RPI’s sports programs have had an amazing fall. Women’s soccer won the ECAC tournament, field hockey brought home a state championship trophy, and the football team has completed a perfect regular season and has a first-round bye in the NCAA tournament.
The winter will likely bring more of the same. Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams are strong contenders to win the UCAA, the fans expect great things from a men’s hockey team that returns most of its players from last year, and the swim team also looks strong.
Our athletic successes are a great credit to the athletes and coaches and also to the staff of the athletic department. What is even more impressive is that these staff members are operating without permanent leadership in place.
Former Athletic Director Bob Ducatte announced his retirement back in the spring semester and finally stepped down in June. Since then, the school has hired five new head coaches plus half of the football staff. While it was necessary to fill these positions so that the teams could compete, one would expect that the position of athletic director would have been filled with equal, if not greater, urgency so that he or she could have had some input into the process by which these coaches were hired.
A search committee has been formed to select a new athletic director, but the school has known it would need to fill the position for well over six months now, and there is little reason why a quality candidate could not have been found before the semester started.
The athletic department is already operating with a skeleton crew and the lack of a leader to provide a consistent vision for the future of RPI athletics only hampers them further. The Institute should act to remedy this situation immediately to best serve the teams we all support.
