Warde - once and for all - define your vision

[huskymedic]

Amazing isnt it?

Still had it on my phone from that night... NCST @ Garden.

 

[FBUCONN]

Vision?

 

[FBUCONN]

Saw WM walking outside the XL Center on Friday eveing before the MBB game. Had his full attention on his smart phone. No interaction with fams waiting to enter the vensue. How about a little eye contact or a hand shake or two? Can't hurt.

 

[Nostical]

Eye contact and handshakes? If he reads this board, be thankful he didn't slip in the back door.

 

[freescooter]

I really don't think Manuel was brought in to provide a vision of anything. he was brought in to be the technician who runs the department. His job is to get the basketball center built, make sure that everyone is in compliance, schedule games, hire/fire coaches oversee the transition to Hockey East, and most importantly, make sure there is no academic embarrassement like the APR failure. But it isn't his job to present a vison for the athletic department. The current university leadership wants to set the vision for everything. And athletics is not a major component compared to increasing the research base, upping university academic prestige and so on. First and foremost, though, is to make sure that athletic teams don't cause any embarrassment. It isn't that dissimilar to what happened to Miami under Shalala. Stop embarrassing the University. Stop losing money. Be competitive within the conference but beyond that don't worry about it. Winning a championship of the watered down Big East, even if it doesn't mean anything and not that many people care is fine. Anything beyond that is gravy.

 

[Dann]

are u for real?

 

[freescooter]

I you mean me, I am. I've been saying for some time that athletics isn't a priority with the current leadership, mainly Susan Herbst. UConn goes to the ACC , that's fine. Goes to the B-10, that's great. Stays in the Big East, that's fine, too. Don't get me wrong, she doesn't want it to fail. But if she also isn't going to go beyond the minimum level of support a college president must give to sports in this day and age, and if it means UConn stays forever in the Big East or its latest incarnation, so be it. If the choice is be like Louisville or be like Rice, we're Rice.

 

[zls44]

Saw WM walking outside the XL Center on Friday eveing before the MBB game. Had his full attention on his smart phone. No interaction with fams waiting to enter the vensue. How about a little eye contact or a hand shake or two? Can't hurt.

Proof, once again, that people will complain about ANYTHING.

 

[FAIRTIDES]

I don't think he really has one. there are 2 types of people who end up in these kind of jobs. One kind is Lew Perkins or Jurich type who has a vision and works like crazy to move toward it. The other type is the Hathaway type who is much more the technician. Budgets, compliance, things like that are the focus while the "vision thing" is left to someone else. While they are different personalities, I really get the feeling that Manuel is much more the technocrat like Hathaway and Susan Herbst is the one who provides the vision, to the extent there is any for the Athletic Department. Either type can be effective or ineffective depending on the situation or the needs of the moment. To an extent, Hathaway, for example, was actually a very good choice initially. he brought confidence and competence to a department that was reeling after the initial ACC raid, in the middle of our upgrade. But as the department changed and needs changed he wasn't adaptable. Manuel might have actually been a fine choice for UConn had we been in a stable conference situation and had Calhoun stayed until the end of his contract. But the circumstances we are in, he is exaclty the wrong type of guy.

Didn't Hathaway gut both compliance and academic support to save money?

 

[Dann]

so susan herbst went to midnight madness and diud the lamb shake for what? ddr practice? why did she then hire a rockstar ad? why not just hire gerogetowns ad? he seems to do a real nice job handling 1 sport and just floating the others doesn't he? why doesn't the state sell the rent to the mls and make its money back? why did we knock down memorial and are building a 40mil pf when we could build a 10mil one and still be better thant he c7? why? what the ?

 

[CTMike]

Herbst wants UConn to accel at everything, athletics included. End of story.

 

[TRest]

Herbst wants UConn to accel at everything, athletics included. End of story.

I would like her to excel at conference realignment.

 

[CTMike]

I would like her to excel at conference realignment.

lol... me too... did I really type excel? haha

 

[Alum86]

Never understood why the "good" PP (Pendergast) was never given a fair shot at full time AD. Good man, loyal, personable. Held the seat warm for the Rock Star. Clearly this outsider does not "get" UConn. He doesn't. Please all you supporters of him just stop.

 

[TRest]

Never understood why the "good" PP (Pendergast) was never given a fair shot at full time AD. Good man, loyal, personable. Held the seat warm for the Rock Star. Clearly this outsider does not "get" UConn. He doesn't. Please all you supporters of him just stop.

Because he was a fundraiser, and had no actual AD experience. I had the dubious pleasure of asking him about the ACC and realignment when Cuse and Pitt announced they were leaving, he gave a response that would seem weak on the women's board.

 

[freescooter]

Mike and Dan, I'm talking about priorities and athletics is not anywhere near the top of the list for this President. It is more a case of "it will work out." And being successful in sports is in many respects a matter of perspective. for Central Connecticut, getting to the first round of the NCAA is "successful". For Duke, not so much.

As to why she went to midnight madness and to the game in Germany, that falls into the category of doing what a university president must do...not all that different from the presidents of Harvard & Yale going to the Harvard-Yale game or the President of Wesleyan going to the Little 3 games. It is just part of the job. The basketball center was in process well before she came along, and everyone knew it. It was one of those great political opportunities, the work is done by your predecessor but you get to be the one who presides at the ground-breaking. By the way, we could have built a quite functional facility for about half of what we're spending, and given where UConn is heading, it probably would have been sensible to have done just that.