A Conversation with Jimmy Bass

The UNCW athletic director joined us for a Q&A.

Mike Spencer / UNCWSports.com

Back in the fall of 2010, Jimmy Bass walked into an athletic department that desperately needed some stability after a tumultuous period that saw two leaders come and go within a span of six years.

Not only has Bass helped steady the ship, he’s led the program through a period of rapid growth and competitive excellence, with UNCW capturing 27 CAA championships during his 11 years on the job.

With 2021 coming to a close, it was ideal timing for a chat about the big-picture view of UNCW Athletics, ranging from his feelings on the men’s basketball program to baseball facilities and the future of college athletics as a whole.

Below is the entire 35-minute conversation from Tuesday, Dec. 21, edited only for length and clarity.

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Seahawk Perch: Well, just kind of as you take a look at where the program is over the past year and dealing with COVID and all that stuff, just how do you characterize the past year? 

Jimmy Bass: A challenge and unlike anything I have ever experienced in 40 plus years in Division I athletics … I'm proud of our student athletes and our coaches for persevering, not only competitively, and wading through the constant testing and waiting to see if somebody was sick and getting well, if somebody was sick, the pauses, and but more importantly, from an academic standpoint, this past fall of semester, our kids crushed it in the classroom. That's what I'm proud of.

The kids have maintained focus on their priorities, and that's getting a degree from a great university. We've got 19 teams and 16 of those 19 teams had a GPA of 3.0 or better, compositely, all the teams. 

Talking about academically and how the kids fall through, fall semester, 19 teams, the average GPA is 3.428, and that's with 331 student athletes. 265 made 3.0 or higher, which is about 80 percent of our student athletes, 52 of those kids had a 4.0, and I mentioned that 16 of the 19 teams had higher than a 3.0 and even the three teams that didn't have a 3.0, the lowest grade point average we have is 2.81, when you're talking about the other three teams, 2.81, 2.94 and 2.97. So that's pretty darn close.

I think we talk a lot about mental health of our student athletes, we've worked really hard in conjunction with the health center here on campus to make sure that we meet the needs of our student athletes, not only competitively, and the coaching and certainly the nutrition that they get, but certainly the support they need, the counseling and the things to make sure that they're equipped for the rigors of competing and learning in a really, really tough environment here at UNCW. So overall, the past year – year and a half – has certainly been a challenge, but our student athletes are all champions for the way that they've responded to it.

SHP:  When I was wrapping up what I was doing with covering the ACC schools, mental health was kind of the next frontier for the things that they wanted to tackle, and yeah, they've got all kinds of crazy resources. What have you guys done at our level and the CAA to help kids out? 

JB: I think I saw in an article several months ago that we're one of four, I think, CAA schools that have a full-time mental health expert on staff. … We partner with various people on campus, and folks are professionals, and not only in academic support, but certainly in mental health, and we pour financial resources into it. And we give our kids the opportunity to speak to folks when they need help and they just need somebody to listen to, and we certainly provide that.

There's nothing more important to us right now than the mental health and certainly the physical well-being of our student athletes. I'm proud of the partnerships that we have forged here on campus, again, academic affairs, health services, folks here are really, really focused on doing what's good for our 330-plus student athletes.

First of all, it's committing to doing it, then it's putting the financial resources into making it work, and then it's being consistent in providing those services to our student athletes, and I think we've been able to do that over the past year.

SHP: I guess the resources are kind of a storyline during the pandemic with everything that's going on. Just how has that affected the bottom line of what's coming in and what you guys are spending and donors and all that kind of thing? 

JB: Well, it hasn't... We budgeted for it. The university helped us through the COVID portion of the testing that was required to compete last academic year, and just like every other school in the country, they had federal resources and state resources to make sure that we were keeping our kids safe and putting them into an environment, so. 

But no, we have methodically and intentionally budgeted each year for the past three years, additional funds to make sure that we provide mental health resources, to make sure that we're providing nutritional and dietetic services to make sure our kids understand that they need to eat healthy, they need to get their rest, and if they need some help beyond that, we certainly have done it. 

So, has it affected our bottom line? No, because we have been diligent about how we planned to expand those services over the last three years.

SHP: You’re now the second longest tenured AD that we have had in Wilmington.

Assessing kind of from where things were from the day that you walked in there (in 2010) to where they are now, what are you... What do you kind of look at as the things that you're most proud of and most excited about? 

