Elizabeth Dedert: Today, I am joined by Patrick Randsdell, director of athletics here at Missouri State University. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Patrick Ransdell: I appreciate you having me.
Dedert: Of course. Well, we'll start it off — as athletic director, you pretty much see all, coordinate all. For those who might not be as familiar with your duties, can you give me a brief run through on everything that you do?
Ransdell: Well, how long is your show? It can be all over the place, right? I mean, there's a lot of things, and we've got a great staff to be able to handle a lot of things that maybe I don't necessarily do on a daily basis. But, especially recently, there's a lot of externally related things that have been top of my mind, whether that's fundraising or getting the word out on season tickets, all the things that are going to help us generate revenue to continue to grow our department. I'll be honest, that's kind of my background, so that's kind of the areas that I do gravitate to. But on a daily basis, there could be any number of different things that take your attention. And there could be something with compliance or academics or just a number of different things. Maybe a coach needs something. So, everyday could be extremely different, certainly in my role.
Dedert: You've got your hands full, definitely. There are 18 different teams, from women's to men's and stunt and acrobatics. But some of them can kind of get hidden away more than, you know, the football and baseball. Is there a specific sport that you believe may potentially need some more love or more support that you really enjoy watching?
Ransdell: I mean, I certainly think there's probably a couple that that kind of come to mind. I mean, something like cross country and track, I mean, you don't really have a whole lot of home meets, so when you're not playing at home very much, you tend to maybe get lost in the shuffle. So, you know, a sport like that that I think we could be really good at, especially in cross country that can kind of maybe fit what we do here. And, you know, new sports like stunt and acrobatics and tumbling are new to the scene a little bit, and not a lot of people even know a whole lot about what those sports are.
Dedert: Exactly, yeah.
Ransdell: And so, you know as we do more, trying to explain that and get people there, we've had actually a couple of decent crowds last year for those sports. That's nice to see and beach volleyball maybe another one. You know, we're in the Midwest. We're not in Miami, Florida or Los Angeles next to a beach. But, you know, they are really good and made it pretty far in our conference tournament last year, and (head coach) Ashley (Emery) does a great job with that program. So, there's probably a lot of sports that may not get the kind of attention that maybe a football or a basketball, a Lady Bears, baseball get. But all those student athletes put in just as much work as maybe the ones that do get maybe a little bit more attention. But, you know, we certainly want to be able to show them as much love as we possibly can.
Dedert: We were talking just before this, you just got back from Arlington, TX. You were joined alongside Casey Woods as well as Jaren Askren and Jared Lloyd for the CUSA football kickoff and media day. Are you pleased with the past two years and how — or especially in the past year that CUSA we've made that jump — are you pleased with how Missouri (State) athletics has kind of taken that and run with it?
Ransdell: 100%. You know, I think when we were going into this time last year, not everybody knew exactly what to expect, right? How competitive are we going to be or not be? And, to go to a bowl game in our first year, and we win seven games. For our women's basketball team to win a championship, baseball team to go to NCAA tournament. Our women's soccer team got to the finals at the conference tournament. Swimming and diving still won the Missouri Valley. They're still back in the Missouri Valley, but they won a championship. So, you know, I thought we were very competitive. And so, how can we continue to build on that? You know, our trip down to Dallas over the past couple of days was great because you're down there with, you know, all your competitors, and for the most part, all the schools get along pretty good, and the conference office does a really good job. You know, it looked very professional, looked very on brand for the conference and for the schools. So, excited about our student athletes. (We) enjoyed going down there and having the opportunity to go down and represent Missouri State. We've gotten a lot of national exposure out of being in Conference USA, so that's been really, really good for the institution. I hope that we're able to amplify the message that the institution has in terms of growing enrollment and getting our name out there. You know, because that's — I look at athletics as a huge marketing arm for the university that, really, it's not like you got to go spend a lot of money on a four-hour infomercial on ESPN. That would cost a lot of money, and you get that exposure for — in fact, they're paying us. So, you know, it's great. So, I think it's been a great year and something that we can continue to build on. But I'm not sure I could have been, you know, much more pleased than how I am with how year one went.
Dedert: That's how I've even spoke about it with just everyone that I've talked about how that jump to CUSA arguably was probably the best thing that athletics could have done. The recognition that, you know, sports and the student athletes that you're talking about that potentially may never have gotten that recognition in the past now have it. I mean, we're in video games.
