GRAHAM ROSSINI INTERVIEWS AND LINKS
--PODCAST: Speak of the Devils Sitdown Series with Graham Rossini (July 1, 2024)
--AUDIO: Graham Rossini joins DougFranzUnplugged.com (June 6, 2024)
--Arizona State puts its trust in new AD Graham Rossini in uncertain time for college sports (by Doug Haller, The Athletic/May 29, 2024)
--AUDIO: Graham joins Bickley and Marotta at 7;15 a.m. (May 24, 2024)/VIDEO
--“He Gets Things Accomplished” – Dillingham, Bloomquist React to Graham Rossini Promotion (by Jordan Hamm, Sports360AZ.com/May 23, 2024)
--AUDIO: 23 Minutes of Graham in studio with Burns and Gambo (May 23, 2024)/VIDEO
--VIDEO: Graham Rossini joins State of the Sun Devils Podcast (May 23, 2024)
--AUDIO: Graham on Sun Devil Radio at ASU Baseball Game (May 23, 2024)
OPENING STATEMENT (MAY 23, 2024)
“Excited to be at this point in our process, excited to get on the other side of the announcement. We have work to do and have some tremendous opportunities in front of us. What I'd like everybody to know is that I'm a Sun Devil. First and foremost If feel like I got credentials to lead us into what comes next but out the gate I'm a proud Sun Devil, that's always been a big part of my background and my DNA and I can't wait to represent this entire community of Sun Devils who care so much about what we do at Arizona State University. Thank you to Dr. Crow, thank you to Dr. Jim Rund who's been an unbelievable mentor and gudiance in the last six-to-seven months preparing for this. Thank you to the Arizona Board of Regents. I don't take this opportunity lightly and i'm excited to get to work and i'm excited for the challenges and more importantly the opportunities we have in front of us. We have a group of passionate Sun Devils ready to take the charge on what comes next. We have great momentum behind us. We have the full support and strength of this university and we’re going to work to earn the full strength of this community behind us. We can’t wait to get to work. I want to wish a special thank you to three people who have been critically important in my ability to get to this point today, one is Pat Murphy who I had the chance to spend eight years with as a member of Sun Devil Baseball. (He’s) currently leading the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central and a really great Sun Devil as well. The next will be Derrick Hall who I had 13 years to spend and learn from. Learning from a Sun Devil on a different setting but in this market building relationships in this community, having relationships with the businesses that we’re going to lean on and rely upon, a great Sun Devil. And obviously Ray (Anderson) having the opportunity to come back home three years ago and I was able to learn a lot from Ray and Buffie (Anderson) in our time together. I wish them the best of luck in their next chapter and I’m excited to build on the momentum that’s in place. I’m here for you all, I want to be responsive, I know there are many. I’m excited to get into the day and the work to come...”It’s an unbelievable setting here at Mountain America Stadium, this is the backdrop of a lot of our best moments when you think about how we used this setting to welcome our first-year students, the first experience as a Sun Devil happens in this stadium. We want the football stadium and all the activities that take place here to be a big part of their backdrop and a big part of their pathway while they’re here on campus. Then if they do it right they’re here to celebrate graduation at some point later. So no appropriate setting in my opinion to make this announcement and get into the work that comes next at Mountain America Stadium.”
ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A SUN DEVIL AND BECOME ATHLETIC DIRECTOR
"I don't know if I've fully processed the weight of it but I know just driving into campus this morning I started getting a little butterflies for the first time. We've been hard at work, we've been working on the jobs that need to be done and preparing for what's coming at us in the immediate term but the gravity of moment is starting to weigh in a little bit as I'm starting to get reached out too from friends and people who share this ASU responsibility together. I've thought a lot about how everything in my adult life happened the moment I came to ASU and I think that's an important part of my journey is that relationships, my friendships, my wife Alison who's here was a volleyball letterwinner in a tournament team here at ASU and as I've reflected back I have the understanding that ASU has this backdrop for the last 25 years and the best moments of my adulthood have happened here. Professionally, personally, we have two kids, a five-year old and a two-year old, they're going to grow up as Sun Devils and Dr. Christine Wilkinson gave us the book 'Protectors of the A' if anyone has seen that one. That was the first book our son came to love and know before I came back to the university. I'm just honored, i'm proud to be a Sun Devil. This place is enourmously important to me. I can tell you I didn't necessary seek out to become an athletic director, i was motivated to come back to the university and help Sun Devil Athletics because its been such an important part of my life and my opportunities so I'm grateful, i'm proud and I'm excited to represent all Sun Devils."
