By DAN GILLES
Morning Journal Writer

AN open letter to the yet unnamed Cleveland State Athletic Director:

To whom it may concern:

As you begin your new job with lots of enthusiasm about becoming an AD at a Division I university, allow me to burst your bubble a little bit ...

You’re starting up at a university located in the middle of downtown hell. Your student body couldn’t care less about what’s going on within the sports scene and your basketball teams don’t draw fleas into one of (what should be) the best college arenas in the state.

But there is hope. You can get people talking about Cleveland State as soon as you take this job, and it would take something dramatic to do it.

All you have to do is take a look at the men’s basketball program, notice that the team had a pathetic season last year, was embarrassed in the Horizon League Tournament that they hosted, doesn’t have any notable athletes in its current recruiting class and has players who make headlines by allegedly robbing big league pitchers at gunpoint.

Therefore, the time is right for you to make your indelible mark on CSU athletics by ridding yourself of the biggest albatross you have.

Rollie Massimino.

That’s right, it’s time to fire the legend known as Rollie.
“But why fire Rollie?” you might ask. The reasons are pretty simple.

I was at CSU back in 1996 when the school announced his hiring as basketball coach. It not only drew a buzz from the students, but it also drew mainstream press from around Northeast Ohio. He promised to bring CSU hoops back from the dead, build a winning program, win the conference a few times and get to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1986.

Just over six years later, the Vikings haven’t done any of this. The program made some strides early on — Rollie’s first recruiting class was ranked in the Top 25 in various national publications, and he landed two Ohio Mr. Basketball’s and two standouts from the Ohio state champions in three consecutive years — but his teams haven’t won.

Sure, they teased us by winning 19 games two years ago, but the natural progression said that Rollie would reach that 20-win plateau in 2001-02. That didn’t happen.

The team lost to the basketball powers known as Stony Brook and IUPUI last year, en route to an embarrassing 12-16 season. Heck, your own webpage dedicated to CSU sports doesn’t even post last season’s schedule. What’s up with that?

Their best player from last year (Theo Dixon) wasn’t even invited to participate in an NBA workout featuring the best college hoops prospects in Ohio, and their second-best player (Jamaal Harris) allegedly decided to pick up a gun and hold up Indians pitcher C.C. Sabathia.

And where was your legendary coach when Harris and Damon Stringer were making national headlines by being arrested in that robbery? In North Carolina, not available for comment.

Rollie boasted that he would run a clean program. One member of the CSU athletic staff told me, when I was sports editor of the CSU student paper, that they didn’t want to become another Cincinnati, meaning they wanted to win, but without the thugs, the arrests and the poor graduation rate that Cincy had.

Take a good look around — CSU is starting to become that, but without the wins that come with it. While Rollie wasn’t holding up Sabathia himself, you would think that a coach who was “high on character” and a “father-figure” such as he would have helped prevent things such as two of his former standouts getting charged in a high-profile robbery.

He also boasted that he’d bring in big-name schools to play at the Convocation Center. He brought in old-rival Georgetown for his very first game at CSU, but nothing that big since. Not even Cincinnati would come here. Have you taken a look at this year’s home schedule yet?

So whoever you are, make a name for yourself early on. Put CSU back in the limelight, get people talking about your athletic programs again.

And all you gotta do is fire the biggest name coach for the main sports program under your watch.

Nothing special.

Oh, and welcome to Cleveland State.