You're the one who made the ridiculous assertion.
Hey look, we get it, you don't like PSU. What a shock.
Barbour hired ANOTHER asst athletic director today
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You're the one who made the ridiculous assertion.
Hey look, we get it, you don't like PSU. What a shock.
WTF are you talking about? I love PSU. I support the AD and suddenly I don't like PSU??? How does that logic work?
My "assertion" was that both O'Brien and Franklin had handshake agreements in place that certain things would happen (facilities would be upgraded, recruiting budgets increased, etc.) if they accepted the job. Those are stipulations that neither party may have wanted in the actual contract, but let's not pretend that those agreements didn't happen.
In our Learfied Award world, it is just delusional to think that a school like PSU would cut even one sport. That would just be bad for the image....among other things.
If you think PSU has a culture problem, you're clearly a troll. Even Sandy says otherwise on that point, and you know my thoughts on her greatness.
Okay, let me clarify my quote and we'll see if you still classify me as a troll. "Like it or not, our #culture is a thing." Maybe the hashtag threw you off. I don't think we have a culture problem, but a large majority of the rest of the country thinks that we do. Simply yelling "WE DON'T HAVE A CULTURE PROBLEM" isn't going to do anything but reenforce their assertion. Actual things need to happen, often times things we don't necessarily like or agree with. If the university, or athletic department, wanted to separate themselves from Paterno, I'd have a major problem with that. Clearly, that hasn't happened, but it does appear that they are slow playing how quickly they build his tie to PSU back up. I'm willing to let that happen (especially considering the end goal is in line with what we all want). If it was up to us, we'd already have the statue back up (actually, it never would've come down), and 409 would've been painted all across SC. From a PR standpoint, that would be a nightmare. Now, if you're going to go with the "I really don't give a crap about what anybody thinks", then I'd like to rewind to 2011. Had we had people in charge who had their finger on the pulse a little better and were able to do some damage control instead of adding gasoline to the fire, IT wouldn't have become the shitstorm that it did. Instead, we had a bunch of people who weren't quite ready to handle it and that just wanted it to all go away. Give me somebody with isn't afraid to try new things, but is also savvy enough to know when to pull the reigns back a little bit. Franklin seems like that description fits him 100%. In my opinion (and feel free to disagree), Barbour has also shown signs of this since she's been here. Like what she did re: the 409 stickers and Twitter apology or not, she defused both situations pretty quickly on a national level.
If I were in charge it would happen. I would also cut men's/women's tennis, men's/women's golf, and women's softball. We have far more sports than many prestige schools as I have argued here many times. For example, we have 29 and USC & Alabama have 21....Florida State 20.
You're all over the place. First off, Sandy didn't defuse the situation, she made it a national headline to the point where the hockey coach got ambushed in a radio interview. Seriously, the rest of your post is just garbage. I'll let it stand on its own for others to admire. Lol, let's convince people we don't have a culture problem by telling them we did.
They are not self-sustaining, have no following at Penn State, and take up resources that could be better used elsewhere.
There is a long litany of SB's failures - financial and otherwise - at Cal.....plenty of them well defined in this very thread.
I have, in the past - beginning when SB was first hired - laid them out in detail here on this board. You think I have any illusions that laying them out multiple times for you in the same thread would serve any purpose? When you make these douchetard "arguments" in the very thread where the factual history is plainly laid out? You think I have that much time to spare having douchetard arguments with a conflicted moron like yourself?
You are the f&ckin douchetard who yaps on and on about what a wonderful hire SB was - including the inane assertions as to her being in high demand and highly recommended (or whatever empty douchetard term you used)
When asked for even ONE past achievement that would indicate SB's high level of success as an AD, the only thing you comeback with is empty douchetard crap saying she is "aggressive" (apparently, given the context, aggressive at putting her department into the poorhouse).
It's douchetards like you - who clearly HAVE to be either conflicted, or have an IQ equal to room temperature - and your asinine, conflicted "arguments" who make it seem like others want SB to fail.....because although we all would LIKE SB to reverse course and achieve something positive as an AD, we have douchetards like you making these inane statements that should be exposed.
