Manuel to serve on council of ADs

[Dann]

So, while you were out for pizza with KO, Bazz, Geno and Smallwood did they tell you who they would prefer or did they just join in on a real life version of one of your incessant b1tching sessions?

pizza? buddy come on now you don't know the company line? we all met at dunkin for coffee collates and blueberry muffins. btw nice fish in your avi, reminds me of some 1.

 

[huskymedic]

David Borges (@DaveBorges)
6/19/13, 8:07 AM
Manuel "honored" to be named to Mark Emmert's 10-person council of athletic directors. AD's selected members, not Emmert.

 

[Husky25]

I wonder if the coffee is stapled after it is collated. Maybe a 3-hole punch? Please consider the environment before printing.

 

[Dann]

-how many season tickets have we sold?
-where are the commercials for marketing season tickets?
-we have yet to say sorry to the fans for a humiliating spring game and atmosphere. no matter injuries you can still run around on a field for more than 37 minutes total and do more than just open gates.
-what is our strategic plan for 2018 and 2025. whats the vision?
-how come we need a arbys and a build a bear in the rent parking lot but not a expanded stadium?

i can go on....but warde wont be here to address these things because hes having fruit punch with a guy who tried to kill our basketball program.


i show up to your house. stick a gun if your face and rob you. as i run back to my car to add injury i shoot you in the leg. it takes you a couple years to walk like normal again. then once your able to, you come down to my vacation home i built with your stolen money and have a week of drinks and fishing and fun.

SOUND OKAY TO YOU??????

 

[sdhusky]

KO don't like warde
Bazz thinks warde is dumb for stringing the team along
Geno doesn't like how things went with warde
warde put that new silly middle school helmet on smallwoods head for the uniform thing. he may be a 1st rounder this fall and thats what espn will pick picture wise for sure so we look like a stupid program. every kid is going to say, "man uconn is some weird bad word insert" cartoon bs little kids crap. warde needs to go play in a sandbox with kids and let men handle that job.
the BB facility was not wardes baby, he wasn't the one who pushed it and hes not the one out there every day with shiny boots pointing fingers at the cat machines and steal beams.

MORE COWBELL

So when you said everything sucked, you were full of crap as usual.

 

[formerlurker]

Zona is just a filler for the pac. The ad there has no pull. Same with kst. Tosu sent smith to help save face znd get some positive press after the past couple weeks. Uk means nothing to the sec. I dont know how to rxplain clemson. Its ghe acc trying to look strong at a meeting of little guys i guess. All thats missi g is the tulane ad. He should be there. Not warde. WRde should be selli g football tickets and wotking on scheduli g his first bcs conference ooc game sincehes been here. Just 1. Thats all i ask for hezvens sake.

That may change soon http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf...-reach-top-recruiting-rankings-151833076.html

 

[Dann]

That may change soon http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf...-reach-top-recruiting-rankings-151833076.html

its early. they barely have a top 25 class at the end of the year. no 5's and only a couple 4's. they just have almost a full class already. just wait until the usuals suspects all get 15+ commits each.

he can be successful there i think because its been such a mess for a while. pay well and be quiet.

 

[CL82]

Look, the worst you can say about this is it's extra work and travel and if he works the same number of hours a week, it's less time for more important things.

But, assuming he can hire assistants to take work off his plate and/or work longer hours, it can only be a good thing. More networking, more visibility. It will either help UConn make connections, or it will help Warde make connections for his next job. Somebody will benefit from it.

I think there is a very subtle 'rebranding' of UConn happening and the new logo is just part of it. While we know the APR sanctions were rigged (punished twice for the same years score, rule applied retroactively when UConn's score was know, NCAA ignored current data that would have had UConn in the NCAAs last year), we have had a PR issue. KO is new charismatic face, Warde is on some BS committee, all the talk is academics, etc. We are making a PR run here and that's a good thing.

