The Binghamton University men’s basketball team experienced an unforgettable run two seasons ago, securing the Bearcats’ first America East title and earning a trip to the NCAA tournament.
Led by standouts D.J. Rivera and Emanuel “Tiki” Mayben, Binghamton secured both a regular season championship and an America East conference title before a first round tournament matchup with Duke University ended its season. Banners hang from the rafters of the Events Center commemorating the Bearcats’ accomplishments, but they cannot tell the entire story.
Roughly a month before the start of the next season, six players, including Rivera and Mayben, were dismissed from the program for behavioral issues. Over the next few weeks, multiple player arrests, the resignation — or alleged force out — of athletic director Joel Thirer and the suspension of then-head coach Kevin Broadus left the program in shambles.
The breakdown resulted in both an in-house and NCAA investigation of the University’s athletic department, and extended media coverage highlighting the scandal had all 21 Binghamton athletic programs feeling the pressure.
Jim Norris, who stepped in as the interim director of athletics after Thirer’s resignation, knew the stress of what had unfolded would undoubtedly fall on some of the wrong shoulders. But a firsthand meeting with students opened his eyes to the severity of the situation.
“I said to them, ‘You guys tell me what’s on your minds,'” Norris recalled. “And I’ll never forget, one raised her hand and said, ‘We’re embarrassed to wear our student-athlete shirts; we don’t want people knowing we’re student-athletes.'”
“I just reminded everyone in the room that, ‘You haven’t done anything wrong, and you have a lot to be proud of,'” he continued. “‘We need to be proud of who we are and what we’ve done, and we need to focus on our accomplishments.'”
Norris outlined a mission to restore morale throughout the department and restructure its organization so all programs would report to the same supervisor.
“All under one umbrella,” he said.
Dave Eagan, associate director of athletics for compliance, has expressed support for Norris’ initiative.
“This variation in philosophy (from the former AD) has worked well,” he said.
Eagan works to ensure that all coaches and staff are aware of, and work within the lines of, their obligations to follow NCAA rules. These responsibilities, outlined in all athletic department employment contracts, outline the staff’s obligations to the rules compliance program of the athletic department.
“All 21 programs are required to operate in accordance with NCAA legislation,” Eagan said. “At Binghamton, we have developed a comprehensive compliance program designed to accomplish this. From a compliance office perspective, all staff members and programs are held to the same standards.”
An athletic department “game plan” was the result of Norris’ vision. The game plan is a handbook outlining policies associated with diversity, compliance, academic excellence, athletic excellence, student-athlete welfare/experience, financial resources, human resources, facilities and campus/community relations.
“We needed to take a look at who we were, and what we stood for, and how we were going to be moving forward,” Norris said. “This wasn’t just something we put together and set it on a shelf and forgot about it. We’re doing it.”
The game plan highlights season-long goals for the department, laying out a “making it happen” map to offer each objective a guideline for reaching completion. It sets athletic, academic and social goals for the University’s athletes and has helped reshape the department.
The department has also worked to publish a periodic compliance newsletter and distribute a hard copy of the student-athlete handbook after it had been an online-only publication in previous years.
Norris’ leadership and presence as athletic director has had an effect on every program, but, as expected, restructuring and rebuilding Binghamton’s men’s basketball program has been a main priority, starting with coaching.
Mark Macon, who served as an assistant under Broadus, took the helm as interim head coach in 2009 and was signed to an extension through 2013 earlier this season, shedding his interim label. Macon, along with Norris, has worked to rebrand BU’s definition of a student-athlete.
“I’m education first,” Macon said. “These kids know that I’m books first and I’m family first. We can always come back to basketball. It’s important that we let these kids know how important it is to have a degree.”
To Norris, Macon’s presence has made all the difference.
“It’s helping us recruit the kind of kids we should be recruiting, and the kinds of kids we want here,” he said. “He has a good perspective on things and he’s a good role model. Those are the kind of kids he’s going to attract into this program. We want kids who are students first and athletes second, and I do think they’re aware of what we are about here.”
The basketball team hasn’t experienced comparable success on the court the past two years, and rebranding the program is an effort still in process.
A resilient fan base and community has continued to support the program, but an early-season decision by Macon had some fans questioning the true motives of the department. The second-year head coach elected to leave senior Greer Wright, Binghamton’s leading scorer and preseason All-Conference selection, in Binghamton to take a test rather than traveling with the team to take on Army.
At first glance, some assumed it was a conscious effort to promote the program’s new image. But for Norris and Macon, it was a genuine act that fell in line with BU’s new philosophy.
“We’re proud kids and a proud staff, and we’re proud of the fact that we do it right,” Macon said of his decision. “But that wasn’t a conscious effort, that’s just changing the culture to what it needs to be. These kids are student-athletes.”
Under Norris’ new philosophy, Binghamton’s athletic department is a source of pride for the University. With new uniformity, the Bearcats have continued to lead the America East in both academic and athletic performance.
“Singing from the same songbook,” Norris said.
Once seemingly a separate entity from the rest of the athletic department, Norris believes the basketball program is now a dedicated group of students that pride themselves as both athletes and members of the University.
“These aren’t everyday kids, those were very special kids,” Norris said of this past season’s roster. “We wouldn’t be where we are today if that program didn’t get the message real quick and respond the way they did. They played hard, they played as a team and they were good representatives of our program, and that’s not going to change.”
With Norris holding the umbrella, BU athletics is experiencing success. In the past year, Binghamton has crowned an All-American in track star Erik van Ingen, sent six wrestlers to the NCAA Championship and has had senior golfer Jake Katz bring the University’s golf team national recognition.
On-court success may come some day for Binghamton’s basketball team, and with new recruits coming in next season, there is a positive outlook on the future of the program. But for the department, all 21 programs “under one umbrella” has worked out pretty well so far.