Here are some thoughts on Akron's new AD. He seems like a very good sales manager/ marketer, who will become a great AD with time.

http://themacdaily.com/index.php?p=1_76

I have to say, as someone who grew up in the Akron area and seen what it does to people, I hope we never hire somebody who is very familiar with the area before coming here.

I never bought into the he is an "Akron man" or he isn't an "Akron man", just hire the best guy. When the Steelers were looking for there new coach, I remember many in Pittsburgh saying that Russ Grimm should be hired because he was a "Pittsburgh man," instead, they hired the best guy for the job. If the best guy happens to be an Akron man, so be it.

Zach and Z...

I want to add a comment that relates directly to the sales portion of having a job such as an AD.

As someone who has been in sales at various levels for a good portion of my career, I clearly understand the value of being familiar with the area. Knowing the characteristics and history of the people you are selling to has advantages, and to a larger extent, already having any kind of relationships with key figures is a considerable advantage. I can count numerous times where people had a leg up on being hired, or promoted, simply due to their knowledge of the sales area, or having pre-existing relationships with potential clients.

This new guy may indeed do a fantastic job selling our athletic programs to the corporate community, and the general public. But in my professional opinion, he will be working with some disadvantages that someone who is already from the area may not have had.

The same disadvantages he had when he started working at Minnesota? Remember, Hunter and Mack were handed 20 million guaranteed for a stadium. They didn't have to make those connections. In fact other than FirstMerit and Towpath Credit Union what other sponsoship money has come in during the last three years?

We still have 4 gates that have no sponsor, we still have a Press Tower with no sponsor, we still have an endzone gameday facility with no sponsor. I know the economy is tough, but really, you couldn't find people to sponsor/endorse these things?

I like Hunter, he's a great guy, I've had great interactions with him, but these were things he in which he was in charge. Remember we were supposed to be at point where bonds were only going to cover 30 million of the original 55 million. We only ever got to 21.5 million (unless i'm missing something that is an epic fail).

It's not a bash on Hunter, but when you are given two candidates and one is familiar with the area and has received only 2 million and the other is a person who had no previous connections to an area and was able to receive upwards of 80 million, who are you going to pick.

I'm not sold on Wistrcill. He has only done the fundraising/sales portion of the AD job. What if he is too abrasive to Dambrot, Porter, or Mitchell. Or what if he isn't willing to find ways to fund pay increases for top performing coaches? What if he stinks at hiring personnel. Who knows. But at the very least we know he can raise money. And we need money more than anything else right now.

Tom's job is to raise money and sell tickets for a few years to greate a large sustainable fanbase, then move on. Then we can get someone else in here who is able to either get us out of the MAC or transform it into somehting that we want, and then that guy moves on. It's at that point that we can go after a long-term guy who will keep us at the level we're moving towards currently.

I think he is taking on both of those jobs...(tickets and positioning)

PD Article

I think you may have missed a few things about his background:
He is from LaCrosse WI - roughly a couple of hours from Minneapolis.
He went to college in Minnesota
He played basketball in college in Minnesota
He worked previously at the U of M right after college.
He also worked at Wisconsin, a school in the neighboring state that is in the same conference.

I hope Tom's skills and knowledge played a part in the success of their new stadium project, and that some of those skills will be helpful to our cause. But, I think it's pretty difficult to even remotely compare the ability to generate support at a Big 11 school in a major US city, to the situation we have here. In fact, I personally feel that we've over-ambitiously put a pretty hefty price tag on some of the remaining sponsorship opportunities. And that's not to say that I don't share in your dissappointment if we have indeed only raised another 2 million beyond the original sponsorships for the naming rights to the stadium and the field.

As far as the numbers go, I think we got 20 million for the stadium naming rights, and 10 million for the field. Can anyone confirm this?

Anyway...back to the purpose of my post. I am ALSO not one of those "it has to be an Akron man" kind of person. I was just merely pointing out the disadvantages of not being from the area, or having experience with the area, as it pertains to being in the field of sales.

If two candidates were the same level of salesman and one was familiar with the area, I agree. If I have a choice of a great salesman that isn't familiar with the area and an average guy that is, I'll take the great one, he'll be familiar soon enough, that's what makes him great. My two cents. Once again, hiring the best guy available. Either way, I don't think we'll ever know, we can only hope for the best.

