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Fred Glass gathered the Indiana coaching staff before he was introduced as the school’s athletic director and told them his top priority: compliance.
It was a word one of the coaches just didn’t want to hear.
“A coach said, ‘You know what, we’re sick of hearing that. We’re sick of hearing compliance,’ ” Glass recalled being told during a visit to Fort Wayne last week. “ ‘We are a compliant place with a compliant culture, and we really don’t like hearing that.’ ”
It was just the type of response Glass wanted.
“It gave me the opportunity to say, ‘Look, I’m sure you have a culture of compliance.’ But I think what those guys didn’t get because they were in the middle of it, and what I was able to bring with an outside perspective, was it’s not enough that we are (compliant), we have to show that we are,” Glass said. “Both externally and internally.”
Glass has been on the job since Jan. 2. He was introduced Oct. 28 as Rick Greenspan’s replacement. His stated agenda includes the three priorities of compliance, academic achievement and athletic excellence.
“And I’ve only become more convinced those are the right priorities in the right order, and that’s what we think about every day,” Glass said.
Glass said the entire IU athletic department was affected by November’s NCAA ruling that put the men’s basketball program on probation through Nov. 24, 2011.
“… All of our sports, as I remind everybody, we’re all on probation because of the basketball program,” Glass said. “As (men’s basketball) coach (Tom) Crean likes to say, it’s not fair, he didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, nobody in the department now did it.
“But it’s the reality in which we live. We spend a lot of time talking about compliance.”
Glass announced a department reorganization plan in April with all three of pieces of his agenda in mind.
“As an IU guy (received bachelor’s in 1981 and graduate of IU School of Law in 1984), before I was even connected with the university, it was embarrassing to take this black eye, and the most devastating part of it was it went right to what we all hold so dear,” Glass said. “Coach (Bob) Knight, love him or not, personified he’s never going to cheat, ever, and his kids are going to be academically strong, always.
“I think IU people, we’ll give you a little room on the field or court, but they aren’t going to give you any room on following the rules or having to graduate.”
