Hello Huskies,  
 
As we navigate these challenging times together, I hope you are all staying safe and healthy. My family and I have been staying safe at home, while our Huskie Family – our student-athletes, coaches and staff – are doing the same. It's a new world of Zoom chats and Teams meetings, Facetime calls, and doing everything we can to stay connected while physically apart. While the last six weeks have been difficult, I am confident that we as NIU Huskies will come through this pandemic stronger and more united than ever before.
 
A lot has happened and continues to happen on a daily basis as we deal with far-reaching effects of the coronavirus.  In the rest of this Frazier's Corner, I want to answer some of the questions I have been hearing most frequently from our fans and supporters.
 
What steps are NIU and the MAC taking to mitigate some of the financial ramifications of the COVID-19 shutdown?
 
We have seen this pandemic affect the finances of nearly every enterprise across our country. A big part of the modeling that we are doing as a university and as a department, deals with the budget. Following the lead of President Freeman and knowing the challenges across our institution, I'm announcing that both football head coach Thomas Hammock and I will be reducing our salaries by 10 percent for the academic year 2020-21. This cut will go into effect on July 1st which is the start of the university's fiscal year.
 
In addition, basketball head coaches Mark Montgomery and Lisa Carlsen have agreed to a percentage reduction in their annual salaries as well. With the university making cuts in several areas across the board, all of our head coaches - as well as many members of our staff – will see salary reductions of one kind or another. This is just one area where we can realize some financial relief and support NIU.
 
As we review the budget challenges, we will make the necessary adjustments to ensure the future of our institution and our athletic department. My primary concern and focus are that any budget reductions/cuts that we might have to make (either institutional, departmental or conference-wide) will only affect the student/staff experience if there is a SIGNIFICANT financial savings to preserve our institution's operations.
 
How has the athletic department continued to operate during this time?
 
I'm very proud of how our staff, including our coaches, have adapted to this "new normal". Everyone is – for the most part - working from home. As I mentioned above, we do a lot of virtual meetings and those are very important. I'm probably meeting more often with our different internal groups than ever before. I have a daily check-in/update meeting with our senior staff and a weekly meeting with our head coaches. Our units are continuing to operate, from the Business Office to Compliance, SAASS to our entire external team.  COVID-19 has caused us to change our focus. Normally, we'd be in the midst of an aggressive football season ticket and Huskie Athletic Fund drive. Instead, we're making sure we're connecting with our fans via social media, email and even Zoom meetings, while also putting together new virtual formats for our summer events. We have pushed back our football season ticket renewal date to May 15th. There WILL be a time for those season ticket pushes and donation calls, and we appreciate everyone who has already renewed or donated for 2020.   
 
What is the interaction right now between coaches and their student-athletes, and are coaches able to recruit?
 
Thanks to technology, our coaches, as well as our athletic trainers, sports performance and academic support staff do connect regularly with their student-athletes through virtual meetings, Facetime, text and phone calls. Football, for example, has position group meetings where they teach plays, and go over video clips from last season. More importantly, our coaches and support staff are checking in on the mental health of their students, the health of their families and keeping up with the conversations they would normally have in person on a daily basis. Huskie student-athletes are very active, very scheduled and team-oriented individuals so connecting with them on a personal level has been a huge emphasis for our staff.
 
I've been impressed with how recruiting has barely missed a beat. Women's soccer announced a 13-woman recruiting class a few weeks ago. The men's and women's basketball staffs have signed players.  Now, a lot of that work and those connections were made before the shutdown. It's going to be something to watch going forward as summer tournaments and camps will likely be impacted going forward. Our coaches will figure it out!
 
As we come to the end of the semester, how have student-athletes adapted to e-learning and are they still able to receive academic support?
 
Overall, it has been a smooth transition. We've dealt with a few hiccups like spotty wireless coverage at home for some students, but we've done everything we can, with the help of the university, to work through those issues. Our academic coordinators are on many of those team-wide calls and are also able to work with individuals to set up e-tutoring sessions. It's been interesting to hear the student-athletes say how much they miss going to class!  
 
Do you believe NIU teams will be competing this fall?
 
Yes! I do believe there will be college athletics this fall. As a country, we can't wait to have sports back and we're going to figure out how to make games happen. Given that, health and safety will always be our number one priority. We need to ensure that games will be safe for student-athletes, coaches, event staff and eventually for fans. I don't know exactly what the return looks like yet, and I can't put a date on it, but I'm going to continue to be optimistic and believe that this too shall pass.  
 
What kind of planning sessions have you been a part of, whether on the conference or NCAA level? 
 