Now if we had called BS earlier in the sanction process, and pushed back we likely would not have gotten the sanctions in the first place but 'the moving finger has writ' on that....

 

[pj]

That may change soon http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf...-reach-top-recruiting-rankings-151833076.html

Bad news for the B1G if Kentucky can get the top Ohio recruits to the SEC.

 

[HuskyHawk]

This is a positive. UConn needs to avoid being forgotten and becoming irrelevant. So anytime we're on the radar, it's a plus. Until we get a landing spot, we need to be the loudest guy in the room.

 

[freescooter]

I think there is a very subtle 'rebranding' of UConn happening and the new logo is just part of it. While we know the APR sanctions were rigged (punished twice for the same years score, rule applied retroactively when UConn's score was know, NCAA ignored current data that would have had UConn in the NCAAs last year), we have had a PR issue. KO is new charismatic face, Warde is on some BS committee, all the talk is academics, etc. We are making a PR run here and that's a good thing.

Now if we had called BS earlier in the sanction process, and pushed back we likely would not have gotten the sanctions in the first place but 'the moving finger has writ' on that....

I agree with the premise that we're rebranding, but I don't think it is that subtle and I don't think it is upward, at least as far as athletics is concerned. And I agree that Warde is on some BS committee. To me that's for the good. With any luck at all he impresses the Ohio State guy and they offer him a job as deputy associate to the assistant commissioner of the Big and he goes away. I think he has been no more than adequate at most things. Bad on some. And even if you disagree, he had one overriding issue on his watch. And he choked. All the re-branding in the world isn't getting us over that. And even if you buy the line that everything else he did has been great, indeed rock star like, given the thing he whiffed on, that is like saying Whitey Bulger was good to his family. But we're Hathaway Shirts...Once the iconic men's shirt which tried to rebrand to sell itself in Marshalls and TJ Maxx in the late 70s when it was losing competition to foreign made lower cost brands.

I'm with Dan mostly on this. I'd have fired the guy the day Louisville was selected to move to the ACC. Warde, don't bother returning to Storrs from the Islands. Just tell us where to send your things. office is all packed and the movers are waiting. Since he's been back it hasn't gotten any better. He fanned on the whole new uniform thing. He fanned on the new logo. So far he's fanned on the football schedule. And for the 2nd consecutive year he's fanned on the basketball schedule and he's scheduled a basketball game on football signing day. Probably happen again next year. When you're trying to build momentum for a program you don't do that. He's fanned on marketing the football season ticket packages, which is almost impossible to do with the schedule we have coming to the Rent this year. This guy is as bad as Hathaway. Just in different areas. Hathaway screwed thing up, for sure, and he was a miserable, petty, nasty about it, but he wasn't worse than this guy. He got the Michigan games. He got the Tennessee games. He understood that football needed its own identity and he tried in his own way to nuture it. Warde doesn't get that we don't have Michigan's football tradition, so you have to do special things and think about ways to both differentiate it and focus on it. He might not have done it right, but at least he had a logical plan. I could go on for pages on all the things this guy has screwed up. For me the bottom line is I'm not donating any more money to the Athletic Development fund until either he is history or we end up in a major conference. I've taken the money I used to give there and simply increased my donation to the academic side. Now I know that the athletic department isn't closing because of losing my modest contribution, nor is the University building a new chemistry building with the increase, but it is a statement on my part of what I think of what is going on with the leadership of the athletic department. My sense is Susan Herbst doesn't much care about athletics so long as it doesn't embarrass her (though she mustn't have seen the new helmets) and if she had her druthers we'd be in the NESCAC rather than the AAC or even the ACC. And Warde is more or less left on his own to run a department that nobody in authority cares about. His mandate is to run a program as cheaply as possible, with a minimum of fuss and a minimum of negative publicity. We still have a couple of long time holdovers (Reid, Penders, Geno) who will demand excellence from their teams, but going forward mediocrity is the watchword. If nodoby cares, nobody will be upset when we drop football and play Patriot League level basketball.

