bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 0:12

Welcome to Tracking the Cats. I'm your co-host Bob Saban, along with Steve White and we do all things Catamount. We are here every couple of weeks and we are sponsored graciously by Stanbury Insurance. They have offices on Main Street in Silva, as well as in Highlands and Waynesville, and they can cover all your insurance needs. So we'd love for you to give them a call if you ever need anything insurance wise. Um, a. on around Colory, right, Steve?

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 0:42

Oh, definitely. Uh, it's a, it's like I say, I haven't seen that many people around Colory other than the the athletic teams. They're everywhere. I think that's about half the population right now. It's not like in the old day, Bob, when we were here and everybody from the state of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina was coming to get their master's degree in education here at Western. It's changed a little bit, lot of online stuff now, but it's still a wonderful place to live.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 1:11

Well, a couple of headlines we've got. First of all, um, our guest today is our newly minted athletic director, Kyle Piper. He'll be with us in just a second. And then we're gonna talk about the opt-in, whatever that is. We, uh, it sounds it's, uh, more complicated than it sounds actually, and I. Kyle's gonna be able to clarify some of that for us, but Kyle's been in Colory for about five years. He's been assistant athletic director. He's got a. Great pedigree as far as Western Carolina is concerned in that he's been at other major schools like University of Washington, uh, Oregon State. He came here from Corvallis. And um, he's even spent a little time at Gonzagas for those of you who are hoops enthusiasts. Uh, but he's, I. Coming back to the East Coast and, uh, he's only about, probably two, three hours away from getting a low country boil near his alma mater of Francis Mary and the Swamp Fox University. But Kyle, welcome aboard. Glad to have you with us. Hope we get you a few more times over the next year or so. We'd like for you to tell us a little bit about the transition from assistant athletic director and then being chosen amongst a pretty qualified field of candidates for this position.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 2:35

Well, thank you Bob, and, um, happy to come back if you want me. Hopefully this is entertaining, uh, this conversation as we walk through it, so happy to be here. Uh, but, but yeah, uh, you, you, you know, talking about the transition. So I started in November of 20, uh, right kind of still in the middle of code, if you remember that kind of odd football season where we had three games in the fall, then the conference was in the spring. And so I got here, man, there was hardly any students on campus. Uh. The cross country team was still running. I think the golf team might've played some, some events, but that was a pretty, pretty low point for the, that fall 20 for our, for our athletics facilities and, and events. So after that, those spring caught right back up and man, we had every sport going all at once. It felt like that spring from soccer, shifting football shifting to the spring. And so as a deputy athletic director, I got thrown right into it, not knowing every protocol, not knowing every policy, but we, uh, we held every event we could in all of our spaces. Six feet apart, 7% capacity, like it was. I, I try not to think about those times, but it's, it sticks with me. That's,'cause that was my first experience here in Kie. So here we are a few years later and, uh, yeah, happy to be a new athletic director and I. Chancellor Brown, giving the opportunity to, to take kind of what we've started, some of the momentum that we, that we've had over the last few years, and keep that rolling through pretty excited about this fall with, with our football team coming in, hoping soccer can look for a threepeat if they can. But the transition, you know, and, and to, to answer your question honestly. Can I tell you in a couple months how I transitioned? Because just today, uh, we made an announcement that we brought in Todd, long as our deputy athletic director, filling my old vacancy. So he's been in Kway since 2011, actually started at Western in the athletic department, moved over to Ramsey to manage the building and, and make sure all the events ran smooth there. But he just started today as deputy athletic director. So as that transition and I, and he takes up some of those responsibilities that I had and, and can take over some of those roles. It'll, it'll make things a little easier because I've, I've been filling both of those roles for the last couple of months and, uh, making some major decisions like opting in and, you know, just getting our, our football seasons scheduled out with the new change that allows FCS schools to play in week zero. There's a lot of change going on right now, not just in colo, we, but nationally.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 4:52

S speaking about Todd Law. Yeah, he is a great guy. I've known him since he came here. And just a, a great human being and that, that's a tremendous, that's a great choice, I think, for Western Carolina University. Of course, the big news around ca athletics and of actually throughout the NCAA is the decisions there, the ncaa uh, house settlement opting in, opting out, and so forth. I know. Know that there's some pluses and minuses of either opting in or opting out. And, uh, the majority of the Southern Conference schools I understand are in, uh, work us through the decision for Western Carolina. Why Western decided to opt in to the, uh, house versus NCAA settlement and what it means to WCU Athletics and to our student athletes.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 5:42

