Jeff Mason, new Associate Athletic Director for Cougar Pride. Formally Associate Athletic Director for Revenue Generation at Southern Mississippi.
Welcome to the UH family. Great family picture.
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Who was the previous one?
Deez
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life of a sales job - high turnover
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That’s nutz…
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Kelly Marchbanks - Associate Athletics Director for Development/Annual Fund & Premium Seating. His last day was Friday July 25. He accepted a position with more upside potential than what was at U of H.
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Anybody that ever had any interactions with Kelly knew he was a great guy and did a tremendous job. Wishing him the best.
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There we go!
I knew it was someone very active & visible on social media at some point. I actually emailed him directly when he posted his work email on Twitter for suggestions on how to make improvements.
Sad to see him go, but he never replied to me even tho he said he’d acknowledge each & every email.
Good evening, all -
I wanted to take a few minutes and introduce myself. I’m Jeff Mason, the incoming Associate AD for Annual Fund & Premium Seating. As JLCoog noted, I’m winding down my time at Southern Miss as the Associate AD for Revenue Generation where I oversee the Golden Eagles’ annual fund and ticketing teams.
About a year ago, I joined the Southern Miss 247 board after a very engaged donor shared that the board had a really active group who would be keen on hearing some updates on a few pieces. The plan was to stick around for the one month free trial but it ended up being a great way to engage a group of fans, push updates out, and solicit feedback. With that, I thought it was only appropriate to introduce myself on the Houston 247 board and wanted to do the same here. I did quite a bit of scrolling here as I was researching the opportunity to join UH.
I’m finishing my time at Southern Miss this week and I’ll be in the office starting on Monday, August 11.
A quick background: I’ve been at Southern Miss about fifteen months. I oversee (oversaw?) the daily operations for our annual fund and the entire ticket office but also had the luxury of playing a part in almost all external units. That was largely because of my background. Before Hattiesburg, I spent ten years at my alma mater – Central Missouri, a Division II program about an hour east of Kansas City. Across my ten years, I went from a graduate assistant with a full head of hair to a bald Associate AD for External. That meant I oversaw all revenue generation and anything fan facing: sponsorship, fundraising, communications, creative content, etc.
The Division II to Division I transition was great – Gave me a chance to scale what I had been doing. Frankly, I’ve been kicking myself for not making the move sooner. The Coogs don’t get stronger by repping the same weight over and over – They have to add, challenge themselves, and grow from it. I’m grateful to have done that at Southern Miss and I’m eager to do so at Houston.
Edit to add: The photo in the tweet when I shared the news is pretty apt. Houston is a big family move for us. My saint of a wife is a career pediatric nurse and took a totally different gig when we moved to Hattiesburg so I could make a big professional move. As the move to Houston became more and more of a possibility, we were all in. A big part of that being the professional upside for my wife – who will be starting at Texas Children’s. A great career move for me, a great career move for her, and a city where our little boy can grow up – that’s a winner of a move.
TLDR: I’m grateful to be joining the UH team. Excited to work with the Cougar Pride squad. Counting down the hours to fall sports starting again. See you all soon. Go Coogs!
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Welcome aboard!
And I recommend you stay away from game day threads until you’ve had appropriate training. 
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Thanks for posting Jeff. We wish you all the success at UH. Love to hear your wife is a pediatric nurse. There is no better place in the city than Texas Children’s Hospital.
Good luck and don’t be a stranger to this message board.
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Welcome. But as you know you aren’t the only employee of the athletic department that worked at Central Missouri.
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I’ve only met Coach a few times but he’s very highly regarded in Warrensburg. He’s close with one of my mentors/dotted-line-boss at Southern Miss, Shawn Jones, who is also a Mule. Eager to work with him and his squad.
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lol - it ain’t for the faint of heart
True. An armor-plated thick skin would help. What would also help is a fan “hotline” type of email address that is monitored by someone at Cougar Pride to receive spontaneous fan feedback.
It would not be a place to complain about the players or the coaching or give “advice” on what plays to run. It would be a place to let someone connected to the AD know about the UH football experience from a consumer/donor level. Over the years we, the loyal fans who support the football program year after year, have been put upon in various ways by things that could have easily and cheaply been done better by Cougar Pride. Some of it is small irritating stuff, like running out of cold drinking water in Yeoman Hall on a hot game day, while others are more vexing. But there should at least be a sort of fan experience hot line to make “whoever is in charge” (other than the AD himself) aware of issues that affect the fan experience, whether good or bad.
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Since everything else is done via phone now, they could just put some QR codes around the stadium to report operational stuff like running out of water, broken bathroom stall doors, toilet paper shortages, etc.
You wouldn’t want Cougar Pride fielding those kinds of complaints, though.
Regardless, I agree that more listening and less surveying is in order. They obviously can’t act on everything, but there are some easy “wins” out there if they’ll pay attention to the people paying the freight.
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