Warde Manuel destroyed our athletic program

[politics]

When it came time for Warde to shine, he went to the Virgin Islands to sip cocktails with a handful of womens basketball fans instead of begging ACC schools to check out our football facility and huge spending budget vs LV and Cincy. .

With all due respect, Warde could have invited the decision makers of Clemson and Florida State to Shenkman, filled the state-of-the-art hot tubs in the training rooms with the best of the Electric Blue and $1,000 bills and UConn still would have been left out of the ACC.

That said, there's some good points in the rest of the post. He definitely should have pulled the trigger on PP after year 2. That was a fail.

 

[sportsart]

Pasqualoni was mailing it in, but at least he knew how to run a college football program. diaco has no idea what he is doing.

Hathaway screwed up the Pasqualoni hire and pissed off the basketball coaches. Manuel held onto pasqualoni too long, booted the hiring of Diaco, and would have screwed up basketball too if Calhoun did not shove Ollie down his throat.

PP knew how to run a football program? Really?

Into the ground maybe.

 

[BUConn10]

Bad case of realignment-associated PTSD here.

This fanbase's collective psyche is in shambles considering the high's we have all witnessed first hand over the last two decades.

 

[FartMan69]

The College football landscape has no place for us. That's been made loud and clear. That is what destroyed our football program. We did a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong but fact is CFB is only going to get more exclusive and headed by programs like Bama, Texas etc do you really think we can actually hold on? Yeah, no we can't.

 

[BlueDogs]

Let's agree on this. It's been a friggin Shiite Show for a very long time.

 

[BlueDogs]

The College football landscape has no place for us. That's been made loud and clear. That is what destroyed our football program. We did a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong but fact is CFB is only going to get more exclusive and headed by programs like Bama, Texas etc do you really think we can actually hold on? Yeah, no we can't.

Basketball will collapse soon enough. Don't kid yourself about football not being relevant. It's all or nothing.

 

[UConnNick]

Basketball will collapse soon enough. Don't kid yourself about football not being relevant. It's all or nothing.

I'm afraid you're correct, BD. Women's BB will sustain itself for as long as Auriemma is the coach, because those recruits come to UCONN to be coached by him. They don't care what conference it is. He could be at Prairie View A&M and they'd still come.

Men's BB still has some of the cache left over from the NC season two years ago but that won't last forever without another deep NCAA tourney run soon. But on a long term basis, the fortunes of both our BB programs are tied to the same cinder block which is dragging football into oblivion.

Look at Houston for a perfect example of what happens to a former power conference school that's now over 20 years removed from being in the SWC. Take a good long, hard look. They were once just as big a deal in BB as we are. They've been to 2 NCAA tournaments in the past 25 years. That could very well be UCONN 25-30 years from now if we stay at the G5 level. They're lucky if 3,000 show up for their home games, and they play in an arena which they are proposing to re-model, which is planned to cut the capacity from 8,500 down to 7,000. They've revitalized a horrible football program over the past 12 seasons, but with all of their recent success there were still plenty of empty seats at their game v UCF today, in the nation's soon to be third largest city.

Houston is our cautionary tale about the long term future of UCONN athletics. Our pedigree will only get us so far. Without the money, it all will decline rather precipitously, and fast enough that most of us will be there to see it happen. We can't sustain this smoke and mirrors athletic dept. financing much longer.

 

[cockhrnleghrn]

There is no way to quantify the amount of damage that Warde Manuel has done to our athletic program. He never took responsibility for letting a community college that is one of the dirtiest programs in college beat us for the last spot in the ACC when EVERYONE, including Louisville, acknowledged that we had already won the invitation.

He held onto pasqualoni too long, and then replaced him with a bozo that no school was even considering making a head coach. Diaco has finished off UConn football.

Diaco's contrived trophy versus UCF is what told me he was "not ready for prime time". I'm sure you guys will make a change after this season. Maybe you can get Randy Edsall back.

 

[bigAbruns]

Diaco looked good at the start said all the right things and tricked stupid warde into hiring him. At the time, weist should have been the hire. He was already here, installed what looked to be a decent offense at the end...yes they were scoring against crappy teams, but this conference is full of crappy teams. Weist also had a unique look. He wore short sleeves in all weather. You get a recruit looking at a coach and they come across weist in short sleeves in the snow up in CT you just might get him interested or at least thinking 'this guy is tough I can play for him.'. What we got is an idiot wearing long sleeves and red pants and dances around the sidelines looking like an idiot. Diaco is just like Tennessee's coach Dooley a few years ago....he screwed up Tennessee and wore orange pants.

