EXCLUSIVE: Eric Hyman surveys Aggie athletic landscape

On the last twenty months and his time at Texas A&M…

“Parts of it have been a magic carpet ride. It’s been really awesome. When you look at the totality of things and you look that I’ve been fortunate to have worked at other institutions, what you recognize here is that there is no glass ceiling. We can be whatever we strive to be. That’s exciting. The support that we’ve gotten from the Aggies all the way across the board — you see from a facility standpoint; you see from a competitive standpoint — this is truly a special place, and I’ve told that to quite a few people.

"Having a son-in-law go here and a sister go here, I had an awareness and a semblance of what Texas A&M represented and what it stood for, but being totally immersed in it for a year and a half, it’s been quite rewarding. It’s been challenging, as all AD jobs are challenging around the country. There are a lot of complex problems and sometimes people think there are simple solutions to them, and there really isn’t when you look at it.

"The thing that resonates with me at Texas A&M is the values that it stands for. It’s the principles. When I was approached about the job, I thought there could be a really good connection because of the selflessness and the integrity and just the humbleness of people and the work ethic that people have. I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to meet quite a few people. I do have to apologize that I can’t remember everybody’s name. I’m getting too overloaded in that perspective. I do apologize when I tell people, but they do help me and tell me who they are. It’s been absolutely delightful for my wife, and for me.”

On how he feels A&M has fit in the SEC culture…

“I’ll answer this a couple of ways. First of all, the SEC could not be more ecstatic to have Texas A&M in the league. I’ve heard that from everybody. The respect they have for Texas A&M is off the charts. On the flip side of it — and people have told me the same thing — A&M is more of an SEC school, in the SEC mentality, than some of the other schools they have been associated with in the past. I’m not saying that’s good and I’m not saying that’s bad.

"There’s more of a lockstep with what the SEC is and what it represents. The competiveness of it, and people are totally immersed and connected with the student athletes and their teams. It’s been a terrific marriage and I think it will continue to be a perfect marriage.”

On the excitement surrounding Aggieland this week and since he got here…

“I think every week has been exciting to be at Texas A&M. This week parallels a lot of other weeks that we have. You talk to a lot of Texas A&M people and it’s just an exciting time to be associated with Texas A&M athletics and Texas A&M. There is so much positive energy that is going on. We had an all-staff meeting and I made a comment about Coach Blair — whether people know my background or not, I did coach women’s basketball on the college level and I really have followed it for many, many years — I said this at the staff meeting yesterday: what our Coach Blair and the coaching staff did, and how they dissected JMU, which I thought was a really good basketball team, how they attacked them, the game plan, and how our young ladies played was fantastic.

"It may have been the antithesis of last year, unfortunately to bring up the Nebraska game. I thought Nebraska did a wonderful job of coaching. On the flip side, I think Coach Blair did. It was one of the most enjoyable games that I’ve seen. If you look at it from a tactical standpoint and you dissect what they’ve done, and the counter punches and how they attacked JMU’s zone, and how we attacked them defensively, and how we changed our zone, and the changeups, I really give credit to Coach Blair and his staff, Bob Starkey and Kelly and Amy and our student athletes. If you look at Karla (Gilbert) at the beginning of the year, and where she is now ... I love our guards. Our guard play has gotten better and better as the season progresses.

"It’s an exciting time, and an exciting time to be able to follow our women’s basketball team and have the attendance that we had. We had more attendance than any regional site in the country. That says a lot for Casey Dohl, who is involved in women’s basketball marketing. That says a lot for our players, Coach Blair, and Texas A&M.

"The other part of it, as far as Johnny (Manziel) is concerned: I walked in there today and I was just spellbound. I had a chance to see a young man that coached here and was a football player at TCU when I was there, and that was here as coach in 2005 for one year. He is now the receivers coach for Tampa Bay. I had kind of lost track with him, and he came up and I asked him what he thought of Johnny and Mike Evans. They have the seventh draft pick and they are very interested in Mike. He just said that Johnny was off the charts. He could not believe the transformation of Texas A&M and Texas A&M athletics.

