Dave in Green

No, in the 2005-2007 time frame when the previous administration was comparing the cost of a new stadium with the cost of rebuilding the Rubber Bowl they did not have information that has developed over the past decade. The overall outlook and trends have changed rather dramatically in many ways. Based on the information available at the time they prudently downsized seating capacity about 15% from the Rubber Bowl's 35,000+ to less than 30,000 with an option to add seats in the future if warranted. We've discussed in these threads many of the things that have changed over the past decade. How many Zips games were available on TV 10 years ago? How many on the internet? How much time were students spending on social media instead of social events like football games? How strong was the economy? How advanced were the Power Five conferences in dictating the football landscape to knock down future Boise States and TCUs? Etc., etc.? Hindsight is the understanding of a situation or event only after it has happened. When looking back at and questioning past decisions, it's important to filter out data we now take for granted from prevailing data of the time of the actual decision.

Mo Williams is a nice addition at a reasonable cost. As a combo guard he does a good job of both distributing the ball and shooting. He also has a history of working well with LeBron. Most importantly, at 32 he's not on his last legs. Just a few months ago he dropped 52 points in a game.

There's no doubt in my mind that two unforeseen events badly damaged what was an otherwise sound plan to replace the crumbling Rubber Bowl with a new on-campus stadium. The first was the big recession, which unfortunately struck after the project had been approved and was already underway. The second was the unfortunate hiring of a disastrous head coach who sunk the Zips to the absolute bottom of the FBS. It almost brings tears to my eyes to imagine where we might be right now if the new stadium had debuted in 2009 in a healthy economy and Coach Bowden had taken over the team in 2010. I honestly can't believe that if Dr. Scarborough was leading UA in 2007 that he wouldn't have looked at all the available data and agreed that building that stadium was absolutely the right thing to do under the existing circumstances. I will continue to be perplexed by that infamous one-liner in the ABJ until some kind of clarification is issued.

Like everything else in life, The Players Tribune needs to be taken with a grain of salt: No doubt many of these stories are honest and sincere words straight from athletes' hearts, and it's a nice counterbalance to get first-person perspectives unfiltered by media outlets. But it also needs to be taken into account that many of these athletes are multimillionaires with corporate-like support groups, including professional publicists. It can be self-serving for them to have professionally written stories carefully crafted to enhance their public images submitted for publication under their personal byline. In some ways it can be the equivalent of reading corporate press releases as opposed to independent journalistic coverage.

Some good thoughts there, Spin. As far as the cost of renovating the Rubber Bowl, a December 24, 2007, directive from the Ohio Board of Regents states the following in approving the request to pledge student fees by UA in support of general receipts obligation bonds in an aggregate amount not to exceed $185 million to be used to finance the construction of various capital projects on campus, including the new stadium:

From all I've read on the subject of the newly enacted budget, Ohio lawmakers increased spending for public universities by 4.5% in 2016 and another 4% in 2017 with the specific goal of reducing costs to students and making college more affordable. As part of this funding increase, public universities are required to freeze both tuition and fees for in-state undergraduate students at current levels for these 2 years and also look for ways to reduce student costs by 5% over the 2-year period. This latest story cites UA officials describing the new charges for juniors and seniors as "new fees," which appears to be at odds with what Ohio lawmakers are trying to accomplish.

That's a really good point. If Dr. Scarborough feels that the selected quote did not fully represent his thoughts on the subject, he's free to communicate directly to his UA constituencies to set the record straight. If he doesn't, then we're all left to believe that he meant exactly what was quoted or that he doesn't think it's important enough to bother correcting what those who believe the worst are assuming. He'll always be walking a tightrope when it comes to discussing athletics because some of his UA constituents believe that Zips athletics are being shortchanged while others believe they already receive too high a priority over academics.

How would anyone who was not actually present at the ABJ interview with Dr. Scarborough know what questions were asked and what answers were given? All we know for sure is what the ABJ elected to publish. Do all of those who've dumped on the ABJ in the past for weak journalism trust that this one brief quote accurately represents Dr. Scarborough's thoughts on the subject?

Ada Zip, you're right. I misinterpreted your point as the commonly used measure of strength of schedule whereas you were applying a more personal evaluation. Let me try to help you develop your system to be a little more accurate. Judging future team strength based on last season's record can be misleading, sometimes grossly. For example, you rank Bowling Green as a quality mid-major for Detroit to schedule this season based on BG's record from last season. Problem is, BG's roster is decimated. Their best player (Richaun Holmes) was the only MAC player drafted into the NBA, and 3 other seniors also graduated. After their head coach was fired, at least 6 of the remaining players and 1 recruit reportedly requested transfers. BG this season could very well be a big loser scrapping with SWAC teams to achieve something better than a #300 RPI. Your measuring system would be more accurate if you based it on the projected strength of this season's Detroit opponents as opposed to their previous records.

