Boston College Athletics Holds 2nd Town Hall Meeting

Boston College Athletics Director Brad Bates held his 2nd Town Hall event of his tenure, before the Wake Forest basketball game. Invited were season ticket holders, who were served salted pretzels as they entered the meeting (!!!). According to people who were at the event, the demographics were a bit on the older side, as it's tough to get younger alumni to BC on a Saturday morning.

There were smaller programs brought up by the folks there, such as complaints about music, programs and food options. Some of the bigger items mentioned included fixing getting on and off campus for tailgating, extending or changing the tailgating times, and putting bathrooms in the upper deck of Alumni. As many of you have brought up here, Bates was asked about the out of conference schedule, and specifically how did the Eagles get stuck with Howard as many season ticket holders would have preferred an out of conference game against an ACC similar to what Wake Forest set up.

Topics that were not talked about (that probably should have been) included reducing prices of donor based seating, indoor practice facilities, future non-ACC scheduling in the future, indoor practice facilities, renovations to Alumni Stadium, and indoor practice facilities.

As a BC fan I appreciate Brad Bates being open to the public in forums like this. They allow people an opportunity to voice their opinion and be heard, a tenant of good customer service. However part of me envisions these town hall meetings running similarly to the Town Hall meetings in Parks and Rec. People complaining about minor things like programs, and completely missing the big picture.

The other concern I have about these meetings is that it only targets a certain subset of the BC alumni population. There are alumni all over the country that would like to have their voices heard, and there are younger alumni with either families or plans on Saturdays that make attending an event like this nearly impossible. It would be great if BC Athletics held a follow up event online, where we could submit questions to Bates and allow a more diverse group to be heard.