Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
By Tom Archdeacon
“It’s a contact sport.”
Bob Grant said that a few times during our conversation, but he didn’t mean it in a football, wrestling and rugby sort of way.
The Wright State athletics director was referring to personal contact: hugging, hand shaking, going out for ice cream and lunches and coming over for dinner, sometimes even steak.
And for the past three weeks — as the coronavirus has put our lives and, most noticeably the college sports world in an ever-tightening vice grip — Grant and his staff have had to come up with virtual open houses, FaceTime calls and, three days ago, a drive-through luncheon for all the Raiders athletes still in the area.
“Our culture is very different than most places,” Grant said of his department which oversees 14 sports and 250 student athletes. “Whether you think it’s good or bad, it’s definitely different. We’ve got a super hands-on approach and everybody in the athletic department is wired that way.
“We’re not out-spending people for success and we’re not out-branding people,” said Grant, who is a Wright State graduate himself and was an assistant under former WSU athletics director Mike Cusack for several years.
