Recently in Group 10 Category

1) Athletic Director and Associate Athletic Directors who have better organizational understanding of individual programs

2) Performance on the Field: Sports are successful in winning games, advancing to conference tournaments, bowl games, and other championship games on a consistent basis.

Education: Student athletes are maintaining a focus on academic growth and career exploration that will benefit them beyond their university experience.

Ethics: Institution and it's member athletes are committed to following the rules and guidelines outlined by the university, conference, and NCAA in a manner that emphasizes responsible decision making beyond the letter of the applicable rules and regulations.

External Profile: The athletic department is committed to expanding the university's community impact by positively representing the university in a manner that those members of the community that the university affects are encouraged and proud to be associated with the university and athletic department as a cooperative.

Resource Management: The athletic department is determined to be fiscally responsible both in terms of financial outputs and staffing inputs in addition to exploring methods that will expand the revenue streams and make the athletic department more financially solvent.

Institutional Enthusiasm: The athletic department and its employees will represent the university in a manner that promotes a sense of pride and honor to the university.

3) MSU should place paramount importance on developing a highly recognizable and highly regarded external profile in order to better effect the performance on the field in terms of competitive success. In this case, a high external profile would also allow MSU to attract additional resources because a highly regarded external profile will allow MSU to attract the best coaches and staff members thus generating interest from athletes and creating a program that is self-sufficient and self-sustaining in terms of athletic competition. Additionally, the relationship between performance on the field and external profile appear to exist in a symbiotic relationship such that performance on the field is directly proportional to the external profile of the athletic department and the university and the external profile can also be directly proportional to the success of the athletic teams on the field as outlined above.

4) The nine objectives of MSU all, either individually or as a collection of ideas, express the theories and processes behind the six characteristics identified in Wolfe et al. (2002). Recruiting student-athletes of high moral and academic fiber relates to the organizations external profile. The objective of maintaining sound financial base refers to the resource management outlined in Wolfe et al. (2002). Operating in compliance with the rules of the university, conference, and NCAA refers to the ethics of the athletic department. Encouraging student-athletes, coaches, and staff to participate in community programs refers to the institutional enthusiasm and such. We feel that the nine stated objectives are more than satisfactory in terms of addressing the entirety of the concepts outlined in Wolfe et al. (2002).

5) Goals for MSU          

-          Hire the best possible coaches whenever possible

-          No over-spending but spend enough to remain competitive in the market

-          Set reasonable but challenging goals for ticket sales for various large profile sporting events

-          Attract the best talent to represent the department and focus on maintaining and advancing the facilities of the university

6) Goal Attainment would work well with the goals of MSU in that it would allow the university and the athletic department to set goals and essentially determine the organizations success or efficiency based on its own criteria. It also provides an opportunity for a more straight forward assessment of the organizations success.