Clemson Official Release:
CLEMSON, S.C. -- Thursday morning Clemson athletics director Terry Don Phillips announced his retirement, as expected.
The following is a list of accomplishments at Clemson under Phillips' direction in the last 10 years.
Won 13 ACC Championships in eight different sports, including five different women's sports. Only?Virginia has won ACC titles in more women's sports than Clemson in that time.
Clemson athletic programs have had 57 top 25 national finishes, 37 top 20s, and 14 top 10s during this time. Fifteen different sports have had a top 25 finish, including six different sports that recorded a top 10 finish in that time frame.
Clemson has been to the Final Four of national tournaments in three different sports during this time, Baseball, women's tennis and men's soccer.
Program has finished in the top five nationally in six different sports; golf, women's indoor track, men's soccer, women's outdoor track, women's tennis and baseball.
Sports that have selections from a team standpoint to NCAA postseason have been selected 53 times over the 10 years. Golf and women's tennis have been selected all 10 years and baseball nine times.
For the three years from 2008-09 through 2010-11, Clemson and Florida State were the only programs in the nation to be selected for a bowl game, the NCAA men's basketball tournament and the NCAA baseball tournament each year. Clemson finished in the top 25 in the nation in football, basketball and baseball during the 2009 calendar year, the first time that had happened since 1987.
A total of 77 sports seasons have recorded winning records in this time. Baseball and women's tennis have recorded 10 straight winning seasons, while football, and volleyball have had winning seasons nine of 10 years.
The Men's Basketball Program has had five straight seasons of break even or better in the ACC, a first for the history of that program. It has gone to the NCAA Tournament four of the last five years, also a first in the program's history.
Clemson football program won its first ACC Championship in 20 years in 2011 and has had five top 25 national finishes the last 10 years.
Sports programs had a record 2.99 GPA for the spring semester of 2012. On average, 53 percent of Clemson student athletes have had at least a 3.0 (academic honor roll) over the last 10 years. Each of the top seven overall GPA semesters have taken place in the last 10 years.
Clemson's APR scores have been outstanding each year since the NCAA began compiling them, as have been the graduation success rate (GSR). Fifteen of the 19 sports were at least a 970 APR for the June of 2012 report.
Clemson has not received an Official Letter of Inquiry from the NCAA on any issue during the last 10 years.
A major facility enhancement has taken place in every program over the last 10 years with an investment over $140 million with just $25.6 million of debt. The combined unrestricted fund reserves for operations and facilities have grown approximately 400 percent since 2002 from $9 million to over $50 million.
Over the last 10 years new coaches have been hired in football, track, Men's basketball, rowing, and swimming and all took Clemson to top 25 seasons in those sports. The football, track and rowing hires took Clemson to ACC championships.
Blah Blah Blah, sunshine and lollipops, everything has been peachy. He'll stay on until the replacement is found, or June 2013, whichever comes first.
Barker said this has been coming for 6 months, which is about when I first heard mention of it as a possibility of occuring. I dismissed it initially because he somehow managed to stick around after that 2010 Board meeting, but the info kept coming.
I will say that despite the Olympic programs failing and the lack of titles in all sports combined, that up until the mid-2000s TDP seemed to have things going in the right direction with facilities. He did get the WEZ and did make two quality hires in Basketball, even if both his choices were the 2nd choice on his list.
They said that a firm will not be used, but I bet we still use one to find some initial candidates. The selection committee will be: Barker, Wilkins, Faculty athletics Rep Janie Hodge, and Vice President for advancement Neill Cameron. Cameron was on the previous one that hired TDP. The Board must give consent of course, so they will be involved.
A fight will probably be coming with respect to IPTAY's finances, and how the next AD will need to be able to use them without a 3-month approval process. IPTAY is (justifiably) worried about Barker somehow getting his hands on that money for his purposes. In truth, because the total revenue of the AD is "taxed" as overhead by Sikes, he would get his hands on some of it unless that process is changed. If you threw all of IPTAY's intake into the AD, as other schools do for their booster arms (which we've mentioned in several of our financial posts), then Clemson's budget does not look so small in comparison to the SEC schools. It will still be smaller due to the broadcast and conference bowl packages however.
Danny Morrison of the Panthers has already been mentioned as a replacement, however I do not see Clemson matching his current financial package.