The Weekly Download: Yes, you can call him 'Bobby D'

By: The Daily Barometer

Posted: 3/2/07

Bob De Carolis, OSU's athletic director, spoke this week about Beaver baseball, the state of the basketball program and fans who call for coaches to be fired. The full audio of the De Carolis interview may be found here

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Can we call you bobby D?

Sure ...

Is there any background to that nickname? Is that a real nickname?

Actually, when I first got here I think the first six people I met were Bob - I thought it was an Oregon thing or something.

OK, can you describe, if there is a way, what the athletic director does? Any highlights?

You know, it's funny. You talk about the weather changing - I mean, this job changes every second, from the e-mail you can get to the phone call you can get to someone walking into your office. And typically there's more challenges or downs then there are ups, but when you get the ups they're pretty significant.

Next week is the baseball team's home opener. What was it like to watch that historic season last year, from your perspective?

It was pretty awesome to say the least. I still don't think people realize the magnitude of that win, and I don't think the kids fully realized it yet either. I think they got a sense of it when they got their rings at the stadium that day.

Will you be watching on Thursday at Goss?

Unfortunately, I'm probably gonna be at the - hopefully - the second round of the Pac-10 men's championship if we don't get knocked out on Wednesday.

Speaking of men's basketball, the team's struggled this season. Do you think it's time for a coaching change, or are you going to stay with Jay John?

I've come out publicly saying we're staying with Jay, and I think that's the right thing to do.

Having the public call for change on any sport in any college is not really unusual. This past football season started off rough. You think fans are too quick to judge - they're not seeing the big picture?

I think the football situation is a little bit different, in the sense if you think about the fan base that we have: Mike Riley leaves in 1998, we have a season ticket basis of 7,500. Over the next four years with Erickson's success, that grows from 7,500 to 23,000. So really you got 16,000 people that all they know are bowl games, and really all they know is the Fiesta Bowl - they think that's the benchmark.

Do you look at chat rooms and online forums?

No. [Laughs]

So you try to keep yourself away from that?

I try to. If I get a sense that something's going wrong or something, I'll say ya know, 'What's the temperature out there these days?' 'What are people talking about?'

At the University of Oregon they just hired a big donor as their athletic director. What do you think of that?

Not much of a comment on that. I think it's ironic that you would post a job that wouldn't have as its criteria a minimum of having a bachelor's degree. So, to me the whole thing was - you want to call it - rigged, set-up. They were going down this road no matter what,

Are there any updates on athletic construction projects?

Right now we are in the middle of Phase II for Reser, and that's taking the lower bowl on the east side that we built in 2005 and extending that to the south end zone toward the west end, or where the iron man trophy used to be, or statue ... But also the new jumbo-tron, or TV, if you will, that will be - I believe it will be the largest in the Pac-10,.

If you had to pick one moment of the past sports year as the biggest moment - and you could only pick one - do you think you'd take football's win over No. 3 USC or baseball's national championship?

I'd have to take the national championship. As exciting as that football game was ... everything was just amazing, and then just to see the emotion of the kids after that and to watch it on tape and to watch Jon Casey run down from the stands onto the field and his dad hugging him, you start crying every time you see it - it's unbelievable. So that whole thing was awesome. But 1A would be the USC win - it would be right behind it. It was