Leaving the basketball part aside, I wanted to talk about Syracuse’s hire of Gerry McNamara and what we’ve witnessed since the news became official.
Since I don’t know who is responsible, I’m not going to say this is all due to Bryan Blair, but I do think it’s telling to see the stark contrast to the start of Adrian Autry. To be fair to Autry, the situations are not the same, but I do think that Syracuse showed an ability to “get it”.
This hire is one that hits the emotions of Orange fans and Syracuse
leaned into it. We got the hype video of career highlights. We heard from Syracuse legends welcoming G-Mac back, we got the emails from McNamara on Syracuse’s Giving Day last week and then he made the local media rounds.
Now, the basketball stuff will be measured in wins and losses, but if you wanted an example that the athletic department was meeting the moment of the modern era, this was a great start. There wasn’t a rushed welcome event, but McNamara was everywhere to talk about his return to the Orange.
During the press conference, Blair joked that he shouldn’t have just said “weaponize the Dome, but weaponize Miron Victory Court”. The event on Monday was what you want to engage the community. It wasn’t a stuffy suit event. You had fans, many in #3 jerseys, cheering and yelling. You had giveaway t-shirts and the event had juice.
Could this event give Blair some ideas for other ways to use this new space? Could Syracuse host away game viewing events? Would you look to book artists to perform in the space, or at least make sure you host more of these “pep rally” type events?
We can joke about the t-shirts, but getting a few thousand people into an event and selling concessions and merchandise can add to that program supprt we know that everyone needs.Blair told us he wants to be creative and I think he got some proof of concept that this community might embrace that creativity.
This was a great initial step to get some of the fanbase buy in that has eroded in recent years. While McNamara and the staff need to focus on the roster now, Syracuse will need to keep pushing this McNamERA throughout the summer.
People are fired up now, so you have to make good use of that emotion and the last 10 days have been a great example on how to do so.
