AD David Benedict candidate at ASU for Athletic Director Job | Page 2 | The Boneyard

AD David Benedict candidate at ASU for Athletic Director Job

Thoughts:
  • Benedict has overall been good and it would be better if he stayed
  • I'm sure that given the profile of our AD we'll no trouble getting a good candidate
  • The much, much, much bigger issue than either of these is the optics of a nothing school like Arizona State being perceived as a step up from UConn
 
businesslawyer said:
The KO situation was woefully mishandled, but to be fair to Benedict he was following the advice of outside counsel.
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I don't know if it's fair to say that the KO situation was woefully mishandled particularly because Benedict was following the advice of outside counsel. Firing a guy who cheated, got caught, lied to the A.D., and lied to the NCAA is pretty much a given unless you're Kansas. It ended up becoming a sheetshow because Ollie's counsel decided that making it a sheetshow played to his benefit. In the end, Connecticut lost because the arbiter decided to write out the section of KO's contract that the university relied upon to fire him. I don't think that was reasonably foreseeable to outside counsel and especially not to Benedict.

Benedict pulled the trigger, when he had to, and hired an excellent replacement in Dan Hurley. There's a lot of decisions that Dave has made that we could be critical of, But his handling of that situation probably isn't one of them, the unfavorable result notwithstanding.
 
Stew Crew said:
The positive is that he has brought in talented coaches.

The negatives:
  • he cost the university an extra $3 million in the way he handled Ollie's firing.
  • He screwed over a lot of long time season ticket holders by changing the season ticket model and then changing price tiers 2-3 years after implementing the new model.


I think we'll survive if he leaves as long as the new AD gets Hurley's seal of approval.
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He wouldn't have cost us an extra penny if the BOT had been willing to accept reality.

There are a number of issues at play with ticket pricing here including basic economics. For the most part he's doing what he has to do to try to run a woefully underfunded athletic department.
 
Greedo said:
I truly believe if DB was our AD in 2012 we'd be in the ACC now instead of Pitt or Louisville. People on the football board seem to dislike him because we're not in a power conference for football, but I don't really know what else they expect him to do.

I think he's been good - hired Hurley, recognized the crapfest that was the AAC and brought us to the Big East.
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UConn would not be in the ACC in 2012 if God was our AD. BC was never going to be in favor of it, especially with DeFilippo as their AD. BC was defending their turf and there was too much bad blood as a result of BC's defection to the ACC.
 
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ASU has more money because of conference affiliation but no recognizable titles in the modern era

Many many many schools have more money, but far less prestige

I'm OK with that. I like who we are
 
Dave's been super visible and seems open to suggestions and approachable, which is a departure from prior ADs, so he scores points for that.

Hurley is a home run, and I think Mora (if he has the stomach for it) will continue bringing football in the right direction.

The conference stuff by and large is out of his hands.

He's done well, but we'd find someone else.
 
TheRealKBuks said:
Its certainly a low bar. Warde Manuel failed upwards to Michigan. With how successful he's been there thus far you can tell he was just biding his time until that job opened. I don't think he ever took this job as seriously as we needed at the craziest time in our AD's history.
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and before that we had Jeff "Status Quo" Hathaway
 
Stew Crew said:
UConn would not be in the ACC in 2012 if God was our AD. BC was never going to be in favor of it, especially with DeFilippo as their AD. BC was defending their turf and there was too much bad blood as a result of BC's defection to the ACC.
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Maybe, I don't really think BC has ever had that much sway. I think AD DB would have done more to really get Tobacco Road on board to convince everyone else because their opinions mean a lot more than lowly BC.
 
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I'm forever thankful that he got us out of the AAC and into our rightful spot in the Big East. I look at the list of schools in the current AAC and I'm not even sure what I'm looking at. Makes me want to take a shower.
 
