The landscape of Division I sports is changing drastically.
After selling out the Memorial Auditorium for basketball games through the 1970s, Niagara was left behind many of its peers when colleges began to pump money into athletic departments when television rights became more prevalent. With name, image and likeness across the NCAA and major conferences now allowing pay-for-play, the future for Niagara and schools the same size is murky.
Niagara was able to have a successful year in athletics, finishing third in the MAAC Commissioner’s Cup, which weighs all sports. The Purple Eagles also finished second in those standings in women’s sports.
Athletic director Simon Gray has been at Niagara for a decade. He agreed to an interview with the Gazette covering a wide variety of topics.
Here are his answers:
Q: Niagara won four MAAC championships during the 2023-2024 athletic calendar — women’s swimming and diving, women’s lacrosse, baseball and the women’s 4×100-meter relay team. The women’s basketball team went to the WNIT. How do you quantify the success of the athletic department?
A: Certainly the basketball programs and the hockey programs receive a lot of notoriety and are incredibly important, but we have been focused on building a comprehensive department in my time here, and with Father (James) Maher, and the help of many people on campus in our leadership from the board. So we’re very proud of what happened this year, but at the same time, we need to continue to get better and look for championships in other sports as well.
Q: Given the monetary limitations of Niagara, compared to major Division I programs, how do you measure success for your coaches and their programs?
A: A winning culture oftentimes will lead to wins and losses in competition, but there is more to it than that. The lives of the student-athletes that our coaches are recruiting is what’s most important to us, and providing a developmental experience to them that means a lot as they transition into their adult life. Part of that experience being positive is championship level or at least contending for championship level athletics, so we need to have competitive programs, but we understand at our school that it does take some time to build.
Q: Niagara baseball coach Rob McCoy stayed at Niagara for 15 years and was able to leverage this year’s MAAC championship into a job at William & Mary. Knowing that if Niagara coaches are successful, they can move up the Division I ranks, how do you market coaching jobs?
A: I think it’s known in the business, that at the mid-major level, once you’ve proved yourself to be successful, that you have the ability to bring in other opportunities throughout Division I. But what we attract is people who are interested in a head coaching job at the Division I level, but for us, it’s incredibly important that they’re doing it the right way. So I don’t ever market Niagara as a stepping stone, but what I encourage people to do is come in, do it the right way, you can be successful, and then we’ll see where that takes us.
Q: With the advent of NIL, the transfer portal and the NCAA now allowing pay-for-play, will Niagara and schools like it have a place in Division I athletics?
A: I firmly believe that there is a place in Division I athletics for Niagara and for the MAAC, where we can continue to compete against our peers and then also compete against all other Division I in our search for championships. It’s harder, it’s going to require more resources being invested into athletics. We’re actively working with our alums and our supporters to understand what name, image and likeness will do, the impact that it will have on the department, how the transfer portal does impact goings and comings. We’ve been able to win in the transfer portal, as well as losing some of our athletes in there. And the makeup of Division 1 is still to be determined, I think, in what this ground shift within the NCAA will be.
Q: Can Niagara survive if Division I athletics become pay-for-play across the board?
A: It’s hard to answer that question without knowing what the model is, because there’s so many things I think that could come into how student athletes are compensated. Are scholarships impacted in some way? Do they become employees? All of those questions have to be answered before I feel qualified to say.
Q: Niagara has been hemorrhaging fans — particularly students — for men’s basketball games at the Gallagher Center. Niagara averaged 1,641 fans per game in Joe Mihalich’s last season as head coach in 2012-2013. After going 32-96 in Chris Casey’s first four seasons, attendance dropped more than 500 people per game. COVID-19 delivered another blow, as Niagara has averaged 995 fans per game since the end of the pandemic, which is eighth out of 11 teams in the MAAC. How do you get students and young people in general back in the gym?
A: We continue to try to attract younger folks, families and such. So that’s something we are always working on, looking at different ways to try. We’ve been working with the school districts more, we’ve been working with youth events more, trying to get them to come to the games on a consistent basis. Those are target markets for us, so to speak, of where we feel like we can find the families in the area, also young graduates. We’re having some success there with people who are still in the area, so we just have to continue to do more outreach and more promotions for them.
Q: Niagara has hosted many local high school events, from playoff baseball and soccer games to hockey games. Some Section VI girls basketball teams have expressed frustration that the boys get a venue like Buffalo State for semifinal and championship games, while the girls only get championship games. Has there been any discussion with Section VI to host such an event?
A: I can’t speak for all of Niagara, but I have not at this point. We are very open to those conversations. We are limited in some of our facilities on what we can do, but to my knowledge, we have not been approached at this point. I have not been anyway.