"I also met Coach Lovie Smith, and we were talking, and he is from outside of Dallas and he had never been to College Station. He was blown away also by all the commitments Aggies had made to try to enhance and improve the opportunity for our athletic teams to be successful.”

On Johnny’s pro day with pads and a helmet…

“To be frank with you, I have talked to some of the professional people I’ve known through the years. The one thing I’ve said about him — and obviously he’s very talented and is probably the best I’ve ever been around — the one thing that people need to understand is that he is very bright and extremely competitive. That doesn’t surprise me, being around Johnny and talking to Johnny, and he’s right. The fact of the matter is you do play with a helmet on, and having that made a statement.

"Whoever drafts him, and just like all the other Aggies I’m dying with curiosity, probably a lot of people around the country are interested. Selfishly, I want to see where Mike and Jake Matthews go, because to have three people as talented as they are says a lot about Coach Sumlin and the staff, a lot about Texas A&M and a lot for our football program.”

On his decision to keep men's basketball coach Billy Kennedy around another year…

“Well, quite frankly, as Coach Kennedy is concerned and our basketball program, let me say this: I’m a fan just like everybody else. I want us to be successful. I thought back today to an incident that happened this year. Some people have told me that I don’t care about our basketball program, and that’s not true. I care very much, and I care very much for Coach Kennedy, the basketball program, our student athletes and obviously Texas A&M. I reflected back on an incident that happened this year, and I’m not very proud of the incident. In fact, I’m embarrassed by the incident.

"To when people say that I don’t care, those terms don’t apply to me. At one of the basketball games the referee came over to me and told me to pipe down or I would have to be escorted out of there. I was into the game, so I want to win very badly. I’m probably more competitive than most people are competitive. I want to win so badly. Then when I reflected on the incident, I got embarrassed. Can you see it now, the AD at Texas A&M being escorted out? You talk about filling up the chat lines, blogs and national attention. I broke out into a cold sweat. I got so carried away. I excuse Sam of being a bad influence on me. I followed up with Sam and told him I would not be able to sit on the courtside seats anymore because I was reprimanding myself. I had been reprimanded and I could sit not with him anymore. He had been a bad influence on me.

'My point is, in a humorous way, what I’m trying to say is that I care. I really care. I want to win, but I want to win in the right way. When Texas A&M approached that, I was very clear and very emphatic about that. When you talk about college athletics, I am a fan, but I also have to administer a program. It’s not as easy as people think when you try to assimilate a coaching staff and assimilate them into a program. You have to understand the culture of what the university is. You have to understand the academics of the university. You have to be able to assimilate into the athletic department. You have to be able to hire your staff. There are a lot of things you have to be able to do. I understand the frustration people have. I understand that. This isn’t my first rodeo. I look at the totality of things.

"If you really look at it, you have to be fair in what we’re trying to do. Coach Kennedy was here after Signing Day, in the latter part of May. So he didn’t do any recruiting in his first year, in all intents and purposes. So you wipe off the first year — and he got sick in the fall. You go from there. It took basketball a long time to get to where it was and it will take a while to where it wants to go, if you want to do things the right way. I think that’s what Texas A&M exemplifies and represents. Basically, he has had two years to recruit. If you look at a program, and see if it has a great hope, I’ve always said that. There was a report that I made a comment about having to do this and that and that report was totally erroneous. I never made those kinds of comments. There are a lot of things that you have to be able to do.

"From what I understand, the players that are coming in are pretty talented. So let’s talk about another issue. Texas A&M is not in a great shape academically. Billy has had his hands tied behind his back. A lot of people don’t understand that. It is what it is. We have to make improvement in those areas. We’ve hired an academic person. We have study hall. We have attendance policies. We are bird-dogging it much more than it ever has been before from what I understand. I want to win, don’t get me wrong. I come from a hugely competitive family. People that know me know I hate to lose. I’m the kind of person that is going to knock you down, pick you back up and knock you down again. I’m going to do it the right away. I’m going to take the whole picture into consideration when you evaluate, whether it’s Coach Kennedy, Coach Sumlin, Coach Blair or whoever the coach is.

