a-zip

I certainly hope you are right about TB. The only thing I am saying is I am quite sure SS has a plan, it is being formulated and likely implemented by a new AD. As with all the hubbub around the rebranding and other issues, I don't expect them to reveal the whole plan until it is fully baked. Things get leaked, sentenced are printed out of context and everyone here goes crazy. These things need to be done behind closed doors, scrutinized behind closed doors. Now, if they are not working on a plan I would agree with everyone…..that would be bad….but I highly doubt that is the case. I DO have a problem with the previous administration that DIDNT have a good plan. There are already some noticeable changes - no TW and the schedule seems to be much better.

Spin, if an aggressive marketing campaign is all it took to get people into the Rubber Bowl or Infocision….why hasn't it been done? There has been marketing, we have an amazing charismatic coach who is out promoting, we give away scholarships, we have a winning basketball team….nobody seems to care. I played for the Zips during a time when we probably had the highest attendance ever and we were division 1AA, making the move to D1. It still used to piss me off when we would come out of the locker room and you could hear people having conversations in the stands because of how small the crowd was. The last game at the Info had announced attendance of 5,400, we opened the season with 9,100!!!! Anybody at the last game would tell you there were not that many people at the game. I played in front of more people in high school. Once again, do not misrepresent what SS has said or what I have said. Neither one of have EVER said "Lets cut football". What I have been saying for decades (warning against) is that if some of you people in NEO don't get your asses to support Zips football and basketball, you are going to lose it. I have warned against losing TB and KD……everybody says "NO WAY a-zip they are here to stay". BULLSHIT, they are too good to go down on a sinking ship. I DONT WANT THAT TO HAPPEN but it is inevitable if the trend continues. We can't keep pumping money into athletics!! While you folks put blinders on I am simply stating reality and you don't want to hear it. I firmly believe if people would have shown up to support, we would have won more games at home, we would have better recruits, we wouldn't be in as bad of a financial mess and more than likely we would be further ahead on getting a new basketball arena. Instead we are being embarrassed by articles being written about having the worst attendance in college football. I am more pissed at the previous administration for building the Info and then sitting on their asses. Seriously, I think they watched "Field of Dreams" too many times….."build it and they will come seemed to be their marketing strategy. Now, SS is taking the blame when the previous administration were the ones that did not whack TW and try to stop the bleeding. The classes I took taught me about supply and demand. They taught me about running a business. They taught me about making sound/responsible business decisions. They taught me about ROI. They did teach me about marketing too but part of successful marketing begins with having a product people want. The defeatist attitude lies right in Akron…..if cuts have to be made Joe Akron will have to look no further than the mirror to find someone to blame.

Interesting article……. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/12/01/akron “We had a first-year coach, and we also weren’t as competitive on the field as we’d hoped for,” Bach said. “That resulted in lower ticket sales and lower ticket revenue. That’s disappointing to all of us. But, when we look two, three and four years down the road to where we think the program will go, we think we’ll make our revenue goals and hopefully set off some of the losses we’re seeing now.” Bach said that the athletics department “was not scrambling” to find ways to resolve the shortfall, adding that he and his colleagues are mulling a number of options right now -- long before the budget year is slated to end -- to trim enough to meet it. He also said the department is already thinking about how much revenue it should expect from football ticket sales next year. The comments below the article are interesting (prophetic)…... "With 71% of the Athletic Department's budget coming from student fees, did anyone think to consult the students about this? It appears that they have been voting with their feet anyway, not attending the games in very large numbers. So, it seems, students are being asked to pay the price for whose entertainment exactly?"

So you don't agree he got rid of TW? Huh

Do you all think there would be an outcry in the community (like at UAB) if Akron announced it was dropping football? Maybe a good poll... http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/06/national_pundits_scoff_at_retu.html http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/jon-solomon/25201823/uab-football-is-back-future-questions-remain-about-reinstatement

The point is….the information in those article paints a pretty harsh reality for the future of college athletics. The previous administration had that information, right? They took that information and felt it was a wise decision to build that stadium for $65M when we had never even approached 30,000 in attendance. We all agree renovating the Rubber Bowls did not make sense. The question is…..was it a smart decision to continue to pursue D1 football when your community does not support ANY of your programs. For schools like ODU (who is planning a new stadium) it is a different story because they sell out their existing stadium. This isn't the FIELD OF DREAMS movie. Dr. SS got rid of TW for a start right?!? Isn't that something we can ALL agree should have been done years ago?!?! To me, he has addressed the MAJOR issue pretty quickly. If you are expecting in depth information on the other plans, be prepared to be disappointed. I wouldn't expect any major announcements until a new AD is in place.

This is the reality I am speaking of…. (embarrassing again we are used as an example of why NOT to build THAT stadium) http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/01/05/temple-university-stadium-100-million-dollar-bad-idea/ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/sports/ncaafootball/fresno-state-faces-the-task-of-keeping-up-with-the-big-5s.html?_r=0 http://articles.philly.com/2015-01-05/sports/57711037_1_infocision-stadium-football-stadium-stadium-decision

You continue to ignore the fact that we have NEVER had good attendance in ANY of the major sports. NEVER!!!!!

OR The people that take ONE SINGLE sentence from an article to characterize Dr. Scarborough as someone who is a poor leader, doesn't support athletics, doesn't have a plan and is out to destroy UA athletics (when all he did was speak the obvious)The people that ignore Akron's football attendance in….FOREVER and say at 30K seat/$60M stadium is justifiedThe people that ignore the embarrassing article showing us as having the worst attendance in the NCAAThe people that ignore Akron's winning basketball team's attendance in FOREVER and say the community would support a new basketball arenaThe people that blame poor attendance on weekday games, iCoach, poor opponents, OSU conflicts, old stadiums, bad weather, not winning in post season, too many logos, etc.

