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Strollo expects YSU to make playoffs
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
When Youngstown State athletic director Ron Strollo hired Eric Wolford 21/2 years ago, he knew the Penguins needed more than a coaching change to return the football program to championship levels.
Over Jon Heacock’s nine seasons, the program’s budget had stagnated as schools across the country beefed up their spending, improved their facilities and created more parity at the FCS level.
“During those Heacock years, we fell closer to the middle of the pack, especially in our conference,” Strollo said.
So, in addition to improving the salaries for the head coach and his staff, the university made a commitment to overhauling the team’s locker rooms, classrooms and offices. It got a new uniform sponsor in Under Armour, increased the recruiting budget, replaced the Stambaugh Stadium turf and, of course, built the WATTs.
As Strollo said last summer, “For a long time, we were driving a Cadillac. We’re driving a Cadillac again.”
And now it’s time for that Cadillac to win some races.
“The expectations are high here, no question about it,” Strollo said Wednesday in a recent wide-ranging interview about the state of the school’s athletic department. “Strategically, this has been a three-year process of enhancing facilities.
“The university has made a significant investment in the football program and this community has made a significant investment in the football program. Obviously, we’re hunting a conference championship and the expectation this season would be the playoffs.”
Strollo said he believes YSU is now among the top 15 or 20 FCS programs in the country and in the top three in the Missouri Valley Football Conference when it comes to facilities and budgets.
“And we feel the top three teams in our conference should be playing in the playoffs,” he said.
Like most FCS programs, YSU has benefited from the NCAA’s decision to allow FBS teams to count FCS wins toward their bowl eligibility. YSU will earn $400,000 for playing Pitt in the opener — that’s up from $250,000 it made from playing the Panthers in 2005 but well below the $650,000 it made from Ohio State in 2008 — and Strollo has tried to pour “money game” revenue back into the program.
But while playing a second money game — which league-member Missouri State did last season — would bolster the bottom line in a time of challenging budgets, it’s not something Strollo wants to consider.
“There’s a couple challenges there,” he said. “First is the student-athlete welfare. Our kids have proven we can line up against these schools once, but can we do it in back-to-back weeks or twice in three weeks and hold up physically?
“The second piece of my answer is, we’re trying to develop a football program that we can place in position to win a national championship. And if you look at the [FCS playoff] bracket right now, if you’re not in the top four in the country, it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to do that.”
One option would be adding, say, Akron or Kent State as a second FBS opponent. But Strollo said scheduling those schools won’t help much with recruiting — “When we play Ohio State, it helped us because a lot of kids dream of playing at Ohio State,” he said — and, as a playoff committee member, he said wins over those programs don’t carry much weight.
“I think there would be interest on their end but I’d only be interested in a home-and-home,” said Strollo, referring to a setup where each team would play one home game and one away game. “I don’t think they would be interested in that.”
In other interview highlights:
Strollo said plans for new softball and soccer fields are progressing but neither will be ready this school year.
YSU opened bids for the fields on Wednesday and Strollo expects both fields to be completed in time for the 2013-14 seasons. The facilities will be across from Stambaugh Stadium, just north of McDonald’s. Both will have lights and the soccer field will have turf with an outdoor track along the outside.
The Penguins currently play softball games at McCune Park in Canfield and soccer games at Stambaugh Stadium, which is not regulation width and features a crown in the middle of the field. The new soccer field will be used by the women’s team — YSU doesn’t have a men’s soccer team — as well as intramurals.
“The vast majority of our budget is going to be eaten up by moving dirt and relocating utilities,” Strollo said. “Some of the facilities we’re going to have to grow into.
“The scoreboard, the lighting for the softball field, maybe the stands we ultimately want or the restrooms we ultimately want, those things might come later.”
Strollo said plans to get a video board inside Beeghly Center have been put on hold.
After posting the two worst seasons in school history, Strollo believes the baseball program can make a quick turnaround.
The Penguins recently hired Steve Gillespie to replace Rich Pasquale, who went 25-85 over the last two years. But Strollo thinks the combination of the WATTS, new locker rooms and offices, improved coaching salaries and the relative weakness of the Horizon League as a baseball conference have made the job more attractive.
“I’m really excited about the baseball program,” Strollo said. “We really were a program that was, at best, meagerly funded when [Mike] Florak was here [from 1999-2007]. And he did an unbelievable job and took us to the [NCAA] tournament but he just got burned out.
“In the time Rich was here, I was able to get a better operating budget and some of the salaries we have now at least put us in a competitive position. And it showed, quite honestly, in the candidates we got for that job.”
After finishing last or second-to-last in every team sport in 2010, Strollo said he believes the athletic program has turned a corner.
“Not all programs were in that same spot a few years ago but I think we’re starting to get the things we need, facility-wise and budget-wise,” he said. “The thing I’ve talked a lot about is patience.
“When Coach [Jim] Tressel was here, he had a dream of an indoor facility and [a decade] later it finally came to fruition. It’s been an endurance of patience trying to get some of these things done and done the right way but we’re finally getting there.”