Press conference?

[Ponymon]

I lost the feed about 15 minutes ago and haven't been able to reconnect. Anyone else have this problem?

From what I saw of Orsini, he is exactly what we need. I am IMPRESSED!

[Pony_Fan]

He mentioned "level playing field with the competition", which is nice. I also like the fact that he worked for Tex Schraam and the Cowboys.

[nc pony]

Yeah, good move to hide Moody until he signed on the dotted line! Seems like everyone is impressed...were there any tough questions during the PC??

[Ponymon]

He did deflect the question about SMU's competitiveness for scholarship players given our "high" academics by saying that he has been assured by Turner and Copeland that we are equal with our competition.

[Ponymon]

By the way, he starts June 1. Copeland is in charge until then.

[DiamondM]

I was at today's news conference. Once again, lame questions from the local media reps.

Don't any reporters in this town have the gonads to ask the TOUGH questions?

No one asked Dr. Turner about The Commitment.
No one asked what Orsini sees as his top 3 challenges at SMU.
No one asked how he plans to get students, alumni and non-alumni interested in SMU's athletic programs again.
No one asked what was said during his meetings with Bennett and Tubbs and the other coaches.
No one asked if he'll be handling the investigation of the basketball program (although it sounds like Copeland might wrap this up before June 1)
No one asked how Orsini plans to reach out to Dallasites to get them interested in SMU football and basketball again
No one asked what Orsini's salary will be and how that differs from Copeland's

I agree that generally the questions weren't particularly hard hitting, but Calvin did ask what the greatest challenge at SMU was, and Orsini said getting fans, alumni, etc. excited about SMU again. Did he say he had specific ideas? No. But I don't think this was really the time or place for specific ideas. He did discuss how important athletics are to building a community and the goal should be to get students to games and alumni to be coming back for games as a rallying point.

Was there a specific question about "The Committment?" No. But there was a question about academic standards and whether they handicap SMU. The answer was pretty fluffy, but I bet if you listen to the tape you can count many times that Orsini said what he saw during the courtship process convinced him that Dr. Turner, the administration, the school, etc. was "committed" to athletics and that he thought that their "committment" was important to him coming here. Off the top of my head, he talked about looking at the books that show the university's committment to athletics, how the facilities show a committment to athletics, how Dr. Turner's personal appearances at games shows his commitment.

Now you're all going to believe what you want. I know some of you are going to believe that SMU blew a bunch of smoke up Orsini's [deleted] and he doesn't really know the truth about SMU's lack of committment, or that he doesn't give a damn about whether or not the university is committed to athletics because we paid him enough to make it worth his while and he's just happy to spout the party line. But that doesn't jive with this guy's track record for being a smart, successful, well-respected administrator and person. So maybe, just maybe, Orsini took a look and saw, well, a committment -- maybe with flaws, maybe without seing the fruits of that committment, and thinks that he's the guy who can take that underlying committment and get it to the next level of success. I guess we're about to find out.

[MrMustang1965]

If you want to see a video of today's news conference, there's a video link on this page:

http://www.smu.edu/newsinfo/stories/ath ... ch2006.asp

Here's what other folks are saying about Steve Orsini:

http://www.smu.edu/newsinfo/stories/ath ... rs-say.asp

Here is a Q&A from today's news conference:

http://www.smu.edu/newsinfo/stories/ath ... tor-qa.asp

And I can't help but laugh when I see Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas' name on the wallpaper behind Dr. Turner and Orsini instead of Methodist Hospital of Dallas.