Done with you......you're not even any fun (like CR, CDW, and AK.....those ass clowns are fun to have around - just to watch them expose themselves).
You're just a conflicted idiot.
.
There is a long litany of SB's failures - financial and otherwise - at Cal.....plenty of them well defined in this very thread.
I have, in the past - beginning when SB was first hired - laid them out in detail here on this board. You think I have any illusions that laying them out multiple times for you in the same thread would serve any purpose? When you make these douchetard "arguments" in the very thread where the factual history is plainly laid out? You think I have that much time to spare having douchetard arguments with a conflicted moron like yourself?
You are the f&ckin douchetard who yaps on and on about what a wonderful hire SB was - including the inane assertions as to her being in high demand and highly recommended (or whatever empty douchetard term you used)
When asked for even ONE past achievement that would indicate SB's high level of success as an AD, the only thing you comeback with is empty douchetard crap saying she is "aggressive" (apparently, given the context, aggressive at putting her department into the poorhouse).
It's douchetards like you - who clearly HAVE to be either conflicted, or have an IQ equal to room temperature - and your asinine, conflicted "arguments" who make it seem like others want SB to fail.....because although we all would LIKE SB to reverse course and achieve something positive as an AD, we have douchetards like you making these inane statements that should be exposed.
Done with you......you're not even any fun (like CR, CDW, and AK.....those ass clowns are fun to have around - just to watch them expose themselves).
You're just a conflicted idiot.
.
Barry, it's juvenile, ad hominem, name-calling posts like this that destroy your credibility even when you're occasionally on the mark. Of course, you have lots of fellow travelers on this message board so I guess that makes it okay.
The above rant typifies an undisciplined, undiscriminating mind and the absence of nuanced thought process. I expect better of someone who occasionally teaches finance to Penn State students.
Thanks for your advice Mr Ceg. It's probably just as beneficial - and a better use of time - to just ignore dipshit conflicted folks like eV.....but it's one my many shortcomings. C'est la vie.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...&mid=B5683022A9E11EC797A9B5683022A9E11EC797A9
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So, what kind of attendance at events do you think is necessary to prove support?
And if self sustaining is your criteria, then we should eliminate all sports except football, men's basketball, and maybe hockey and wrestling. I'm not sure that wrestling breaks even either. And hockey might since I believe Pegula's gift endowed the athletic scholarships. Of course, we may have a Title 9 lawsuit on our hands.
I did not say self-sustaining was the only criteria. The sports I mentioned are ones virtually no one cares about. How many people show up for a Penn State tennis match, or golf? Again, I will compare us to national sports powers. We have 29 varsity sports. Alabama has 21, USC has 21, Florida has 21, UCLA has 22, Georgia has 19, Oklahoma has 19....I could go on and on, but to what purpose? We spend too much money to subsidize sports that no one cares about and we are generally not very good at. If we have extra cash to throw around, lets fund academic scholarships. That's my last word on this subject.
And I asked what level of attendance do you feel is necessary to show support? I assume you're using attendance, not some other metric. 300 people? 500? 1000? 3000? What's a good number to make a sport worthwhile and show that people care, in your opinion?
I understand the feelings towards Barbour over this, but IMO that has BOT/ Barron written all over it. Barbour actually has given more public praise to Joe Pa then anyone since 2011.
I get what Fairgambit is saying. It's not a matter of attendance number (but someone in the know can certainly give us the average attendance for tennis, golf etc events). If falls more into the 'I know it when I see it' category. Over the past 25, 40, (whatever) years- how often has PSU been respectable (say top 10) in these sports?
It sort of falls into 2 camps. Those who think every sport possible should be offered for any reason and those that think schools should focus resources more on core sports that have the interest of students/ alumni and some success over the years rather than trying to fund everything. It's an interesting debate.