Sure. You know, it is every day something new comes out, uh, some new piece of information, some new angle to the, to the house settlement. Even more lawsuits are still coming out every day, so I. We had, and I think we had talked openly about this, at least internally and, and on campus, but we were not gonna opt in immediately. Uh, we were gonna wait a year. Uh, we were gonna wait until that fall of 26, let everyone else make the mistakes. We knew that more information was gonna continue to come out. So let's just slow this down. Let's see what it looks like and, and move forward once we get there. One of the things we thought at the time and this had been a talking point throughout, was with the roster caps. We, our understanding if we did not opt in right away and opted in in the future, we would still have some flexibility on how long it it would take for us to get there. We can, you know, grandfather in students who otherwise would not have been kept on the team and all that, but they came out at the last minute with the house settlement and they said no. If you do not opt in right now, there is no flexibility in the future. And so in order to protect those student athletes, who, I mean we were, I mean, it was June, uh, you know, to, to have, to the thought process of having to get down to a roster cab and inform students that they didn't have a spot on our team in August, or, you know, whenever their season may have even started earlier than that Volleyball's gonna be here this month. You know, that was, that's, that was hard. And so that was definitely something that made us pause to think about the conversation about what it looks like for us to opt in. We also understood too that, you know, the Kue Collective, those, those guys have been great. Uh, you know, the, the Kevin Stanbury, I know he is the sponsor of your show and the Eddies Nathan Yearwood, Mike Crawford's, they've done a great job with the collective over the last couple of years. They all, they all have jobs. This, they were doing it as a volunteer where some of the collectives out there, that was people's full-time job. And so they, they understood that, you know, eventually moving the, that, that, that payment, that funding source kind of to an in-house was inevitable. And I agreed that it was, that's why we were gonna wait for a year. But you know, it was, it was time. Once we realized the roster caps and that. Giving us that flexibility of opting in to, to be able to bring some of that funding in-house. And this is new funding. I wanna make sure I'm clear on something too. It's not like we're taking away from our programs in order to pay all these athletes. You know, our, our budget is our budget. And yes, there will maybe be some people that are excited about funding, you know, Alston payments, revenue sharing, but that's not, that wasn't the biggest part of us opting in at Western Carolina at the end. Uh, me and some of my colleagues in the SoCon you know, I. Two weeks ago, before the deadline, there were five SoCon schools that had said they were opting in and five that said they were not, we were not gonna be one of those. And when that information came out about roster caps, us fer, wofford all just immediately flipped our minds and said, we're going in. So right now, 80% of the SoCon has opted in. It's, it's 80 plus across all of division one schools have decided to opt in and we're not here again. What this means for Western. We're not, we're not paying everyone. That's, I, I wanna make sure that that misnomer is not there. It's not like we get more money for opting in. That's not a thing either. What we have is, is the money that we can try to enhance our revenue. Maybe some different programming, some different events that will help us in this area and that, you know, if we, if we don't have some of this revenue sharing within our own conference, we'll be left behind. I think that there's some, some articles out there. I think UT Chattanooga. Recently came out with an article about how much they're gonna have. Uh, I think Tennessee, the state, has a different funding model for their, for higher education and athletic departments. So those are just some of the, the things we have to deal with as far as when it comes to recruiting and competing within our conference.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 9:21

So the, the thing that color we collective is going away. Is that what you're saying? And if so, how does that get substituted? Are we going to rely on the same? Folks who are funding the Colory Collective, uh, my understanding is we're well into the six figures on our first year at the collective. How is that going to manifest itself in, um, funding, uh, that's going to be needed through this?

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 9:51

Sure. And I don't, saying the collective's going away may not be the right way to do it. They're gonna be our partners, at least for the next year. Uh, you're right, they have been raising funds. They have that in hand and we're gonna work with them about the best ways to manage this moving forward. But I. You envision, whether it's the Catamount Club, maybe it's a, a division of the Catamount Club or athletic department that will focus on this revenue sharing and generation. And it's gonna come from multiple angles. You know, there other people have raised their ticket prices, right? They're called it a talent tax. Or maybe we'll have some different. Donor engagement that will allow for some different funding if people are interested in that. So stay tuned. So that's the funding that they're in. The, the collective what, they have three or four different events, including a golf tournament. They had a concert here in Ramsey. So those things are things that I would like to see us take over management as an athletic department. And I'm kind of watching what my peers do from both p fours all the way down to right here in our own SoCon about what they are trying to accomplish with some of these extra, extra revenue ideas. And we just need to be focused on it. That's what we need to do. Not that we haven't been maximizing revenue as much as we can, it's just that college athletics is getting a little bit more expensive in certain ways.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 11:01