 

[FDNY99]

For all you hoops die hards in this thread I leave you with one thing...your precious AD Jeff hathaway..the man who truly ruined UConn Athletics by doing absolutely nothing except decimating support staff and ignoring facilities and donors! The man who couldn't get your precious practice facility even put on paper; the man who single handily was the cause of some NCAA violations and APR issues by doing away with the compliance office to save money and show productivity so he could get his precious bonus! Wade Manuel while not perfect had to clean up the show Hathaway left and in 18 months raised enough money to start the Werth Family Champions Center practice facility. You guys can bitch about Manuel all you want for hiring Diaco BUT Hathaway enabled by Phil Austin and Mike Hogan is the reason why UConn isn't in the P-5 right now!

 

[sub legacy]

It's a nice writeup, and one that I agree with mostly. I know it won't be a popular take here, though.

The only thing I can really say that Warde did well was in regards to scheduling. But as you said, when it came to matters of branding and contracts, he was extremely poor in my opinion...

Maybe they should hire me as AD. I'm a wiz at branding, and I'd at least have the balls to call Art Briles.

 

[huskyrob1]

C'mon guys. He didn't get UConn into the ACC (not entirely his fault) and it looks as if he whiffed on the football coach (as others who were hiring at the time also would have done). But he was 1,000 pct. better than Hathaway.

A BMW 6 series is 1000% better than a dented Dodge Minivan, but it doesn't matter, both can run you over and kill you. Only difference between the two is everyone wants a second hand 6 series no matter where it came from, but a dented Dodge Minivan can be embarrassing but might have some utility somewhere. That reminds me, what's Hathaway doing nowadays? LOL

 

[FDNY99]

A BMW 6 series is 1000% better than a dented Dodge Minivan, but it doesn't matter, both can run you over and kill you. Only difference between the two is everyone wants a second hand 6 series no matter where it came from, but a dented Dodge Minivan can be embarrassing but might have some utility somewhere. That reminds me, what's Hathaway doing nowadays? LOL

Running the athletic program at Hofstra into the ground! The ONLY good thing is that there isn't a football program for him to ruin. The president he works for took care of that right before he arrived.

 

[huskyrob1]

Running the athletic program at Hofstra into the ground! The ONLY good thing is that there isn't a football program for him to ruin. The president he works for took care of that right before he arrived.

I don't think the UCONN administration and athletic dept has utilized the presence of two of the greatest college coaches in the history of sports, and as far as I know, both JC and Geno still have offices right down the hall from DB. IMO if Geno had been our AD and WBC, we'd be in the ACC right now. Warde was never a salesman, which is what we needed. Geno on the other hand could sell ice cubes to the Eskimos.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Diaco's contrived trophy versus UCF is what told me he was "not ready for prime time". I'm sure you guys will make a change after this season. Maybe you can get Randy Edsall back.

Actually, when he hired all his buddies for his staff rather than bring in the best candidates he could find was the "not ready for prime time" tip off for me.

 

[FDNY99]

I don't think the UCONN administration and athletic dept has utilized the presence of two of the greatest college coaches in the history of sports, and as far as I know, both JC and Geno still have offices right down the hall from DB. IMO if Geno had been our AD and WBC, we'd be in the ACC right now. Warde was never a salesman, which is what we needed. Geno on the other hand could sell ice cubes to the Eskimos.

Try talking to any of the coaches who have been there through Hathaway, Manuel and now Benedict. Listen to their stories. Hathaway neglected all facilities, ran the dept on the cheap to show productivity to get his bonus. JH and gene hated his guts and it's no secret why he was terminated by Herbst shortly after he was hired because he basically got called out for what he was..a do nothing, lying ! Wade was hired to clean up the APR mess and solidify the department and facilities..which he did. The short time he was here he got more done in facilities wise than Hathaway did in 8 years.

 

[huskyrob1]

Try talking to any of the coaches who have been there through Hathaway, Manuel and now Benedict. Listen to their stories. Hathaway neglected all facilities, ran the dept on the cheap to show productivity to get his bonus. JH and gene hated his guts and it's no secret why he was terminated by Herbst shortly after he was hired because he basically got called out for what he was..a do nothing, lying ! Wade was hired to clean up the APR mess and solidify the department and facilities..which he did. The short time he was here he got more done in facilities wise than Hathaway did in 8 years.

