Consider Krebs' good deeds before voting no-confidence

Editor,

This is an open letter to all graduate students:

In the upcoming days the Graduate and Professional Student Association will be asking you to vote in a special election. Of the four action items on the ballot, two of them directly relate to Athletics Director Paul Krebs and the job he is doing. It seems that GPSA is seeking a “no-confidence” vote in Mr. Krebs on uniformed grounds, and I wanted to take the time in this letter to pass on some information to you, the graduate students, about what a phenomenal job he is doing. Mr. Krebs’ leadership has led to outstanding accomplishments of student-athletes both on and off their respective playing field.

- During the 2008-2009 academic year, Lobo student-athletes posted the two highest semester grade point averages: 3.12 for the 2009 spring semester and a school record 3.14 in the fall of 2008.

- Under Mr. Krebs’ leadership, graduation rates (those calculated officially by the NCAA) have increased to record levels for student-athletes.

- Lobo student-athletes overall graduate at a rate of 49 percent, which has steadily increased since Mr. Krebs took his position, whereas the graduation rate of all UNM students has remained at 44 percent. UNM’s graduation success rate was a school record 72 percent in 2009, which is up 7 percent from 2008, and the graduation rate for all scholarship freshmen is up 5 percent from 2008 as well.

Not only have the works of Athletics Director Krebs benefitted the student-athletes academically, but athletically as well, as they have shown greater performance on the field during his time here. From the time Mr. Krebs has been in his position in 2006 until now, the Lobos have won 12 conference championships, have been represented at NCAA postseason competitions 26 times, had 42 All-Americans — including two national champions in 2009 and have led the Mountain West Conference in all-sport attendance in 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, with more than 650,000 fans attending Lobo athletics events.

Beyond the athletes, Mr. Krebs has instituted a master plan which not only overhauls the Lobo athletic facilities for the benefit of the student athletes, but for the community as well. The Pit is currently under a renovation which will continue to make Albuquerque a destination for men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments, a great value to the University of New Mexico and Albuquerque at large.
I urge you to really think about some of the great things that Mr. Krebs is doing with Lobo athletics. One of the GPSA resolutions states “Members of GPSA have no confidence in Senior Vice President Paul Krebs’ leadership of the Athletics Department.” But, in all reality, don’t the above facts prove that he is doing his job, and doing it quite well?

Nick Geyer
Graduate student