Some Guy’s Exit Interview with Susan Herbst

[noeynox]

Just curious, are the national championships that we won during her tenure also a part of her legacy "on the sports side?"

Sure. Depends on what people remember. I will always remember going from BCS to group of five status, but if what sticks out to you from her time here is the national titles then sure.

The emails between her and Paul Pendergast were very telling. Caught totally flat footed.

Its not all negative. The national titles count. Remains to be seen how competitive we will be nationally as time goes by in our new reality outside the power structure of college athletics.

 

[Towney007]

The problem with football in CT is football. Not where it’s located.

Also they’re having huge student attendance issues everywhere. Not just here. UMass actually has a great tailgate scene and you can’t get anyone in the stadium. The market is saturated and students are priced out.

There’s also zero football culture in this region.

 

[Towney007]

The continual bitching and moaning about having to drive from Fairfield Co. to Storrs for games is comical. In other parts of the country, people think nothing of driving a few up to several hours to attend weekend games. If an extra half hour drive to Storrs is too much for anyone to handle, you meet Chief's definition of a casual fan.

Good luck telling them they’re all just lazy and
That if they were real fans they’d drive four hours to games like they do in Iowa

 

[SubbaBub]

I like your thinking, but unfortunately a lot of those 15,000 students wouldn't be interested in football or would have other things going on. That said, having your football field 30 minutes from campus is certainly not helping student attendance.

This. Alumni and locals fill FB stadiums. How many students attend BB games?

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Weeknight games are tough even if the commute is easy. But footfall isn't basketball. With only 6 home games a year football games are more of an event. Again tailgating before a basketball game isn't really a thing (though I know people who do it.)

Point with RU or West Point is just the getting people in and out of the stadium is manageable. RU doesn't do much right, but they off load their stadium crowd pretty efficiently.

Rutgers has the benefit of the stadium being dab in the middle of two major highways (95/287) which is the same as The Rent (84/95). I've been to Rutgers games and the feel to me, is pretty much the same as for as a collegiate atmosphere. Rutgers NB is so segmented and spread out that a parking lot in East Hartford feels the same as one of Busch Campus in Piscataway.

 

[Kathy]

I like your thinking, but unfortunately a lot of those 15,000 students wouldn't be interested in football or would have other things going on. That said, having your football field 30 minutes from campus is certainly not helping student attendance.

Not a huge football fan, but when I went to UConn and games were in campus I went to alot for the social aspect. Would have never gotten on a bus and travel 30+ minutes each way

 

[CL82]

Sure. Depends on what people remember. I will always remember going from BCS to group of five status, but if what sticks out to you from her time here is the national titles then sure.

The emails between her and Paul Pendergast were very telling. Caught totally flat footed.

Its not all negative. The national titles count. Remains to be seen how competitive we will be nationally as time goes by in our new reality outside the power structure of college athletics.

Lol, I think it is fair to say I will remember both the nation championships in multiple sports, the end of the BCS system and the evisceration of the Big East. The thing is I'm not sure we can say she much impact on any of it. Yeah as a new president she "was caught flatfooted by BE departures a process which began before her tenure. I'm curious though, if you believe it was in her power to change that. While I'll agree there are moments, with the benefit of hindsight, that I would have preferred she be more (sometimes) or less (sometimes) proactive but I strongly doubt the outcome would have changed.

I'm not sure where things will go from here. I do not see a path for us to gain P5 status. Our best hope is a breakaway from the NCAA of the top 100 football school, which I presume would include the AAC.

 

[CL82]

Rutgers has the benefit of the stadium being dab in the middle of two major highways (95/287) which is the same as The Rent (84/95). I've been to Rutgers games and the feel to me, is pretty much the same as for as a collegiate atmosphere. Rutgers NB is so segmented and spread out that a parking lot in East Hartford feels the same as one of Busch Campus in Piscataway.