Except in Fairgambit's original post, he wanted to axe Men's Volleyball, Men's Gymnastics and Fencing--3 sports we have multiple National Championships and a rich history in. He brought up golf and tennis after I mentioned them as sports he was leaving while cutting championship level programs.
Fair enough. I think where PSU (and others) get caught in this mess is where they offer sport 'X' but can't fund it totally or offer the prime facilities of others in the sport and it just flounders in mediocrity or worse. Then it falls into the 'do we keep it because we always have' or 'cut it until a full commitment/ interest can be made'?
Did a quick search on m/w golf and m/w tennis. Couldn't find any comprehensive list of a top 20 over the years. PSU has never won a NC in any of those sports (m golf since 1897, m tennis since 1946, w tennis and golf since 1982). Now I'm not saying you need to win a NC or be cut but if the programs are historically bad and no one cares about them- what do you do in light of increasing costs to all sports, keeping facilities up to date etc. To me that's different than volleyball and fencing where there has been great success and at least some interest as a result.
Agreed, but softball just built a million+ buck stadium. They should have just put them in the baseball stadium and had pegs for the shorter base line. They won't make the revenue for that stadium back in 1000 years.
We have all these national championships in men's volleyball, yet how many people know there are 30 division 1 volleyball teams in the country?
I don't really care what they spend, or how many positions it takes to run the athletic department. I care about how our teams perform, both on and off the field. Football is looking good, basketball seems to be improving, at least the recruiting is improving, women's volleyball and wrestling are stellar, and the men's ice hockey program is really taking off. Most of our other sports are very competitive relative to our conference opponents. Penn State is a place to get a great education, and to be able to watch some of the best teams in the country win championships. Someone is doing something right!
I agree with this. At the same time, it is essential to have discipline in hiring and spending - which is a BIG issue in all of academia, not just the DIA. No one can deny that we have hired a LOT of mysterious faces, none of whom are ever seen or heard from again. They disappear into the bowels of the BJC, and then just what do any of them actually DO? (Holding meetings among themselves doesn't count). None of them are cheap - they are all pulling down 6-figures plus, add to that a 40% benefit load. Sandy's track record in Berkeley has to make one suspicious, if nothing else.
I agree that if we ever needed to cut programs, you look at current and past history of success, as well as future potential. And programs like golf and tennis are the obvious targets. Although it is my understanding that tennis has made serious improvement recently. The problem could turn out to be that those programs also don't cost as much to run, and do they give you enough cost savings? I'm sure they don't have the same cost structure in terms of recruiting, coaches, scholarships (some of these sports don't give full scholarships to every member, just like wrestling).
Cross Country is another possibility, but I think they have more success and I'm not sure how that would affect track and field.
Baseball and softball have been just atrocious at times. But we have huge infrastructure investments, they have potential with the right coach (and support) and they are sports that "everyone" sponsors and are mainstream.
I think one of the areas you're going to see pushed more is fundraising. When you look at us compared to many other schools, our alumni don't donate as much to athletics. We had one of the largest football stadiums, and coaches who earned well below market for years, which saved us money. That covered for a lot of expenses, but those days aren't coming back. Of course, we also avoided a lot of potential headaches with boosters by not pushing them for as much money.
Yes, you must be fiscally disciplined. But we were running an athletic department like it was still the 1980s. We got away with it for a long time, but that needed to change if we wanted to continue to run a top notch organization. Compare our athletic department to other schools and I think you'll find we're not bloated.
How many of those athletic departments that are run under current best practices make money?
Revenue is, of course, big. And there is more than one angle to consider regarding revenue.
Think of the professional sports. Think of the Pirates, in particular. Not too many years back there was talk of moving the Pirates out of Pittsburgh. However, the City and Commonwealth recognized the value of having the word "Pittsburgh" appear on the sports pages of every newspaper in America....every day of the season, and some days during off-season. It simply kept Pittsburgh in the newspapers and in television media.
That is why so many cities fight over whether they can have a franchise, or whether they should build a new stadium for an existing franchise.
