State of the Crimson Tide: Q&A with Alabama Athletic Director Greg Byrne
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Last season, Alabama had one of its most successful athletic calendar years in program history. Crimson Tide teams won SEC championships in cross country, soccer and men's basketball. But there was a lot more going on around the program, including some things that unfortunately overshadowed a lot of those accomplishments.
BamaCentral sat down with Crimson Tide athletic director Greg Byrne, now in his seventh year at Alabama, to discuss some of the highs and lows Alabama experienced last season while looking ahead to this year and the ever-changing landscape of collegiate athletics.
Here is the full Q&A conversation with Byrne:
Q. To start out with, what currently are you most excited about regarding Alabama Athletics, whether it’s fundraising, a team’s on field-performance, coaching, something a student athlete is doing off the field or whatever?
A. “The answer is, I'm always most excited about watching our young people compete and develop who they are. That’s the case every year. To be honest, it’s something I always have to remind myself of because we have so many other things we’re responsible for and focused on. But at the end of the day, getting to be around these incredibly talented young people and watching them develop in some of the most formidable years of their life is something I take great pride in and enjoy being a part of.”
Q. During the fall, most people would associate Alabama with football, but what are some of the things that you have to do throughout the fall that most people might not think about?
A. “Fall actually from a calendar standpoint, is not the most demanding part of the year. And the reason being is, you have one football game a week. We have two volleyball games usually a week. We usually have two soccer games a week. We have cross country usually competing all over the place, but not in town except for one time a year. And so I don't have as many events to go to in the fall as I do in the winter and spring where you’ve got the basketballs and spring sports starting. Once all of the spring sports and the winter sports combine, you’re never home. And then you also have a lot of SEC and national meetings that you have to be a part of during the winter and spring.
"But people often think that, ‘Well, you go to the football game and it’s got to be a lot of fun.’ Football game days are a lot of work for a lot of people. When you have 100,000 of your closest friends all show up for an event and sometimes another 30, 40, 50,000 people outside in the area, it’s a big responsibility that we have to do our best working with campus and the community to put on the best event that we can. So I think people sometimes think that you just go to the game, and you sit there like a fan. In reality on a game day, I think for Middle Tennessee State game, I ended up with 32,000 steps for the day, which was the equivalent of about 18 miles. You want to be there supporting the staff and supporting everything that's going on around it too.”
Q. You talk about all the steps you do on game day, I know you’ve made it a point, especially on the road, to go up and visit the fans. Why is that something that's important for you to do?
A. “I tell our staff— I don’t say my staff, I say our staff— I tell our staff that we’re here to serve the University. We’re here to serve our student athletes. We’re here to serve our fans. Those are the three constants that have to be here. I realize we’re going to make decisions that can’t be loved by every group collectively. And so you want people to know that you genuinely appreciate them coming to the games. Let them know that they make a difference. And a positive attitude, energy, enthusiasm is contagious. Just like a negative attitude, lack of enthusiasm is contagious too.
"So one of the things I feel like when our fans walk up to the stadium, and we don't bat 1.000 at it, but we've gotten pretty good at it. I want everybody that's working the gates to welcome the fans to Alabama, whether they're Alabama fans or whether they’re visiting fans. We should want when we have visiting fans leave Tuscaloosa that they feel like, man, those are good people. It’s a spirited environment, but they treat the visiting fans with respect and dignity. Having that type of approach to welcoming, be thankful and appreciative, it’s important that I set that tone. And so game days, we rely on a lot of workers from all over the place — some of which greatly care about the University of Alabama and then some who are just looking for an opportunity to make a living. But if you encourage and set an expectation of good customer service, that can go a long way.
"I’ve always said to our staff that I'm never going to ask them to do anything that I won't do myself. And so if I want our staff to be welcoming to our fans, home or away, then I need to do it myself. Some of our facilities may be old, but they can be clean. So if I want them to be clean and want them to pick up trash when they see it, then I better do the same thing. So it’s just an expectation of trying to set the tone, and that’s part of why I go around the stadium and thank the fans for being there."
Q. Going back to some of the things that happened last year, what was the Brad Bohannon situation like for you and how quickly did it become clear that there was no one else in the program involved?
A. “It was a gut punch. I think sometimes people assume that I know everything that's going on within our program, or even after there's an issue. And I'm often at the mercy of the people who are doing investigations of them telling me what I need to know. Sometimes there's things I don't need to know. Often there’s things I don’t need to know, and that’s not an ignorance approach, that’s just something when it comes to legal issues, the people who are doing investigations are doing what they need to do. And what we do is we support them when it comes to that.
