this means they’ve got to think long and hard about which conference serves this need best.<\/p>\n