ON HOW HE WILL RUN THE DEPARTMENT
“I see the opportunity. We all talked about the brand of ASU and how powerful it is and why it hasn’t necessary translated over to athletics. I think there’s a lot of reasons for that but ultimately before we’re focused on what comes next, we’re focused on relationships. The core of what we do is our head coaches and our student athletes and that will always remain. Our job in administration is to find the resources and the connections and the ability for them to have success. We have unbelievable success for our athletes across our 26 sports. Our head coaches are all elite in their profession. We have 650 student-athletes from all over the world that are choosing to come here. It’s our responsibility to nurture their environment it’s our responsibility to make sure their plugged in, they’re prepared, resourced and their connected in all the ways. It’s all about getting back to basics. We’re going to be focused on relationships, we’re going to be focused on connections. There’s no better way to emotionally connect to anything than through sport. We happen to be in this incredible setting at Arizona State University with a top-flight athletic department and we want to bring those things together. The full strength of ASU is behind us now more than ever, we know that, that’s real. That’s significant coming from Dr. Crow and ASU leadership and we want to utilize that to the best of our ability.”
ON WHERE ASU STANDS RESOURCE-WISE AND FOCUSING ON FANS
“The structure of our staff moving forward reflects that. We have great backgrounds to focus on business relationships, revenue generation etc. We have a tremendous opportunity. We got this unbelievable stadium, we have Mullett Arena, Desert Financial Arena, Phoenix Municipal Stadium, Farrington Stadium. We have four, five, six sports now that have a chance to be great competitors for our fan base and we want our fans to be plugged into our events to engage, be excited about what we’re doing. We’re going to obsess over our fans. I will gladly make that commitment on behalf of the athletic department at ASU. We’re looking at that experience driveway to driveway. The moment somebody leaves their house and they’re on their way to campus or whatever their here for, we want to be thinking through what are they experiencing as they get close to campus, what’s that interaction like in the parking lot, what’s the warm welcome they get when they walk into our stadiums and arenas, how are obsessing over our touch-points on our journey. We’re adapting that fan-first mindset. We will obsess over people that will obsess over us and we’re proud to represent our Sun Devils in that way. We will have highly competitive teams that are representing ASU we’re sure of that but around that we’re not going to rely on wins and losses to build a community of support. We’re going to obsess over the details, we’re focused on big moments, focused on the little details and we want to make sure our fans understand that we welcome them back in, we want to obsess over their journey while they’re with us.”
ON HOW MUCH HIS PAST EXPERIENCE HAS HELPED HIM PREPARE
"I think that's the unique advantage in this iteration for Sun Devil Athletics. I've spent 13-years in Major League Baseball. Baseball has been a big part of my backdrop. I've been playing the sport since I was 4-years old and I think from four to 40 was connected to a team consecutively in that moment. And you learn a lot in that setting. and the modernization of college athletics is trending to where we need to be resourceful. We need to be focused on corporate relationships, connections, revenue generation to invest back into our student athletes. What's so unique and exciting about this setting for me is that we're not trying to satisfy shareholders, we're not trying to build equity for ownership, we're trying to re-invest dollars for our student athletes. We have 650 people counting on us to enrich their experience and so I do think being in the market place having 25 years of history in the Valley. This is home for me, this is the longest place I've lived, being born on the East Coast and being on the Gulf Coast and then coming out here for ASU and never leaving and so I do think that being in the marketplace with a deep understanding of our fan base, being in a fan myself, being connected to the business community and our supporters in the valley. that's a unique advantage and also understanding of ASU. This is a fascinating and incredible university and its an enterprise and we have all of this ability to impact society in everything that we do and the ability to make the university go and what the leadership is focused on, and how do we bring that into the athletic spaces, so no doubt will it be a huge advantage."