Rutgers Stadium is on River Road, not 95 or 287. If you ever exited a game there you will remember that they designate certain back roads as exit routes and convert traffic there as one way using both lanes. The same could work us in Storrs. Not that it is going to happen in the near future.

 

[ucp990411]

Just curious, are the national championships that we won during her tenure also a part of her legacy "on the sports side?"

It is not the wins and losses that I criticize or complement her for. It is the financial hardships placed on the University during her tenure. There was an opportunity to join a P5 conference which did not happen. This incompetence cost millions and as head of the school she ultimately should be held accountable.

 

[CL82]

It is not the wins and losses that I criticize or complement her for. It is the financial hardships placed on the University during her tenure. There was an opportunity to join a P5 conference which did not happen. This incompetence cost millions and as head of the school she ultimately should be held accountable.

Okay so what did she do or fail to do that resulted in our status as top G5 school. If you say she didn't get us a P5 slot, you aren't really saying anything are you.

As I noted above I don't think there was any single action she could have taken that would have changed on current status. I understand you frustration but I think it is misdirected.

 

[Chief00]

Interesting to see that the lack of SNY really is a sticking point with the American. It looks like they are taking advantage of UConn there.

But also, I've always agreed with her point about the football stadium: "Rentschler is a beautiful field. It’s just wrongly placed. It wouldn’t take too much imagination to fantasize about football being on the Storrs campus. What kind of numbers and excitement it would bring. That’s a thing I didn’t understand before I came here. It was baffling. It’s a problem. It’s hard to get students down there. Get on the bus. Wait for the bus. It’s too far.”

This has always been true. When you have a base of 15,000 students attending each game, it really helps you. That means you only need to attract 15,000 fans to Storrs for average games so you can have a 3/4 filled stadium. It should always have been in Storrs.

If she was really informed/transparent she would realize students do travel to The Rent in masses BUT they don’t go in the stadium.

 

[J187Money]

Very soft. I still wonder why she has not been held accountable for failing in conference realignment. Other presidents were successful in selling their schools to the ACC, Big 10 or Bug 12 but she did not. The media in CT is wat too kind to her.

Held accountable how?

 

[upstater]

You are out of your mind if you think 63% or the student body is going to attend football games.

And that’s one article of hundreds about schools all over the country. Clemson is going to oversell their student tickets because so many kids why buy them don’t show up.

Attendance sucks because it’s the worst program in the country. The. Absolute. Worst.

Her doubletalk while Edsall is paying raises out of his own salary should be offensive to anyone with even a fraction of a clue.

Still thinking smalltime. If you want a program at all, you need to build on the student attendance. Alabama is complaining about kids leaving early during a blowout against no one. Totally different situation. The comparison for UConn should be UVa, North Carolina, Maryland.

 

[UCDaveD]

Held accountable how?

LOCK HER UP!

 

[UConnNick]

Okay so what did she do or fail to do that resulted in our status as top G5 school. If you say she didn't get us a P5 slot, you aren't really saying anything are you.

As I noted above I don't think there was any single action she could have taken that would have changed on current status. I understand you anger but I think it misdirected.

She could have paid less attention to her contacts at Duke that were telling her it was in the bag, and more attention to Jurich and his slickly crafted advertising campaign. She let a worm with a morally bankrupt AD and community college academics outwit her into getting the necessary votes. She acted like an incumbent. Maybe if she had been proactive all along it would have worked and maybe it wouldn't have, but she didn't even bother to try and make our case. Jurich was the only one doing all the talking, and the ACC was listening. For that lack of action she deserves all the blame.

 

[whaler11]

Still thinking smalltime. If you want a program at all, you need to build on the student attendance. Alabama is complaining about kids leaving early during a blowout against no one. Totally different situation. The comparison for UConn should be UVa, North Carolina, Maryland.

Those days are long over. North Carolina and Maryland don’t draw flies.

They aren’t coming back.