"What you want to do when you evaluate a program is you want your student athletes to compete to their potential. One of the things you can see a program turn is competition. It took four or five years to build up the competition at South Carolina, because a coach can only do so much. If a young player is not playing to an extent you want him to play, what happens to him? What’s the best way of teaching? They sit on the bench. When you have players built up and you have depth, you have more flexibility.

"Back to what I was saying: I understand people’s frustration. I’m frustrated just like everyone else. I know patience is the greatest virtue of what we’re trying to do. This is an institution of higher learning and there are some values that are important to all of us, and we want to make sure those values are obtained. Obviously, winning is a factor in what we’re trying to do — but we also have to be realistic in what we’re trying to do.”

On whether he feels Kennedy has the talent to make a run to the NCAA tournament next year…

“The last point you said was about being healthy. If you look back at this past year — these are not excuses — we have to be factual. These are facts. The issue is Davonte Fitzgerald, who I thought was a very talented young man. He’s an SEC player. He tears his knee up against LSU. That was devastating. Unfortunately, we lost our point guard at the beginning of the year. I’ve had basketball tell me that was about a four-game turnaround. That was unfortunate, and that’s going to happen when you deal with college.

"Alex Caruso is one of my all-time favorite players, and I come from a North Carolina basketball background. I come from watching ACC basketball. He is special. But you have to take him out of position and put him at point guard, that makes you vulnerable. Then, as you know, we had an issue with another player where playing basketball, I don’t want to say wasn’t the best thing for him, but there is a time when you need to separate from the team.

"So you have these issues and then you have injuries, but everybody has injuries. You had an inexperienced team and then you put that on top of it, it was a struggle. You finish the season with eight scholarship players, so you have to be realistic in what we are trying to do. Everybody has been critical with how bad the SEC is. But how many teams are left in the Sweet Sixteen from the SEC? Three. You look across the board and maybe that’s a good representation. Maybe those two wins against Tennessee weren’t that bad. We focus on some of the negative things, but let’s focus on some of the positive things. Let’s look at the glass half full when moving forward with the program. Coach Kennedy is our coach and we want to embrace our coach — and we want A&M to be successful.”

On the Kyle Field construction update…

“I have a crick in my neck I call the Kyle Field crick. It's a daunting challenge. Kevin Hurley has done a magnificent job. The reason we can have Kyle Field is because of the magnanimous investments that people have done for Texas A&M athletics. We can’t do it without you. It takes a team effort. The Aggie supporters are on our team. I tip my hat to them. It is going to be a showpiece. It’s going to be as good as there is in the country. I think Aggies can take a lot of pride in it and it’s going to help elevate us, being able to do the innovations in Bright, the Lohman Center and RC Slocum Nutritional Center. Obviously, the nutritional center is for all of our student athletes. The entrance to it makes a statement.

"I saw a longtime scout for the Dallas Cowboys and he was just marveled on some of the things that are going on down here at Texas A&M. He hadn’t been down here in a while and he said he needs to come back down here on an annual basis. He’s seen so much and it’s so exciting. What we want to be able to do is give Coach Sumlin and the coaching staff the tools to compete in this conference. Like I’ve said before, we had the fifth-best recruiting in the country but we're only third in our division in the league. This is brutal. This league is not going to wait for us. We're not sitting on our hands. We are moving forward.

"When we complete Bright and the locker rooms, which is what we are totally immersed in now — and like I said, Kevin Hurley has done a magnificent job; he was actually our teammate of the month and we ought to have a parade for him with how hard he has worked and as much as he has done to do this. Kyle Field is beginning to unfold before us. I’ve tried to tell people to be realistic and fair with us. An outlet may not be in the right place and might not work. A light switch may be not correct. Just understand as we go through this, we will work all the kinks out. It’ll be game ready. I’m sure there will be other things we have to get up to speed. The same thing will happen when the west side goes down.

"When we go through this 2014 season there are things that we will have to work through, but people will see the commitment and how things are just coming out from the ground. There will be a monster amount of pride people have in Kyle Field.”

