What grade do you give Sandy Barbour as A.D. and why?
- Thread starter john4psu
- Start date
Failing grade. the debacle with the BB team at the firing of the coach was F minor. YOu can't talk and reason with a dozen college students who liked the University and were happy to be here, and u work for a University??
This is what passes for leadership in modern America and it's not just Penn State. Look at any business or any level of government.
As for grading her, I have no idea. I suppose it would be some formula that recognized success in competition, graduation rate, and revenue generation. I'm too lazy to look up any of those parameters.
Hard to answer. Hired a couple good coaches. Teams are recruiting well. Hired a good basketball coach but handled the transition very poorly. And nothing done to upgrade Beaver Stadium which needs serious work. Also hired an awful lot of assistants VP types.
Worse, have no idea how she handled the Covid crisis behind the scenes. The way the Big cancelled then reinstated partial season was embarrassing. Did she fight for PSU or just went along to get along?
Also, parking has been poorly handled as has the transition to electronic ticketing. Lots of complaints about getting into the stadium on game days.
From far away with limited knowledge I would have to say incomplete. But leaning towards a C or C-
Worse, have no idea how she handled the Covid crisis behind the scenes. The way the Big cancelled then reinstated partial season was embarrassing. Did she fight for PSU or just went along to get along?
Also, parking has been poorly handled as has the transition to electronic ticketing. Lots of complaints about getting into the stadium on game days.
From far away with limited knowledge I would have to say incomplete. But leaning towards a C or C-
Last edited:
I'd go D+/C-. In addition to the above, I'll add the shabby treatment of the wrestling program, the firing of the fencing coach, waiting too long to fire the women's BB coach, general lack of openness, and the overall decline of most of the athletic programs.
I'd give her a B-.
It is hard to quantify but she did add stability and continuity to the PSU brand. Having said that, we have clearly regressed in football in comparison to our B1G brethren. PSU continues to languish behind tOSU. Michigan has improved and passed us. Iowa and Sparty have pulled even. All of the games are now competitive. I am talking about teams like Minny, Indy, Iowa, and Ill who all have pasted us in football in at least one key game over the last three years.
COVID kind of killed the momentum for improving the Beav and most other initiatives that will take a long-term commitment.
Still silent on Joe with the exception of a very, very short film clip during games that always get big cheers.
We have a new coach in basketball who had one promising season but a long way to go there. Hockey is now established and we have a solid team/program.
Fencing, volleyball, soccer, baseball, swimming, w-basketball....meh.
Wrestling has clearly outperformed every program in the nation and it is now our signature sport.
In the end, it is still all about football and the program has to climb out of this stagnant status. While we remain flat, everyone else appears to be improving. It is amazing the program is in decent shape after JS but I suspect the program will never get back to its old prominence until we can address JVP somehow. Sandy simply kicked that can down the road.
It is hard to quantify but she did add stability and continuity to the PSU brand. Having said that, we have clearly regressed in football in comparison to our B1G brethren. PSU continues to languish behind tOSU. Michigan has improved and passed us. Iowa and Sparty have pulled even. All of the games are now competitive. I am talking about teams like Minny, Indy, Iowa, and Ill who all have pasted us in football in at least one key game over the last three years.
COVID kind of killed the momentum for improving the Beav and most other initiatives that will take a long-term commitment.
Still silent on Joe with the exception of a very, very short film clip during games that always get big cheers.
We have a new coach in basketball who had one promising season but a long way to go there. Hockey is now established and we have a solid team/program.
Fencing, volleyball, soccer, baseball, swimming, w-basketball....meh.
Wrestling has clearly outperformed every program in the nation and it is now our signature sport.
In the end, it is still all about football and the program has to climb out of this stagnant status. While we remain flat, everyone else appears to be improving. It is amazing the program is in decent shape after JS but I suspect the program will never get back to its old prominence until we can address JVP somehow. Sandy simply kicked that can down the road.
She almost blew Cael’s extension.... but shoveled $$$ to Franklin. Ask Russ how she did?
I think it was a mixed bag overall. Looking at key areas you get the following. Keep in mind most people think she was fired for pushing through Franklin's contract.
Football Operations - She inherited Franklin. She saved Franklin from himself when she forced him to fire John Donovan and shake up what was then the worst performing offensive coaching staff in Big Ten history. She later gave Franklin an unearned extension followed by the extension that got her fired. She failed miserably with fundraising. This is obviously not all her fault nor is she the blame for the majority of it but she was saddled with it.
Overall, D
Basketball - She fired Chambers for really no reason.
Overall, F
Olympic Sports - She mostly does well here. Fundraising has been strong. Team performance has as well.
Overal, A-
Ancillary Tasks - This including football parking and ticket policy.
Overall, F
Her overall perforarme, while mixed has been overall bad. Give her a D.
Football Operations - She inherited Franklin. She saved Franklin from himself when she forced him to fire John Donovan and shake up what was then the worst performing offensive coaching staff in Big Ten history. She later gave Franklin an unearned extension followed by the extension that got her fired. She failed miserably with fundraising. This is obviously not all her fault nor is she the blame for the majority of it but she was saddled with it.
Overall, D
Basketball - She fired Chambers for really no reason.
Overall, F
Olympic Sports - She mostly does well here. Fundraising has been strong. Team performance has as well.
Overal, A-
Ancillary Tasks - This including football parking and ticket policy.