Bradley Pearce / UNCW

JB: You asked about the bottom line, we've grown our budget from approximately $8.2 million, $8.3 million when I arrived in 2010, that we're over $18 million right now. And that's been a collaborative effort with a lot of folks here within Athletics, it's a collaborative effort with the Seahawk Club, making sure they understand what our goals are in terms of being able to fund our athletic scholarships here, and that's gotta be an absolute priority for us.

It's making sure that we work in conjunction with... I mentioned the collaborative efforts on campus, folks in business affairs, folks in academic affairs. Our academic support staff technically works for the Provost and the Provost Office, the Office of Academic Affairs, not only that they get tremendous credibility that the provost is overseeing our academic sport areas, which makes it air-tight ... We have an objective third-party running those services, so that we're providing the best and doing the best for our kids.

So, I think we've grown our resources. Now, are we where we need to be? No, not at all. College athletics is changing by the minute, and it takes a lot of resources to be able to stay on the cutting-edge and to stay competitive, so we've gotta figure out a way to continue to grow our resource base here. We've gotta figure out a way to grow our season-ticket base. Folks have got to buy basketball season – men's and women's basketball – season tickets. Folks have got to buy baseball season tickets, that's a way that we can grow. 

And it's a simple formula, give scholarship money, buy season tickets and show up and cheer for the kids, and let them know that you care.

So, I think financially, I think we have grown with four different chancellors over the past decade, and that means they're different, the priorities from one administration to another. The one priority that has never wavered is our academic excellence, and I'm proud and I think that's the thing that I'm proud of, is the academic performance over the last 10 years. Ten-plus years of our student athletes, and they are the ones that come here for an education and a degree, and we try to help them along and obviously try to get them a tremendous competitive experience to go along with their academic mission here to start their academic journey.

SHP: Academic support being under the Provost, is that something that you guys changed or has it always been like that? 

JB: No, we did that like four years ago, and most of the schools in the country do that. Like I said, it lends great credibility, the faculty here on campus, the faculty, the athletics committee oversees all of that operation. 

They're in our buildings, they see us every day, and they work with our coaches every day, but the folks that work in our SASS area (Student Athletes Support Services) again, it's just a cleaner operation and there's tremendous credibility for those folks with the decisions that they're making, when the athletic director, and the athletic administration doesn't make decisions on behalf of our kids from an academic standpoint. The folks that are experts here on campus, the academic affairs people are the ones that are making those ultimate decisions with input from athletics because we bring the NCAA perspective, the continuing eligibility perspective to it.

And again, that's a matter of working with the folks in the Registrar's office, it's a matter of working with the folks in financial aid, so it's a big spider web, but we navigate it. If you've heard me use the word 'collaborative' or 'collaboration,' and I think that's one of the things we're really good at here, to use all the resources that are here on campus at UNCW, to give our kids a good academic experience, and the academic experience is also leadership and competition, too.

SHP: You said changing landscape, and that's probably the best word to describe everything that happens in college athletics at any given time. But just as this round of conference realignment started, was that as simple as when everyone else found out that Texas and Oklahoma were making a move that it would eventually trickle down to our level, or is that something that you're kind of always keeping an eye out on? 

JB: I think we're always keeping an eye on that. The bigger picture is what's going to happen with the Power Five and where are they going, and I think you're going to see in January with the NCAA working on a new constitution, the Board of Governors of the NCAA has approved that constitution and it will be voted on in January, so keep an eye on that. 

I think the general direction of where Division 1 is going, and honestly, some of us may be in a different division one day. You may be playing at the highest level for us, which would be basketball, baseball and soccer, but we may not be playing in the same division as the Power Five people because they have different budgets, they have different ambitions, they have different goals. 

It's going to be really, really interesting to see where we go with that. Obviously, NIL has helped guide some of that.

The NCAA is begging the federal government to step in and create uniform standards across 50 states for NIL so that people in different schools and different universities, and different systems aren't operating under different umbrellas and different sets of rules. There’s a lot to be done in terms of where college athletics is (going). In five years, it’s probably going to be much different from where we are right now in 2021.

SHP: Do you really think that that split from the autonomy conferences is something that's possible? 

JB: I think it's very possible, split divisions ... Right now, there's Division I, there's Division II, there's Division III. There's I-AAA, which is non-football schools … and I think eventually, in my mind – and this is what I believe in – I believe in the educational model. There's so much discussion about amateurism. It's the educational model. That's what I want to work in, that's what I want to provide. I think we help make kids better, we help prepare them for life. There's a whole different other division that the kids are worried about being first-round draft picks, and that's great, but I think there's so many people in Division I that think the educational model is a good model.

