Barbour restructures athletic department

[Evan Ceg]

Now four main departments

Business & Finance - led by Rick Kaluza
Student-Athlete Performance, Health & Welfare - led by Charmelle Green
Internal & External Operations - led by Phil Esten
Administration - led by Lynn Holleran

Sport administration assignments among staff were not announced.


GoPSUsports

 

[bjf1984]

Who does that leave in charge of "twittering"?

 

[psu00]

I guess we will see how this reorganization goes. Hopefully things run smoothly and efficiently. By the way, what exactly does Sandy do other than get a monthly update from those 4 and, of course, tweet messages each day?

 

[dwiz]

Nelson would seem to be in charge of twitter "strategic communications

athletic director." Of course by the time he tweets something, everyone already knows. He's our Baghdad Bob.

Also, not exciting about barbour stating "we employing a contemporary business model to engage and provide value to our fans."

Sounds like jacking up the prices is her model.

 

[lionlurker]

Frankly, I'm skeptical of anything that the "administration" does,

and she is certainly part of the "administration".

I've given up on her. She's a loser.

 

[Art]

That "business model"

was contemporary to 1975.

 

[LafayetteBear]

Re: That "business model"


Ruh roh.

 

[Nitwit]

just curious

How would you have done it differently?

 

[nits74]

Who does that leave in charge of "twittering"?


That and continuing to publicly worship Jim Delany and The Big Ten.

 

[dwiz]

Get rid of some of the lifers and bring in some new talent. Obviously

Sandy isn't the smartest one around, so she should hire people smarter than her, and take the credit. Seems she's just promoting from within to make a network of fall people for when she messes up again. Luckily Joyner's name isn't on the list of appointees.

 

[psu00]

Re: Nelson would seem to be in charge of twitter "strategic communications

Even if you showed Nelson the tweet - he will tell you he can neither confirm nor deny that the tweet actually exists. .

As for Barbour- to say this model was done to engage and provide value to the fans is just stupid. I'm trying to giver her the benefit of the doubt since arriving here but come on.

 

[fairgambit]

I am very excited....

 

[Nitwit]

Sounds like a plan

Lifers gotta go, hey wait - wasn't Joepa a lifer? How about she just get rid of the underperformers without regard to seniority instead of casting dispersions on those who are more experienced? Obviously you have more experience at this then I do. I've run complex professional organizations with over 800 employees, but I don't know squat about how the best athletic departments are managed at major universities. Glad we have all this talent on the message board to give her proper guidance.

 

[fairgambit]

Re: Sounds like a plan

Originally posted by Nitwit:
Lifers gotta go, hey wait - wasn't Joepa a lifer? How about she just get rid of the underperformers without regard to seniority instead of casting dispersions on those who are more experienced? Obviously you have more experience at this then I do. I've run complex professional organizations with over 800 employees, but I don't know squat about how the best athletic departments are managed at major universities. Glad we have all this talent on the message board to give her proper guidance.

Sadly, no. He should have been.

 

[nits74]

Re: Sounds like a plan

Lifers gotta go, hey wait - wasn't Joepa a lifer? How about she just get rid of the underperformers without regard to seniority instead of casting dispersions on those who are more experienced?

Perhaps she can work on getting that graduation rate down to what she was more accustomed at Cal.
Sorry to cast "dispersions" on her. Didn't mean to scatter her efforts all over the place.

 

[Dr. Evel]

How do you know they are all lifers?

I know one of the people on that list quite well and have professional experience with that person when they were not at PSU. By no means a lifer, and definitely brings value.

That said, I do understand your point. I've voiced that same concern to this person. PSU as a whole gets too insular.

 

[lionlurker]

Oh, I would do just about everything differently than her.

In fact, I'd probably kill myself for even being associated with the people that hired me, if I were in her shoes. So yeah, I'd be doing things differently.

 

[91Joe95]

Its the anti-lean and mean philosophy.

Its quite popular in the business world.