Yeah, it's not like the old days when, uh, Bob and I were in school and, uh, even before then, the, what they call the laundry money, it's, it's a little different situation right now. Instead of, you know, somebody getting 50 bucks a month or something like this, football players a little bit different. But, uh, yeah, that's, that's gonna be, I think, interesting is the way that you could especially on our level, being creative in the ways that you can enhance those funds. And, you know, as far as I'm concerned, we could have a golf tournament every week, Kyle and I go, I'd be willing to, I'll be there. That's, that's for sure. But, uh, yeah. Bob, anymore you want to talk about more about the business part of it? About the opting in or, yeah.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 11:46

So my understanding is we kind of made that decision like on the last day, on June 30th, that had that decision had to be made. That's when the announcement came out. That got driven primarily from roster caps and, and let's talk a little bit more about roster caps on the various sports as well.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 12:05

Sure. And it, it was, that was probably the leading conversation about it. Again, just to protect our current student athletes that are ours. They're here, they're, that this is their home. I didn't want to have to say to someone they didn't have us have space because we opted in later, or, you know, I just, I couldn't, I couldn't do that to our teams. So. That was the, the, the guiding conversation around it. And I'll also say that, you know, you mentioned we waited till the last day. Yes, we did. Because I wanted to get as much information as possible, I expected on June 30th, that Monday, which was a deadline, some new piece of information, which could have changed our mind back the other way. And so we were just waiting as long as we could to see what else kind of developed in the, in the national landscape that would been beneficial to Western Carolina. And I believe that opting in was most beneficial. And you know, it's already starting to, to work out for us in a couple of ways, and maybe we can talk about that later. Maybe not today. There's some things that are still brewing, but that's, that's where I am. I'm, I'm happy that we're opting in. I think that this is gonna be the, the, the future of college athletics and, and so it's, I'm glad we're doing it now and not in a year.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 13:10

And the numbers of people, is it like one 15 I heard for football? And what about the other, at least major sports. Do you know what those, uh, numbers are?

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 13:20

Yeah. And so I, I hope I get these right off the top of my head. Football is actually 1 0 5 as the roster cap. Uh, and so what, what we're allowed to, it's, I'm gonna use the term that's probably not, you probably haven't heard yet, but we were allowed to. Designate certain student athletes who would have otherwise not been on our team had we had to meet the 1 0 5 roster cap immediately. But we can designate them. They do not count against our roster cap, but they still continue on through graduation or eligibility until they, that kind of naturally leave Western Carolina. So that's, that's the roster limit for football. The others that are. Probably most affected baseball. Um, you know, he's used to Coach Beck is used to operating around 45, maybe even up to 50, especially in the fall. Sometimes just kind of depending on, on who's available. And, and working through his roster, he has to get down to 34. And just from a college baseball, the way it operates, you need enough arms to complete a season off, off the mound.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 14:13

All

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 14:14

So, uh, you know, giving him the flexibility to, to work his. Numbers over two to three years instead of immediately. I think that that was super helpful for Coach Beck. Soccer would've lost a couple of spots down to 28. Uh, they usually are around 33, 34, somewhere in there. Track and field will have to lose a couple on the men's side. Uh, the men's actually the recruiting, I think we just had a better recruiting cycle for men for this year coming up. So we'll have to over time get that down to 45 per gender and track. And for the most part, the rest of our, our. Teams are pretty much at the roster cap anyway.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 14:48

Do most of the, uh, scholarship, um, numbers stay the same? Like baseball is what, 13, 13 and a half? Something like that? Do those stay the same or are those changing as well?

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 15:01

So nationally they're changing, and that's from the house settlement. They went away from any type of financial aid scholarship limit, nationally. The Southern Conference has decided to capture those NCAA limits that we had even last year. So for example, baseball's 11.7 and those are going to continue to be our, our scholarship limits within the Southern Conference for all of our sports. Does that make sense in my answer? So that was a conference level decision to maintain those limits.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 15:29

And give you an example maybe like Clemson, Alabama, Georgia. What are they giving now? I understand they just, they can give up, what, 35? Maybe something like

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 15:39

If we're talking, if we're talking baseball, yeah, they could go, they can go all the way up to that full roster. And I've heard like a couple of, I think it's Texas or Texas Tech is gonna go all the way up to 45 scholarships and track on both sides. Like that's, that's what we're up against.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 15:53

