Missouri State University

Director of Athletics Kyle Moats will periodically answer questions submitted by you the fan. Below are the selected questions and Mr. Moats' answers. To submit your question to Mr. Moats, click HERE.

For an archive of previous question and answer updates, click HERE.

In reading the Athletics Strategic Plan, I noticed several references to the target area for athletics recruiting, contributions, building a fan base, etc. is southwestern Missouri. What is the reasoning behind limiting the Missouri State reach to such a small area? As the second largest university in Missouri, seems to me the goal needs to be to reach a larger area of the state as well as targeting adjacent states as well. - Renee S., Wichita, Kan.

Renee-
Our strategic plan reflects our need to own the Springfield market first and foremost and grow our brand and our outreach from there. We have much work to do locally, and it will take our fans, our students, businesses and our community as a whole to embrace this University and our program.

We continue to have fan and alumni events throughout the state and throughout the country, and our recruiting areas for most teams extend nationally and even internationally.

Certainly, it also helps build our fan/attendance base with student-athletes from the surrounding area and from this region. We will continue to recruit where we think is best for us.

Just wanted to congratulate you and Coach Lusk on bring Jermaine Henderson to Missouri State. Jermaine is a good man and coach, and being a Missouri State grad, I was glad to see the move and have had several talks with Jermaine since then. Again thanks you made a good move. - Darrell R., Oxford, Ohio

Darrell-
We agree. Thanks for the note and your continued support.

Why is it that Missouri State has six sports for the male athletes to participate in and nine for female athletes? This seems unfair to me. I really can't understand how or why a university the size of Missouri State does not have a men's track & field program. It is such a glaring hole in your athletic program, can we dare to hope that this would be remedied anytime soon? - Barbara W., Rich Hill, Mo.

Barbara-
This is a great question and one that I'm glad you asked. I get asked all the time about what sports we sponsor and why. One of the main reasons we have a disproportionate number of male/female sports is because of Title IX compliance. We are a Prong 1 institution, which means the federal law requires us to be proportionate by gender in the number of athletes we have to the institution's enrollment by gender. For example, if the female enrollment on campus is 55% we must have approximately 55% of our student-athletes represented on our female teams. Since we sponsor football, this means we will continue to have more female sports than male sports strictly because of the numbers. Unless the percentage of male students on campus grows, we plan on adding one to two more female sports in the future to stay compliant.

I think Missouri State is an amazing university and can compete with any other university. Do you ever see MSU joining another conference? - Ethan B., Steele, Mo.

Ethan-
I agree with you. I think MSU is an amazing university. I would hope eventually we may get to that level, but not in the short term. We already compete against the SEC, Big 12, PAC 12 and the other BCS conferences in many sports. When those teams come here, we need to respond with good attendance and good atmosphere to keep us in the conversation regionally and nationally as an emerging program. We continue to explore the best options for Missouri State University as we monitor league realignments around the country.

As a former strength and conditioning coach at six different universities, I was wondering if our athletic department had any thought of purchasing new turf for the football field. The old turf has had about enough and looks terrible. Also, I have never found many Division I programs without the ability of showing an indoor turf room to recruits. Why do we not have this essential tool for our athletes? Thank you for the work you do and let's strive to build a championship program. Go Bears! - Larry W., Mena, Ark.

Larry-
We are in the process of looking at purchasing a new turf field for Plaster. It is my hope to begin the process after next season based on facility funding. We continue to find the resources to make all of our teams competitive. It takes everyone who has an interest in our success supporting us by donating to specific funds, buying season tickets, purchasing licensed gear or being involved in our sponsorship opportunities. I couldn't agree more regarding your charge of building championship programs.

I found out via the grapevine that several bus trips to lady bear games have been scheduled. My question is: Why weren't season ticket holders who have email informed of this? - John A., Gainesville

John -
We're working on collecting additional email addresses to be able to provide our fans with more information and exclusive specials. However, the most-timely way to get your information on MSU athletics continues to be at MissouriStateBears.com. You can subscribe to email alerts there, which are free and provide you with up-to-date information as it's available. You can also follow us on Twitter (@MissouriStBears) or Facebook (MissouriStBears) for breaking news, exclusive stories, and great fan information. The link to the on-line story on the fan bus trips is below: http://www.missouristatebears.com/sports/w-baskbl/spec-rel/110812aaa.html

Is Missouri State Men's Basketball running a Day Care during games?

Your ball/towel boys are too many (8 on 11/17), unsupervised, they don't know their role for being there. They think they are there to play.

They are in the way of teams warming up, the half time floor cleaning and the Sugar Bears routine. Your promotional staff had to run them off the floor twice during half time (11/17). During the National Anthem they just dropped the basketballs they were holding and went to stand in line with the players. Team's managers had to retrieve the balls and put them away.

In the Charlie Spoonhour days there were two boys at each goal. Ready with towel in hand and when commanded by the ref, they got on their hand and knees wiping the floor and off just as fast as could to not delay the game anymore than necessary.

Some order needs to be brought to this group.

Thank you. - Alan K., Springfield, Mo.

Alan-
I agree with your observation. We are in the process of addressing this situation. We had a couple of young kids who were very excited about being ball kids and eager to get onto the floor. To them, it's a big deal to be a ball kid. Sometimes that eagerness can be problematic, so we'll continue to monitor this throughout the rest of the season. Thanks for your comments.