All 5,400 of them

You all are taking a SINGLE statement "I would not have built THAT stadium" and characterizing Dr. Scarborough as someone who leads from behind. The fact is he is right about not building "that" stadium, by stating it doesn't mean he is not dealing with it (or leading). The fact is he made the one substantial change everyone has been crying about for years in the athletic department - getting rid of TW. The fact is he is taking the lead with rebranding, program changes, curriculum changes to try and deal with the changing times Seems to me he IS someone who is taking his current situation and innovating and building something that will work. The previous administration built shiny new buildings/stadiums and racked up a ton of debt during brutal economic times.

Yea, sorry to sprinkle logic into the mix. I have a new image for you Captain (and a new suggested name) - please tell me again how much you like TW…..please tell me again how he is the one who single handedly devastated Zip Athletics……. Captain Obvious

Thanks Lee… I ran out of my "likes" for the day.

Based on these numbers; Average attendance - 13,266 11 games under 10,000 at a game 24 games under the NCAA 15,000 Last game played at Infocision 5,400 people With those numbers (knowing there were not even that many people in the stadium) My conclusion………I would not have built THAT stadium.

We ended the 2014 season winning 4 out of the last 5 games to include a win over Can't State. Did that get anybody excited? We opened up 2015 with a win over Howard (attendance 9,100)….I guess not. We then went to play at Penn State in front of 97,000 people and put up a respectable fight losing 21-3. Did that get people excited? Nope, because we came home to play Marshall in front of 13,000 (made up of primarily Marshall fans). We then went to Pitt and beat them in front of 40,000 fans……did that get people excited? Lets see, we played (and beat) Eastern Michigan at home in front of 8,400 people…..I guess not ____________________________________________ At this point we are 7-2 in the last 9 games with the losses coming to Penn State and Marshall. ____________________________________________ Time to come home………..what happens….. A win against Miami O in front of 8,200 people. What is embarrassing is not the single sentence Dr. Scarborough made about not building "THAT" stadium it is the fact that we have the worst attendance and fans in all of college football no matter how nice of a stadium we have or what day the game is played.

I had never seen this. Very well done tour…campus looks great….one of the nicest online campus tours I have seen. Well done.. http://www.uakron.edu/tour/

Ha, today is his 1 year anniversary as UA's President.

Well, I guess the good news is there are apparently not a lot of fans to read into his comments :-P . http://www.ohio.com/news/local/university-of-akron-football-attendance-lowest-in-nation-1.603992 Isn't he focusing on solutions for the future already? Seriously, he got rid of the biggest cancer in the athletic department right? He is also making lot of other strategic moves for the school's future. One sentence taken out of context and everyone is up in arms. Geez

First of all he did not say "I wouldn't have done this thing" He said "I would not have built that stadium". Please don't misquote because there is a big difference between what you just inserted Zach and what was actually quoted. At this point we don't know what he said before that sentence and after it, once again everyone is getting fired up about a single sentence. He did not say he would NOT have built a new stadium. He did not say he doesn't support athletics. I think it is safe to assume he is saying he would not have spent $60 million dollars on the 30,000 seat Info. I'll go out on a limb and say I bet he is thinking a $30 million dollar 20,000 seat stadium with room for expansion would have been the smart thing to do. Again, I bet he is also thinking "I would have canned TW years ago".

Benefit? That the university is in the hands of a person who is financially responsible and makes sound responsible decisions.

Personally I don't see his comment as deflecting blame. I think he is making a statement based on the numbers he is looking at…….folks, he is not wrong!! Maybe deep down he is thinking to himself "I would have fired TW a long time ago"……I wouldn't expect him to say that publicly. $60 million dollar stadium + lowest attendance in the USA = I wouldn't have built that stadium either. Even without hindsight…..in our history where are there attendance numbers that would justify a $60 million stadium. EVER. I am purely speculating here but my gut tells me the UA is in a financial mess (possibly worse than we know). As with a CEO of any company….if you are financially stressed, you cut programs that are not profitable, you focus on the things you are best at and you get rid of people that are not producing results. I think that is what we are seeing. Once again, I think people are getting wrapped around the wheel over a single statement without knowing the context of how it was delivered. I am not understanding why Dr. Scarborough is taking the criticism when it was Dr. Proenza that hired and didn't fire TW and created all this debt. Lets face it folks, our football teams future rests squarely on Terry Bowden. I would say if he cannot turn this around, nobody can……if that is the case I would say our football program could be doomed.

Hopefully the demands that were set to use the Info came from the previous administration. The acoustics have to be amazing for a concert. It would be foolish to not try and get some good shows in there and would get people used to coming in. Pearl Jam loves places like the Info ;-)

Part of the "shit sandwich" Proenza turned over included TW. I wouldn't expect TW to publicly call himself out in public (c'mon man)….If the AD created the holocaust, why didn't Proenza fire him?! Dr. Scarborough did and it appears he has a big mess to clean up. My opinion is that Dr. Scarborough's comment about not building "that" stadium has more to do with the size and cost of it. Yes he has the advantage of hindsight but I for one would love to have seen the market studies that justified it all to begin with. Maybe he has seen those, who knows. There were comments about the previous administration being somewhat of a dictatorship. The "Landscape for Learning" and the "Info" sure are nice to look at but if nobody lives in the dorms and nobody goes to the games - that is bad business. Seems like Proenza was pulling a little smoke and mirror job. The Info IS a GIANT sixty five million dollar 30,000 seat luxury box turd if nobody goes to it and you can't pay for it.

ABSOFRICKENLUTELY!!!!!