AD Manuel is not the right guy for the job | Page 5 | The Boneyard

AD Manuel is not the right guy for the job

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upstater said:
This is the second time today someone has cited a trustee or a foundation person in this thread. First it was freescooter, now you. Freescooter's trustee had bad information, now yours is scoffing at the $200 million raised on sports facilities for TWO sports at Uconn over the last decade or so.

It really boggles the mind.
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Here is the quote (or my paraphrasing): "Louisville has built a new facility for every single one of their sports over the last 15 years, all the way down to field hockey, etc. UCONN has $150 million in projects (Baseball, etc) that don't have 1 dime of funding." All I'm saying is that people IN the university think that LV is way ahead of us in terms of funding for facilities. And they think that played a part in LV beating out UCONN. My meeting with the rep (just looked at my calendar) was on 12/3/12, right after we lost out.

So HE (and probably others in the university) think that the overall commitment (i.e. funding) is part of the issue. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was lobbying. Maybe there was no hope anyway.

All I'm doing is relating a conversation from someone that is more "connected" than I am. As to the veracity of his comments? I can't say for certain. They might have just been random opinions.
 
freescooter said:
You guys are nuts...well except upstater, and you don't know how much it pains me to say that. Louisville has at best a modest football history. Is it better than ours right now? Sure. But it is as far away from this supposed southern football power school as Towson is. this decison was based on an incredibly effective and aggressive pr campaign that made Louisville Football into the next Notre Dame, Alabama, USC, and Texas all rolled into one, when in fact they are at best a 2nd tier power along not even on the same level as VaTech and West Virginia. Jurich ran an aggressive campaign, found his allies, built his relationships. All the while, our rock star sipped nice cool drinks with little umbrellas in them and monitored the situation. I've seen this type of thing before in politics. You ignore the opposition until suddenly you realize that he is having an IMPACT you didn't expect, but you really didn't have a plan and you get beat. When I was younger I ran a guy's campaign for 1st selectman. Late comer to the race as a replacement for the nominee who became too ill to run, against a popular incumbent. We kept swinging away. At the dump on Saturday morning, the high school football came on Friday night, the local diner on Sunday morning, visited every house in town at least once. He barely bothered campaigning, even went on a vacation in October, until he suddenly realized he was losing a race he was penned in to win, and then it was too late. Been through it a few times on both sides. I saw this developing along exactly that model when I saw Jurich on some ESPN show and read an interview with Pitino the same day...in 2 different national papers. I was looking for a UConn response, maybe an interview with Warde or maybe Calhoun the next day, but bupkus. By the Louisville-UConn game it was over, even though the announcement hadn't been made. everything I've read since then has been an excuse..oh they have better football, they have better facilities, they spend more on facilities, they have been to the womens final four twice in a row, they have a national championship in basketball...as I said, but most objective measures, every important measure actually, UConn should have been the choice, but we let them set the narrative while Warde monitored the situation.
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Or maybe - the fact that Jurich was in the job since 1997 and had deeper relationships with lots of the relevant ADs, etc., was all that mattered. And the fact that Warde came from Michigan, and went to Buffalo, and then Storrs, with NO ACC connections meant that nobody was going to pick up the phone anyway. You could argue that if we KNEW that we needed to jump to the ACC (which we didn't) that we should have hired someone with the right connections. Jurich didn't need to find allies. He already had them.

So had there been a UCONN response and aggressive lobbying, and we still lost (which is like 99.99999999999999999999999% certain) what would be your position then?
 
J187Money said:
Here is the quote (or my paraphrasing): "Louisville has built a new facility for every single one of their sports over the last 15 years, all the way down to field hockey, etc. UCONN has $150 million in projects (Baseball, etc) that don't have 1 dime of funding." All I'm saying is that people IN the university think that LV is way ahead of us in terms of funding for facilities. And they think that played a part in LV beating out UCONN. My meeting with the rep (just looked at my calendar) was on 12/3/12, right after we lost out.