Overall, F
Her overall perforarme, while mixed has been overall bad. Give her a D.
This tells it all, Learfield/Directors Cup under Sandy:
| Year | Penn State | UCLA | USC | Ohio State | Michigan |
| 2021-22 | 43 | 15 | 12 | 4 | 3 |
| 2020-21 | 39 | 13 | 6 | 9 | 3 |
| 2018-19 | 13 | 6 | 5 | 12 | 2 |
| 2017-18 | 12 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 6 |
| 2016-17 | 8 | 11 | 4 | 2 | 11 |
That's embarrassing.... CoVid really screwed up the AD like few others. Why? Its like they fell asleep at the wheel.
I don't know whose idea it was but I found the Ads during football games after the second mile scandal telling fans if you see something say something utterly disgusting. And the notion that since we were sycophants of the program we needed to be schooled on reporting molestation was the most insulting thing ever done to a fanbase. My stomach churned with anger when those ads ran. F U.
Again, I'm sure that was the administration's idea so I can't place the blame on sandy.
So succinct: Barber gets an F-: we lose to O$U each year, and lose to UM 4 of the 5 years. Failure - absolute, unequivocal failure. Unless the real objective is to play 3rd fiddle to the only 2 schools who matter in this conference? The above would make one assume that it is. Disgraceful, and she should have been fired for this unacceptable weakening of our Athletic Programs. Once again, as the Big Ten planned, Penn State is 2nd tier - and our administration either let it happen, or assisted in it.
The great historian Robert Conquest once said that one could judge the behavior of an organization by postulating that it was secretly run by a cabal of its enemies. I think the PSU Athletic Department illustrates this theory quite clearly.
Average, so I guess a C.
Good - continuing down the path of modernizing our football program and facilities (we started from way behind our peers). Locking up Cael and Franklin long term (I know many will disagree with Franklin being good, save it for the other threads). Seemingly good basketball coach hire. Starting discussions about updating Beaver Stadium and I think that's been done without making any huge financial commitments so far but not 100% on that. Getting us started with NIL (expecting Kraft to really drive this one).
Bad - Driving away Russ Rose. Steady decline in director's cup rankings. Adding administrative bloat. Handling of Pat Chambers departure. Football game day logistics seem to be getting worse (traffic, parking, etc)
Neutral - I don't know how she's done in terms of fundraising vs. predecessors or peers and this would be a key data point.
Good - continuing down the path of modernizing our football program and facilities (we started from way behind our peers). Locking up Cael and Franklin long term (I know many will disagree with Franklin being good, save it for the other threads). Seemingly good basketball coach hire. Starting discussions about updating Beaver Stadium and I think that's been done without making any huge financial commitments so far but not 100% on that. Getting us started with NIL (expecting Kraft to really drive this one).
Bad - Driving away Russ Rose. Steady decline in director's cup rankings. Adding administrative bloat. Handling of Pat Chambers departure. Football game day logistics seem to be getting worse (traffic, parking, etc)
Neutral - I don't know how she's done in terms of fundraising vs. predecessors or peers and this would be a key data point.
I think this is a very good listing of accomplishments both positive and negative though I think not being able to do more with the stadium and handling of the dismissal of chambers as well as letting Washington go to long for the women’s side as well as the administrative bloat and just the idea of some super natatorium push me down below a C into the D range.
Beaver Stadium needs a make over, a TOTAL rebuild, and our facilities are now middling. This is her fault.
Fire the national championship winning fencing coach for a spurious reason and do the same to the men's basketball coach who had the program turned around, then screw around with two other national championship coaches in wrestling and women's volleyball. Think the other coaches looked over their shoulders much? Add to that keeping the women's basketball coach on well past her sell-by date, extending Franklin's contract after two substandard seasons and the overall decline of sports programs as a whole and you have an unsuccessful AD.
Franklin's contract has the potential to cripple the entire athletic department for over a decade of the new guy can't find a way to light a fire under CJF's sorry fourth point of contact given that he can't fire him for at least 7 years. We all know Franklin thinks he is right all the time, rarely if ever learns from his mistakes so things are not looking good long term.
F.
With the latest Franklin contract she screwed us for years to come.
And that isn't a knock on Franklin.
I can't think of a single program which is better today than 5 years ago or 10 years ago.
LdN
I agree with you but do think our hoops program is better now than 5 years ago and is on an upward trajectory. Not sure how much credit Barbour should get for the Shrewsberry hire though. She did not do any of the research to find him, I guess she ultimately approved it but she didn't lead the search I don't think. People did that for her but maybe she did more than I am giving her credit for. Nevertheless, I am glad she is gone. Always felt she was clueless when it came to PSU football and not a good leader. Franklin is a good talker and fed her a bunch of BS excuses a lot of times that she bought and never held him accountable. And then we end up with this ridiculous $80 million albatross contract after two poor seasons. Who does that?
Great question. Give her a C-.....
- On field results, particularly our big 3 sports: Behind OSU and MI in football, basketball and directors cup but they won the B10 under her watch in football, should have made the tourn in basketball and won a number of championships in wrestling.
- Has not added value to the football game experience. No stadium or arena improvements
- Botched the Chambers firing--should have never happened. But I do love the hire.
- Not a favorite of both Sanderson and Franklin which speaks volumes
In fact, the stadium experience has driven me away after 55 years of attending games.
You can add Rose to this list.
Similar threads
