Dave in Green

Thanks for starting a new thread with this, Dr Z. Obviously it would have been better if all this information had been made available to the media before they published some of their recent stories. Perhaps some of UA's recent communications problems are at least partially related to the chief information officer (Eileen Korey) being one of those who lost their jobs. I hope the lesson has been learned that UA needs to be prepared to provide this kind of information before they take actions, not days or weeks later. In the absence of facts, perception is reality.

Athleticism can be measured in different ways, such as strength, speed or jumping ability. Deji took my breath away a few times when he soared way above the rim to make a slam or block a shot. Same with Quade Milum. The players with FANTASTIC athleticism tend to go to places like Kentucky for a year before moving right into the NBA.

My guess is that UA looked at partnering with the R-Ducks with the thought of drawing on that organization's promotional expertise to potentially draw larger crowds by playing all home games at Canal Park. That would have also eliminated the cost of upgrading and maintaining Lee R. Jackson Field and opened up that campus space for other use. Still just guessing here, but I wouldn't be surprised if the R-Ducks organization had already seen enough, since the few Zips games at Canal Park just didn't draw large enough crowds to make it economically feasible to staff the games. The reality is that only the top 50 college baseball teams in the country average more than 1,300 spectators per game, and almost all of those teams play in sunbelt states. MAC games tend to be played in front of dozens of fans, not hundreds or thousands.

In my case that would be a bad assumption. Pointing out that return on investment (ROI) is the single most important element in evaluating an investment is not the same as being totally comfortable with the nature and timing of the investment. In the court of public opinion $500 olive jars and $100,000 mother-in-law suites are horrible counterpoints to dumping working class people into unemployment lines. UA will have to live with that and I make no apologies for how it's been handled. If you go back more than a year to our discussions on a new UA president, I was the one who dug up and shared all of the background data on Dr. Scarborough's record at DePaul and Toledo. I said back then that looking at his past record would give clues as to how he would operate at UA. The upside was that UA was in a situation that could benefit from a leader with financial experience to improve the university's economics, and Dr. Scarborough certainly has a strong financial background. The downside was that many of the decisions he made at DePaul and UT were controversial and unpopular with students and faculty. So I guess you could say that I'm the least surprised person on ZipsNation when it comes to the subject of recent controversial moves that are proving unpopular with some UA students, faculty and supporters.

OK, I completely understand the anger over the details and the total. Will anything ever prove to everyone that the exact number of dollars was well spent or not? Nope. Some things in life come down to judgment, and different people judge things differently. ZippyRulz did a nice job of trying to put the total cost into perspective on an annual cost basis. But I understand that not everyone is going to buy into that.

I completely understand the anger over the details. My focus is on the bigger picture. If Dr. Scarborough leverages the "expensively" remodeled presidential home into many millions of dollars of private donations to UA, it will all have been worth it -- including the in-law suite and the olive jar. If he doesn't, all the criticism will be well-deserved.

The main argument in favor of a first class university-owned presidential home is for its use in entertaining wealthy benefactors to the university. UA's presidential home was in a run-down condition because the Proenzas didn't want their home life disturbed by major repairs. The original ABJ story said there were even leaking water pipes that could have caused structural damage. That raises two questions: 1. Exactly how much did Dr. Proenza leverage the presidential home to solicit private funding? Obviously more private funding would have helped UA expand without going so far in debt. If he was more focused on the structure as a place to live rather than a place to entertain and solicit funding for UA, then it could be argued that the property was not being properly leveraged. 2. Exactly how much is Dr. Scarborough going to leverage the extensively remodeled presidential home to solicit private funding? A million dollar remodeling that will keep the home fit for entertaining the wealthy and powerful is a small price to pay compared to the funding a good salesman can generate with the proper tools. Unfortunately it will take time to measure the results.

I think the most important influence about the Zips environment ("what they do with their players and stuff") is going to come from Henry's former HS teammate, Josh Williams. If Josh is happy with the Zips' environment he's going to be a good salesman with his former teammate. Butler (Big East) is going to be tough competition for his services.

In addition to UA and Butler, Henry appears to also have offers from Toledo, Buffalo, Can't, Middle Tennessee and Duquesne. St. Vincent-St. Mary boys basketball player Henry Baddley wants team atmosphere: Recruit spotlight

The NCAA currently allows 4 media timeouts per half or 8 per game. The new rules for the women's game allow 1 media timeout per quarter or 4 per game. Eliminating 4 media timeouts easily offsets the time added between the 1st and 2nd and 3rd and 4th quarters. It's not like the teams are going to go back into the locker rooms between quarters as they do at the half. For example, the NBA has a 2-minute break between quarters. The new rules are designed not to lengthen the game.