Take that down to the college level. For every sport we have, the Penn State name appears in newpaper stories and standings, website stories, and various other media stories. Frankly, that is a boon to fundraising.
We aren't cutting anything. Not in the forseeable future.
Nope. There are any number of studies that indicate that the economic value of sports franchises to metropolitan areas is marginal and doesn't justify expenditures to keep them there. Likewise, none of the studies, and frankly there aren't many, done on the effect of successful athletic teams on alumni giving show any correlation.
Politicians don't want to lose sports franchises because they're afraid, most likely of not being re-elected. Similar fear pervades the Ivory Tower. University presidents, those paragons of courage, simply don;'t want to confront a hoard of angry alumni. The percentage of those alumni who contribute money is cvery likely to be negligible.
That is about as worthless a response as one could expect.
I did not say anything at all about economic impact with regards to the pro level. That parameter is only within your, apparently very strict, parameters. LOL.
As to Pittsburgh, I am way familiar with the issue of wanting to keep the city's name in the paper....every single day. But, pretend that I am not if it makes you warm and fuzzy. To be honest, I was skeptical myself until somebody sat me down and read me the riot act (or was it...talked me off the ledge.)
The college is a different level of consideration. And, as I said, we ain't dropping anything in the forseeable future.
Of course that would be your reaction. So why do the powers that be want a city's name top be in the paper on a daily basis? What is the value? And $500mm, to be conservative, buys a hell of a lot of ads.
Just to drive some of you folks to further distraction 
, PSU announced this morning another hire of an assistant AD, Andrea Wickerham, as Assistant AD for Human Resources Operations.
http://www.gopsusports.com/genrel/080515aab.html
This is a position that has been vacant for more than a year; Clint Eury has been filling in I believe. Wickerham appears to have excellent credentials and I like that we are bringing in some outsiders with new and different perspectives on how to get things done.
, PSU announced this morning another hire of an assistant AD, Andrea Wickerham, as Assistant AD for Human Resources Operations.http://www.gopsusports.com/genrel/080515aab.html
This is a position that has been vacant for more than a year; Clint Eury has been filling in I believe. Wickerham appears to have excellent credentials and I like that we are bringing in some outsiders with new and different perspectives on how to get things done.
Must be, if he couldn't control the conclusion of studies that he commissioned.
Just to drive some of you folks to further distraction
http://www.gopsusports.com/genrel/080515aab.html
This is a position that has been vacant for more than a year; Clint Eury has been filling in I believe. Wickerham appears to have excellent credentials and I like that we are bringing in some outsiders with new and different perspectives on how to get things done.
Her most notable credential is that she was fired from her last job.
The sad truth is that for every 1 person who is even casually concerned about the actual management of a $100,000,000+ entity, there are 100 people who will evaluate the performance of our Athletic Director by how many times she says "409".
Any efforts to try to change that reality would be like trying to mop up a tsunami with a kitchen sponge.
It is what it is. People - as a group - are intellectually lazy. "409" evaluations are quick, simple, and emotional.
The effects of poorly managing a $100,000,000 entity - should such mismanagement occur - will not be visible to the casual observer for 5 years......but if it occurs, the pain of recovering from such mismanagement will last a generation.
Any efforts to try to change that reality would be like trying to mop up a tsunami with a kitchen sponge.
It is what it is. People - as a group - are intellectually lazy. "409" evaluations are quick, simple, and emotional.
The effects of poorly managing a $100,000,000 entity - should such mismanagement occur - will not be visible to the casual observer for 5 years......but if it occurs, the pain of recovering from such mismanagement will last a generation.
Art, love jousting with you. You are the rare worthy opponent.
I have my ways and you have yours and, in fact, we quite often agree. However, I sincerely doubt that either one of us knows/understands everything there is to know/understand about every single thing on this earth. That is all.
[However, I sincerely doubt that either one of us knows/understands everything there is to know/understand about every single thing on this earth. That is all.[/QUOTE]
That demographic is limited to me......and CR, of course.
That demographic is limited to me......and CR, of course.
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