Williams is the first formal replacement fro the departed Gary Friedman who left the Maroon and Gold for Cardinal Red at Louisville University last fall.

There are some who may question how big a role marketing has in collegiate athletics. After all these are so-called amateur athletes competing and marketing is all about the bottom line.

But this years’ CMU basketball season proved what a valuable part of the CMU family Friedman was in the services he provided. No, not his color commentary during the games but the promotion he put together behind the scenes.

While it may have pained many to see the commercialization of the Rose Rowdies it was other programs headed by Friedman that gave the Chippewas men’s and women’s basketball the publicity they needed both on and off campus.

Case in point, Gold Rush. This was always the highlight of the basketball season. It gave everyone in the Mt. Pleasant community a reason to come to Rose Arena for a men’s and women’s basketball game and cheer for the Chippewas.

It usually highlighted CMU’s premier match up in the month of February and gave the team and season a much needed jolt in the middle of the longest collegiate season.

Unfortunately that point was widely missed this year.

Most probably never even noticed because most didn’t even know there was a Gold Rush this year.

At my last count the only advertisement for the event was a small three inch by three inch ad on the last page of CM LIFE in the Friday before game day’s paper.

Compared to years past this ad was just a drop in the bucket.

Two years ago when CMU enjoyed on of its greatest basketball seasons in history the Gold Rush was advertised from flyers all over campus to ads in all the community newspapers, weeks in advance. If you didn’t know Gold Rush was coming you were probably blind and or illiterate.

The game itself was always something fun for that matter. It usually pitted CMU vs. a rival like Western Michigan or a premier MAC team like Marshall.

Who was it this year?

The Northern Illinois Huskies, that’s right those hated Huskies. No offense to the fine people of DeKalb, Ill., but that is about as boring an opponent as if God Rush would have been against the Canada GT Express.

Whether this lack of marketing success had anything at all to do with the disappointing performance of the men’s basketball team may or may not be true, but it definitely had to do with the disappointing attendance at Rose Arena and the tamest Rose Rowdies in recent memory.

In years past Rose Arena was the most feared arena in the MAC. It was always the toughest place for the big teams to come and win because it was marketed as such.

Students were fed that nobody liked Rose Arena from the very first day they came to orientation.

When I was a wide eyed freshman my RA took me down to Rose Arena because Bonzi Wells was in town and everyone had to be there to “welcome him.”

It was such a joyous welcome that Bonzi went on to say, “Nobody should ever HAVE to play at Rose Arena.”

It didn’t end with Bonzi either, when the next favorite son of the Mid-American Conference came into town his name was Wally Szcerbiak. And if him getting tossed in overtime is any indicator, his visit wasn’t any nicer the Mr. Wells’.

It was this type of excitement that spurned talk of a new arena for the Chippewas last year.

With Rose Arena selling out for basketball it looks like a good idea for a new convocation center, but with out plugging you biggest games you are not going to get the fans to come out and you are not going to get a new arena.

This is the image that the CMU athletics brass needs to rekindle.

It was lost this year and not to put too much pressure on Mr. Williams in his first week on the job, but CMU needs to have it back