JU
Sailing Hires Head Coach!
Beginning in spring of 2012, a search committee was convened to identify and select candidates for the Head Coach position for JU's new varsity sailing program. Members of the JU Sailing Advisory Board were joined by supporters of JU Sailing and friends of the program who are actively involved in competitive sailing in the region. Dr. Steven Davis served as chair and was joined by Dick Allsopp, Jim Callahan, Robert Gibbs, Hal Gilreath, Matias Heinrich, Tom Ingram, and Steve Suddath. After collecting over twenty applications, the committee began a rigorous process to select the top candidates for extensive evaluation and interviews. By the end of June, three candidates had been invited to campus and as the evaluations were completed. Jon Faudree of Rochester, New York was hired for the position and assumes his role as Head Coach for fall semester. In the next few months, Jon will be meeting with members of the campus and local communities to get acquainted and refine his plans for our program for the next several years. Help us welcome Jon to the Jacksonville area and make him feel welcome! This is a HUGE accomplishment for JU and we are honored to have Jon to lead us forward!
New Challenges for JU Sailing and the Plank Owners Society
This is an exciting time for our program, but we will face
some major challenges over the next several years. First, we must build a program that will
attract new students to JU for varsity sailing. Together with our new coach, we
must find high school juniors and seniors can put JU on their lists of
universities to consider—we need students who are likely to come to JU not only
because we have solid academic programs, but also because we have a varsity
sailing program. In order to meet the
challenge set by Dr. Romesburg for productive new programs, we must attract
students to JU who would not otherwise have known about or chosen JU. If you have questions, contacts, or leads for
recruits, contact Steven Davis.
The Plank Owners Society and the success of our fund raising
was part of the reason why JU Sailing was considered and then chosen to become
a varsity program at JU, in part because we have brought a substantial number
of donors to JU who otherwise would not have been likely to give to JU. As part of our new varsity program, we have
to refit the Plank Owners Society to become our boosters association. All top-level sailing programs around the
country have fund raising organizations supporting them. Such organizations are
aimed at raising capital and funding for special purposes, which is common to
virtually all collegiate athletics. Our
efforts must now turn to raising funds to help upgrade our program and
facilities. For example, as our sailing
team becomes more prominent and competitive, we will attend a substantially
higher number of events around the region and country. That requires more travel and more
funding. We will also need to grow both
the program and our facilities.
Additionally, we will need to add staff as the team grows. Last, but probably most importantly, we need
a dedicated sailing center on campus.
All of these things require supporters like you to help make them
happen. As we did with the Plank Owners
initiative, we will need for you to stay involved both financially and
personally, so look forward to hearing more about these things as the program
evolves.
Update on Our Fund Raising Campaign
Speaking of fund raising, just because we have been upgraded
to varsity does not mean we can afford to sit back and relax! While collegiate sailing is, compared to
sports like football, a financial bargain for colleges and universities, it is
still costly to compete at a national level.
The funds we have raised to date are approaching $90,000 in collected donations and pledges. Our fund raising efforts must not only
continue, but increase and transform to support the new program. We will need to start campaigns to offset
what will certainly be rapidly growing expenses for the operating budget,
capital, and improvements to our facilities.
The funding dedicated to our new program through JU will be adequate to
begin the recruiting process and support the basic level of operations for state
and regional competition; however, to be competitive with programs like one of
our regional rivals, College of Charleston, we will have to shape our fund
raising campaigns much like those of the best sailing programs in the
nation. That means ongoing campaigns and
special initiatives to ensure our sailors and coaches can bring prominence to
JU Sailing. As our Advisory Board
adjusts to the new status of our program, we will reach out to you and let you
know how you can help. As always, any
member of our Board (listed in this newsletter) can help, so don’t hesitate to
contact any of us.
Speaking of Program Needs…
Please keep us in mind for a few things that we already know
we need to help make our new program successful. For example, we currently do not have a power
boat to use that is sufficient for the types of programming that will take
effect as our coach comes on board and also for running regattas at JU and
locally. If any of you know individuals
with power boats that are in good condition and of the type that a coach might
use for running dinghy sailing events, plus would like to donate it to our
program, contact any Advisory Board Member.
Ideally, we would have a center console whaler-type vee-hull outboard
boat under 18 feet long, but let us know if you have other ideas. Rigid inflatables are ideal, so we would be
especially interested in those!
Your college experience may be recent or a distant and
fading memory, but either way, you are literally a member of our collegiate
sailing program at JU. Interviews with
the nations top coaches reveal the importance of the people who are donors and
supporters of the programs who have the best results, year-to-year, and
legacies in collegiate sailing. Said
plainly, no collegiate sailing program that is a success had done so without
supporters like you. We would like to
start an effort to spread the word about JU Sailing and help build both our
visibility and sense of team spirit. One
way we can do that is to start making available things like shirts, hats, and
other things common to college athletics and fans of college sports. We hope to start making available polo
shirts, hats, and various items to help you show everyone that you are a
supporter of our team, but also to help get the word out about JU Sailing. If you are interested in either helping us
develop this idea or just want to show your pride in JU Sailing by wearing a
great looking shirt with a team logo, let us know.
Last in terms of programs needs at this point, we are
working currently to do some improvements to our humble, improvised launching
area on the JU campus. Our coaches and the sailors themselves currently do all the work and could use some
help to make our waterfront ready for a busy sailing season. If any of you are talented at problem solving
with an emphasis on engineering or just have a knack for finding solutions to
challenging problems with handling small sailboats, let us know. We have difficulties launching our boats and
negotiating the terrain near the waterline, but especially during low tide when
we literally have up to 30 yards of mud near shore before we can touch water. That means we cannot launch our boats several
days per month without great difficulty.
Until the dock at JU is expanded (one of our upcoming fund raisers), we
need solutions to this dilemma. If you
have interest and/or talent in this area, contact us and we’ll be happy to have
your help.
JU
Sailing Team Updates
Fall 2012 Sailing Team
This year's team will help us transition from club to varsity level sailing and is headed up by two returning upper classmen, Jenna Spangler (Junior) and Dan Moore (Senior). Jenna and Dan will help our returning sophomores to take our program to new levels of competitiveness with Coach Faudree leading the way. We will engage in intensive recruiting on and off campus to build up our team, which is heavily weighted toward underclassmen. Our first dedicated sailing recruits are beginning to show up on the lists of new freshmen coming to JU and we will introduce all of our new sailors here on this newsletter as soon as possible.
The JU Sailing Advisory Board
Contact any of the members below to join in our efforts or respond to anything in this newsletter:
Hal Gilreath: hgilreat@cisco.com
Steven Davis: sdavis@ju.edu
Madison Shelly: mshelly@ju.edu
Robert Gibbs: rgibbs@dixietugs.com
Jim Callahan: call2gro@aol.com
Nancy Nichols: noenich@bellsouth.net
Dick Allsopp: dallsopp@comcast.net