Binghamton University Director of Athletics Joel Thirer, who arrived at BU in 1989, has lofty goals he’d like to meet before retiring. (He’s not going anywhere, he said, for another six to eight years. “I’m not counting down the days.”)

Though Thirer said he wants to get as many of BU’s teams to the NCAA tournament as possible and win an America East Commissioner’s Cup, he has a special plan for the men’s basketball team: “I’d like to establish basketball as a regularly, nationally-competitive mid-major program in the same way that some of the other mid-majors are. Binghamton could one day be the Gonzaga of the East Coast.”

And Thirer thinks Kevin Broadus may be the man to lead the Bearcats to Bulldogs status. “Kevin Broadus, maybe, here is the guy to do this. Maybe he’s going to be here for 20 years and establish a legacy.”

Thirer’s most pressing endeavor, however, lies off the court. “The immediate goal is to get fully funded in the sports we offer. We have to bring in additional revenues. We can bring in an additional million dollars a year through our marketing and development efforts, we can fully fund our scholarships. There’s a big short fall, not all of our sports are fully funded. I really want to achieve athletic balance and I want to be good and win everything we do.”

Despite Binghamton’s shortcomings financially, it’s still more successful than Albany and Stony Brook. “Dollar for dollar, we do better than them in marketing developing and ticket sales. It’s a fact.”

Thirer also has visions beyond the immediate and, likely, beyond his tenure.

“In the years to come, depending on resource availability, we continue to look at the scope of the athletic program, perhaps there are sports that we might add in the future. We’ve talked about adding women’s golf. Maybe we’ll add women’s golf, maybe we’ll add field hockey.”

And there’s always new buildings to be had. New baseball and softball fields are nearest on the horizon.

“We need to renovate the tennis facilities, we’d love to expand the West Gym,” Thirer said. “But none of those things are on the road map right now. Right now it’s in the thinking process. There’s no source of funding that’s been identified for any of that at present.”

But that doesn’t stop Thirer from thinking ahead.

“You have to have a long term plan and if you don’t have a plan, you can’t just wait for the money to drop in your lap.”