ON NIL
"We are 100 percent committed to NIL. As Dr. Crow mentioned in the last 6-to-7 months we're really investing our focus in there. We're lucky Tim Hovik from San Tan Ford, Mountain America, Desert Financial Credit Union, Sprouts, Adidas and others that have stepped up on behalf of NIL and we're lucky the Sun Angel Collective has taken over ownership and really being a voice and building NIL support across our fanbase. An enormous partnership for us now more than ever and we're locked into the leadership with the Sun Angel Collective and encourage anyone watching or listening to join as a member of the Sun Angel Collective and we're going to do this at scale by utilizing a membership model and bringing our corporate partners into the conversation as well and we got great momentum. When you look at what coach DIllinghamd and what Coach Hurley have done recently it's not by consequence. These are elite coaches, these are field-recruiters. They've got great networks in their respective sports and they're showing that. All things equal and when we're reasonable and competitive in NIL, high level recruits want to be Sun Devils and that's a really important part of their journey. We're looking at all aspects of how be enrich that student athlete journey. We don't need to lead with NIL, we want to be very focused on that but again we're selling education, quality of life, we're selling a network. Coach Dillingham talked about it year and a half ago in his press conferece.That means something, that's a true mission for this department that we're connecting too all generations of Sun Devils and as recruits come to this space, invest in your time here. Invest in the relationships, build a connection because it's going to last long beyond their time competing as athletes. It's build a network and that's the beauty of NIL in my opinion is that we have an unbelievable metropolitan area, we have emerging economies around us, we have incredible corporate support being in a large city, a large dynamic, facet university. We want to plug those entities and companies into NIL. It's a competitive job market out there and we want to use NIL as a tool for professional development for student athletes and so their building vocational training, skill sets and building a network of connections so when they graduate, they're able to use that full wau of this experience. Elite education, unbelievable competitive setting and a chance to be an accountable teammate, a great communicator and to have this NIL to prepare them on this journey so they're able to take on the real-world."
--PODCAST: Speak of the Devils Sitdown Series with Graham Rossini (July 1, 2024)
--AUDIO: Graham Rossini joins DougFranzUnplugged.com (June 6, 2024)
--Arizona State puts its trust in new AD Graham Rossini in uncertain time for college sports (by Doug Haller, The Athletic/May 29, 2024)
--AUDIO: Graham joins Bickley and Marotta at 7;15 a.m. (May 24, 2024)/VIDEO
--“He Gets Things Accomplished” – Dillingham, Bloomquist React to Graham Rossini Promotion (by Jordan Hamm, Sports360AZ.com/May 23, 2024)
--AUDIO: 23 Minutes of Graham in studio with Burns and Gambo (May 23, 2024)/VIDEO
--VIDEO: Graham Rossini joins State of the Sun Devils Podcast (May 23, 2024)
--AUDIO: Graham on Sun Devil Radio at ASU Baseball Game (May 23, 2024)
?? NEW @SotDPodcast ??
— Brad Denny (@BDenny29) July 2, 2024
ASU AD @GrahamRossini goes in-depth on:
- Focus on key sports
- Building trust
- NIL
- Fan experience
- Future landscape
& more
Stream https://t.co/JKv5bMLOIb
Apple https://t.co/XAoTEThZnh
Spotify https://t.co/2OnJ6d3afq
YouTube https://t.co/6ztoKWwH1E pic.twitter.com/sosEO5Gg3P
OPENING STATEMENT (MAY 23, 2024)
“Excited to be at this point in our process, excited to get on the other side of the announcement. We have work to do and have some tremendous opportunities in front of us. What I'd like everybody to know is that I'm a Sun Devil. First and foremost If feel like I got credentials to lead us into what comes next but out the gate I'm a proud Sun Devil, that's always been a big part of my background and my DNA and I can't wait to represent this entire community of Sun Devils who care so much about what we do at Arizona State University. Thank you to Dr. Crow, thank you to Dr. Jim Rund who's been an unbelievable mentor and gudiance in the last six-to-seven months preparing for this. Thank you to the Arizona Board of Regents. I don't take this opportunity lightly and i'm excited to get to work and i'm excited for the challenges and more importantly the opportunities we have in front of us. We have a group of passionate Sun Devils ready to take the charge on what comes next. We have great momentum behind us. We have the full support and strength of this university and we’re going to work to earn the full strength of this community behind