 

[Fizz1]

She has been given the freedom to do what she sees fit. My big question is what is the total salary budget now vs. when Curley had it? Obviously more, but I think must be a lot more. Anyone have an idea of added headcount?
This post was edited on 3/17 10:05 AM by Fizz1

 

[bjf1984]

We looked at that before....

and while you can't get exact salary figures (except for the folks at the very top)......

The all in costs for folks doing Curley's old job (which was costing PSU around $400-500 grand in 2010), is now up to over $2 Million (might drop a hair under $2 million once Uncle Fester is off the books - remember, we are still paying him as a "consultant" to bring Sandy up to speed, and to make sure he qualifies for a nice pension)


Now, that of course doesn't include the costs associated with the "rank-and-file" 9-5ers. I can only imagine the head count of those folks has gone up a bit as well. Good god, when your strength coach is now titled as an "Assistant AD" or whatever the hell title they gave Galt - you know he is pulling down some nice change as well.

Hey, I think Galt appears to be a heck of a guy.....but "Assistant AD" title for a guy who teaches 'em how to lift weights? Same thing for the trainer - Tim Bream (who also may be a great guy). Are you kidding me?

The TRAINER and the STRENGTH COACH have ASSISTANT AD titles???????

I swear, If someone had told me that, I would have figured he fell for some hoax in an "Onion" article.

WTF title should Spider have......."Emperor and Head Potentate of Hoi-Polloi"??? - give him a mid-six figure salary and a staff of twenty or so???

Been said before.....but we have entered the surreal.

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All you folks who thought Sandy B. was just a wonderful hire on accounta' she said good things about JoePa, oughta' pony up an extra 50% on your ticket prices to offset the ante the rest of us are going to have to pay.
By comparison, Tim Curley is looking like a cross between Stephen Hawking and Warren Buffett.

 

[9fold]

Re: We looked at that before....

Originally posted by bjf1984:
and while you can't get exact salary figures (except for the folks at the very top)......

The all in costs for folks doing Curley's old job (which was costing PSU around $400-500 grand in 2010), is now up to over $2 Million (might drop a hair under $2 million once Uncle Fester is off the books - remember, we are still paying him as a "consultant" to bring Sandy up to speed, and to make sure he qualifies for a nice pension)


Now, that of course doesn't include the costs associated with the "rank-and-file" 9-5ers. I can only imagine the head count of those folks has gone up a bit as well. Good god, when your strength coach is now titled as an "Assistant AD" or whatever the hell title they gave Galt - you know he is pulling down some nice change as well.

Hey, I think Galt appears to be a heck of a guy.....but "Assistant AD" title for a guy who teaches 'em how to lift weights? Same thing for the trainer - Tim Bream (who also may be a great guy). Are you kidding me?

The TRAINER and the STRENGTH COACH have ASSISTANT AD titles???????

I swear, If someone had told me that, I would have figured he fell for some hoax in an "Onion" article.

WTF title should Spider have......."Emperor and Head Potentate of Hoi-Polloi"??? - give him a mid-six figure salary and a staff of twenty or so???

Been said before.....but we have entered the surreal.

_______________________________________________


All you folks who thought Sandy B. was just a wonderful hire on accounta' she said good things about JoePa, oughta' pony up an extra 50% on your ticket prices to offset the ante the rest of us are going to have to pay.
By comparison, Tim Curley is looking like a cross between Stephen Hawking and Warren Buffett.

The football coach or men's basketball coach is typically the highest paid individual in an athletic department. Other salaries drop down from there. When Curley was AD, Joe was head football coach. At his peak, Joe's total pay was about $1 MM. Of course Curley made less. Now PSU is paying Franklin over $4 MM a year. It stands to reason that Barbour's salary will be considerably more than Curley's was. Like it or not, PSU's athletic department salaries are moving into the modern era.

 

[kgilbert78]

Re: We looked at that before....

Originally posted by 9fold:
_______________________________________________

Like it or not, PSU's athletic department salaries are moving into the modern era.

^^This^^. That's the reality of Life After Joe. PSU got away on the cheap for a loooong time. That started changing when Cael was brought on. We lost a very good swimming coach to tOSU partly as a result (facilities and only coaching one team were the other factors--both due to money issues).