If AD DB gets hired at ASU, the Sun Devil hockey fans should be very worried, because he runs the UConn men's program without a clue
 
superjohn said:
And they're still never anything more than mediocre in the two big sports.
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I agree. So much more goes into the argument of which is a better job. The amount of money is always seen as the only thing that matters on this board. You could be the CEO of a giant fast food Corp and make millions, but consequently contribute to the health woes of an entire continent. You could be the AD of a P5 school and never sniff a meaningful title.
If some people don't understand this concept they'll never understand it.
 
Would you rather be a Arizona State, Rutgers, BC fan with lots of revenue but consistently finish at the bottom of the barrel or...
A UConn fan with 11 Women's and 5 Men's NCAA basketball championships?

Yes, if we get a power 5 bid we go, but until then I'm loving being a Husky fan. We can do far worse than DB.
 
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Every good university president and a portion of the BoT should have a continuously updated list of AD candidates at the ready.
If AD Dave leaves, this shouldn't have the UConn admin flat footed looking for a replacement.
 
CL82 said:
I don't know if it's fair to say that the KO situation was woefully mishandled particularly because Benedict was following the advice of outside counsel. Firing a guy who cheated, got caught, lied to the A.D., and lied to the NCAA is pretty much a given unless you're Kansas. It ended up becoming a sheetshow because Ollie's counsel decided that making it a sheetshow played to his benefit. In the end, Connecticut lost because the arbiter decided to write out the section of KO's contract that the university relied upon to fire him. I don't think that was reasonably foreseeable to outside counsel and especially not to Benedict.

Benedict pulled the trigger, when he had to, and hired an excellent replacement in Dan Hurley. There's a lot of decisions that Dave has made that we could be critical of, But his handling of that situation probably isn't one of them, the unfavorable result notwithstanding.
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I know a number of lawyers who were involved in the decision making process. There were some who thought outside counsel was leading the Athletic Dept. down the wrong road. I stand by what I said without being able to say more.
 
Hard to ignore UConn’s overall more successful athletic department, but can acknowledge Benedict’s an Arizona native (or, at least graduated from a directional
Arizona school), he previously worked in ASU’s athletic dept, ASU’s budget is reportedly larger, P4 conference membership, likely higher AD compensation, etc.

Setting aside the above, Benedict’s purportedly unsuccessfully pursued other P4 jobs, and few people in most organizations are irreplaceable. If he goes, he goes, UConn would attract quality applicants, and an injection of new blood, motivation, P4 and fundraising experience, and energy may not be the worst scenario.
 
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I dislike this quite a lot. More proof that we have to get into a legit P conference somehow. Hope we can retain AD Dave, he's been a strong AD and ambassador for the school. Any successor will probably be a downgrade.
 
Greedo said:
Maybe, I don't really think BC has ever had that much sway. I think AD DB would have done more to really get Tobacco Road on board to convince everyone else because their opinions mean a lot more than lowly BC.
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The ACC requires 75% of schools to approve new members. BC had at least 3 other schools in their pocket. That is enough. Whether it was a quid pro quo or some other behind the scenes deal, it was public knowledge that UConn never would never get the votes due to BC's resistance and their sway over the 3 other schools. I do not recall which schools. I believe Duke and UNC were actually in favor of UConn joining.
 
Stew Crew said:
The ACC requires 75% of schools to approve new members. BC had at least 3 other schools in their pocket. That is enough. Whether it was a quid pro quo or some other behind the scenes deal, it was public knowledge that UConn never would never get the votes due to BC's resistance and their sway over the 3 other schools. I do not recall which schools. I believe Duke and UNC were actually in favor of UConn joining.
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I seem to remember FSU and some other big football schools being against it. Probably to piss off the basketball centric conference.
 
AD'S at state schools do not have as much power S most people think. Any coaching hires, conference realignment, coaches contracts etc have to be approved by the board of trustees. So one of the necessary traits is being a good salesman aka bs artist to sell these things to the BOT.
 
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