 

[CL82]

She could have paid less attention to her contacts at Duke that were telling her it was in the bag, and more attention to Jurich and his slickly crafted advertising campaign. She let a worm with a morally bankrupt AD and community college academics outwit her into getting the necessary votes. She acted like an incumbent. Maybe if she had been proactive all along it would have worked and maybe it wouldn't have, but she didn't even bother to try and make our case. For that lack of action she deserves all the blame.

Pretty much agree with all but the last sentence. I'm not sure that any of that would have matter one whit. FSU was flexing it's muscles. To win we would have had to appeal directly to them. Hard for Herbst to know to do that and I doubt she would have been effective, even if she did. I agree that once Louisville started getting loud she and Manual should left the Virgin Islands and reached out to ACC school presidents to get the lay of the land and make our case. It likely wouldn't have mattered but the optics would have been better to the fan base.

 

[UConnNick]

Pretty much agree with all but the last sentence. I'm not sure that any of that would have matter one whit. FSU was flexing it's muscles. To win we would have had to appeal directly to them. Hard for Herbst to know to do that and I doubt she would have been effective, even if she did. I agree that once Louisville started getting loud she and Manual should left the Virgin Islands and reached out to ACC school presidents to get the lay of the land and make our case. It likely wouldn't have mattered but the optics would have been better to the fan base.

Regardless of what the outcome might have been, even if we lost anyway, I'd have preferred to go down with all of our guns blazing. We didn't, and now no one will ever know what would have happened if we had.

 

[Ha Who]

Pretty much agree with all but the last sentence. I'm not sure that any of that would have matter one whit. FSU was flexing it's muscles. To win we would have had to appeal directly to them. Hard for Herbst to know to do that and I doubt she would have been effective, even if she did. I agree that once Louisville started getting loud she and Manual should left the Virgin Islands and reached out to ACC school presidents to get the lay of the land and make our case. It likely wouldn't have mattered but the optics would have been better to the fan base.

Don’t forget about Donna Shitlala

 

[ucp990411]

Okay so what did she do or fail to do that resulted in our status as top G5 school. If you say she didn't get us a P5 slot, you aren't really saying anything are you.

As I noted above I don't think there was any single action she could have taken that would have changed on current status. I understand you frustration but I think it is misdirected.

See UConn Nick beliw

 

[uconnyankee]

i always said by putting the stadium where they did would disengage the student base and thus not build any kind of alumni interest that is needed to sustain a big time program. My daughter graduated in 2016 and although she is a sports fan she did not care about football because it was so difficult to go to games. If it was on campus I guarantee she would have gone to every game and as an alum she still would be going to games. But she still does not care. Men’s basketball however she loves. On March 29 I called her and asked her if she knew what day it was. She said of course. She was 4 years old in 1999! I guess I brought her up right.

Wondering if the success of the programs play a role. Flip a FB NC for 6 years of losing and 3 coaches in BB.
Something tells me students would find E Hartford.

 

[CL82]

Funny to again read how she was shocked that we don't have a D1 lacrosse team. One last hurrah.

I really think she was trolling Whaler with that comment.

 

[FartMan69]

Lunatics using Penn Freakin’ State as a benchmark for this clown car program. Good lord. Acting like we should have had all this tradition pop up out of nowhere and that all the folks in this state should start caring about a program out of the blue is absolute banana land. We aren’t Penn State, Maryland, UVA etc. those are just fantasies in a crazy person’s mind.

 

[BY06518]

So hopping on a bus as a student is more difficult than as an alum buying full price tickets, driving, paying for parking, etc.?

I get that more students would go if the stadium is on campus. But if the stadium was moved to on campus you're getting the students who don't really care about football but its something to do. But those aren't the people who might become life long fans and buy season tickets as alums. They are already going.

You mean all 300 people.

 

[BY06518]

This. Alumni and locals fill FB stadiums. How many students attend BB games?

More than attend our football games that's for sure.