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St. John's announced this morning our new President, Rev. Brian J. Shanley. He had spent the last 15 years as President of Providence College and stepped down in June. To the PC alums, what was your opinion of him? He seems to have done a great job at PC. Thanks for any info.....

Wow. You guys just made a GREAT hire. The entire university but especially the athletic department, including bball, will greatly benefit from this. One of his main priorities since his first year on the job at PC in 2005 was to upgrade athletic facilities and put more emphasis on athletics in general. Since his hire the entire PC campus, athletics included, has gone through an entire physical transformation. New: bball practice facility, lacrosse/soccer stadium, softball field, tennis courts, track & field complex, field hockey complex, fitness center, and complete renovations to: hockey arena, on-campus bball arena, swimming pool. Non-athletics include new business school building, new science building, new humanities building, etc etc etc. It's a completely different campus from when he was hired in 2005. He bought a busy road from the city of Providence that had split through our campus and built over it. Now the entire campus is connected and has never looked better. Innovative!

PC just came out with a tribute page within their athletic donor report and also there's a video interview with Shanley and John Fanta from Fox if you're interested: https://spark.adobe.com/page/Gi84fK10kwAa1/. The interview gets into his contribution in forming the "new" Big East, which he was heavily heavily involved in. Obviously Providence had a lot to do with the formation of the original BE, but the same can be said for this one. Fun fact: his father's P.R. firm, Duffy & Shanley based out of Providence, is credited with the initial branding and naming work of the Big East Conference in 1978-79. So the Big East is in his blood and his father literally helped create the name and identity of our conference.

Providence College itself did not make the decision to move on from Fr. Shanley, he was forced by the Provincial of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph, which oversees Providence College. Interestingly that's based out of NYC. More info about that here: https://www.golocalprov.com/news/shanleys-departure-from-pc-forced-by-dominican-superior. The first sentence of that article says everything you really need to know: "Providence College President Brian Shanley has had arguably one of the most successful runs as a college president as anyone in America."

The force out did not go over well with alum. I think he was surprised about it too. He's a PC alum and was the longest tenured president in PC history. The school is thriving pretty much all thanks to him, as the previous regime prior to his hire was doing everything it could to turn the school into a community college. Does this mean I now have a rooting interest in STJ? That's gonna take some time to get used to. Good luck to Shan

If you're still bored here's more about his tenure at PC: https://news.providence.edu/father-shanley

FenwayFriar wrote:Wow. You guys just made a GREAT hire. The entire university but especially the athletic department, including bball, will greatly benefit from this. One of his main priorities since his first year on the job at PC in 2005 was to upgrade athletic facilities and put more emphasis on athletics in general. Since his hire the entire PC campus, athletics included, has gone through an entire physical transformation. New: bball practice facility, lacrosse/soccer stadium, softball field, tennis courts, track & field complex, field hockey complex, fitness center, and complete renovations to: hockey arena, on-campus bball arena, swimming pool. Non-athletics include new business school building, new science building, new humanities building, etc etc etc. It's a completely different campus from when he was hired in 2005. He bought a busy road from the city of Providence that had split through our campus and built over it. Now the entire campus is connected and has never looked better. Innovative!

PC just came out with a tribute page within their athletic donor report and also there's a video interview with Shanley and John Fanta from Fox if you're interested: https://spark.adobe.com/page/Gi84fK10kwAa1/. The interview gets into his contribution in forming the "new" Big East, which he was heavily heavily involved in. Obviously Providence had a lot to do with the formation of the original BE, but the same can be said for this one. Fun fact: his father's P.R. firm, Duffy & Shanley based out of Providence, is credited with the initial branding and naming work of the Big East Conference in 1978-79. So the Big East is in his blood and his father literally helped create the name and identity of our conference.

Providence College itself did not make the decision to move on from Fr. Shanley, he was forced by the Provincial of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph, which oversees Providence College. Interestingly that's based out of NYC. More info about that here: https://www.golocalprov.com/news/shanleys-departure-from-pc-forced-by-dominican-superior. The first sentence of that article says everything you really need to know: "Providence College President Brian Shanley has had arguably one of the most successful runs as a college president as anyone in America."

