By Hunter Paniagua, The Times-Picayune The Times-Picayune
Published: Wednesday, July 06, 2011, 8:27 AM
Last year at Dillard's athletic leadership training, student-athletes received pictures of what Gulf Coast Athletic Conference championship rings would look like.
At this year's training, members of the GCAC championship track and field team will receive the real thing.
The track and field team joins the volleyball team, which already received its rings, as Dillard's first conference championship programs since Hurricane Katrina. Athletic Director Kiki Barnes said they serve as examples the other athletes can aspire to match.
"Sometimes people need to see tangible things, like they need to see an actual ring," Barnes said. "Well, when our volleyball team won, that particular vision became a reality. So they're going to be walking around campus with rings. It's really going to provide a real-life visual for the other student-athletes who are still hoping and wanting to generate that. It's more of a motivation because it's real now, not paper."
Those teams' success shows the growth the Bleu Devils have experienced since Barnes, also the women's basketball coach, became the interim athletic director in 2006. Barnes had the interim tag removed in 2009 and set out to implement a plan that included hiring staff, increasing scholarships and improving facilities, steps that created a foundation for the program on which to build.
"These past five years, since I've taken the job, have been about laying a foundation so that we'll be able to grow," Barnes said. "Kind of like when people plant crops. There's a lot of preparation work that goes into making sure you yield a good crop. That's kind of what I see as happening at Dillard."
The GCAC recognized Barnes, who also serves as the conference's president, as the athletic director of the year, a testament to the success she's brought to Dillard and the GCAC.
"That was the best thing that could have ever happened," Barnes said. "I wasn't working for an award. I just wanted to do a good job, and doing a good job was good enough for me. For them to say 'we watched you work, and we've worked with you, and we appreciate you,' that just meant all the world. It was like icing on the cake."
Barnes now has her eyes set on the next phase in the process of rebuilding the program. She plans to bring back tennis and hire assistants for volleyball and cross country. She also needs to select a men's basketball coach to replace Dale Brown, who departed for Clark-Atlanta.
But before she can move forward on some of those projects, Barnes must wait for Dillard to select a new president, which she expects to happen within a year. But Barnes doesn't see that delay as a hindrance. Instead she sees it as an opportunity to sit back and observe the effects of her past decisions.
"It's a better situation to be in because it's not pressure on doing right now," Barnes said. "We've done a lot. Now, it's time to let things sit and see what happens from the work that we've done from my initial strategic plan. It's almost like we're in replanting mode. We've done everything that we set out to do with our initial strategic plan, so I think it's perfect timing. Now my job is to assess where we are from where we started and then make another plan for the next five years and continue to grow."
Barnes expects to continue to yield crops from the foundation she has built, crops she hopes turn into more championship rings.
"I think that building a program is a marathon, not a sprint," Barnes said. "If we can just continue to be steady like we are, we're really going to see some good things happen here."
No comments:
Post a Comment