{"id":54856,"date":"2012-02-13T15:20:55","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T20:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=54856"},"modified":"2012-02-16T15:35:09","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T20:35:09","slug":"new-ad-focuses-on-success-on-and-off-the-field-of-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/02\/new-ad-focuses-on-success-on-and-off-the-field-of-play\/","title":{"rendered":"New AD Focuses on Success On and Off the Field of Play"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Warde<\/a>
Warde Manuel holds a UConn jacket at a press conference to announce his appointment as athletic director, held at the Burton Family Football Complex on Feb. 13. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After being serenaded with the Husky fight song by the UConn Pep Band in the main team meeting room of The Burton Family Football Complex, Warde J. Manuel took the podium as UConn\u2019s new director-designate of athletics and delivered a straightforward goal for coaches and student-athletes:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do I want from them?\u201d Manuel said. \u201cJust greatness, excellence, striving every day to succeed in the classroom, to win in the classroom, win on the field of play, and do the right things. We\u2019re going to do it with integrity. And lastly, we\u2019re going to have a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manuel, the director of athletics at Buffalo for the past six years, was introduced by President Susan Herbst before an audience of University trustees, coaches, staff, and state media.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake no mistake: he will play THE integral \u2013 and even transformational \u2013 role in the future of UConn athletics,\u201d she said. \u201cWarde brings with him some of the best experience you can possibly find in collegiate athletics \u2013 a comprehensive, top-to-bottom understanding of the dynamics of intercollegiate athletics at this very high level; a clear, authoritative vision for what a highly successful D-1 and BCS program should look like of course, the relentless drive to achieve excellence both on and off the court, on and off the field. This guy\u2019s a rock star and UConn\u2019s got him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manuel, who will begin at UConn on March 19, described his new job as \u201cthe role of a lifetime,\u201d and said his previous experience as an athletics administrator at Buffalo, Michigan, and Georgia Tech prepared him to lead Husky athletics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the modern history of college athletics there are very few select schools that are synonymous with and personify greatness, excellence, and achievement,\u201d Manuel said. \u201cThese schools are giants of the game; the outstanding universities that are filled with pride and devotion. You know as well as I do that the University of Connecticut athletics division is without a doubt one of the legendary institutions that is at that pinnacle.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his opening remarks, Manuel directly addressed last week\u2019s announcement that the NCAA has denied UConn\u2019s waiver request on participation in men\u2019s basketball postseason competition for the 2012-2013 season because of low academic progress reports (APR). UConn is appealing the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking as someone who has been watching UConn closely without being intimately involved, one of the things we need here is some perspective,\u201d he said. \u201cA low APR from two years ago doesn\u2019t define a program, an athletic department, or a university. It\u2019s a hurdle, not a mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Answering questions from reporters about progress toward improving student-athlete performance in the classroom, he added: \u201cThe bottom line with APR is it\u2019s not one singular person. It\u2019s an issue that has a deeper explanation than a number on a piece of paper. This university will get through that. We will get better. [Twenty-three out of 24] teams have an APR that is extremely impressive \u2013 950 or above. Coach [Jim] Calhoun in his career has had not only All-Americans, but Academic All-Americans. This a brief issue in my opinion, one we will work through, one that once we improve, we don\u2019t ever want to go back to that place.\u201d<\/p>\n

During Manuel\u2019s tenure at Buffalo, student-athletes in four programs with low APR rates \u2013 football, men\u2019s basketball, wrestling, and baseball — improved their classroom performance to meet NCAA standards. At the end of 2009-2010, 10 of Buffalo\u2019s 20 sports had scores of 975 or above.<\/p>\n

There are more photos from today’s event on Flickr.<\/em><\/p>\n

[flickr-gallery id=”72157629304294399″]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his first address to University trustees, coaches, staff, and state media, Warde Manuel described his new job as ‘the role of a lifetime.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":54857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-54856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gallery","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-29 10:03:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54856"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54910,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54856\/revisions\/54910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/54857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54856"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=54856"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=54856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}