We are working on models for what the return of athletics looks like from both the conference and NCAA perspective, as well as internally for NIU. We're looking at scenarios where seasons starting on time, or a month late, or beyond. We're talking about scheduling, travel, you name it. Within the MAC, we have different working groups made up of athletic directors and senior level administrators. We're looking at competition schedules, budget cuts and more. The MAC ADs as a group have regular virtual meetings to share information, to discuss what's happening on our campuses and to vote on some of the proposals that have been brought forward.
 
I'm also involved in discussions with colleagues across the country on the same topics.  I think one of the very challenging aspects of this is the variation across the states in terms of laws. You have some states that never instituted stay at home, others that are already opening for business, and others like Illinois that are still in the shelter in place mode. Restarting college sports and bringing both students and student-athletes back is a very complex issue and again, health and safety have to be at the very core of every decision.
 
The NCAA announced that 2020 spring sports seniors – they have called them the "COVID-19" seniors - could return and receive an extra year of eligibility. Will NIU allow those seniors to return?
 
I'm happy that the NCAA is allowing schools to provide the COVID-19 seniors with an opportunity to finish their careers. At NIU, we will allow the seniors to return, however, we are not able at this time to increase our scholarship limits for our spring sports given the budget situation and our funding estimates for 2020-21.  We are going to remain within our limits, financially, and depend on our coaches to work within their current scholarships to determine the status of the 2020 seniors.
 
What does this week's announcement from the NCAA allowing student-athletes to receive compensation for endorsements based on their name, image and likeness mean for NIU?
 
This announcement from the NCAA has been a long-time coming. I have been a supporter of the ability of student-athletes to benefit from their own name, image and likeness. There are still a lot of details to be worked out going forward as this is a big change to the way the NCAA has done business. My biggest concern is that going forward, this process does not result in a further divide between the autonomous and the non-autonomous conferences. For us, I think the challenge is going to be the ability to monitor this type of activity. Our Compliance staff is keeping up with developments and will continue to educate both our coaches and our student-athletes as the details take shape.
 
Due to the coronavirus, are there summer events that NIU will be transitioning into virtual gatherings for fans?
 
YES! First up, the Huskie Summer Circuit will be held on Wednesday, June 3^rd, beginning at 6 p.m. Just like our previous Summer Circuit events, you'll hear from me and our head coaches. This will be a free interactive session. Details on registration will be coming soon but mark your calendars and plan to join us. (Graphic)
 
We're also working on a virtual version of the Victor E. Bash that will be held from June 10-19, 2020. There will be a number of online events and offerings during this time frame, including an online auction. There will be opportunities to win prizes, purchase gear and more. Details are being finalized and you will be hearing a lot more about the Virtual Victor E. Bash soon.
 
Next Thursday, I invite you to watch a YouTube version of our annual student-athlete awards show, The Victors. This event will premiere on our YouTube Channel (NIU Athletics) on Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 7 p.m. (CT) and features the presentation of student-athlete, coaching and team awards covering the period from spring 2019 through winter of 2020.  It would be great to have a whole group of Huskie fans, staff and student-athletes watching the premiere "together" next Thursday!
 
In addition to these events, how is the staff staying connected to fans and are there additional avenues to support NIU Athletics?
 
I certainly hope you've been following our social media channels! In addition to showcasing our 2020 seniors, we've been posting daily videos to our YouTube Channel (NIU Athletics), featuring student-athletes on our Instagram stories (niu huskies) and even providing fans with personalized team jersey wallpaper for their devices on Twitter (@NIUAthletics) and Facebook (NIU Huskies) every Wednesday. Following us on social media is a great way to stay connected and engaged with Huskie Athletics!
 
We've also partnered, along with several other businesses in our community, on the "Tees4DC" initiative. Buy this special edition NIU T-shirt (tees4dc.com) and $10 of each sale goes to NIU Athletics. For all your Huskie gear needs, please head over to NIUFanShop.com as NIU does earn a percentage of each sale from that site.
 
In addition to our NIU Athletics weekly email, the Huskie Athletic Fund staff is distributing a weekly email to supporters with unique content. We've had some great Zoom meetings with the Huskie Fan Advisory Board, with some of our corporate sponsors and other groups of supporters. I encourage you to reach out to us as well. Feel free to email or DM us with any questions or just to let us know how you're doing.
 
In the meantime, hang in there. Stay home, stay safe and stay healthy. I look forward to connecting – either virtually or in person - with many of you soon.
 
Go Huskies!

 Sean T. Frazier
Associate Vice-President and Director of Athletics