SHP: What's kind of your vision for what that educational model is? 

JB: I think we continue to provide what we're providing: a great undergraduate experience that includes obviously getting a meaningful degree. I think it means engaging leadership activities and knowing that you’ve got to turn in your shoes, the ball, and your helmet, and your racket, and your bat; you’ve got to turn them in one day.

Are we preparing kids to be able to go to the next step? If a kid gets signed to a $100 million contract, that's preparing him or her to go to the next step, that's one way to do it – but not everybody's going to make $100 million when they leave their one, two, three or four, or five years from a university.

So, I just think there's a way and I think kids are better when we give them a chance to grow up, we give them a chance to make mistakes, we give them a chance to make decisions – good decisions, bad decisions. They learn to deal with the consequences from bad decisions, and there's nothing wrong with that. So, I think it's the maturation process, growing up, and I think that's what is the basis for the educational model, making them better people.

SHP: So in your view, does the educational model mesh with what the schools at the highest level of those autonomy conferences are doing? 

JB: I don't know. I'm not dodging it but I don't know; I don't know.

That's a really, really good question that I think a lot of people need to get in the room together and talk through.

SHP: What does NIL mean to you guys at this point? 

SHP: We have a few kids that are engaged in it. We have one basketball student athlete that is hooked up with a marketing partner and I think he got $1,000. I saw a thing – you may have seen it in the media – about three or four weeks ago, Athletic Director U. or somebody did some research and there were 4,300, 4,400 transactions that have been recorded so far. And of course, there are a couple of million dollar deals and that kind of thing, but the median amount was $63.

And ours, it's an education process for us. We will guide our kids. We tell them, ‘You've got to find somebody that you trust. You need an attorney, you need a CPA,’ And the PowerPoint presentation that we showed our kids, the last slide they saw was a slide that had the logo of the Internal Revenue Service on it and the slide said, ‘Pay your taxes.’

But we continue and we're teaming with the folks in the Cameron School of Business, – we'll continue that into the spring semester – continuing to try to enlighten and educate, and equip our kids to evaluate any opportunities that are presented to them in the spring semester of 2022.

SHP :What's your view on the kid (Travis Hunter) that went to Jackson State, obviously, pretty wild case, but do you think there's any way that this can level the playing field for mid-major programs?

JB: Well, no, I don't think it's going to because of the transfer portal. Kids can pick up and leave any time they want to. They get a better deal, they can leave. And now, is the NIL going to level the field for mid-majors? Absolutely not, absolutely not.

SHP: You guys can't really recruit or encourage local businesses to engage in that sort of thing, right?

JB: That's correct. You're not supposed to. It's not supposed to be a recruiting inducement.

SHP: But you would certainly hope that they might…

JB: You go back to the first question we discussed, our budget, our resources — Rob Brickels is fighting, and Mike Vaccaro, they're fighting in the community every day trying to identify new corporate resources to be able to pay our bills with. The Seahawk Club folks are trying to raise more money for the general scholarship fund, and at some point, with the economy and inflation like it is in our community … a corporation is going to have to make a decision, "Are we going to support the program that's been here since 1947 or are we going to support this kid's situation?" So that's a business decision that a corporation has to make.

SHP: I guess that leads into another thing, and that's something that has definitely come along since I was in school … how do you make UNCW Wilmington's program and not the Tar Heels or Wolfpack or Pirates? 

JB: Well, I think we concede and say, ‘Hey, we know that you've got an Alma Mater, we know that you support a football team in the fall, we know you watch your team play.’  I always love for NC State and North Carolina to play at 9 o'clock because it's hard for those folks to pick up and go to Chapel Hill and go to Raleigh and get back at reasonable hours, and a lot of times when we play here on Thursday night, ‘OK, come and leave right before 9 o'clock and go home and watch your team play.’

But I think that's the appeal that we have to make, and most of the people who run businesses know  if this university is successful, it's going to make this community better. If athletics is successful – you gotta look back to 2016, ‘17 and ‘18 – when we last had tremendous success in men's basketball, how that galvanized the community and brought people together.

We’ve got to try to find a way to keep the energy level up, and fortunately and unfortunately, sometimes that has to do only with winning, but I hope we're going to get back there with that. So, it's a matter, you’ve got get out and work every day and try to engage and keep people connected to the program and understand not just a win-loss record but how hard these kids are working, who they are, what their personalities are, what their goals and dreams are, what their ambitions are, what they're going do with a degree. And that's the thing, the complete message that we try to deliver to our donors and our corporate sponsors.