"I was very proud of the team and how they responded. And obviously had the best baseball season we've had in a long time. But it was it was a very challenging situation for everybody involved.
"And so what we did is we had an outside group come in and interview and look into immediately that was independent of us. We just supported them in the process, and we were able to move forward as we did."
Q. For baseball and basketball, what was the challenging in balancing they’re having great seasons on the field/court and then all the distractions going on off the court?
A. “We had a responsibility to the young people on our teams. And we had a responsibility to support them the best that we possibly could with the information that we had to work with. And that's the case whether we have a challenge or an issue that's very private in nature, or if we have a challenge or an issue that is very public in nature— that we’re fair. That we make sure that we do everything to support the young people in our program, but we also need to make sure we protect the University in the process too. But at the end of the day, as long as what you’re doing is legally and ethically correct, that’s what you have to do.
"I think I’m in my 17th year of being an AD. One of the things that I have learned from what I do is, I am really slow to judge. That’s hard in a Twitter or X world where everything is so instantaneous. Because I know that there's often a lot more to the story than what we can talk about because of privacy issues. Because of information that we might not be privy too. And so I'm only one person, but as I’m getting more gray hair, I’ve tried to be more thoughtful and understanding that sometimes what I immediately think isn't always right. And so going back to it, we tried to stay focused on supporting the young people in our programs under challenging situations.”
Q. What do you feel like you personally or as an athletic department learned from the Darius Miles/Brandon Miller and Brad Bohannon situations?
A. “It’d be irresponsible if you don’t learn from any challenging situations. We had a tragedy. I'm actually quite proud of all the education and training we do already for our student athletes, because the list is long, really long on all the mistakes that can be made that have consequences tied to them. And as much as you never want there never to be any issues within your program, when you have 650, 18 to 22 year olds, 350 employees, a couple hundred student workers, you’re going to have challenges. You're going to have people make poor decisions.
"And so you learn from those situations and you say, ‘Well, okay, what else can we do from a training standpoint? What else can we do from a support standpoint?’ Because what happened with men’s basketball was a tragedy because a young woman lost her life. And a young man, with Darius, has put himself in a very bad position. And what can we do, to try to say or do something in the future that may prevent that? And nobody has that exact answer or formula unfortunately, but you have your responsibility to try to educate and train and develop in the manner to best prevent future issues from happening. But then again, when you have 650, 18 to 22 year olds, 350 employees, unfortunately, there will be challenges.”
Q. Where are things with the Crimson Standard for the new arena and golf facility, and how much more financial support needs to be raised or kind of where you're at fundraising wise for that?
A. “We’ve been very active in fundraising. We’ve had actually some very positive, continued positive financial support for the project. We are having further conversations with Dr. [Stuart] Bell and our Board of Trustees and know that this needs to be addressed, and we’re working diligently to address it.”
Q. How much control or involvement do you have when coaches are hiring assistant coaches? For example, Kayla Braud recently being hired with softball or Nate Oats flipping his entire coaching staff with men’s basketball.
A. “As the AD, if you don't have faith in your head coach and their ability to put their coaching staff together then you probably have the wrong head coach. So start with that from a foundational standpoint. But I want to support the head coach, whatever the sport is, with my contacts, my experience. For instance, Kayla and I grew up in the same hometown. So [Patrick] Murphy called me and asked would I talk to her about, even though she played here, what it’s like to live here as an adult. So we had a great talk.
“And so each one is different as far as the hiring situation. But they obviously have to pass all the background checks, whether that’s legal or NCAA. But you have to put faith in the head coach that they're going to put people on their staff that they feel will be a good contributor to their staff with what we're trying to accomplish here academically, athletically and socially.”
Q. You just mentioned growing up in Eugene. You obviously spent a lot of time out on the West Coast, and were also the AD at Mississippi State. What are your thoughts on some of the traditions and rivalries in college sports shifting because of realignment, and the Pac-12 basically dissipating?
A. “I was really sad to see what happened with the Pac-12. When I was growing up, it was the Pac-10 and became the Pac-12. Having been the AD at Arizona, I worked at Oregon and Oregon State, my dad was the AD at Oregon in the 80s, it was really sad. There were a couple of us about 10 to 12 years ago, there were a couple ADs that were questioning the model that was being put together in the Pac-12. And I knew the SEC was strong because the SEC did everything it could to get resources to the institutions so they could go to support their athletic programs. And it was more focused there [the Pac-12] on having the conference office be strong. And that greatly concerned a few of us. And when we would have the audacity to question it, we were basically told to go mind your own business, that you didn’t know what you were talking about. I certainly didn’t think it would get to this level.