Warde was OK, did some good things, but IMO he was the wrong guy at the wrong time, meaning conference realignment time. I'll say one thing for Warde, he certainly had his eyes open in the state while he was here, the top two recruits in the state this year (Ben Mason and Andrew Steuber) both committed to Michigan. Lol

Football Recruiting - 2015 Prospect Rankings, Team Commit Rankings, Analysis - Scout Front Page

 

[FDNY99]

Warde was OK, did some good things, but IMO he was the wrong guy at the wrong time, meaning conference realignment time. I'll say one thing for Warde, he certainly had his eyes open in the state while he was here, the top two recruits in the state this year (Ben Mason and Andrew Steuber) both committed to Michigan. Lol

Conference realignment time was finished for UConn long before Warde arrived at UConn...Hathaway was out maneuvered by Jurich facility wise and he made the HORRENDOUS hire of Pasqualoni. Believe what you want but if you ever get the chance to find out what really happened you will realize that decision the ACC made wasn't based off of anything Warde Manuel did or didn't do. If you want to place blame on the state of UConn Athletics blame the person who deserves it in Jeff Hathaway not the easy mark in Warde Manuel.

 

[UConnDan97]

Maybe they should hire me as AD. I'm a wiz at branding, and I'd at least have the balls to call Art Briles.

In guessing you're being sarcastic, but my sarcasm meter has been broken for a while.

I don't want Briles within 100 miles of my campus, since I believe he knew about the reported Kavanaughed at Baylor.

As for Warde, some are making a false assumption that criticizing him is defending Hathaway. Hathaway stunk, period. For some here, criticizing things Warde did is akin to saying he was the worst (including the OP). And it wasn't just the branding. The contract situations for both Ollie and Diaco were poorly handled. Thank goodness for Calhoun's intervention on that one. But I'm not going to rehash every moment of the past here. If you ask me if which of our former ADs I would have back at UCONN, it would be Perkins hands down...

 

[sub legacy]

In guessing you're being sarcastic, but my sarcasm meter has been broken for a while.

I don't want Briles within 100 miles of my campus, since I believe he knew about the reported Kavanaughed at Baylor.

As for Warde, some are making a false assumption that criticizing him is defending Hathaway. Hathaway stunk, period. For some here, criticizing things Warde did is akin to saying he was the worst (including the OP). And it wasn't just the branding. The contract situations for both Ollie and Diaco were poorly handled. Thank goodness for Calhoun's intervention on that one. But I'm not going to rehash every moment of the past here. If you ask me if which of our former ADs I would have back at UCONN, it would be Perkins hands down...

Reservation about Briles is understandable. UConn needs a splash (offensive) hire bad, though. And just because they hire an offensive coach doesn't mean they have to abandon defense. Just wish the Athletic Department would take the program seriously enough to realize that and stop hiring no-name coordinators with no experience or willingness and to adapt to modern football. UConn is just a stepping stone to those guys. Hire someone who actively wants the win; not just going through the motions to pad their resume.

 

[buddy]

Conference realignment time was finished for UConn long before Warde arrived at UConn...Hathaway was out maneuvered by Jurich facility wise and he made the HORRENDOUS hire of Pasqualoni. Believe what you want but if you ever get the chance to find out what really happened you will realize that decision the ACC made wasn't based off of anything Warde Manuel did or didn't do. If you want to place blame on the state of UConn Athletics blame the person who deserves it in Jeff Hathaway not the easy mark in Warde Manuel.

I generally agree with most your posts, but CR was not finished before Warde arrived. The fact that UConn was selected, then blackballed by BC in one of the earlier moves by the ACC indicated that UConn was still viable and would have been chosen if not for BC. By the time of the Louisville selection, I suspect that at that time Cr was finished for UConn, but there was a chance before that. As far as Warde, I suspect that he was penciled in at Michigan before he came to UConn and it was only a matter of time before he took that position there. He almost left, you may recall, about 2 years after coming to UConn, I believe.

 

[FDNY99]

I generally agree with most your posts, but CR was not finished before Warde arrived. The fact that UConn was selected, then blackballed by BC in one of the earlier moves by the ACC indicated that UConn was still viable and would have been chosen if not for BC. By the time of the Louisville selection, I suspect that at that time Cr was finished for UConn, but there was a chance before that. As far as Warde, I suspect that he was penciled in at Michigan before he came to UConn and it was only a matter of time before he took that position there. He almost left, you may recall, about 2 years after coming to UConn, I believe.

Yeah true about CR but by that time Pasqualoni a Hathaway hire had the football running into the ground at full speed and the fact Jurich beat Hathaway at every upgrade facility wise sealed our fate.

 

[Stainmaster]

Are people seriously arguing that Weist's short sleeves are a reason in favor of hiring him full-time? Yikes.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Honestly, who cares about college hockey! It's just a money losing sink hole.

Yeah, a sink hole for all of those Hockey East programs.
Comparing NCAA College Hockey Revenues For 2010

 

[bigAbruns]

Are people seriously arguing that Weist's short sleeves are a reason in favor of hiring him full-time? Yikes.

No, saying it can be used as a recruiting tool to a young player compared to a moron in red pants