Dave in Green

Skip, I'd just as soon not have people on this forum who think they're above being questioned. I expect to be questioned every time I post on any forum. I'm not being hostile toward you. I'm just skeptical of something you claim to be a fact. It's common practice on any forum to ask for and expect to get clarification. I'm just politely asking you to provide additional information so that I can understand if we're talking about a fact or an assumption.

A hypothetical major corporation hires a hypothetical executive who lacks traditional credentials for the business he's joining but is believed to have equivalent merit. He's given increasing responsibilities and proves that he can perform as well or better than traditional executives in that business. Within two years he's risen to the level of one of the top three senior executives at the corporation. The CEO announces his retirement and the hypothetical senior executive becomes a candidate for the position. Do you primarily base your evaluation on his original credentials or on his performance to date at the corporation?

I have no doubt that a certain percentage of people prefer shopping in a particular area because it has slightly lower sales tax just as I have no doubt that a certain percentage of people pay absolutely no attention to small differences in sales taxes and just shop wherever more of their favorite stores are located. The missing element here is just how many people fall into each group. Count me among the skeptics that Belden Village's growth is primarily fueled by a massive influx of shoppers who are so frugal that they'd drive out of their way looking to save .25%. I'd like to see the source of that data.

GP1, are you aware of Ohio's new higher education funding law that half of state funding for each university is now tied to each school's graduation rates? UA would lose state funding if enrollment was being increased with students who are less likely to graduate. If Jim Tressel were guilty of doing this in his current position, he certainly would not want to be UA President over the next few years when the results come in. It's more likely that he believes the quality of the students he's been responsible for bringing in over the past two years will increase UA's future graduation rate and state funding rather than reduce it.

I'm always open to intelligent debate on just about any subject. Some legitimate pros and cons have been presented about having Jim Tressel as President of UA. That's valuable to anyone who's trying to look at all the potential positives and negatives and form their own educated option. But some of the comments being made are of little or no value in a serious discussion. The line implying that anyone who thinks Jim Tressel might make a good UA President must be a tOSU honk is so weak it doesn't deserve serious consideration. The line about him having a made-up position at UA with no measurable performance parameters is equally absurd. Most universities across the country have executives with similar titles and responsibilities for which they're held accountable. I consider myself to be a fair, open-minded and objective person. I'm often won over to the side that presents the most persuasive factual data. For example, when I read that Admissions is one of Jim Tressel's many responsibilities at UA and that freshman applications are up nearly 50% this year, that influences my overall opinion. Cheap shots, name-calling and other assorted insults only influence me to believe that someone has run out of legitimate points to make.

We're nearing the end of the "all my friends say" stage and edging closer to the "I told you so" stage.

Skip, my position is that we are all human, that all humans are inherently flawed, and that we live in an imperfect world. I don't expect perfection from anyone. In the end it comes down to choosing the least flawed of many possible imperfect solutions. The selection of Jim Tressel would produce more national reaction than either of the other candidates because he's more well known with the general public for coaching college football. For better or worse, there's more national press coverage of college football coaches than executives who run universities. That's one aspect to consider. I continue to believe that the selection must be made on what's best overall for the University of Akron. That means weighing all the pros and cons of each candidate. It's true that I walk the fence on issues where I don't believe I have enough evidence to convince me that one side of the fence is clearly the best option. The question is not whether the selection of Jim Tressel would produce some unflattering media coverage. That's a given. The question is whether he's more likely to offset that by producing more positives for UA in the long run than the other candidates. I believe the best evidence of that is in the way he's performed at UA over the past two years. I don't have access to all the detailed data on his day-to-day performance that the selection committee has, so all I ask is that they ignore all the Jim Tressel lovers and haters and focus objectively on his performance to date at UA.

Of course there are a few rabid crusaders who religiously promote opposite positions on any issue. Just because one of those tiny, noisy, special interest groups makes more posts and hurls nastier insults than the other does not mean they better reflect general public opinion.

A large percentage of the anonymous posts on sites like Ohio.com are made by a small number of single-issue zealots regurgitating the same stuff over and over to try to manipulate public opinion. We've had examples like that on ZN.o. Who could forget "Jake" in his many anonymous forms making hundreds of posts here advocating an on-campus arena and crapping all over anyone who disagreed with him? He did the same thing on Ohio.com and any other public forum where he could get away with it. The vast majority of people simply aren't motivated enough by the issues to post comments like that on any forums. A tiny noisy minority will say anything they can get away with to try to make everyone believe their viewpoints represent general public opinion, but they don't.

UAZip0510, you're not going to get in any trouble for that post. ZN.o is all about role-playing. You pick the role you want to play and stick with it. Some like to be edgy while others prefer civility. When we try to push folks into roles they don't want to play, they push back just as we would if they tried that on us. It took me a long time to figure out that the best way to enjoy ZN.o is to tune out some of the exaggerated role-playing and just focus on hard content. It's interesting when you peel away some of the style that the amount of actual substance remaining varies quite a bit. But in the end it's all entertainment. No one posts on ZN.o to find a cure for cancer or advance the cause of world peace, so there's no reason to take any of this too seriously.