 

[J187Money]

Free-your premise is that if someone better was hired as AD at the same time Warde was we would be in the B1G or ACC today?

It is a theory. But there appears to be a lot of evidence to the contrary.

 

[huskypantz]

Jurich has had 17 years to mold the AD at Louisville. Manuel has been on the job for less than 17 months.

 

[freescooter]

Free-your premise is that if someone better was hired as AD at the same time Warde was we would be in the B1G or ACC today?

It is a theory. But there appears to be a lot of evidence to the contrary.

JT I respect your opinion. But I think you are wrong on this. My friend from Um tells me they didn't want UConn but were resigned to it. Couldn't believe UL pulled it off. Even if he is exaggerating, and he texted me welcome to the ACC, Manuel had 1 job above all others...protect the program. He failed. Nothing he has done changes that. As I said, whitey Bulger was nice to his mother...

 

[UConnDan97]

KO don't like warde
Bazz thinks warde is dumb for stringing the team along
Geno doesn't like how things went with warde
warde put that new silly middle school helmet on smallwoods head for the uniform thing. he may be a 1st rounder this fall and thats what espn will pick picture wise for sure so we look like a stupid program. every kid is going to say, "man uconn is some weird bad word insert" cartoon bs little kids crap. warde needs to go play in a sandbox with kids and let men handle that job.
the BB facility was not wardes baby, he wasn't the one who pushed it and hes not the one out there every day with shiny boots pointing fingers at the cat machines and steal beams.

You'll catch crap for this post, but I have to admit that there is at least some truth to each and every thing you've written. Perhaps a re-write makes it more easily digested:

1) KO would likely prefer not to have a carb-free beer with WM at the bar.
2) Bazz likely does think that WM is dumb for stringing the team along (I won't re-write that one).
3) Geno doesn't like how things went with WM (I won't re-write that one either, mostly because a truly "Geno" re-write would be more severe).
4) The helmet is not a classic look, irrespective of what role WM played in making the decision on them.
5) The BB facility was not WM's creation.

Now having said all that, it is always better for UConn to get more exposure than less. To the extent that his being on the committee helps us get our name out there nationally and keeps us relevant in the eyes of college sports, I think it's a good thing. I'm happy for him and for the university that he has been named to this group, despite the aforementioned re-written details...

 

[J187Money]

JT I respect your opinion. But I think you are wrong on this. My friend from Um tells me they didn't want UConn but were resigned to it. Couldn't believe UL pulled it off. Even if he is exaggerating, and he texted me welcome to the ACC, Manuel had 1 job above all others...protect the program. He failed. Nothing he has done changes that. As I said, whitey Bulger was nice to his mother...

I have no inside knowledge on this one. Just going by everything I've read I didn't think we had a realistic chance by the time things started moving. And Warde was dealt a sandwich. That doesn't mean he is great but I'm not sure anyone else would have sealed the deal. That's all I'm saying.

 

[freescooter]

I have no inside knowledge on this one. Just going by everything I've read I didn't think we had a realistic chance by the time things started moving. And Warde was dealt a sandwich. That doesn't mean he is great but I'm not sure anyone else would have sealed the deal. That's all I'm saying.

I don't know for sure. That isn't what I heard and I think what I heard is pretty consistent with what most people thought going into the whole ACC thing. Louisville had to play it right and Jurich did. Warde had a 3 shot lead coming down the final 2 holes and bogied them both while Jurich needed a birdie at 18 and got it.

Though I agree with you that Manuel was dealt a pretty weak hand. When your President doesn't care it doesn't make the job that easy. But he was, in my opinion, the wrong choice He was brought in for 1 reason and 1 reason only; the job he did on improving Buffalo's APR. We needed an established AD with national stature. We got the guy who cleaned up Buffalo's APR mess. And I was originally a pro Warde guy...but in hind sight he was the worst possible choice..Oh, and one of his claims to fame on his old UB page was that he replace the UB Bull logo with a "sleeker" version. Rumor has it he thought the previous one was a bison bull but Buffalo's bull was an Angus.