10 Million from Gary Taylor (Infocision) and 5 million from Summa.

Thanks for the info, g-mann. So, we've raised an additional 6.5 mil (21.5 total) in sponsorships since the naming rights for the field and stadium were purchased? I just want to make sure I have the numbers right.

I just received an email from Tom, so I'd say he's gotten off to a good start

So what did he say?

As you have no doubt surmised by now, it contained a brief introduction and the Youtube link.

Interesting that would even mention the possibility of leaving the MAC. My guess is that it was discussed during the interview process.

Mack used to say the same kind of stuff "we are looking beyond the MAC" I believe was a quote he used in a speech I heard. Take it for what it is.

The whole MAC should be "looking beyond the MAC". If there are schools that are satified with where this conference is right now, they need to drop down to 1-AA before they are forced by the NCAA citing a lack of commitment.

If all the schools in the MAC were focusing on making themselves appealing to the BCS conferences, then you would have a conference like the MWC, and we wouldn't have to look elsewhere. But when only a few teams are doing it, you get dragged down.

The NCAA should be cited for a lack of commitment to the non-BCS schools. It's almost criminal what they do.

I agree about I-AA for football. The MAC needs to decide whether it wants to be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond. Heck, we would still get a big pay day for football because every BCS school plays I-AA schools now so we wouldn't be hurt financially. Imagine I-AA playoff games at The Big Phone Booth (InfoCision Stadium....InfoCision is after all a telemarketing company). It would be great.

Yeah, no thanks. Any other MAC program that wants to drop feel free, but 1-AA is not a progressive direction. We're building a bigger a university and part of that is making sure that all our athletics compete at the highest level.

If by progressive you mean get bigger, I'm not sure what that will accomplish other than flushing money down the toilet and I disagree. If by progressive you mean living in the world of reality, I would agree. I want to live in the world of reality.

While we build at our rate, the BCS schools, with the aid of the NCAA, are building at a faster rate. The NCAA has made it so that is how it works. I actually think it would be really progressive if the NCAA would do what I say and have one BCS league (or whatever they want to call it) that is the highest level of college football and get rid of the dead weight in I-A as it is right now.

As nice as our fieldhouse and new stadium are, the stadium is dwarfed by the stadiums of BCS schools. I think it would be progressive to just admit what the MAC is and what we are and deal with it in a realistic manner. If we stay I-A, let's be the best team in a bad conference and leave it at that. Anything else is unrealistic.

I mean the university as a whole. The university is growing and progressing quickly. The direction that the entire university is moving is not benefitted by being involved in a conference that no one cares about.

I understand your defeatist attitude. It's much easier to say that everything sucks, it lacks any value, and it never will have any value. I get it, it's easy, because anytime something remotely negative happens you can say "look I was right". The problem is that the people involved now, the people who make decisions, don't want to be just "General Dollar" they don't want to just be some pissy little group of buildings sandwiched betwee downtown and the ghetto. That means building a campus people want to be on, building facilities people want to play in, and having vision enough to see that 5-10 years from now things can be different here.

You can see it in our research, you can see it in how programs are constantly being rated higher, you can see it in the attitude of the new students.

Athletics is just a small part. But unfortunately it is the most visible part. The average person doesn't know that The University of Pittsburgh developed the polio vaccine, but they do know that Florida was the National Champions. Proenza and the board of trustees recognize this, and that is why they have pumped nearly 100 million into the athletics programs. Is it the 300 million Minnesota spent on their stadium? No. But you know what it's a start. And the ammenities for the fans are strikingly similar.

I will be happy if we can be a Boise State or Utah (undefeated BCS busters). But I will settle for being like Cincinnati (10-2 (should have been 9-3 damn it) Big East Champs). But it takes vision to get there, a willingness to accept change and determination to create it.

Actually, I don't think my attitude is defeatest in the least. The only thing I want to be right about is UofA having the best teams in a bad conference and I believe that is possible. Our basketball team is a perfect example of that and I'm happy for their success. I wish all of our sports programs were experiencing their success. The soccer team is a better program and operates on a different level than our other sports so they should be kept out of the best team in a bad conference discussion. I'm not some Browns fan that roots for failure so I can be right about something. There is no joy in watching the MAC flounder year after year since 1940 whatever. At some point, reality has to set in for the member institutions and the question needs to be asked, "How do we at least make a bad conference presentable?" I think that is reality and an achievable goal for the MAC.