us. We can’t wait to get to work. I want to wish a special thank you to three people who have been critically important in my ability to get to this point today, one is Pat Murphy who I had the chance to spend eight years with as a member of Sun Devil Baseball. (He’s) currently leading the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central and a really great Sun Devil as well. The next will be Derrick Hall who I had 13 years to spend and learn from. Learning from a Sun Devil on a different setting but in this market building relationships in this community, having relationships with the businesses that we’re going to lean on and rely upon, a great Sun Devil. And obviously Ray (Anderson) having the opportunity to come back home three years ago and I was able to learn a lot from Ray and Buffie (Anderson) in our time together. I wish them the best of luck in their next chapter and I’m excited to build on the momentum that’s in place. I’m here for you all, I want to be responsive, I know there are many. I’m excited to get into the day and the work to come...”It’s an unbelievable setting here at Mountain America Stadium, this is the backdrop of a lot of our best moments when you think about how we used this setting to welcome our first-year students, the first experience as a Sun Devil happens in this stadium. We want the football stadium and all the activities that take place here to be a big part of their backdrop and a big part of their pathway while they’re here on campus. Then if they do it right they’re here to celebrate graduation at some point later. So no appropriate setting in my opinion to make this announcement and get into the work that comes next at Mountain America Stadium.”
ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A SUN DEVIL AND BECOME ATHLETIC DIRECTOR
"I don't know if I've fully processed the weight of it but I know just driving into campus this morning I started getting a little butterflies for the first time. We've been hard at work, we've been working on the jobs that need to be done and preparing for what's coming at us in the immediate term but the gravity of moment is starting to weigh in a little bit as I'm starting to get reached out too from friends and people who share this ASU responsibility together. I've thought a lot about how everything in my adult life happened the moment I came to ASU and I think that's an important part of my journey is that relationships, my friendships, my wife Alison who's here was a volleyball letterwinner in a tournament team here at ASU and as I've reflected back I have the understanding that ASU has this backdrop for the last 25 years and the best moments of my adulthood have happened here. Professionally, personally, we have two kids, a five-year old and a two-year old, they're going to grow up as Sun Devils and Dr. Christine Wilkinson gave us the book 'Protectors of the A' if anyone has seen that one. That was the first book our son came to love and know before I came back to the university. I'm just honored, i'm proud to be a Sun Devil. This place is enourmously important to me. I can tell you I didn't necessary seek out to become an athletic director, i was motivated to come back to the university and help Sun Devil Athletics because its been such an important part of my life and my opportunities so I'm grateful, i'm proud and I'm excited to represent all Sun Devils."
ON HOW HE WILL RUN THE DEPARTMENT
“I see the opportunity. We all talked about the brand of ASU and how powerful it is and why it hasn’t necessary translated over to athletics. I think there’s a lot of reasons for that but ultimately before we’re focused on what comes next, we’re focused on relationships. The core of what we do is our head coaches and our student athletes and that will always remain. Our job in administration is to find the resources and the connections and the ability for them to have success. We have unbelievable success for our athletes across our 26 sports. Our head coaches are all elite in their profession. We have 650 student-athletes from all over the world that are choosing to come here. It’s our responsibility to nurture their environment it’s our responsibility to make sure their plugged in, they’re prepared, resourced and their connected in all the ways. It’s all about getting back to basics. We’re going to be focused on relationships, we’re going to be focused on connections. There’s no better way to emotionally connect to anything than through sport. We happen to be in this incredible setting at Arizona State University with a top-flight athletic department and we want to bring those things together. The full strength of ASU is behind us now more than ever, we know that, that’s real. That’s significant coming from Dr. Crow and ASU leadership and we want to utilize that to the best of our ability.”
