MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher stopped in DeKalb for the first time in over 20 years on Tuesday.

The Northern Star took the chance to sit down with the new commissioner to get his opinions on balancing the MAC football divisions, if the MAC will add any more bowl games and how to rid the stigma of men’s basketball being a one-and-done team in the NCAA tournament.

Northern Star: What’s it been like working as the MAC commissioner for the past couple of months?

Jon Steinbrecher: It’s been good. It’s been busy. A lot of activity is in place.
Reorganizing the staff, getting to know our membership. Spending a lot of time either asking questions or simply listening, quite frankly, and trying to absorb what I’m taking back from those I meet and interact with.

NS: What are the main questions you’ve had?

JS: People are interested in what is my vision for the MAC or this and that.
And that’s all fine and good. But I continue to emphasize to them I’m much more interested, and
I think it’s much more important, what their thoughts are. What we attain we’ll attain together.

I need to enunciate a vision, and I really think part of that vision is we can be as good as we want to be in this league. We have a number of centers of excellent in this league and we need to continue to foster those and build on those. But what I really want to get is to get the league membership focus on answering that question.

So this year, very shortly in fact, we’ll be starting on a strategic planning process and really the question is what do we dare to be. How good do we dare to be. And let’s answer that question.

And let’s give us some stretch goals and say this is what we want to do and then let’s build the road map to get there. And then it will be my job to hold our feet to the fire and get us there.

NS: What’s the time line for this plan?

JS: It will be during this year. I would hope to come out of spring meetings with some document ratified by our presidents. Hopefully we’ll get underway early to mid October. And then that gives us six, seven months to get it together.

NS: While you’re listening to your members, you have to have some of your own goals too. What are those goals?

JS: In the short term some things we are focusing on are the services offered by our staff, and making sure that we really have a service orientation. We’re here, we exist, to service the membership, to help them do their job more efficiently and effectively. And if we’re doing those things then we’re probably doing our job. If we’re doing those things great. If we have or haven’t then let’s correct that.

Part of our reorganization was to move people into certain slots where I thought maybe we needed to pay a little attention.

NS: Is this your first visit to Northern Illinois?

JS: It’s been a while. I was here a long time ago.

NS: Well, what’s your thoughts of seeing the campus now?

JS: The physical plant, particularly the athletic physical plant, has changed significantly since I was here in the 80s and it has changed very positively. The Convo Center, the [Yordon Center], all these things; it’s a physical plant you can be very proud of.

The institution was already I think a good place for recruits to look at. It’s just one more thing to add to it to make the school more attractive.

NS: What have you told players and coaches during your visit to NIU?

JS: Go get it. One thing I talk about particularly at this time of the year is we are all undefeated, we’re excited about the year to come. I said we’re all in this together. Go out there and get after it, and we’re behind you 100 percent. And if there are things we can do to be assisting you make sure you let us know.

NS: As for football, you have a West Division with six teams and an East Division with seven teams. Is there any discussion about balancing these divisions?

JS: We need to come to some decisions about that very shortly. Temple who is an affiliate member in football has two years remaining on their contract; they have this year and next year left on their contract.

We need to come on some conclusions on that. Do they remain with us or not? There are ramifications either way. I wouldn’t put a time frame on it, but I would say in the next year we’ll have some understanding on how we are going to move forward with that.

NS: If there was discussions about keeping Temple as a future football member, would there be any discussion about bringing in all the Owls’ sports into the MAC?

JS: Well I think that was part of the reason they were brought in as an affiliate in football with the idea that hopefully they might bring all their sports teams in.

While I don’t have a definitive answer at this time, from what I’ve heard in discussions I have trouble believing they will do that. I’m not sure that makes sense for them geographically.

Tradition-wise the opponents they are playing in basketball and some other sports are opponents they have been playing for years and years. I understand that.

So again we need to make decisions on what’s in our best interest.

NS: What’s in the MAC’s best interest?

JS: I’ll reserve that discussion. I’ll let [them] chew on that a little bit and Temple needs to weigh in on it. Good, bad or otherwise we really need to vet that discussion and figure out where we go.

NS: The MAC is one of those leagues that plays a lot of weekday football games. What’s your opinion on playing games during the week?

JS: What’s becoming my stock answer on that is that we’ve agreed to do it so we’re going to embrace it and find a way to do it well.

It’s providing us with significant national exposure which we would otherwise not get. We’re not going to play very often on football Saturday’s at 7 p.m. or afternoon on ESPN. It’s not just going to happen. So if we want that national exposure we have to be willing to be creative with it.