The force out did not go over well with alum. I think he was surprised about it too. He's a PC alum and was the longest tenured president in PC history. The school is thriving pretty much all thanks to him, as the previous regime prior to his hire was doing everything it could to turn the school into a community college. Does this mean I now have a rooting interest in STJ? That's gonna take some time to get used to. Good luck to Shan

If you're still bored here's more about his tenure at PC: https://news.providence.edu/father-shanley

WOW! Fenway, thank you SO much for the info. I'm going to check out the links you provided. I heard from a close friend who is a PC grad and she was RAVING about him. Another good friend who has a daughter at PC (a senior) said her daughter was devastated when he left.

I've been really excited about the direction of SJU the past few years and this is icing on the cake. Between Fr. Shanley, Mike Cragg (our AD from Duke) and Mike Anderson, I feel like we've got a really strong team to lead us both academically and athletically.

Thanks again so much Fenway. PC has always been my 2nd favorite Big East team and now that feels even stronger.

SJU has hit a grand slam homerun with this hire. He will be at every basketball game and he is completely approachable and wonderful so make sure you introduce yourself. Every way imaginable he transformed PC. Cooley raves and raves about him. I can't even begin to explain what a great hire this is for SJU. I'm actually jealous, sincerely.

FriarJ wrote:SJU has hit a grand slam homerun with this hire. He will be at every basketball game and he is completely approachable and wonderful so make sure you introduce yourself. Every way imaginable he transformed PC. Cooley raves and raves about him. I can't even begin to explain what a great hire this is for SJU. I'm actually jealous, sincerely.

Thanks FriarJ! Really appreciate the feedback and the fact that it is so positive, is fantastic.....An early holiday present!!

Happy Thanksgiving All!

Quick update. On Monday, Rev Shanley officially began his tenure as SJU President. Yesterday, it was announced that SJU Athletics and the men’s basketball team received a $1 million gift from an alum. They said he was great at fundraising!! Great to see such a meaningful gift during this time when a lot of programs are struggling financially.

https://redstormsports.com/news/2021/2/ ... ogram.aspx

Congrats! Cannot emphasize how important it is to have a president who is a basketball fan. Creighton s darkest days were with a president who hated b-ball and our greatest days when we had a hoops fan prez, who is single handey got us into the best basketball conference in the country!!

Good luck to St. John's! It is very nice to have a President that believes in basketball uplifting the entire university. Butler was blessed with Bobby Fong, who truly believed basketball was key to raising Butler's profile nationally, which increases applications, which increases academic standing. After Fong left for a retirement gig, Butler hired James Danko from Villanova - who also believes in using basketball as a marketing tactic.

As predicted Shanley makes a grand slam hire with Pitino, who called him a "superstar." PC's loss is St. John's gain.

The Provincial of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph, which oversees Providence College, strikes again for PC. After forcing Shanley out of the president position for some unknown reason in 2020, they screw us with Pitino too. They wouldn't allow PC to explore the possibility of hiring Pitino because of his past transgressions. PC's loss is St. John's gain.

Looks like 2/3 of the "Big Three" BE cities of NYC, DC, and Chicago will have relevant Big East teams for the first time since reconfiguration, which has been 0/3 to date. This is what we've all been saying for years... "if only the big market teams were good blah blah blah." For the Big East Conference, this is great. For Providence College with no current coach, this is panic inducing.

Can't overstate how big he's been for St. John's. Just today with us being the lead story on every sports show, how much is all that free publicity worth on day one. Pitino has everyone pumped. He said today that the rebuild will take months, not years. It's been a long time since we've had a reason to be this optimistic. I forget who, but one of the pundits said he'll have us ranked in the preseason top 25 without even knowing who'll be on the roster. After all the suffering, finally light at the end of the tunnel.