New athletic director faces great expectations
We are pleased with Rice's selection of Rick Greenspan as athletic director, following Chris Del Conte's departure for Texas Christian University in October (see story, page 1). Greenspan has some large shoes to fill: Under Del Conte's tenure, Rice saw the opening of Tudor Fieldhouse, the renovation of Reckling Park, three consecutive Conference USA championships for the women's track and field team and back-to-back bowl appearances by the football team, just to touch on a few of Rice athletics' accomplishments in the past three years.However, we are confident that Greenspan will rise to the challenge and continue to take Rice athletics in the direction that Del Conte started. With experience at big conference schools that also do not put a main priority on football, such as Indiana University, Greenspan is the perfect fit for Rice athletics, especially when facing potential team conference reassignments. Also, we are happy to hear that Greenspan is planning to increase student involvement even more so than Del Conte did, and we are hoping that the recently established Varsity Sports Liaison program in the residential colleges has an opportunity to flourish under his purview, to encourage students to support teams other than their college's bike and chug teams.
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