State of Cincinnati athletics

It was three years ago that University of Cincinnati Director of Athletics Mike Thomas developed the CATAPULT program.

One goal of the program was to win Big East championships in all 18 intercollegiate sports at UC within five years. As of Spring 2009 there have been three championships: football, volleyball and men’s soccer.

Thomas knows now, more than ever, that the goal will only become more difficult to attain after scholarship funding for three UC sports was cut in April.

“I don’t think it’s any question it makes it extremely difficult to win Big East championships in programs that are not funded at the level that you would expect they needed to be funded,” Thomas said of the men’s track and field, swimming and diving and cross country teams.

Thomas, however, did not rule out the possibility of those programs regaining their scholarships somewhere down the road, but could not give a timetable as to when that might be.

“That’s not a commitment that I’m ready to make today, but I think that as we look at the different options and the different ways that can potentially make that happen, we’ll see if some of those come to fruition.”

One program that will not see much change is the baseball team, which made the Big East Tournament on the final day of the regular season with a win over Seton Hall.

Thomas likes what he sees in head baseball coach Brian Cleary and plans to keep him as the head coach in the future.

“I’m confident in Brian’s leadership [and] that he can continue to grow that program and develop it so that we’re a consistent threat in the Big East and hopefully a program that’s playing in the NCAA tournament year in and year out,” Thomas said. “I’m excited about our baseball program and Brian as the head coach.”

Thomas also talked about the football program which is coming off of the best season in school history with its first  trip to a BCS bowl game.

After the team’s record-setting season, athletics is looking at ways to improve the quality of Nippert Stadium as well as looking forward to the construction of an indoor
practice facility.

Thomas called UC head football coach Brian Kelly’s goal of having the practice facility completed by December “ambitious” but he did say he wanted to start construction as soon as possible.

The university also contacted several big-name schools to try to work out possible games in the future, but Thomas said schools like Michigan and Notre Dame will not come to Cincinnati and play at Nippert.

“We’ve tried to do scheduling arrangements with those schools knowing that the coming back game would be played at Paul Brown, but at this point we haven’t had anybody take us up on that proposition.

“You get more people calling you and wanting you to go there and play,” Thomas said. “To go on the road and to go on the road to a place [Nippert] that is becoming increasingly difficult for people to win, that’s usually not at the top of their list. Even if we want to try and play a big game down at Paul Brown Stadium, there aren’t a lot of takers.”

With the addition of guards Jaquon Parker and Sean Kilpatrick to go along with new uniforms, the men’s basketball program should have a new look for the
2009-10 season.

Thomas likes where UC head basketball coach Mick Cronin is taking the program and said people would have a different preception of the basketball team had it not struggled at the end of the last several seasons.

“We’ve gone from 11 to 13 to 18 wins in those three years and I think that people would probably look at it a little differently if we would have ended the season both years in a different manner,” Thomas said. “If someone sat here and said last year that you had 18 wins but maybe you won six of your last seven instead of losing six of your last seven, maybe they’d look at it a little bit differently because they would say ‘well they were peaking at the right time.’ ”

Whatever the case, the men’s basketball team has not made the NCAA Tournament since the 2004-05 season; the last season before Bob Huggins was fired.