I don't know exactly how to make the MAC more presentable, but I think they need to start with making the league smaller. The second is out of our control....the NCAA needs to make a group of 40 schools that are the highest level in college football and stop the charade that they treat all schools the same. These would be positive reforms that would benefit the Zips long term.

GP1, while driving through Michigan on vacation I had a change of heart. I think you are right about Eastern Michigan. I like the Michigan flavor of the MAC - Eastern, Central & Western. I still think we should drop Can't & BGSU though. 6 schools from Ohio is just too many - we need to make MAC membership a little more prestigious. Can't has no fan following - drop them. We can still play them in football & b-ball every year. BGSU is just BGSU - a lack-luster institution that no one even knows exists. If you'd ask 100 people outside of Ohio where BGSU is located, I'd bet 99 of them would reply, "What's BGSU?" Toledo can still play them every year, just like we'd maintain our rivalry w/ Can't.

Then we need to also drop Temple - just an odd fit. You're right about them. I still like Buffalo though, they fit with a Great Lakes region of the MAC.

Buffalo
Akron
Ohio
Miami
Toledo
EMU
CMU
WMU
Ball State
Northern Illinois

Walla (sp?) a more prestigious Great Lakes-region conference.

And walla, no more conference championship game. Walla, no more ESPN coverage for the entire conference. The championship game (which is highly viewed) is the keypin to the ESPN contract in the first place. Lose that, lose all the ESPN coverage we have. Some of you will cheer that (no wednesday games) but that means no primetime coverage and back to the dark ages for the conference.

I'm all for losing some dead weight, but the conference is not in a position to say "goodbye" to anyone.

The MAC most certainly is in a position to say "goodbye" to someone. We can dump one team and not lose the championship game. The MAC has all the bargaining chips when it comes to Temple. their football program is just becoming mildly respectable, and if they don't want to lose that by being dumped back to Independent status, they'll join in basketball. Then you can drop Can't.

Wow.

No Temple has all the cards. They are in a better basketball conference. They are a basketball first school, in a basketball first region. They could go independent and play who they want when the want.

The MAC is in a position that it has to do what it can to keep schools. Temple was brought in because of fears of another team leaving (dropping down). Hell the MAC is so afraid of losing schools it brought in Hartwick for Soccer to keep us happy. The MAC cannot force anyone to do anything.

What are the ratings for the MAC Championship game?

I don't believe for one second that displaying the MAC on national TV is a good thing for the MAC. Until the product improves, it isn't worth watching and is leaving a stench in living rooms around America. Quite frankly, the only reason they show Wednesday games is because they want to use it as promotion for the ABC/ESPN weekend line-up. I would like a regional network to pick up the MAC and show the games. The regional network would spend less time promoting itself and more time giving the fans interesting information about the league and schools playing.

As far as the Dark Ages, the MAC is currently in the Dark Ages of the conference. In the 1950s and 1960s, the conference had teams like Miami which was a national power. Western Michigan was frequently good during that period as well. Moving into the late 20th Century and into the beginning of this century, Marshall, Toledo and Miami were all very good teams and Miami had a Top 10 finish during that period. Guys like Leftwich, Pennington and Roethlisberger were national names of interest and were REAL NFL prospects. Who is/was interesting the past couple of years? Nate Davis......please, this guy is struggling to make the 49ers right now. The fact that he left school early to become a third string QB is laughable. If Davis was more intelligent, he could have stayed one more year at BSU, found a team stupid enough to draft him and then actually put him on the field, and changed his name to Charlie Frye Jr. The same can be said of MBB in the MAC, there are absolutely no nationally known players and the talent level, with the exception of UofA, is getting worse.

Where is the Conference now? In the two sports that matter, football and MBB, our conference champions get laughed off of the field of play in post season competition (spare me the NIT wins). The MAC was flat out embarassing last couple of bowl seasons. The Conference champion in MBB the past few years gets shipped off to the west coast to serve as first round fodder for a higher ranked team.

We should not think for one second that the key to the MAC's success runs through Bristol, CT.