SHP: So, how much, is it as simple as saying that when men's basketball is playing well, that things are going to go really well to the department, and if men's basketball is losing, then things are going to be a little tougher? 

JB: No, that's a cop out, and that's why we've got full-time people working here for people to understand, especially at our level, there are going to be ups and downs. There are going to be challenges. There're going to be injuries, there’s going to be transfers, you’ve just got to be... You've got to have a great foundation built with the right people, in terms of your coaches, your administrators. For us, the process starts in admissions. We have to have a special kid to come here – that wants to be here – because we make them go to class.

So it all starts with us with the admissions process, but no, I think that's a cop out to say ‘If they're winning it's good, if they're losing it's bad.’ And you've always got fair-weather fans, but fortunately for us, we've got a good consistent base, and then you throw in COVID for the last year and a half. And it certainly has been a challenge. But last year, I think we had, during the COVID year, we had one of the best fundraising years for the Seahawk Club we've ever had.

SHP:  And that was just on the appeal of, ‘Hey, these kids really need the support now’

JB: We did Sustain the Seahawks Fund, and we asked people to give additional monies, and it was very, very successful. And it went flat into sustaining our athletic program, so there was a really good response to our Sustain the Seahawks effort. 

Joe Browning / UNCWSports.com

SHP: Aside from men's basketball, one of the things that I know has come along during your tenure has been the soccer programs and the tennis programs and that sort of thing. Was that an emphasis for you from the start to get those programs to a higher level? 

JB: I think that, for me, it's always been, a broad-based program has always appealed to me, and we're in southeastern North Carolina where there are a lot of spring sports that are very (popular).  Golf, baseball, tennis, they're very important to the people, the residents of this region. Obviously baseball always has been, always will be important here, it's an absolute priority for us. And we're working really, really hard to try to generate some new resource for baseball every day.

I think the university wants a broad-based program and UNCW's reputation nationally, obviously, we got a great reputation from a baseball standpoint. Our tennis program is competitive on the national level. Our golf programs have been very competitive in postseason play the last couple of years.

But we want our softball team to get to that point, to a championship level. So we want our volleyball program to get to a championship level. We have a plan, we know what we want to do and where we want to be, and a lot of it has to do with the resources we're able to pour into those programs.

SHP: Yeah, what sort of things are you kind of pursuing in terms of resources for baseball, I mean, outside of the typical stuff of just?

JB: There's some things. For instance, we're increasing scholarship resources for many of our programs. We're increasing scholarship resources for softball and for volleyball, for the '22, '23 school year. The legislature approved the out-of-state tuition waiver, which is going to help many of our programs, particularly our women's programs, and which means if our coaches give a kid a full athletic scholarship and they're out-of-state, we only have to pay the in-state (tuition). 

So, that's going to be really, really, really, really good for us.

SHP: So, facilities-wise, I know you guys have improved the soccer facility greatly, you've improved the softball facility greatly, and baseball has got the hitting facility.

JB: We're working on something … we're trying hard to find the resources to be able to start a renovation for baseball.

SHP: Outside of baseball, are there any other facility goals that you guys have right now? 

JB: We feel like we would very much like we'd like to redo our tennis complex. 

We have nine courts; we eventually would like to have 12 outdoor courts with lights, with scoreboards, and the ability to stream. There's tennis matches with the technology out there, so we're working on that. And so, again, baseball and tennis are the two programs that we're trying to figure out how to make that work right now.

SHP: High Point’s new basketball arena is incredibly nice. 

JB: Yeah, they do everything in a big way at High Point.

SHP: Obviously, UNCW is not going to come up with $170 million for a basketball arena, but long-range goal, what do we need in terms of a facility to modernize and get the premium seating and that sort of thing? 

JB: Well, I thought you hit it right-on there, we need one. This university is going continue to grow, it's the fastest growing in terms of percentage of student enrollment. It's one of the fastest growing institutions in the UNC system. We had 18,000 students this fall; it's going to continue to grow. We need more than 5,000 seats to be able to accommodate, hopefully, the demand in the future. 

So yeah, we do need a new basketball arena, yes. There's been tremendous amounts of discussion about that. A few years ago, we took a day trip and flew in a private jet, went and visited three different schools facilities around the country, and got an idea, took a donor with us, and so we're constantly stirring that pot, trying to light a match for that, yeah.

