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Old Man Bob, "Sixty thousand dollars?!?!... why, gas only costs .15 a gallon, dammit!"

The Akron Beacon Journal's slide into obscurity has gone undaunted for decades. They now have an all-time low in full-time reporters and are constantly missing major stories picked up first by the Plain Dealer. In that slide, news and sports stories fall to guys like Dyer. Dyer can't figure out whether he wants to be a columnist humorist or an investigative reporter. In the end, he does neither well. The article had some interesting info, like LBJ's support of Drew Joyce, but it was thrown together so haphazardly that it just came across as angry drivel.

I don't think it'll take much of a hit myself because I think this was the smartest thing they could have done. Larry has done a solid job since being hired here in my opinion. However, there's always those people out there that don't think on their own and believe everything they hear, read, etc. That's where the "hit" could take place in my opinion.

UA shouldn't take a hit no matter the viewership of this paper. I don't see an issue with the way anything was conducted.

KD's Buyout $100,000 Search Firm ($60,000) Net Gain $40,000 One of the purposes of having a contract buyout is to cover the costs of finding a replacement. Seems disingenuous to act like this cost the university.

Spending 60k for some additional due diligence to potentially save you hundreds of thousands or possible even millions down the road seems like an okay use of funds to me, especially when nearly everyone else does it. All Bob Dyer had to do was spend 10 minutes googling the use of search firms in college sports and he wouldn't have to waste time writing and researching that piece and looking like a fool. I agree there were some good tidbits in there, but he is just uniformed.

A 1 time time $60k expense in a ~$35M annual budget seems like such a small figure to make a fuss about.

With that column he comes across as angry, bitter and not very blessed. I'm almost starting to feel a little bit sorry for him. At least he pointed out the tremendous interest there was in the job. There's no way an AD could vet 50 candidates on his own within the short time window required.

I've been on a rant the last few months about the ABJ and especially this weekend - see post in other forum - but this is ridiculous. As discussed, the Zips have a new NCAA Champion, four new All Americans. Ziprulz points out the tennis team is ranking way high, the athletic teams wins trophies for overall sports in all categories, lots of academic all stars...but the ABJ/Ohio.com can only find this piece of lintpunt to write a crapsandwich article about something that ALL schools do to try to find a new coach quickly. Did this mental midget even check to see how much OSU just spent to find their new BB coach? How about looking at that article earlier on the Plain Dealer page and see how overpaid some of the Big Schools coaches in sports like rowing and fencing make. Better yet, how about the ABJ opening up their books for all to see how much they pay/spend on finding new CEOs or Publishers, or whatever they hire? I guarantee they didn't find their managing editor on LinkedIn. How much did they pay a search firm to find the current leaders at this dying news fishwrap?

I sent this e-mail to dwerbeck at Ohio.com just now.....Shameful lack of anything on an NCAA DI National Champion... Good morning, I know you get complaints from the U of A faithful about coverage of Zips sports, but would just like to add my two cents here... Matt Ludwig, a sophomore from the University of Akron won the NCAA Division I Track & Field Championship in the pole vault. The second vaulter from Akron to do so in the past three Championships outdoors. That was Wednesday night. I realize the Beacon/Ohio.com think they need to be the "bringer of all things Cleveland" to their readers and on-line viewers, but it sure would have been nice to notice this accomplishment. I could even understand a little if Matt wasn't from the area, but he lives in Chardon, and attended Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin HS. Certainly George Thomas or even an intern could have taken the press release and wrote something. One of these days maybe you and the decision makers at the Beacon/Ohio.com might wake up to the fact that there is a segment of us out here that don't need a daily update on Ohio State sports, nor all things happening in Cleveland sports, since there are other papers/websites that fit that need. Maybe give a local flavor/taste to things and support your local University, and it might just reap an increase in readership and revenue. Maybe not, but have you at least tried it? Thanks for letting me air my concern