So HE (and probably others in the university) think that the overall commitment (i.e. funding) is part of the issue. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was lobbying. Maybe there was no hope anyway.

All I'm doing is relating a conversation from someone that is more "connected" than I am. As to the veracity of his comments? I can't say for certain. They might have just been random opinions.
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Maybe it's that UConn needs new trustees and people in the foundation who have an understanding of what is going on.

I mean, I laid out all the building for you guys, and yet it gets ignored. Freescooter cites his conversation with a trustee about how Manuel is the best in America at improving APR scores, because of a press release that stated he took the basketball scores which were woefully low and improved them. I provided a link from the NCAA database that showed the bball scores were high before he got to Buffalo and that they decreased into the 940 range after he got there. It's one thing to make hyperbolic PR statements for the sake of the media, but if people are spewing this stuff in private conversations, I begin to wonder if these are positions they actually hold. The trustees should have gone through Manuel's hiring with a fine-toothed comb.

Ask your friend if he can name schools that have spent more than UConn in the last 15 years.
 
Maybe the state deciding the rest of the building had to be done with private donations played into it. They wouldn't foot the bill for basketball. Nor any of the other proposed projects. If they don't get donors they don't get built.
 
J187Money said:
Maybe the state deciding the rest of the building had to be done with private donations played into it. They wouldn't foot the bill for basketball. Nor any of the other proposed projects. If they don't get donors they don't get built.
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And how is this any different from other places?

Let's rewind here: public and private money built four new buildings for UConn totaling almost $200 million (granted, they are $5-10m short right now for basketball).

Why all the handwringing about where that money came from. 3 of the buildings are done, one is currently being built. What's the problem here?

How about this: who has the best football facilities of teams from the old Big East?

Answer: not Louisville.
 
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upstater said:
And how is this any different from other places?

Let's rewind here: public and private money built four new buildings for UConn totaling almost $200 million (granted, they are $5-10m short right now for basketball).

Why all the handwringing about where that money came from. 3 of the buildings are done, one is currently being built. What's the problem here?

How about this: who has the best football facilities of teams from the old Big East?

Answer: not Louisville.
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*I* am not saying there is a problem. *I* was told that it was a consideration. I'm not handwringing at all. But a guy (who isn't my friend by any stretch) is hitting me up for donations right after we lost out to LV says that LV has invested more than us over the last 15 years (and maybe it isn't specifically in $ but number of projects completed across all sports) and that it played a part in the decision - maybe he was just making shit up and it didn't have any impact. I have no idea. Nobody has still presented any evidence at all that we could have convinced Clemson/FSU/Miami to accept us. And we need someone to blame.

And we KNOW that if our last 15 years of stats/rankings/bowl wins were reversed with LV that everyone here would be asking for a congressional investigation how we got passed over when we were CLEARLY the better team. Except stats/rankings/bowl wins don't matter. We are mad. So damn facts/history/public perception.
 
I don't see how you count the Rent when comparing UConn to other schools. They built the bare minimum to join the club. That every other school you'd compare them to already had that facility doesn't mean UConn compares well in expenditures.
 
J187Money said:
*I* am not saying there is a problem. *I* was told that it was a consideration. I'm not handwringing at all. But a guy (who isn't my friend by any stretch) is hitting me up for donations right after we lost out to LV says that LV has invested more than us over the last 15 years (and maybe it isn't specifically in $ but number of projects completed across all sports) and that it played a part in the decision - maybe he was just making up and it didn't have any impact. I have no idea. Nobody has still presented any evidence at all that we could have convinced Clemson/FSU/Miami to accept us. And we need someone to blame.

