COLUMBIA, Mo. — When new Missouri athletics director Laird Veatch sat down for introductory meetings with the school’s various head coaches, he made something crowd-pleasingly clear: He wouldn’t be putting them through any SWOT analysis.
The straight-out-of-business-school acronym, pronounced like “swat,” stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats — and it’s a common, if reductive, way to organize a business or athletic program’s competitive standing.
Veatch doesn’t seem like a fan of that approach, even when getting acclimated with a new athletics department. The coaches he’s getting to know appreciate the lack of SWOT-ing.
“That was my first sign,” gymnastics coach Shannon Welker said recently at a fundraiser.