One random team's OOC SOS from one season compared with another team's from another season can prove just about any point you want to make. Ada Zip, let me try to help you make your point with a more statistically relevant measure. Last season Detroit's OOC SOS was ranked #141 in the country while the Zips were ranked a lowly #231. Proves your point, right? But wait, there's more. Two seasons ago the Zips' OOC SOS was ranked #101 while Detroit's was #174. Three seasons ago Detroit was back in the lead with the #39 best OOC SOS while the Zips trailed at #73. Four seasons ago the two teams switched places again with the Zips #47 and Detroit at #122. As you said, the numbers speak for themselves, and they're different every season for a variety of reasons.

It's important to know everyone's perspective and understand that no one perspective tells the whole story.

Don't forget that many of these HS kids are still growing and it's still possible for one or more of the new recruits to grow into the 6-9/6-10 range. Whether or not that happens, a recruit in that height range will likely be a target in the next recruiting class. But as we saw with Tree, heart can help compensate for lack of height when it comes to rebounding and scoring in the paint. Having a center in the 6-8 range with above average strength, leaping ability and speed can be pretty effective.

Coming on the heels of announcing UA launching only the second center for choreography in the country, the announcement of only the third university corps of cadets in the country pretty much cements the notion that Dr. Scarborough is not shy about making dramatic changes. Of course it will be years before we know for sure how successful these will be over the long run. But at least UA is in pretty good company with this latest one: Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets Texas A&M Corps of Cadets

Short version of the interim AD's vision for Zips athletics:

Mobs of protesters don't gather together to have reasonable discussions. They're called protesters because they're there to protest. Robert's Rules of Order don't apply.

I'm in the same boat with everyone else -- left to speculate because the short quote has inadequate context with which it can be intelligently interpreted. I don't know how many quotes the reporter was given to work with, whether there were any followup questions and answers, whether the reporter deliberately or inadvertently omitted important context, whether an editor cut words out to fit available newspaper space or what. I believe there is much evidence to support that Dr. Scarborough does give a damn about Akron athletics. At the dinner for the men's basketball team and Zips fans attending last year's Charleston Classic tournament, I asked Dr. Scarborough in front of that audience about his perspective on college athletics, and he spoke openly to everyone in the room as I noted in an earlier post: Dr. Scarbough's interest in college athletics is clearly stated in his bio on the UA website:

One sentence in a news story typically creates way more questions than it answers. Anyone who wants their full position stated in a newspaper needs to buy ad space, because after reporters and editors get done cutting big ideas down to fit limited news story space, there are bound to be lots of questions. On the positive side, my experience with Dr. Scarborough is that he's approachable and open to answering questions. So next time anyone on here sees him, just politely ask what he was really trying to say before his thoughts were squeezed through the news filter.

Hilltopper is the Green HS guru, and if he knows anything he hasn't shared it with me.

Let's see now, a sub-6'8'' big with no other D-I offers. Why does that ring a bell with me? Oh yeah, Tree.

Maybe someone confused Nick with this guy?

He fit better into the Zips offense than the defense.

You are correct that the Board of Trustees is responsible for approving expenditures of that magnitude. But we really don't know that Dr. Scarborough was questioning anyone's decision because, as Dr Z pointed out, there weren't enough in-depth quotes to understand the full intent of the few words that were published. Maybe his full thought that wasn't properly represented is that knowing what he knows now he wouldn't have pursued building that stadium at that time. With perfect hindsight it's abundantly clear that it was not financially prudent to approve a capital expenditure of that magnitude just prior to the start of the economic recession of 2008, the worst since the great depression of 1929 and one that this country has not fully recovered from to this day. That's why I said that the more interesting question is what Dr. Scarborough would have approved (taken to the BoT) had he been working with the data that Dr. Proenza (and the BoT) had access to at the time.

Putting extra emphasis on that implies that Dr. Scarborough would not have built that particular stadium but a different one, probably a smaller one at lower cost to relieve the debt load. Otherwise he would have said he would not have built a (as in any) new stadium. It's always easy to say something like that in retrospect. The more interesting question is what Dr. Scarborough would have approved had he been in charge at the time the decision was made with the data that Dr. Proenza had available to him. Of course we'll never know what the new on-campus stadium would have accomplished attendance-wise if it had been combined with a winning football team. The three consecutive 1-11 seasons were pretty toxic to what was already a tepid fan base. That dug a hole much deeper than the new stadium's foundation. All we can do is speculate how many consecutive winning seasons it would take to create enough of a buzz around Zips football to attract consistently decent crowds. It does seem that they're making a better effort to market the program, and that they're aware how important the new AD will be to that effort.

I know that a number of people on this forum doubted Holmes and even questioned whether he'd be more than a bit player in the MAC. NBA scouts saw him quite differently, and almost every mock draft predicted he was a solid second-round pick. Sports Illustrated had a big pre-draft story on how Holmes' stock had risen at the Portsmouth Invitational and NBA Draft Combine, and that: NBADraft.net predicted the following prior to the draft: DraftExpress.com gave Holmes the following rankings prior to the draft: NBA.com's story on Holmes prior to the draft was headlined:

I was impressed with Richaun Holmes' potential from the minute I saw his gaudy junior college stats were transferring over to D-I. But I never imagined he'd be the only MAC player picked in the 2015 NBA draft -- #37 by the 76ers.