 

[J187Money]

Interesting. But I guess that gives us hope in some sense. If better execution means we win in the next round, at least it is possible. If we are doomed forever then it doesn't matter. Now we just need to execute.

 

[woomba]

Bad news for the B1G if Kentucky can get the top Ohio recruits to the SEC.

The Stoops family is really respected in Ohio and they have the pedigree of success. He's not getting the top Ohio guys but the non-power Big Ten teams are being forced to cast a wider net than before - probably why we're seeing more offers coming out of PA/NJ/MD than in the past.

 

[sdhusky]

I don't know for sure. That isn't what I heard

Haven't we just established that you make things up non-stop and "what I heard" is total BS?

 

[freescooter]

Haven't we just established that you make things up non-stop and "what I heard" is total BS?

In fact no. You think Manuel did a fine job on conference realignment, have at it and defend him. You think he had no chance and UConn wasn't the frontrunner, provide some evidence to that fact. Here's the problem with this, you guys want to believe he did all he could. I have been told by people I trust that he got completely out foxed by Louisville and Jurich. Having watched the way he got played by Calhoun on Ollie, and then by Ollie himself on his contract, I tend to think he got badly out played. And you're argument is essentially to accept a bunch of self serving claptrap out of Warde and Susan. Nobody knows the truth for sure. On Tulane, nobody will admit to agreeing to adding them. But do you really think the commissioner did that based on the input of only Central Florida who wasn't even a formal member yet? That he didn't get an ok at a minimum from Herbst? If you believe all that, call me. make you a great deal on this bridge I got real cheap...

 

[huskymedic]

In fact no. You think Manuel did a fine job on conference realignment, have at it and defend him. You think he had no chance and UConn wasn't the frontrunner, provide some evidence to that fact. Here's the problem with this, you guys want to believe he did all he could. I have been told by people I trust that he got completely out foxed by Louisville and Jurich. Having watched the way he got played by Calhoun on Ollie, and then by Ollie himself on his contract, I tend to think he got badly out played. And you're argument is essentially to accept a bunch of self serving claptrap out of Warde and Susan. Nobody knows the truth for sure. On Tulane, nobody will admit to agreeing to adding them. But do you really think the commissioner did that based on the input of only Central Florida who wasn't even a formal member yet? That he didn't get an ok at a minimum from Herbst? If you believe all that, call me. make you a great deal on this bridge I got real cheap...

My sense is you know no more or no less than anyone else here the majority of the time but craft your responses and comments to make it appear to be gospel if you don't look for the subtle disclaimers.

 

[sdhusky]

In fact no. You think Manuel did a fine job on conference realignment, have at it and defend him. You think he had no chance and UConn wasn't the frontrunner, provide some evidence to that fact. Here's the problem with this, you guys want to believe he did all he could. I have been told by people I trust that he got completely out foxed by Louisville and Jurich. Having watched the way he got played by Calhoun on Ollie, and then by Ollie himself on his contract, I tend to think he got badly out played. And you're argument is essentially to accept a bunch of self serving claptrap out of Warde and Susan. Nobody knows the truth for sure. On Tulane, nobody will admit to agreeing to adding them. But do you really think the commissioner did that based on the input of only Central Florida who wasn't even a formal member yet? That he didn't get an ok at a minimum from Herbst? If you believe all that, call me. make you a great deal on this bridge I got real cheap...

No. It wasn't that. It was when you made up stuff. That's when I said you talked out of your .

Not because of our AD. Or Football coach. or UoL's AD. or Tulane.

It's because you make stuff up. Lie.

I call it talking out of your . But its all the same.

 

[J187Money]

Free - the problem that I have with your line of reasoning is this, and I will probably get killed for saying it.