And we KNOW that if our last 15 years of stats/rankings/bowl wins were reversed with LV that everyone here would be asking for a congressional investigation how we got passed over when we were CLEARLY the better team. Except stats/rankings/bowl wins don't matter. We are mad. So damn facts/history/public perception.
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On the last part, IF Louisville had won 3 national championships in bball in the last 15 years, and if UConn hadn't won a championship since 1986, and if UConn went through 4 years of Kragthorpe and then had its best season in a long time but yet managed to scrape by a couple non-BCS teams, was beaten thoroughly by Syracuse, LOST to a horrendously bad Louisville team AT HOME late in the season (a team coached by, say, Rich Kotite, a team over the years that managed a 4-4 record over UConn), if UConn LOST to that Louisville football team... (I'm not even going to mention the dominance of Louisville women in basketball over the last decade)... would UConn be in the driver's seat?

Let's reverse things a bit. When Louisville was added, they hadn't won a basketball championship in 25 years. When Louisville was added, they hadn't beaten Florida in a BCS.

I really like your hypothetical because it really emphasizes the Southern bias against Yankees more than anything else. As a matter of fact, you came up with such a great hypothetical that I think it should be the standawrd in comparing UConn and Louisville.
 
whaler11 said:
I don't see how you count the Rent when comparing UConn to other schools. They built the bare minimum to join the club. That every other school you'd compare them to already had that facility doesn't mean UConn compares well in expenditures.
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Because money is money. You only have so much to go around. The foundation guy bemoaning that only $200 million was spent lives in a fantasy world.
 
upstater said:
On the last part, IF Louisville had won 3 national championships in bball in the last 15 years, and if UConn hadn't won a championship since 1986, and if UConn went through 4 years of Kragthorpe and then had its best season in a long time but yet managed to scrape by a couple non-BCS teams, was beaten thoroughly by Syracuse, LOST to a horrendously bad Louisville team AT HOME late in the season (a team coached by, say, Rich Kotite, a team over the years that managed a 4-4 record over UConn), if UConn LOST to that Louisville football team... (I'm not even going to mention the dominance of Louisville women in basketball over the last decade)... would UConn be in the driver's seat?

Let's reverse things a bit. When Louisville was added, they hadn't won a basketball championship in 25 years. When Louisville was added, they hadn't beaten Florida in a BCS.

I really like your hypothetical because it really emphasizes the Southern bias against Yankees more than anything else. As a matter of fact, you came up with such a great hypothetical that I think it should be the standawrd in comparing UConn and Louisville.
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I think the ACC took UL based on future prospects - both football and basketball, and it looks like they hit it on target, especially watching at the Rent last Thursday. I would bet that years down the road, if the ACC were to consider expansion again, if a "Yankee" school added better value, they would take them.

You look at UL as current basketball champs, and lighting up the scoreboard last Saturday, the bias toward "Yankees" rings hollow.
 
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d1reality said:
I think the ACC took UL based on future prospects - both football and basketball, and it looks like they hit it on target, especially watching at the Rent last Thursday. I would bet that years down the road, if the ACC were to consider expansion again, if a "Yankee" school added better value, they would take them.

You look at UL as current basketball champs, and lighting up the scoreboard last Saturday, the bias toward "Yankees" rings hollow.
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You're a BC fan. We haven't played you in a decade. Why the interest in UConn sports?
 
J187Money said:
Or maybe - the fact that Jurich was in the job since 1997 and had deeper relationships with lots of the relevant ADs, etc., was all that mattered. And the fact that Warde came from Michigan, and went to Buffalo, and then Storrs, with NO ACC connections meant that nobody was going to pick up the phone anyway. You could argue that if we KNEW that we needed to jump to the ACC (which we didn't) that we should have hired someone with the right connections. Jurich didn't need to find allies. He already had them.

So had there been a UCONN response and aggressive lobbying, and we still lost (which is like 99.99999999999999999999999% certain) what would be your position then?
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Again with the excuses...this guy was brought in as a "rock star." And he totally whiffed on the biggest thing in front of him, not to mention a bunch of other things as well. And I don't accept your premise that we had no chance. It is simply counter to every single report out there at the time. There is not a shred of evidence supporting the proposition that UConn was not the favorite at the start of the process.