“But it’s a reminder that from your conference office, your presidents of universities, and your athletic directors, you have to be in communication with each other, have to work collectively together, and the SEC does a good job of that. And we're fortunate for the leadership of Greg Sankey. What happened out there, maybe it was going to happen regardless, but I think it’s really important that you have people in leadership positions in our industry in college sports, that have a background and understanding of what this is— that have worked with student athletes, that have worked with coaches and staff, that have worked with faculty, that have worked in a university environment. And it's different than the professional ranks.
“Here’s the example I would give. If the Boston Celtics called me tomorrow and said, ‘We want you to be the president of the Boston Celtics.’ I don't know anything about pro sports. I've never worked in pro sports. Never worked with all the different dynamics that they have that we don't have at the college level. But the same goes for professional people that come to the college ranks. Dealing with 21 teams as compared to one or two teams is very different. Dealing with 18 to 22 year olds, compared to most of them being adults is very different. Dealing with the academic responsibilities that you have. The college towns and the college environments that you have, are different than the pros. And sometimes we have to stay focused on providing the resources that we need to support 21 teams, which is very expensive. It's not just about serving one program. And I think… I hope as we continue to evolve in college athletics, because we are evolving significantly right now, that we continue to not lose sight of having a good pulse of what takes place from dealing with a college athletic department on a daily basis and the complexities that come along with that.”
Q. What do you consider a successful year for Alabama athletics? Is it where you finish in Learfield Cup? Is it graduation rates? Is it a combination of a bunch of things?
A. “It’s a bunch of things. Obviously, we’ve got to make sure we stay academically focused, and we’re doing really well there. I’m proud of the efforts of our young people. I’m proud of the efforts of our coaches, our academic staff. We’re doing really well there.
“There’s a reason we keep score, right. We want to win. So you look at the Learfield Cup. We realize the importance of what our football program means to us, historically and today and in the future. Obviously we've been having some success in men's basketball that's been really good for our program. But we want to be good. And we’re really proud of soccer last year making the College Cup for the first time in program history, winning the SEC regular season championship. Those are the highlights that we want to celebrate when we have those opportunities to do so.
“But then we also have the business side of it where we're charged to balance our budget. And that's hard to do with people. I don't expect the fans to understand it, but our travel costs, our food costs, our utility costs have gone up well over seven figures just in a couple year period. That’s stuff we have to deal with. We have one sport that turns healthy profit: football. We have one sport that turns a small profit: men's basketball. And we have 19 sports that don't turn any profit and that are all important that we want to compete in.”
Q. On the Pat McAfee Show, Saban was asked if he's done anything this week besides ball, and he laughed and said no. So have you done anything this week besides athletics?
A. “I went and spoke at a YPO gold event that had a bunch of people from a seven-state radius. I went and spoke there, so I was up in the Northeast for that. I’ve been out raising money this week, both for the basketball arena and the world of NIL. And so, no. I’ve stayed focused on what my what my job is.”
Q. How much has NIL changed what you thought you’d ever have to do from an AD standpoint?
A. “Totally changed it. For so long, the NCAA rulebook prevented you from having conversations with donors about NIL opportunities. Now, it’s part of the conversation because it’s part of recruiting. Recruiting is the lifeblood of our program. So it would be irresponsible to not be thinking about how we can be as strong as we possibly can within the framework of what we're allowed to work with.
“There’s a misnomer out there. A couple of things. One is that the thought process or the saying is that people are just going to be giving million of dollars to NIL. People who have a lot of money normally have a lot of money for a reason. They’re usually pretty smart with it. What we are seeing is that somebody will support NIL, but they're not going to do it in place of their support of the athletic department and of the university. That it may be over and above, but it’s going to be a very conservative number compared to what some of those numbers that have been out there. When I read about seven and even eight-figure deals, I don’t know how many of those are legitimate. People see it, and going back to my earlier comments about not rushing to judgement, people see it, and believe that that’s what it is. I think there's a lot of smoke and mirrors with some of those.
“When you have somebody that’s created a great market for themselves like Bryce Young or Montana Fouts, then they’re going to have that opportunity to capitalize in a way that 99.9 percent of rest of the population probably will not be able to. That’s real life. There's only so many advertisements on television, so many advertisements and publications on social media. That's why you hear the term there's a lot of starving actors. Because there's a lot more people that want to get into acting than there are actually acting spots that can support somebody making a living. What we do is we provide a system through athletic scholarships that can create a very healthy academic and athletic and life experience for the young people in our programs while they’re here. And that gets lost. That’s important not to lose sight of that.”