Ransdell: Right.
Dedert: People that, you know, that you see walking on campus are everyday, like, people are playing them on a video game. I just think that is the coolest thing ever, especially for a state school.
Ransdell: No doubt. I mean, and we were the second most played team in Conference USA last year really across the world, so, which is really a cool thing. Us and Delaware were one and two. and both of us were making the move up and so, maybe that played a part in it. But, I mean, just really cool to be able to log on there. You're in Plaster Stadium. It has all the stuff, and it looks — it's really accurate. So, I'm excited. I haven't played this year's version yet. I know my 18-year-old son has already mentioned, "Dad, I'm going to need to buy it." So, I guess I got to do that. But I look forward to playing this year's version. But it just really speaks to the amount of exposure that we're getting with this move.
Dedert: Moving on to kind of more future talk. We've got plans for McDonald Arena kind of having a little bit of a remodel. You had mentioned in your 2025 end of the year letter that you had received $5,500,000 on the fund. What's the kind of standpoint on what it's like now?
Ransdell: So, we're getting closer to between $8 and 9 million now. We go before the (MO State) Board of Governors in September for approval of phase one. And that may be dictated on, you know, how much we've raised by then. Phase one being Phase one and two, some version of it, locker room, tunnel, training room, equipment room and then weight room would come in kind of next in line. You know, as we talked about making this move, and it's been great, there are some things, especially around the football program with facilities, that probably were not up to standards at this level. Basketball certainly is. Soccer has a great facility. Baseball plays in a great facility. Softball, track and field has a great facility right out there...it was really kind of one facility that was kind of substandard for this level. And it fit fine and at the FCS level, but there are certainly improvements that we need to do around the football program, and this will kind of be our first step into that. It's kind of almost two years in the making to get to this point because, obviously, construction never is easy and slow.
Dedert: Never ending on Missouri State campus.
Ransdell: But, you know, we're excited to get that moving because once we kind of move that football out and into McDonald, then that kind of frees up some space for some of our other programs in Forsyth and be able to do some things maybe in Plaster, as well, on the 2nd Floor. There's a lot of dominoes that fall for getting football taken care of.
Dedert: On the topic of Plaster [Stadium] and remodeling, last November Plaster kind of said, "I want a remodel on myself" and had that leak. What are the plans? Is there going to be remodeling or are they just kind of fixing it and making sure it is available to be used come fall season?
Ransdell: Right now, that whole space is just kind of being how do we want to move forward? I think there were some plans, like, or some ideas. Alright, maybe in another 10 or 15 years this is what we want to do with that space. Well, this kind of expedites that in terms of having to make a decision, so I think President (Richard "Biff") Williams and even student affairs and our campus rec people, like, how can we figure out the best use of where handball is? And what's best use of Plaster Stadium? And so, I think we're kind of working through a lot of that. I think that kind of — obviously, that was a surprise, and so, and then the cost of just redoing it was going to be seven figures. What's — how...best can we spend our money for the long term, next 10, 20 years, for both athletics and handball? We're kind of working through all that right now.
Dedert: Then lastly, is there anything that you can say for fans? I know I have talked to (head football coach) Casey Woods, and his main thing was to "pack out Plaster. That saying that he's kind of gravitated towards, "It takes us all." Is there something that you can say to fans to get them pumped up, to get them to come out and support Missouri State athletics for the fall season coming up and then spring season just right behind that?
Ransdell: He's exactly right. For us to continue to take the steps forward that we need to take, we need to sell more season tickets, get more people to come to games. And, if we can get to a point where those September games are sold out or close to, that would be an incredible milestone for us. So, Springfield needs to come out, support it, log on. We've got a new ticketing platform that makes it really easy to buy tickets, sell tickets, transfer tickets, the whole nine yards, right on your phone. You don't have to worry about a whole lot of other stuff. So, you know, we're kind of modernizing our ticketing system. And so, hopefully that makes it easier for a lot of our fans. It'll be new, so everyone's got to learn it. But long term, it should be great. People will be able to just roll up and not have to bring a $20 bill to park in a parking lot, right? And so, just do it right there on the phone. Easy peasy. (It'll) look a lot more like maybe some of the pro venues out there. That'll be good for this season. But come to games, pack it out, be loud, come early, have a great day of it. We only get six of these games a year to where we can really celebrate Missouri State. So, let's take advantage of them, and we look forward to seeing everybody out there this fall.
