Leaderboard

Lots of folks b-wording online about diversity and replacing a woman with a man and Jackson got screwed and BLAH BLAH BLAH Today was the first real action toward turning the page and getting back to the winning culture that Kest was able to build for a handful of years. I don’t want any more “atta boy” and “atta girl.” I want to go back to beating Kent once or twice a year—at least. I want to regularly advance in the tournament. I want to play for championships. So little of the discourse is about that. It’s all about feelings and politics and all that nonsense. The nonsense that losers and complainers like to get caught up in. I much prefer discourse about winning, recruiting, play style, etc. For those fans “leaving” that are telling the program to “enjoy not having fans,” well, we have the worst attendance in the league so nothing is changing. Instead of being divisive and whiny, let’s show some TEAMISM and be #1Akron. Go Zips!!!!

That's the value of a great AD. The AD's that select a coach because he was from Notre Dame (Ianello & Faust)...the son/daughter of a famous coach (Will/Bo Ryan, Bill/Lisa Fitch)...a "NE Ohio" Girl/Guy...those AD's are a dime a dozen. They have no better acumen for selecting a coach that the everyday yutsz that calls sports talk shows all day long. How does Toledo reload year-in-year-out...coach-in-coach-out? Not just in football, but most other sports too. It's because they have high standards and great leadership. At best, that's been hit and miss at UA for the 38 years I've been in Summit County. Professionally - I've sat in on so many group interviews where the job candidate was poorly prepared, or lacked the acumen to do the job for which they were interviewing, and many other interviewers loved the candidate. Because they dressed well...spoke well...were from the same region or college...they never dug deeper than that. And the bums often get the job. AD's are no different. To me the jury's still out on Guthrie. We'll see how this hire goes. If he's a great AD, he asked the right questions in the interviews, called the guy's references and asked them the right questions, and went with a gut feeling based upon those discussions and what he knows are key elements to being a successful head coach at Akron...where your budget isn't big...you have scant NIL potential...and where your fan base is paltry. It seems really simple, but that's pretty much it. You need to be able to identify coaching diamonds in the rough at Akron. Jay Wright or Dawn Staley aren't knocking the door down to coach here. But "The Next Jay Wright or Dawn Staley" is out there and needs his/her break. A great AD will identify them. Then it's lather-rinse-and-repeat when they ultimately get hired away. If your mid-major athletic dept has high standards and great leadership, that's how it goes.

Does anyone remember a time when this board used to be dead after the season. I think I have seen more posts the last few weeks then I have during some games. Times are changing.

It isn't a discussion thread if someone espouses only their point of view, and won't listen to an alternate thought or perspective.

I've never understood those type of people's logic. True equality is the best person gets the job regardless of race, gender, religion, etc. If you're refusing to hire someone because they're a man even though they're the best candidate, that's reverse discrimination.

I move that the line directly under @Captain Kangaroo's image should now read "Fearless Leader" rather than "Moderator." Can I get a second?

Larry Williams fired Terry Bowden (which was the correct move) and replaced him with Tom Arth (the wrong move). If he had kept Bowden and they had gone 4-8/5-7 for 5 more years, you could argue that Williams would still be here, or even ridden the Groce wave to a better job. Had he hired a great coach after Bowden, he would have ridden that wave to a better AD job. What actually happened, is he was not renewed (fired) and spun it as not being comfortable with the current state of college athletics. In reality, he just showed that he is not capable of being a D1 football AD. He’s now the AD at San Francisco. Charles could’ve kept Jackson and gone anywhere between 7-11 and 11-7 in the MAC every year for a decade. The easiest and safest thing would have been to extend her after the 21-22 season and ride out that contract and wash your hands of any nefariousness that he’s being accused of. We’ve now seen a significant turnover in the roster of coaches at Akron, the next step is to see how well they do and what standard they are held to.

I certainly understand the people who think a woman or minority should have gotten this job, or been considered or targeted or whatever. Hell, I may even agree with that. But the number of “fans” who are not even going to support this new head coach is just staggering to me. People are acting like we dumped Pat Summitt out on the side of the road and kicked dirt in her face only to replace her with Tom Ianartho. Jackson was hired by Larry Williams, who played with her father in law with the Browns. Larry didn’t put much into hiring that position and just let it be what it be. Now we have an AD who takes initiative to make a change to a program that is very obviously not going anywhere. Again, replacing female coaches with male coaches will always raise questions and look bad, but at the end of the day, this is a meritocracy. I could sit here and complain that the softball coach he hired is a man, but for the first time in recent memory, softball is over .500 at the end of March! Over the past decade with ADs who didn’t care, they were dozens of games under .500 to this point. Volleyball, he replaced a male coach who lost a lot and he’s trying to get better. Track, unfortunately we lost Mitchell and he hired a woman to head that program. It really grinds my gears to read some of the stuff I’m reading. I even saw one post talking about how Guthrie is like all other ADs—doesn’t care about women’s sports. Then why the hell would he put himself through the process of hiring new coaches instead of hanging onto mediocrity? That makes no sense. If the best chance to win is with a new voice, let’s hear it! This move is a far bigger risk for Guthrie as an AD trying to build up his resume than just extending Jackson and riding with the status quo. This is the initiative many people would kill for from their AD.

For those of you interested or may have missed it, Melissa tweeted a picture of her new baby girl Cameron Jaye Jackson. Unfortunately, she also has tweeted that her father passed away around the 18th. Wide range of emotions going on in the Jackson household I guess.

Twitter is a cesspool.

This is the way^^^ @zippy-claws As someone whose full-time job is not running the University of Akron's Division 1 athletic department, I place a lot of value on previous HC experience when my favorite teams are hiring for a few reasons. The biggest one, is they generally know what it is like to be successful and to be unsuccessful as a head coach, and how to respond when they are in the big chair, as opposed to being next to the big chair. They are familiar with actually having the pressure and responsibility that comes with being the CEO of the program, as opposed to being next or third in line. To me, that is something that has a lot of value. I don't know how many there have been or what the numbers are--but I can think of plenty of coaches (even just at Akron alone) who are successful assistants and get their first crack at an HC job, only to fail (sometimes miserably) and then go many years before ever taking a HC job again, if they ever do. So, like our Fearless Leader @Captain Kangaroo said, as long as the candidate is vetted properly like we all hope Guthrie has done with all programs, this hire is fine by me. I suppose it is a good thing that we didn't just get a "name" and we've gotten someone who has been around different parts of the country in a few different programs.

It's why I didn't even bother responding to that poster. I post often enough that anyone who posts here should know I'm open to discussion. I might not agree with someone else's opinion, but I have no problem hearing them out.

This is a forum- a place to exchange thoughts, ideas and views. If one is going to lose their enthusiasm because someone disagrees with them they're pretty damn weak minded.

Shoring up recruiting seems to be the consensus about it. Not sure if it's true but someone over there is saying it's just two years and not much of a bump so still gives them outs to fire him without too much trouble.

https://twitter.com/BG_Football/status/1641454097521049600?s=20 BG fan forum is not liking this...

Yes, I miss the Joe Dunn football ones more though

"A guy raised his hand and asked if I had any advice when it came to coaching women. I gave him a death-ray stare and said, 'Don't worry about coaching women, just go home and coach basketball'." -Pat Summit