SHP: One of the guys that you have hired recently that I have been really impressed with is Bobby Guntoro. I've got a chance to talk to him for a podcast, and his energy is just on another level. What was kind of the process of bringing him back to Wilmington and what caught your eye with him? 

JB: So one, Bobby's a UNCW alum, so that was a plus for us. Bobby grew up in a championship culture here at UNCW in the swimming program … he came to UNCW kind of on his own, and he has a great story. I think it's a great story in recruiting, and he's done a good job of that. 

I have no qualms that the women's swimming program are going to be competing for championships in the very, very near future. And Bobby's done a wonderful job, and the alumni base is very loyal to Bobby.

They're raising money for Bobby and the swimming programs, and that's what we got to have. We have to have the financial resources to make this thing work, and Bobby is pushing all the right buttons right now in terms of getting better student athletes here, performing in the water. And then, their alumni reaching into their pockets, making it work.

SHP: Is that the kind of guy that you want front and center at the Seahawk Club events, talking about what the school is means to him and that sort of thing? 

JB: Absolutely. I mean, it hits home and we talked about the other alumni from around the country who lived here and who decided to retire here or move here because of the quality of life here in New Hanover County, and those are the stories, and they will support our program if they hear those stories, and they see that passion for the local university, and Bobby brings that to the table.

(NOTE: This conversation took place on the morning of December 21)

SHP: Assessing the men's basketball program, last year was obviously just a wild and crazy thing … but where do you think things are right now and what do you just kind of see there and where it's going? 

JB: I think Takayo has done a really good job navigating some very difficult situations. COVID, the transfer portal, I like where we're headed.

All the kids that he's bringing in to this program are all champions. They won championships in high school, in AAU basketball, in junior college, and that's going to bode well as we move forward in the future. I like where we are. It's just going to take a little time. I think we're looking to see who the go-to people are. I think we saw last week, we've got some kids that will accept their roles as a stopper to try to stop the other team's best player.

I like where we're going now. Now, are there challenges? Yeah, there's going to be challenges. Some days we have a difficult time shooting the basketball, but I think I know the adjustments they're making, I know what's going on in practice, so I'm not panicked. 

And I know where he's headed in terms of recruiting. I think the two young men that he signed at the early signing date a few weeks ago, are the type of talents, the type of mentality – the type of warrior mentality – those kids will play and they're going to play you hard. And those are the kind of kids that we have to have at UNCW.

Because we're not going to get the one-and-done guy here. Typically, don't get five-star guy here, so we’ve got to have kids that want to play, that want to be in UNCW, and they want to get better. Those are the type of kids he's bringing in. He's got the ability to make these kids better. It takes a little time, and I think we're headed in the right direction.

SHP:  What is it about him (Siddle), that you honed-in pretty quickly in the search process? 

JB: His recruiting ability, the relationships that he builds with his players. The kids want to play for him, and the kids are willing to work – and I'm telling you, he works them. So, I think his recruiting ability. I think, again, the relationships; his reputation for building terrific relationships with players.

I think his willingness to get out into the community and then help generate resources, again, to ask people to buy season tickets. He's got the external abilities that fit well here and will help us grow our program in the future. Plus, he's a great person. He's a really, really, really, really good person, and I think the people here in Wilmington would see right through if we didn't have a good person in our key head coaching situations here, and he's a terrific person that the kids like. So, again, it's taking a little time, but we're going to get there.

So, I think it's still a learning process. Obviously, we get through the Campbell game tomorrow, then we get ready for conference play when it really matters, but no, I feel good about it, and that's OK. … I know how hard these guys are getting after it, and I know the video work that's going into it. I know the preparation. So I'm comfortable with it, it's just going to take a little more time, another recruiting class, and so I think we're going be okay.

SHP: What's your view on how much longer you plan to do this, and then just sit back and enjoy? 

JB: Well, this is public knowledge: my current contract runs through June of '23. I'm on the NCAA Division I Men's Golf Committee, and that appointment runs through the '23 national championship in June, and right now, I love to come to work every day. I'm healthy, and I think we've got a good team around us, Tiffany Tucker, Mark Wagner, Joe Browning. I think we've got a good senior staff here. 

One thing we do here is we let people do their jobs. And so right now, we have a good situation in terms of our senior staff here. We'll see … what direction the university goes with the new chancellor, but I’ve got to believe that the new chancellor that they bring here is going to think that athletics is very important.