Arthur Johnson says Temple athletics has a plan. But it needs help.

As Temple embarked on a crisis within its leadership, one that most notably saw university president Jason Wingard step down, vice president and athletic director Arthur Johnson was in the process of hiring a new men’s basketball coach.

When Temple announced Wingard’s plan to resign, Johnson had narrowed the basketball coaching search down to three finalists and hosted them for on-campus visits from March 26-28. In the background, the Temple Association of University Professionals already had authorized a vote of no-confidence against Wingard and were having conversations about Provost Gregory Mandel and Board of Trustees chairman Mitchell Morgan.

(Mandel and Morgan received votes of no confidence on Monday.)

With the help of Morgan and Temple’s Board of Trustees, Johnson hired former Penn State associate head coach Adam Fisher on March 29.

In the three-week period of transitioning from Wingard to interim university president JoAnne Epps — who returned on April 11 after being dismissed from her duties as provost by Wingard — Johnson says he was allowed to continue normal operations.

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“During the process, Chairman Morgan was awesome,” Johnson said. “He reminded me, ‘No, those are your decisions. We don’t make those decisions.’ But he did make it clear to candidates that we are going to support athletics. Athletics is important to Temple, and it’s important to me, and that meant a lot.”

Though it was Wingard who hired Johnson, he is looking forward to working with Epps, a former faculty representative in the athletics department.

“That was music to my ears when she mentioned that during her press conference,” Johnson said. “She’s been around Temple for 40 years. she grew up on this campus. This place is so important to her.”

The two have yet to meet, but, in the meantime, Johnson says Epps has told him to keep doing what he’s doing.

Right now, that’s completing what Johnson calls a “master plan” for the next five years — within the next six months.

After Zach Hicks announced his commitment to play basketball at Penn State on April 20, his father, Jeffrey, took to Twitter to say that the decision by the sophomore forward to transfer from Temple was because of “the ongoing crime around the campus.”

“I hear that from parents all the time,” Johnson said. “So it is not anything that’s new. I also know that there is a misperception about the campus being safe, but we have the same problems that the rest of society [does and] what we’re dealing with in communities throughout this country. As we saw with Michigan State, no campus is immune to it. So there is no actual safe place that you can go. But people are entitled to their opinions, and I respect their opinions and understand that we’ve had some challenges. But our challenges are no different than challenges of other institutions around this country, whether they’re in a small community or major urban area.”

From an athletics standpoint, Johnson says he would also like to keep Temple’s image clean, meaning having zero compliance issues and repairing the stigma of Temple being an unsafe campus. He also added that he and his staff recently finished an evaluation of Temple’s athletic facilities, which they believe need upgrades.

Along with that, Johnson wants Temple’s student-athletes to continue their involvement in the North Philadelphia community and excel in the classroom. He made sure to highlight that last fall marked Temple athletics’ 16th straight semester with a cumulative grade point average of 3.1. Fencer Diana Tiburcio was named a Goldwater Scholar, one of 413 in the country.

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However, Johnson also understands that Temple’s fans want winning teams. He’s instructed each head coach that their goal each season needs to be to finish in the top three of their respective conference every year, a goal Johnson believes keeps Temple’s teams in position to win conference championships.

“We’ve got to get our alums to come back and support us,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to play the right teams, and we’ve got to win. Winning will help drive that and help get people here. ... When our teams are competing, we need people there to give us that extra energy.

“You’ve always heard that being at home gives you that little bit of an advantage, but it’s because of the crowd and the energy we saw in [the Liacouras Center] this year with the Houston game with the White Out. The game didn’t turn out like we wanted, [but] it was an incredible atmosphere, an incredible environment. And that’s something we’ve got to get back to and trying to have those kinds of crowds and night in and night out. And it’s about us, not about who we’re playing.”

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Alumni support has been an issue troubling Temple University as a whole, but especially athletics.

Temple’s flagship program throughout its history has been its men’s basketball team, which was surpassed by UCLA for fifth on the all-time wins list in 2022-23, and has made just two NCAA Tournament appearances since 2016. Temple’s football team has combined for a 7-24 record in the last three years.

Add in the modern era of name, image, and likeness, Johnson says the athletics department needs help from Temple’s alumni to get back to consistently competing for postseason appearances.

“It’s here we have to be flexible,” Johnson said regarding NIL. “We have to embrace it, but we have to be OK with change. And it’s part of the new world. Ideally, for me, it would be used for retention more than recruitment. ... [But] we need support in the worst way. Whether it’s with scholarships, help with infrastructure, with buildings, with operations, with different initiatives that come across this broad ecosystem.

“So it is important from an athletic standpoint, yes. We need support through the TUFF Fund. But as a university, personnel on our cabinet [and] in our administration, higher education, period, we need more support. As more and more states don’t provide as much support, we’ve got to lean on the people who have benefited from being here or who want to help in the community and understand the economic and intellectual impact that this institution has on this whole community, in the region and in other parts of the world.”

Temple’s athletic programs are entering new eras of rivalries, which will increase the need for star power on the recruiting trail.

In basketball, the Big 5 recently announced the admission of Drexel and a new pod-system tournament that will conclude with a tripleheader at Wells Fargo Center. And while Central Florida, Cincinnati, and Houston will make their Big 12 debuts this year, the American Athletic Conference will be welcoming UAB, Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, and UTSA.

In March, Charlotte won the College Basketball Invitational. North Texas beat UAB — the 2022 Conference USA representative in the NCAA Tournament — in the NIT championship game, and FAU made it to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament.

In football, UTSA has been in the AP Top 25 in the last two seasons, and UAB has received a bowl bid in five of the last six years.

“I think it’s a tribute to the leadership in the American led by commissioner Mike Aresco and and our board with all the chancellors and the presidents having a vision and understanding of which schools should come in,” Johnson said. “It’s a reminder that we better make sure we’re ready to go and be competitive.”

As Temple wraps a year that brought several challenges to its athletics — and its university as a whole — Johnson says he is ready to step into this new era.

“The brand is strong,” Johnson said. “Even when we take hits, you take hits because people recognize the brand. If people didn’t recognize your brand, the hits that we’ve been taking, you probably wouldn’t hear about it.”

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