I get that folks are suspicious of the admin and don't trust them. I concur, in part (I'm willing to give Barbour some time). But the reality is that even if we got the program up to 1975 business standards, as one poster joked, that might be an improvement.

 

[bjf1984]

Couple of items....

1 - Joe's comp. was well over $2 MM in his last years. I know some folks like to believe that it wasn't....but that's just not the case. In any event...not going to get involved in any re-hashing. And its not "super-relevant" anyway (thank you Mrs Peetz LOL)

2- Barbour's salary is a huge increase from Curley's. Why that "stands to reason" is beyond me.

Curley - love him of hate him - was a MUCH more accomplished AD than Barbour - by anyone's standards....and was paid probably less than 1/2 the compensation.

Barbour was thrown out on her rump from a job that didn't pay NEARLY as much as the gig she landed at PSU....and it wasn't like she was in HIGH (or ANY) demand..

and - maybe the most relevant part:

Despite being compensated TWICE as much, Barbour's department now includes an entire raft of highly compensated folks taking on the job responsibilities that used to be encompassed by the AD. Its not like we are comparing 1935 to 2015 here....we are talking literally one year to the next. That is why rather than paying TWICE as much for AD services, we are paying FIVE or SIX times as much.

Add to this the bestowing of ludicrous titles on every head that passes under the doorway of an athletic office (likely with corresponding compensation) and you have one hell of an out of control spending spree in the Athletics Department.
Intercollegiate Sports, for big-time programs, has been a gigantic cash cow in recent years. Many programs have a hard time spending the money as fast as it comes in.

We all see the Taj Mahals being built every year by programs throughout the country - it is like they are trying to find more and more opulent and excessive ways to burn through cash. Those of us paying attention see this - and realize that for big-time programs those days of lamenting that "most programs don't turn a profit" are akin to George Soros complaining that at the end of the year his net worth is the same as it was last year.

PSU's Athletic Administration - it appears - is determined to become a "world leader" in finding ways to burn through that cash. And it never lasts forever.....you want to see the first stages of driving an Athletics Program into a fiscal hole? Pay close attention here.

Alas

__________________________________


OK .......with that - I'm done w/ Sandy Barbour (For all I know, she may be a fine lady - who I would enjoy sitting down and talking sports with. When all is said and done, she is just a gal placed into a spot she is not qualified for....by folks who wanted what they wanted). It is just not worth the energy when so much more important stuff needs to be done. Small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.


This post was edited on 3/17 8:22 AM by bjf1984

 

[BlueBand]

Just because Joe and Curley worked for well below market value, you expect every hire in the future to do the same? The whole time we were underpaying them, I was just hoping we were banking the savings, because it was obvious that wouldn't last forever. What kind of coach do you think we'd have if we refused to pay them no more than Joe made? Ditto for assistants. We were so far behind the times, and we only got away with it because we were lucky to have competent people who were willing to work for less than market. Any business owner would love that, but they will also tell you that to be competitive you can't rely on that strategy. If you get lucky, enjoy it while you can.

 

[Cletus11]

The latest fad in upper management is to essentially hire and/or put in place a few people below you that essentially do your job for you. You just 'manage' and 'report' essentially. If something isn't working, you have a built in excuse to fire one of them for not doing their job. If you want to make a messy decision with some repurcussions, you get one of you henchman to do it so you stay above the fray. The days of upper management in some companies actually doing anything is going by the wayside.

 

[bjf1984]

Thank you.....well said. ***


nfm

 

[nits74]

Re: Thank you.....well said. ***

Absolutely nails it. Yet, the salary disparity between upper management and the rest of the salaried work force continues to grow almost exponentially.

 

[massimoManca II]

i just read this and crapped my britches - dead on accurate in my company

And it's a big one that many own stock in... Tripping over dollars to pick up pennies

 

[bjf1984]

OK....after reading that release (including the announcement of FOURTEEN Deputy/Senior Associate/Associate/and Assistant Athletic Directors), can we get a BINGO here??

New Game! Clear Your Cards!


Grab your press release and play along..........

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[/URL]
This post was edited on 3/17 11:13 PM by bjf1984