1. Fire whoever is in charge of the Cougarclub. I’m sure they are nice guys (we don’t have to fire them they could be reassigned to other jobs within BYU) but their ways have got us 7,000 members. That’s an unacceptable number and will not cut it, and the status quo of doing things isn’t enough.

Bring in some new blood, people who are proven in recruiting or fundraising. Bring in somebody who is proactive in bringing in new donors (lots of ways that this could be done, I could do a whole post on this. Heck I’ve thought about retiring early and trying to have this be my job). I’m convinced BYU’s cougar club numbers could be doubled in a year.

BYU has been putting out successful business people for years and years and years. Let’s tap into them at a higher rate. We need to play to our strengths, BYU produces a lot of middle/upper middle class to very upper class citizens in the marketplace. Let’s tap into that strength. Even if we are getting the recent graduates to give a little it would help some in the short term and continue help more as they made more money.

7000 cougarclub members is unacceptable.

If we raise more money than we can go onto the next ideas:

2. Recruit internationally in basketball. Hire some full time international scouts and recruiters who live abroad building relationships. As Travis Hansen said these kids don’t care about P5 status that means nothing to them, they go with people they trust, where they will get a good education and for some where they can showcase their skills to hopefully play professionally. There’s no reason BYU can’t get a lot more of these talented kids.

3. Get LDS prep schools and/or junior colleges in developing countries. These schools would have academics but also American Sports which would help get them scholarships to the U.S. I think this could help the church abroad and help BYU sports.

4. Pay our coaches, especially our assistant coaches a lot more. You know what would help raise our results and status real quick? If we brought in some of the best assistants in the land. The top programs get former D1 HC’s as assistants, when if ever have we done that in football? Heath Schoyer fits that bill and he transformed our defensive effort in one year. If we fix the donations budget it opens up a lot of hiring possibilities.

5. Hire somebody whose full-time job is BYU Lobbyist (will need a better title). Travels and has meetings and builds relationships with P5 conference board members, school presidents etc. He travels always a great deal and during expansion time lives at these conference headquarters. We were surprised when the big12 invited TCU, we can’t have that again


No extra money is needed for this one:
6. Push for the Honorcode to be used as a help for the students and/or athletes and not so much as a weapon to hold people in line. I think the Honorcode has turned into something more than was originally intended, especially when it comes to BYU sports. When a student gets caught drinking they don’t tell him he can’t work for a certain amount of time (he gets to go to school and continue but while in a probationary state), when a BYU student athlete gets caught drinking he too gets to continue going to school but he can no longer participate in games for a period of time. I’m all for kids living the honor code i just think tweaks could be made to how it’s enforced/handled.