Yeah, exactly. That's what we're up against. And, and this is again,

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 15:57

I.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 15:57

bless you because that's a challenge for you, Bob. Uh, more on that, I thought we might move over to the facilities, uh, talking about that. Maybe an update on the. First phase of our athletic facility upgrades the sky box on the west side. I've been out there. Lots of dirt holes, machinery, uh, a lot of digging going on on the west side a lot. Changes on the schedule for completion? Kyle, uh, on that project.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 16:24

Nothing as of right now. Weather's been cooperating enough. For those of you can see me, I've got my hard hat right here on the wall'cause I visit that site often. And, uh, I, I like to walk out there and see what's going on. I. Right though, Steve, it's noisy. It's both beautiful and a terrible noise all at the same time. The crane is, the crane is up moving iron around for us. The, the concourse is completely dug up and getting re-level now that there's been some infrastructure buried underneath there as far as electrical and plumbing and. And drainage. So it's coming along. Uh, we should have it open. Everything is still on schedule. Knock on any wood you've got for that first home opener in 2026. The one change, and I mentioned this earlier, is that we have that ability to play a week zero game, which is August 29th of 26. I talked to the constructions company and they said I could schedule a home game then, but man, I want to give them as much time as possible. Uh, so if we end up playing you know, a road game, the only problem in 26, and I, I don't wanna do this to my, they'd be on the road for the first three games of the season. So. As I get closer and as we talk to the conference, we'll see what we can do about that August 29th date. But, uh, I'm, I want them to have every day, hour, minute possible, even if you have to have some wet paint signs coming up the steps the first time, that's fine, as long as it's open for that first day.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 17:44

On the other hand, we are going to need 12 games if we're going to be playing, uh, you know, for a conference title and getting a good look at, we need to be 12 games like everybody else. And not just of they got in with 11 games or we missed out because we were eight and three instead of nine and three, you know.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 18:08

Yeah, the.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 18:09

of the rev revenue stream too. Also the

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 18:12

You're exactly right.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 18:13

whether it be a money game away or a home game. Yeah.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 18:16

Home. Yeah. Home and homes. We're talking to several people when that flexibility came open. You know, Chad Garrity here in our, our department, he has done a lot of the football scheduling over the last couple years, and so he's, he's continuing with that. And even today we were talking about an offer that we got. So we'll, uh, we'll see what we can do for that 26th season. Again, though, I, I'm confident we're gonna be open for that first game whenever it's.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 18:37

Or Speaking of that real quick, sorry, Steve. There any, uh, teams that we haven't traditionally played that are FCS that we've been talking to? And you don't have to name names, just, uh, a yes or no kind of thing?

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 18:48

Yeah, there. I think with the flexibility, a lot of people are opening up. That option. The Southern Conference has come to us as athletic directors and football coaches asking if we wanted to play a conference game in week zero. So maybe it opens up some flexibility later in the game. So all those kind of come together. But yes, we have, uh, we've got a few people that we're talk chatting with that we have not agreed to anything quite yet. I wanna get some things in front of Kerwin Bell and have him talk through what, what a schedule could look like for 26 and beyond. But that's, uh, no, it's, it's real. We, we might have some, some opponents people haven't seen here before.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 19:22

Yeah. Speaking of home openers and so forth about the season now, this current upcoming, uh, here in, uh, just a couple of months, our, our opener here, I guess the Gardner Web game. A lot of people are talking about, well, we won't be able to have bathrooms, concession stands, but I understand that's not the case, that it will be, we'll be able, that area will be open for our fans. Underneath the west side I'm talking about.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 19:47

Yeah, that existing brick building, if, for those of you who know what it looks like, it's got that green roof on the top of it. Those restrooms and concession stands are open. It'll be a construction site. I'm not gonna say it's gonna be perfect and you know, it's it, it'll look like a finished product, but we will have a. Plenty of protection in place. But yeah, that's all gonna be open. And we're talking about where to put a few extra food trucks around that area as well, because we did have people, vendors underneath those stands on that side as well, and that that has been taken away. So it will be a little bit of an inconvenience. The the biggest inconvenience is parking. It's one season. Bear with us everybody. We'll get you to the games. Maybe come a few minutes early so you have time to get in.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 20:22

Speaking of. His boats have a food truck.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 20:25

They do. They've been up on the other side though that that's not gonna change.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 20:28

side. Yeah,

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 20:29

Oh, okay. Okay.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 20:30

yeah, yeah. And I saw some work going, going on up there. I think that's probably just maintenance, uh, cleaning up and so forth. But again looks like that's gonna have to be a hang around for a couple of more years before we do anything up on the east side.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 20:44