ON WHERE ASU STANDS RESOURCE-WISE AND FOCUSING ON FANS
“The structure of our staff moving forward reflects that. We have great backgrounds to focus on business relationships, revenue generation etc. We have a tremendous opportunity. We got this unbelievable stadium, we have Mullett Arena, Desert Financial Arena, Phoenix Municipal Stadium, Farrington Stadium. We have four, five, six sports now that have a chance to be great competitors for our fan base and we want our fans to be plugged into our events to engage, be excited about what we’re doing. We’re going to obsess over our fans. I will gladly make that commitment on behalf of the athletic department at ASU. We’re looking at that experience driveway to driveway. The moment somebody leaves their house and they’re on their way to campus or whatever their here for, we want to be thinking through what are they experiencing as they get close to campus, what’s that interaction like in the parking lot, what’s the warm welcome they get when they walk into our stadiums and arenas, how are obsessing over our touch-points on our journey. We’re adapting that fan-first mindset. We will obsess over people that will obsess over us and we’re proud to represent our Sun Devils in that way. We will have highly competitive teams that are representing ASU we’re sure of that but around that we’re not going to rely on wins and losses to build a community of support. We’re going to obsess over the details, we’re focused on big moments, focused on the little details and we want to make sure our fans understand that we welcome them back in, we want to obsess over their journey while they’re with us.”
ON HOW MUCH HIS PAST EXPERIENCE HAS HELPED HIM PREPARE
"I think that's the unique advantage in this iteration for Sun Devil Athletics. I've spent 13-years in Major League Baseball. Baseball has been a big part of my backdrop. I've been playing the sport since I was 4-years old and I think from four to 40 was connected to a team consecutively in that moment. And you learn a lot in that setting. and the modernization of college athletics is trending to where we need to be resourceful. We need to be focused on corporate relationships, connections, revenue generation to invest back into our student athletes. What's so unique and exciting about this setting for me is that we're not trying to satisfy shareholders, we're not trying to build equity for ownership, we're trying to re-invest dollars for our student athletes. We have 650 people counting on us to enrich their experience and so I do think being in the market place having 25 years of history in the Valley. This is home for me, this is the longest place I've lived, being born on the East Coast and being on the Gulf Coast and then coming out here for ASU and never leaving and so I do think that being in the marketplace with a deep understanding of our fan base, being in a fan myself, being connected to the business community and our supporters in the valley. that's a unique advantage and also understanding of ASU. This is a fascinating and incredible university and its an enterprise and we have all of this ability to impact society in everything that we do and the ability to make the university go and what the leadership is focused on, and how do we bring that into the athletic spaces, so no doubt will it be a huge advantage."
ON NIL
"We are 100 percent committed to NIL. As Dr. Crow mentioned in the last 6-to-7 months we're really investing our focus in there. We're lucky Tim Hovik from San Tan Ford, Mountain America, Desert Financial Credit Union, Sprouts, Adidas and others that have stepped up on behalf of NIL and we're lucky the Sun Angel Collective has taken over ownership and really being a voice and building NIL support across our fanbase. An enormous partnership for us now more than ever and we're locked into the leadership with the Sun Angel Collective and encourage anyone watching or listening to join as a member of the Sun Angel Collective and we're going to do this at scale by utilizing a membership model and bringing our corporate partners into the conversation as well and we got great momentum. When you look at what coach DIllinghamd and what Coach Hurley have done recently it's not by consequence. These are elite coaches, these are field-recruiters. They've got great networks in their respective sports and they're showing that. All things equal and when we're reasonable and competitive in NIL, high level recruits want to be Sun Devils and that's a really important part of their journey. We're looking at all aspects of how be enrich that student athlete journey. We don't need to lead with NIL, we want to be very focused on that but again we're selling education, quality of life, we're selling a network. Coach Dillingham talked about it year and a half ago in his press conferece.That means something, that's a true mission for this department that we're connecting too all generations of Sun Devils and as recruits come to this space, invest in your time here. Invest in the relationships, build a connection because it's going to last long beyond their time competing as athletes. It's build a network and that's the beauty of NIL in my opinion is that we have an unbelievable metropolitan area, we have emerging economies around us, we have incredible corporate support being in a large city, a large dynamic, facet university. We want to plug those entities and companies into NIL. It's a competitive job market out there and we want to use NIL as a tool for professional development for student athletes and so their building vocational training, skill sets and building a network of connections so when they graduate, they're able to use that full wau of this experience. Elite education, unbelievable competitive setting and a chance to be an accountable teammate, a great communicator and to have this NIL to prepare them on this journey so they're able to take on the real-world."