And as for the spending question, please. We're in the middle of an overpriced basketball practice gym at $30 million. We just built the Burton/Shenkman complex which opened in 2006 at a cost of $35 million . Rentschler Field is only 10 years old and cost +-100 million. We'll have a new ice arena for 2016 for $20 million or so. To say nothing of other upgrades to such things as the indoor and outdoor track & field facilities, both of which were upgraded in the last few years. We haven't build a new field hockey stadium because we already have a decent field hockey stadium.
 
upstater said:
Because money is money. You only have so much to go around. The foundation guy bemoaning that only $200 million was spent lives in a fantasy world.
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If I'm homeless and spend $150 on a condo and you compare my facilities to someone who owns a $500k house that was paid for 20 years ago: seems awfully stupid to compare my 'facilities' favorably because I spent more the last decade.
 
freescooter said:
Again with the excuses...this guy was brought in as a "rock star." And he totally whiffed on the biggest thing in front of him, not to mention a bunch of other things as well. And I don't accept your premise that we had no chance. It is simply counter to every single report out there at the time. There is not a shred of evidence supporting the proposition that UConn was not the favorite at the start of the process.

And as for the spending question, please. We're in the middle of an overpriced basketball practice gym at $30 million. We just built the Burton/Shenkman complex which opened in 2006 at a cost of $35 million . Rentschler Field is only 10 years old and cost +-100 million. We'll have a new ice arena for 2016 for $20 million or so. To say nothing of other upgrades to such things as the indoor and outdoor track & field facilities, both of which were upgraded in the last few years. We haven't build a new field hockey stadium because we already have a decent field hockey stadium.
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Show me the evidence where Jurich changed the minds of Miami/FSU/Clemson (who were blockers even if UCONN would have won a majority vote). Then I'll believe differently. The way this went down in the end makes me think nobody ever asked them.
 
And I'll state this again. I'm not saying that he is the right guy for the job. If we had known going in the the conference situation would be like this he was the wrong hire because he didn't have the connections / experience. I just don't buy that he could have made 10 phone calls and gone on ESPN and changed the outcome.
 
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J187Money said:
And I'll state this again. I'm not saying that he is the right guy for the job. If we had known going in the the conference situation would be like this he was the wrong hire because he didn't have the connections / experience. I just don't buy that he could have made 10 phone calls and gone on ESPN and changed the outcome.
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NO, but he needed to do a hell of a lot more than sit under a palm tree sipping pina coladas. He did zippo. Like my guy's opponent, he ignored the competition, didn't put up a fight until it was far to late then put up a meager one. And FYI, Susan had strong ACC connections. She was a Dukie, and came from Georgia Tech where she held a faculty post, and was essentially the COO of the entire Georgia System. So I don't buy the Warde had no ACC connections either. This was a blown opportunity. By both I suspect but he is the point man on athletics. But even leaving aside the ACC debacle, he has shown exactly zero in terms of his decision-making. The list is long and I won't rehash it here. But in every thing from football helmets to football coaches, he has been a disaster.
 
whaler11 said:
If I'm homeless and spend $150 on a condo and you compare my facilities to someone who owns a $500k house that was paid for 20 years ago: seems awfully stupid to compare my 'facilities' favorably because I spent more the last decade.
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That's a bad comparison.

UConn has state of the art basketball facilities and football facilities. They are the best of the old BE teams. Have been ranked as such by ESPN even.
 
upstater said:
That's a bad comparison.