On whether Phase One will be ready by football season…

“That’s why I have the crick in my neck. I told Kevin Hurley — I had a little fun with him not too long ago — I said, ‘Kevin, come July 1st, I’ll be gone for an eight week vacation and I’ll be back the first game. Make sure it’s all ready.’”

On the SEC Network and its impact…

“First of all, I recognized Jason Cook at our last staff meeting, because what we want to do athletically, we want to be looked at as the role model for everything we do. Academically, athletically, all across the board. Justin Connolly, who is the vice president for ESPN, the SEC conference offices have looked up to us at the job that Jason has done promoting the SEC Network. We need people to go to GetSECNetwork.com and Jason has been instrumental in this. As we go forward we are looked upon because we have the most people signed up, it’s very important and we made a huge commitment. The amount of exposure our teams are going to get is going to be tremendous. The commitment we’ve made and all the equipment that it takes, and all the exposure we are going to get, the comment I’ve made is that we are going to take the SEC out of the SEC. People have looked at me like I have three eyes.

"Literally, what we are going to do is be exposed all over country with all of our teams. You talk about a recruiting advantage and you talk about all those kind of things, with the strength and backbone of ESPN behind us. ESPN did a marketing analysis not too long ago, and in there — and this stunned me — in college athletics, 27 percent of the people surveyed thought the SEC brand is of higher magnitude than ESPN. ESPN was second with 21%. This is huge. You take the SEC and ESPN and that’s a recipe for huge success.

"Of course, our South Carolina football game will only be available on the SEC Network. Go to GetSECNetwork.com and tell them that you want to have the network on your carrier. It’s going to separate us. The PAC-12 has been doing this for several years and they are still struggling with it. The Big Ten has turned and they are doing really well with it. The SEC Network is going to come out of the box a lot faster. We have AT&T U-Verse on it. If we can get DirecTV and all the providers on it, it’ll be a quantum leap forward for getting the exposure that we want for all the programs. So it’s going to take the SEC out of the SEC.

On his confidence in getting providers like DirecTV and Suddenlink on board for local Aggies...

"You never know on something like this. I am cautiously optimistic. We are way ahead of anybody else in the past. To the extent and the expectation that people have, you're a businessperson and you know the negotiations that go on until the 12th hour. It's playing a game of chicken. Aggies have to continue to let their carrier know they want it. That's what's going to have to happen to get carriers to be committed to do this. There's always negotiating and 11th hour (stuff) because you have two business entities trying to negotiate and get coverage.

"Everything is lined up for this to happen. You never know, but if you want to make sure, call your carrier and tell them — and I know the Aggies, and Jason Cook and I are going to go talk to the president of Suddenlink and the president of Comcast and we're going to tell them ahead of time, 'We appreciate Comcast and everything they do, but Aggies are going to go to where they can watch their teams compete.' If they're on the sidelines, the carriers, they need to get into the game."

On any parting message he would like to impart...

"What I would say is it's an honor for me to represent Texas A&M. My wife and I couldn't be any happier to be here. What we want to try to do is, we're part of the team, and our focus, my focus, is on our student-athletes. That's our primary focus. Sometimes we get caught up. They're young people. They're 18-, 19-, 20-year old young people. I think for this past year some people were critical of our quarterback. He's a young person.

"I go in to various groups and meetings and I say, 'Do you have children? Raise your hand.' And they raise their hands. I say, 'How many do you have? One, two or three?' And you get different responses. I'm talking about groups of 600 or 700 people. And I say, 'I just want you to know that I've got almost 700 children. And somebody is getting in trouble right now. But I treat them like they're somebody's son or somebody's daughter. We try to provide the support so they can be successful not athletically but academically.

"I try to tell our young people there is life after sports. Your physical tools will take you somewhere but your mind will take you the rest of your life. Some of them grasp it, some of them grasp it later on. But the maturation process hits people at different times. We're honored to be here and we're honored to be your athletic director and we're honored to work with Aggies and we couldn't be more ecstatic and happy to be part of the Aggie family."