Strategic Planning For

collegiate Athletics
07.23.2020
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Richard Eversleigh
Mr. Pagliasotti
 Final paper

Strategic planning is important for College Athletic Programs Departments because it

helps a Program operate efficiently and succeed in the long run. Strategic planning helps

program use resources effectively while also helping a program run smooth consistently, with

monetization of many tasks and objectives needed to succeed.

Strategic planning is a matching process involving the departments resources and

opportunities. Strategic planning involves six steps; Defining an organization's purpose,

Analysing environment, strengths and weaknesses, Having clear cut specific and realistic

objectives that correlate with programs purpose, Develop strategies, Develop operational plans to

meet objectives, and last Setting up control and evaluation procedures to see if performance is

being obtained.

Purpose is regarded as the most important part of strategic planning, and it makes

a lot of sense. If you don't know the reason you're doing something then you can't necessarily

work hard towards it. But if you have a purpose in doing something then it creates a better

incentive and vision to complete the goal that you're striving for, basically meaning what does

the program find important and what does the program want to be known for. Another word for

the purpose could be Mission Statement. In athletics the purpose should not be generalised, it

should be specific for example this is South Alabama's Mission Statement “Developing leaders

on and off the field who achieve academic and athletic excellence”.

Analysis and Assumptions is also important part in strategic planning. This is the stage

where you focus on. external and internal environment, internal strengths and weaknesses and

political threats and opportunities. And a good way many companies are able to determine is
to use to SWOT analysis which is an acronym that stands for strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities, and threats. SWOT helps companies determine favorable and unfavorable

matchups with a view on building strengths and minimizing weaknesses. It's important to be

aware of the environment your program is in. realising this cause help in tremendous ways, such

as the ways you market, where you recruit and how you appeal to local communities.

Objectives and purpose go hand in hand with each other, but are different, objectives are

steps that lead to achieving the overall purpose . like purpose, objectives must be clear, specific

and realistically attainable .Objectives give a company a standard to meet. Objectives can be

personal or program wide, objectives are the results desired at the end of the planning period. An

example of an objective could be “we plan on increasing ticket sales by 25% by lowering ticket

prices by 10% to help with the decrease in jobs in the community”

Next is strategic development, strategic development is basically how you will

accomplish your objectives that you and your unit created. Each objective created will need to

have a plan created to achieve those objectives. Strategic development has two parts, first you

will need to create an overall strategy, and then operational strategies will be created .

There are many different types of alternative strategies such as the Differentiated strategy

which entitles developing services that is aimed to meet a broad spectrum of needs. Then there is

focus strategy that used to concentrate on a certain specific type of activity. There are four

factors that determine which strategy will be used. What resources they have, how well their

staff is, stage of programs life cycle, and strategies used by other organizations.

Once your strategic development is created, you will need to develop an operational plan.

An operational plan is a day to day indetaled plan that is used to show specific jobs and tasks.

Operational plan is broken into four parts, what, who, when, and how much.
What will be the tasks and strategies be. Who will be responsible for specific tasks given. When

should certain tasks be completed, and how much will your budget be for completing this task.

An operational plan must be created for all areas needed to complete the overall strategy. The

last part of strategic planning is the evaluation and control process. The head of department will

evaluate the data monthly.

Reference
“Purpose of an Operational Plan.” Operational Planning: the Purpose of an Operational Plan,

www.leoisaac.com/operations/top025.htm.

Yow, Deborah A. Strategic Planning for Collegiate Athletics. Haworth Press, 2000.