I've attended a few music concerts at EJTH in recent years and thoroughly enjoyed them. Others I wasn't so much interested in. But that's to be expected. One person's music is another's noise. So individual tastes dictate how "good" EJTH music acts have been in recent years. It would make no sense to measure EJTH's success at attracting big dollar acts against big venues like Blossom or the Q. Big dollar acts don't play smaller venues due to pure economics. Some of the top acts charge $1 million or more per appearance and play only big venues that draw up to 20,000 or more paying customers at about $200 per ticket. EJTH seats less than 3,000 and typically charges less than $100 per ticket, which adds up to less than $300,000 max income from ticket sales.

Me neither. Football players play four quarters in high school, college and the pros. Basketball players play four quarters in high school, two halves in college and four quarters in the pros. Wuz up wit dat?

A professor at a university says there's too much focus on football and the program should be diminished. You can find a professor saying something like that at every university in the country. Recruits understand this.

The men's rules change story clearly states that the number of timeouts is being reduced for this season. On the women's side, the extra two quarter breaks will simply replace two media timeouts, so no lengthening of the game. The same will apply when quarters eventually come to men's games. High school, pro, international and women's college basketball will now all be using quarters. Men's college basketball is the oddball. As far as the 30-second clock affecting the Zips, they'll adjust just fine. Less holding the ball and more offense might even attract a few more fans to the JAR.

It was only his jokes that died.

Should be fertile grounds for a successful Zips football team to attract more fans, then.

I'd expect the men to get 10-minute quarters after a couple of years. The NCAA lets the women test new rules, such as the 30-second clock, before expanding it to the men's game. So whatever changes happen for the women are likely to be in the works for the men as well. When you consider that the best men's players are going directly to the NBA after a single season of NCAA play, it makes sense to make the college game more like the pro game.

Karen Farkas was just rolling the dice and threw snake eyes: Bob Dyer was just living up to one of his awards:

You mean the same JAR with the seating that everyone moans about? The same JAR whose acoustics are so bad they even had to move the annual basketball banquet out to an off-campus banquet hall because no one could understand what anyone was saying? Making the JAR the face of UA cultural events is such a horrible idea that I don't think even Dr. Scarborough would approve. Speaking of cultural events, I wonder what all the choreographers and dance companies from around the country invited to UA's new National Center for Choreography will think of the gutted cultural programming at EJT? World-class facilities

It was a sellout and he was fantastic, as was the earlier event with Jack Hanna. My wife and I generally make it to all the UA Forum Series, which is (was?) very educational for both students and members of the community. Huge loss to both UA and the community if it's really gone.

It's understandable why Dr. Scarborough would want to be out of the country when this one hit the fan. Reading the story I was reminded of something I'd read about financial investor Randy Best's reason for getting into the for-profit education business. As Best told Mother Jones in 2008: So do we now have our very own Cleveland-based financial investor who's seen gold in them thar diploma mills? Thomas Roulston III has a little startup company called Trust Navigator with virtually no experience in higher education and virtually no employees. UA, fresh off firing many employees in the office of Student Success, has volunteered to be a guinea pig for Roulston's experimental dabbling in the business of higher education. Sure, UA is paying nearly $1 million for the honor. But look at all the money they saved by firing those previously responsible for student success at UA. Isn't student success a core function of a university, not the kind of peripheral support function that can be casually outsourced? If a university can outsource the student success function then isn't just about any function in a university outsourceable? The ABJ was beaten to this story by The Devil Strip, which three days ago published a lengthy piece entitled: A Tale of Two Proposals: Sorting out TrustNavigator’s pitch for UA’s student success coaching job

I wonder if Dr. Scarborough will spend any time studying Denmark's higher education system: Study In Denmark

Big Dog's HS teammate from Cincinnati who was a walk-on PG for the Zips. His father was their HS coach.

Ironically, the Rubber Bowl was built with FDR stimulus dollars, aka the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and it served Akron and UA well for about 70 years until it became structurally deficient.

One point I haven't seen mentioned in the FCS discussion was the news that came out a few months ago that UA and other MAC teams gained nearly $1 million per season in revenue by being FBS instead of FCS: MAC revenue increased 488% under College Football Playoff