Scarlet Table: another sit down with Tate & Keli

Chris Carlin is back with the second edition of Scarlet Table , a sit down with University President William Tate IV and AD Keli Zinn. Depending on your perspective, watching this will either make you excited about the future of Rutgers Athletics or sick at how previous administrations (maxbe one in particular that rhymes with cobs ) squandered opportunities and left Rutgers in the financial dust. Or maybe both at the same time.

The casual meeting, held at New Brunswick’s Steak House 85 , covers a variety of topics, from the University commencement to NIL to facility renovations to, well, it covers a lot. And it is a shared conversation with both Zinn and Tate offering a variety of thoughts on life and times surrounding the State University of New Jersey. Watching this presentation, it becomes obvious that a university president and its athletic director have to be more than just on the same page.

They need to agree on a vision, on a path forward, on what is important to the university and its athletic program. It is quite evident that Zinn and Tate are there. Let me state that in my long history with Rutgers – I’ve been around for seven of the 22 presidents, including Tate – and I’ve had mixed feelings about the people who have led my alma mater.

Most recently, I liked Jonathan Holloway. I thought he was the first president to actually and actively defend athletics. But, for reasons we won’t get into here, he left after his five year term.