If I was the ACC I'm not sure I don't pick Louisville over UConn. The thought that it was our slot and it was stolen from us just doesn't ring true to me. I know that I'm not a student of the CR game and know all of the ins and outs of TV contracts and DMAs, but when this got done they were ahead.

APR, Calhoun leaving, football still not widely respected, all are factors.

In the long run I think we will prove to be the better program. But in the long run I also believe we end up in a power conference. Like I said, I don't follow the ins and outs of this like some of you do, but all of the key facts and figures about all of the candidates are public. We were both on a list. 1 and 1a. Some of the ACC schools wanted us. Some wanted LV. And some actively were against us if you believe what you read. Was anyone actively against LV? I've never heard as such.

Could Warde and Herbst have convinced FSU, Miami, BC and Clemson to change their minds? I have no idea. But it always seemed to be uphill with the ACC. I think that we were a bit deluded thinking this was a lay up.

 

[upstater]

Free - the problem that I have with your line of reasoning is this, and I will probably get killed for saying it.

If I was the ACC I'm not sure I don't pick Louisville over UConn. The thought that it was our slot and it was stolen from us just doesn't ring true to me. I know that I'm not a student of the CR game and know all of the ins and outs of TV contracts and DMAs, but when this got done they were ahead.

APR, Calhoun leaving, football still not widely respected, all are factors.

In the long run I think we will prove to be the better program. But in the long run I also believe we end up in a power conference. Like I said, I don't follow the ins and outs of this like some of you do, but all of the key facts and figures about all of the candidates are public. We were both on a list. 1 and 1a. Some of the ACC schools wanted us. Some wanted LV. And some actively were against us if you believe what you read. Was anyone actively against LV? I've never heard as such.

Could Warde and Herbst have convinced FSU, Miami, BC and Clemson to change their minds? I have no idea. But it always seemed to be uphill with the ACC. I think that we were a bit deluded thinking this was a lay up.

I am not writing this to back up Free at all, but I'd point out that even Jurich said UConn was penned in.

This goes back to 2011 when UConn had the probation and APR issues too and it was surely a candidate to join. Remember, too, that Ville also had the same APR problems UConn had, so it's irrelevant.

But in 2011, the expansion started with UConn and Syracuse, then BC nixed it in committee.

Something really funky happened after. You had the UVa people (a mix of people with UConn and Notre Dame ties) come out in the media talking about an expanded ACC expansion. Some insiders on ACC message boards were reporting that ND and UConn were about to be added. It was in many newspapers. We began to talk about this on this board.

A week after that, the Blaudschun article interviewing Flipper appeared, and it confirmed what a couple insiders said on some boards (for instance, a Villanova poster on the Rutgers board laid out the same dang story about UConn being the initial choice and BC blocking them). While people focused on the BC-blocking-UConn angle, the ACC and the BE offices were focused on a poison pill in the story.

Flipper claimed that ESPN engineered everything. And, ESPN engineering the inclusion of UConn and the addition of ND might have made sense in a variety of ways. It would have gotten two big TV draws onto ESPN's permanent ACC platter. Such an expanded expansion would have also overridden any of BC's blocks.

After the article came out, Flipper was called to the principal's office and read the riot act. Pitt, Syracuse, the ACC offices, and especially ESPN were incensed. The BE offices were no doubt mighty interested in what the Flipper had to say. The same insiders reporting info before were saying that Flipper had essentially killed ACC expansion for a future year for fear that ESPN's involvement would come up in legal action. ND as well was probably driving a harder bargain at the time since joining the ACC meant giving up traditional football games in the midwest. And, as long as UConn and Ville were still around, ND wasn't desperate yet.

In a nutshell, UConn should have already been in the ACC. It was Florida St's peevishness at Tobacco Road that allowed them to pull a power play (after accusing the ACC offices of looking out for bball and not for football), just to show who is boss. They proved their point.