I think you're right, Steve. I don't, I, we're gonna focus on what we have here. The, the next phase bite, whatever you wanna call it for facilities, is still a conversation. Depends. A lot of it depends on funding. I know people ask about the state and what happened at UNC Charlotte and all that, so, so we're, we're checking all of our avenues for where some of that can come from, but we're starting to have some, some conversations about what could be next. And in my opinion, I'll just say it here, I'd love to see a new building for our weight and weight room, or our strength and conditioning center be a little bit more upgraded and modern. Uh, that's gonna affect every student athlete, every team here. And, uh, I think we got a plan for it, but we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to find the funding for it before we get there.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 21:23

Well, speaking of funding did the Catamount Club are the final numbers in from this year's job trying to, oun Club. Uh, I know my fraternity brothers kicked in pretty well,

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 21:35

They did.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 21:36

and added some the, the lamb chops. I'll, I'll give us a little hype there. Lamb. I'm hoping we topped it, but we'll see, uh, the announcement later on.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 21:45

My guys always win that. My guys always win it to Kappa Alphas Ks. They always win that.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 21:52

so, and you guys were the ones we were fighting against, but tell me, uh, you know how it was the campaign this year.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 21:59

It, it

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 21:59

know?

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 22:00

it went well. And we, we, we finished really strong in the last six weeks or so. So I'll give our team credit. They went out and we really made a ton of phone calls, contacted a pun ton of people. You know, I will say this though, and before I answer your question, we've had some shifts where before the, the kind of that oun club, unrestricted fund was the main kind of way for people to give. More and more people are giving sports specific and that's not a problem. That's great. Um, I love. Donations, wherever they come from. Uh, but that has been a little bit of a shift over the last couple years. So all in all, we got, we did top out just over a million dollars. This, uh, FY 25 that just closed up on June 30th. So that's great. It's a great number. You know, we're gonna continue to work on a plan for how to enhance that and, and maybe with some of the other options that's, that donors could have on how they could give to us. We'll see what drives people and, and get that in front of them.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 22:50

How about season tickets? How, what's the latest report? I haven't seen anything lately about how season tickets are going,

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 22:57

Yeah, not lately.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 22:58

very attractive schedule. Yeah.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 23:00

We do, we have a, with six home games. We are, I don't know the final number right now as I'm, I'm talking to you, so I don't want to even guess, but I know we're north of 2000, so we're excited about that and, uh, we're selling more every day, Steve. So tell your friends, everybody season tickets are open for business.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 23:17

Very cool. I think we're about done, but I have one last question. I want to go back. To, you mentioned that there were eight SoCon schools that opted in, which were the ones that did not, and do you have any re no knowledge as to why they didn't?

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 23:32

Uh, it was both military schools opted to not come in. I, I don't know the full. Knowledge behind it. I, I'm, I'm assuming it has to do with some of their funding, but that's a total guess. And I shouldn't even spread rumors. So I just know that they, they didn't at the last minute, I'm on text messages with, with many of the ad's out there, and, uh, I just know that they said no, this, this time around, not right now.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 23:54

Steve, you got any other questions for Kyle?

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 23:57

No, again, just, uh, I guess very great decision, I think on the part of our administration, our board of trustees and Dr. Brown on, on bringing you up to

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 24:06

Thank you.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 24:07

there as a, a d and, uh, say a great decision there with, uh, Todd Lawing too. I've been a fan of his, known him since he arrived on campus. And uh, again, I think we've got us a tremendous team in place right now. And to me is just. Very positive, very update as far as, uh, Western Athletics is concerned. Somebody just wants to maybe I don't know. I thought maybe, you know, if y'all want to hand out$10 bills and go, uh, have everybody use the lottery and see if we can come up with another couple of, uh, you know, a billion dollars, we'll see what happens. I don't know if that would be legal or not.

kyle-pifer_1_07-07-2025_133744: 24:41

I don't know, and I don't know if strategy wise, if that's the greatest, uh, you know, calculation on what we should do. But yeah, I appreciate, keep those ideas coming, Steve.

squadcaster-1ge2_1_07-07-2025_133744: 24:49

Yeah. Yeah. That.

bob-sabin_1_07-07-2025_133744: 24:54

Well on that note we are thrilled to have you out today, Kyle. We really appreciate it. We look forward to having you back from time to time. We will see everybody again. We're gonna wrap this up with tracking the cats today. As usual, we are brought to you by Stanbury Insurance in Silva, Waynesville and Highlands. And, uh, we'll see you all again in two weeks. Thanks for your time.