Our coaches would tell us it’s making a significant difference in who they are able to recruit. I don’t think it has a detrimental effect academically for the football student-athletes.

I think the challenge for them is it really takes them off what their routine is. You spend six, seven, eight weeks preparing for Saturday games and then we go into the last month of the season and you’re preparing for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday games. So that changes the cycle a little bit.

But again we’re all in it together; we’re all doing the same thing. We’ve agreed to do it, we’re going to work really hard with our T.V. partner and our membership and we’re going to figure out a way to do it successfully.”

NS: Does the MAC receive any financial benefits from these weekday games?

JS: Sure, as part of our T.V. contracts, for which we do accrue revenue, there are some positives there. It’s all about how we package it.

Is there a way that we can work with our alumni directors, for instance, so we have a Northern Illinois game on a Tuesday night and it’s on ESPN2. Maybe all the Northern Illinois chapters across the country can have a watch party across the country. Utilize those as a way to reach out and keep in contact with our friends.

Again, that’s a really easy example. Those are the types of things we need to work on and do.

NS: Where does the income from these games go?

JS: In our case it goes into a big pot and it pays off expenses and then pays off various things. So yea, dollars that come in we generally in some form or fashion turn around and benefit the institution.

I don’t have a big closet full of revenue that’s sitting there for a rainy day. I wish I did.

So again, the more revenue we can bring in the more things we can reinvest in our programs or reinvest or give back to the membership.

NS: In the past years Akron and NIU, along with other program in the MAC, have made some national exposure for men’s soccer. Is that a premier program for the MAC?

JS: Well we certainly are nationally prominent. And it’s a sport which we have a couple affiliate members. And I think one of the challenges in soccer is getting the membership end of it figured out. Probably aren’t any existing members adding men’s soccer at this point.

So it’s what can we do to stabilize that membership to ensure that it’s one of those center of excellence still. So it permits those schools that have been really good it so it permits them to really excel at it.

NS: MAC basketball is known as a one-and-done right now.

JS: Absolutely.

NS: What can you do to get rid of this stigma.

JS: What our job is, or what my job is to do, is to ask a lot of questions and bring data to the table that shows here’s what we’re doing from a schedule perspective for instance. And why are we doing things a certain way and when we do those what occurs?

Let’s bench mark ourselves with other people whether it’s the Missouri Valley, the Horizon or the Big Ten, take your pick of conferences that we would bench mark ourselves. And do we have the tools to be successful? Are we scheduling a way to be successful?

One thing that sticks out to me is as a league we probably are not playing as many home games as we should be. We have to figure out a way to schedule more home games because that’s a big part of the W’s and L’s, where you play that game.

And then at the end of the day we have to go out and do it. I don’t have a switch that I can flip.
That’s called a coach and his or her student-athletes doing it.

NS: But how big was Ball State’s win over Tennessee last year?

JS: It was monumental for the MAC and monumental for women’s basketball when you considered Tennessee has never lost in the first round in the 26th year of women’s basketball in the NCAA. Again, you build on each of those successes. I was living in Tennessee at the time, certainly in that state that’s a game that reverberates.

NS: How monumental was NIU defensive end Larry English being selected No. 16 overall in the NFL draft?

JS: One I know Northern Illinois would point to it, and I think all of our schools will point to it, and say look, you come here and you can make it in the NFL. They’re going to find you and you’re going to have a chance to excel.

I think again, it’s verification or shows that standard of student-athletes our coaches are bringing in and we need that in our other sports as well.

NS: Is the MAC looking to add any more college football bowl games in the future?

JS: In the short term I think we’ll be at three. There’s financial implications to all of those. I think three is an appropriate number.

History has shown that if we have other bowl eligible teams, generally speaking there are some at-large slots available and we’ve been successful at moving people into.

But we’ll be monitoring that. If we think we’re in a position where it makes sense to expand those contractual obligations we’ll do that.

NS: Last question, who do you think we’ll be playing at Ford Field for the MAC Championship?

JS: I get that question a lot, but I didn’t see anybody play last year. I don’t have the faintest idea.

I read all the preseason magazines and one side they seem to be pointing a lot to Buffalo and on this side they point to Central and Western.

From all the things that I looked at, the thing that jumps out to me as much as anything from last year is that over 50 percent of the conference games were decided by seven or fewer points. So from top to bottom there’s not a huge difference. So you better bring your ‘A game every week or you’re going to get beat.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see any permutations of any teams there.

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