UConn has state of the art basketball facilities and football facilities. They are the best of the old BE teams. Have been ranked as such by ESPN even.
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Which is fine to compare, I just wouldn't include the money to build the rent because that was a capital investment that just got them to a baseline.
 
whaler11 said:
Which is fine to compare, I just wouldn't include the money to build the rent because that was a capital investment that just got them to a baseline.
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The bottom line: there is only so much money to go around. One wonders about the wisdom of doing it at all when that much money is spent. The fact is that Uconn will also need to build a hockey rink soon, AND some of that $1.6 billion was already allocated for soccer fields, etc. Rome wasn't built in a day, so when the foundation guy complains about the lack of fields for minor sports when the competition for instance hasn't yet invested in facilities for the major sports, how can one respond? The YUM center is certainly a Louisville facility that counts as a feather in their cap, but it's like the Civic Center, when you get down to it. Owned by another entity. If the YUM counts for Louisville, do the CC's $40m renovations count as well? Does the scoreboard at the Rent count (that's certainly an upgrade and not baseline)? I don't really care to compare in a who spent the most money match. The point is, UConn has dumped a bucketload into sports.
 
Warde defenders, answer this. Would Jurich have agreed to play a basketball game in Cincinnati on the same night as a home football game? Of course he wouldn't. By agreeing to the Maryland game, Warde might just as well have bought the ad that runs along the bottom of USA today and said "UCONN Doesn't Care About Football." And please don't give me the 2 games on ESPN line. 1 starts at 6:30, not exactly prime time. In Brooklyn, not MSG against the #75 or so team in the country so it isn't like we're taking on North Carolina. Crappy time for basketball and it would have hurt the football crowd. Now Pasqualoni bailed him out on the second part of that equation so maybe he'll get a 4th year. He did what no other major program would doeither because he has essentially given up on the vision of UConn as a major power or he's clueless. Either way, he is so far over his head in this job he needs to go.
 
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freescooter said:
Warde defenders, answer this. Would Jurich have agreed to play a basketball game in Cincinnati on the same night as a home football game? Of course he wouldn't. By agreeing to the Maryland game, Warde might just as well have bought the ad that runs along the bottom of USA today and said "UCONN Doesn't Care About Football." And please don't give me the 2 games on ESPN line. 1 starts at 6:30, not exactly prime time. In Brooklyn, not MSG against the #75 or so team in the country so it isn't like we're taking on North Carolina. Crappy time for basketball and it would have hurt the football crowd. Now Pasqualoni bailed him out on the second part of that equation so maybe he'll get a 4th year. He did what no other major program would doeither because he has essentially given up on the vision of UConn as a major power or he's clueless. Either way, he is so far over his head in this job he needs to go.
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Yeah. 6 hours straight of UConn sports on ESPN is just terrible.
 
Answer the question, how about...Would Louisville schedule a basketball game within 2 hours driving distance on the same night as a home football game? Would Florida? Would North Carolina? How about Stanford? Duke? You know the answer as well as I do. The "6 hours of UConn on ESPN" is totally irrelevant bs.
 
freescooter said:
Answer the question, how about...Would Louisville schedule a basketball game within 2 hours driving distance on the same night as a home football game? Would Florida? Would North Carolina? How about Stanford? Duke? You know the answer as well as I do. The "6 hours of UConn on ESPN" is totally irrelevant bs.
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Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they have (I assume you did the research?). UNC or Duke might have because their football programs have never really mattered. Florida probably did in the past because pre-Donovan nobody ever went to their hoops games. Of this group, only Stanford has had high level programs for a long time. *I* don't love it, because I would have actually gone to both games, so I'm probably one of the maybe 500 people that are actually affected by this. So maybe I should be pissed. But I have a hard time caring about hoops during football season anyway. There are also 30 hoops games so each game doesn't have that much importance.

And the fact that the game is in Brooklyn anyway - trust me that very few people from CT would go anyway. And if they would this time - they won't next time. Nearly an impossible trek unless you want to get home at 2am.

I imagine that the amount of people that end up watching both on TV will trump the amount of people that will miss one or the other game because of the conflict.

I know you don't like it. And you might be right. But if we got a call tomorrow and ended up in the ACC you would stop caring about this. Bottom line - you can't stand the guy. You have your reasons. So you will amplify anything you don't personally like 1000x. I get it. But it really isn't that big of a deal. It just isn't.
 
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