Captain, I know you normally don't accept excuses, but I have a really good one. When I saw Darryl Roberts' name all I could think of was his superb free throw shooting. I blame this fixation on the trauma of the past season, which ultimately caused my eyes to involuntarily close every time a Zips player stepped to the free throw line. I humbly apologize for not getting past that to remind everyone that Darryl first came to UA as a scholarship player and not a walk-on.

Darn, I read the title too quickly and thought this thread was about my old favorites:

Darryl Roberts brings back such wonderful memories to me. Remember when we used to talk about how important it was to have Darryl in the lineup and get the ball in his hands at the end of close games because he was a career 88.5% free throw shooter? Let me repeat that for new Zips fans who don't know what it's like to have a reliable free throw shooter. Darryl Roberts played in 133 games over 4 seasons and nailed 88.5% of his free throws, including a career best 94.4% in his senior season. Darryl was Mr. Reliable, and it was always nice to see his mother, Bridgette, cheering him on when she could make it over from Toledo to see her son play.

Even if a Zips walk-on never played in a game, their attitude in practice and scrimmages can contribute to the team. I like the idea of having walk-ons from HS championship teams if they help in even the smallest way to foster a championship-winning attitude within the team.

Yep, that Derrick Thomas. Donnell not only had some of his father's physical abilities in HS, he also had a 3.2 GPA. He was on the radar of a lot of big schools:

Didn't realize that Dr. Nykiel is 68, same as Dr. Proenza. Makes Jim Tressel look like a kid at 61.

If we only look for the negative, that's all we'll see. If we only look for the positive, that's all we'll see. Either way is really easy. We pick a position, see only what supports our position, and our confidence that we picked the right position is continuously reinforced. The only problem is that it doesn't mean that we're right. The hard route is trying to be objective, remaining open to all the pros and cons, weighing them against each other and trying to objectively select the best of many imperfect options. I see the pros and cons being presented here, and it's mostly football fan talk, which makes a lot of sense since this is a sports forum. Back in the real world, UA's trustees have to make a difficult decision, and they have to do it objectively in the best overall interests of UA. A lot of what's being said here is irrelevant to that decision. But it absolutely belongs on a sports forum, so keep it coming.

Captain, I am shocked that you are shocked by anything that appears on ZN.o. You remind me so much of one of my favorite parts of the great classic movie, Casablanca:

If rising through the professorial ranks is important to anyone, the Toledo guy is not exactly a sterling example. His career has been built primarily on accounting and finance, not academics. According to readily available historical documentation, two consistent philosophies that have been associated with him over the years are cost-cutting and privatization of education. Those qualities may appeal to some and not to others. Just like Jim Tressel he has his supporters and detractors. A troubling issue in his background is his sudden and unceremonious departure from DePaul University. Apparently it was very secretive, as there's little documentation available other than a couple of brief stories from the Chicago Tribune that report his surprise suspension quickly followed by his resignation from DePaul after a special meeting of the school's trustees. If we dig deep enough we can find skeletons in everyone's closet. We're just more familiar with some than with others. As far as I'm concerned, the most important advantage UA's trustees have in evaluating Jim Tressel is that he's held a high-level executive position at UA for the past couple of years. They've had a chance to measure exactly what kind of job he can do at UA with the increasing responsibilities he's been given. Of course it's possible that one of the other candidates could do an even better job at UA. But UA's trustees would need to rely more on second-hand data to predict that.

If anyone is concerned about how the faculty and students would feel about having Jim Tressel as UA President, it's fair to ask the same about the other two candidates. For example, if you think the Toledo guy would be more popular with faculty and students, try to get a reading on the feelings about him at his previous schools by doing a Google search for Scott Scarborough DePaul and Scott Scarborough Toledo.

ZN.o keeps bouncing back and forth between molasses slow and lightning fast. Many thanks to all who are working to make ZN.o lightning fast all the time. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

Sounds good to me.

Balsy, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that a new basketball arena is "a priority for UA brass" along with many other financial and academic priorities. Making the leap in belief that a new basketball arena is so important that it's the key priority in selecting a new university president who will be responsible for advancing all the many priorities is much less rational. It's more reasonable to assume that UA will select the person they believe will do the best overall job of advancing the university's many priorities.

Slow? It's been virtually unusable for hours at a time over the last couple of days. Since the folks who run this place participate on an hourly basis, they can't be unaware of this. When I've been unable to connect, my Windows diagnostics says that the ZipsNation.org server is up, but is not responding.

There isn't enough data available yet to understand the fine details of the proposed facility. But the limited data we have so far suggests that it's an 8,500-seat arena with the possibility to add 500 temporary seats. It doesn't say if those 500 temporary seats would be for basketball or for other events. So we're going to have to wait for more information to get into a more detailed discussion. I would think that voters deciding on whether or not they're willing to pay more taxes for this facility would demand a lot more details than what we've seen so far.