g-mann17

I mean the university as a whole. The university is growing and progressing quickly. The direction that the entire university is moving is not benefitted by being involved in a conference that no one cares about. I understand your defeatist attitude. It's much easier to say that everything sucks, it lacks any value, and it never will have any value. I get it, it's easy, because anytime something remotely negative happens you can say "look I was right". The problem is that the people involved now, the people who make decisions, don't want to be just "General Dollar" they don't want to just be some pissy little group of buildings sandwiched betwee downtown and the ghetto. That means building a campus people want to be on, building facilities people want to play in, and having vision enough to see that 5-10 years from now things can be different here.You can see it in our research, you can see it in how programs are constantly being rated higher, you can see it in the attitude of the new students. Athletics is just a small part. But unfortunately it is the most visible part. The average person doesn't know that The University of Pittsburgh developed the polio vaccine, but they do know that Florida was the National Champions. Proenza and the board of trustees recognize this, and that is why they have pumped nearly 100 million into the athletics programs. Is it the 300 million Minnesota spent on their stadium? No. But you know what it's a start. And the ammenities for the fans are strikingly similar.I will be happy if we can be a Boise State or Utah (undefeated BCS busters). But I will settle for being like Cincinnati (10-2 (should have been 9-3 damn it) Big East Champs). But it takes vision to get there, a willingness to accept change and determination to create it.

The NCAA should be cited for a lack of commitment to the non-BCS schools. It's almost criminal what they do.I agree about I-AA for football. The MAC needs to decide whether it wants to be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond. Heck, we would still get a big pay day for football because every BCS school plays I-AA schools now so we wouldn't be hurt financially. Imagine I-AA playoff games at The Big Phone Booth (InfoCision Stadium....InfoCision is after all a telemarketing company). It would be great.Yeah, no thanks. Any other MAC program that wants to drop feel free, but 1-AA is not a progressive direction. We're building a bigger a university and part of that is making sure that all our athletics compete at the highest level.

They only added the St. V/Hoban game after the Morgan State date was announced. They were previously slated to play at Green Field.

Before YouTube, Mike Thomas used to do the same thing once a month through the university site by writing a letter. I read it every month. Communication is a wonderful thing. Makes the fan feel like he is part of what is going on and makes he or she get involved.Well he did make a point of talking to Thomas before taking the job here. The previous staff was available, but they weren't out there and telling you they were available, this is the right kind of thing to do and it is important to reach out to the largest collection of followers.

Lids is where I got mine. If you live in the area, most of the area malls carry the Ohio MAC schools.Gift shop at info stadium perhaps?Well it has to be open first

They also did a good job not allowing Firestone vs. East and Buchtel vs. Firestone.They obviously don't want any trouble at the games.

I thought it said "BAR OPEN"?We are sorely lacking any "The University of Akron" and "UA" graphics on this stadium.

For the Hoban /SVSM game those gate receipts will be split between the 2 schools. The Akron City games gate will be kept by the district.The university will keep all concessions monies.Well Hoban vs. St. V should be a near sell out and an extremely fun game to watch

Lids is where I got mine. If you live in the area, most of the area malls carry the Ohio MAC schools.

10 Million from Gary Taylor (Infocision) and 5 million from Summa.

I think he is taking on both of those jobs...(tickets and positioning)PD Article

The same disadvantages he had when he started working at Minnesota? Remember, Hunter and Mack were handed 20 million guaranteed for a stadium. They didn't have to make those connections. In fact other than FirstMerit and Towpath Credit Union what other sponsoship money has come in during the last three years? We still have 4 gates that have no sponsor, we still have a Press Tower with no sponsor, we still have an endzone gameday facility with no sponsor. I know the economy is tough, but really, you couldn't find people to sponsor/endorse these things?I like Hunter, he's a great guy, I've had great interactions with him, but these were things he in which he was in charge. Remember we were supposed to be at point where bonds were only going to cover 30 million of the original 55 million. We only ever got to 21.5 million (unless i'm missing something that is an epic fail).It's not a bash on Hunter, but when you are given two candidates and one is familiar with the area and has received only 2 million and the other is a person who had no previous connections to an area and was able to receive upwards of 80 million, who are you going to pick.I'm not sold on Wistrcill. He has only done the fundraising/sales portion of the AD job. What if he is too abrasive to Dambrot, Porter, or Mitchell. Or what if he isn't willing to find ways to fund pay increases for top performing coaches? What if he stinks at hiring personnel. Who knows. But at the very least we know he can raise money. And we need money more than anything else right now.

I heard that answer a little differently than you I think.He said (paraphrasing) "I'm not coming into this job thinking about my next job .. it's not how I do things"That was also the gist of what I recall hearing him say.Well there are some people that would say "he'll leave in 3 years" even if he came in and said "i've bought a couple plats at Glenville Cemetery and I've started putting money down at the retirement village in Fairlawn, I'm here forever baby!!!"

A blog entry talking about our new AD and some of the dealings Minnesota had with his former employer. It spins it as huge corruption potential. But the way I see it is "taking advantage of connections". Plus everything any athletic department does has to go through a board of trustees and is subject to State oversight committees. The blog really appears to be from the perspective of someone who thinks very low of athletics. Learfield and Wistrcill

Speaking of bad attitudes, QB Clay Belton has decided to leave the Miami of Ohio football program. Per CFT, Belton had been in a figurative fight with senior Daniel Raudabaugh and redshirt freshman Zac Dysert for the top spot.Awesome segue

See in my mind it came down to this... "The last time you two were up for a job, the Big 10 program felt Tom was more qualified. We really need to sell all of our programs, he just sold out a brand new stadium for a team that will probably finish middle of the pack in the Big 10 if they are lucky. You gave me 6000 season tickets... how much have you improved over the last 3 years?"Now I liked Hunter, nice guy, and I'm positive there were certain ideas he had that Mack had to slow down or stop because the funding just wasn't available or because he wanted to go a different direction. But it is clear that Tom had huge interest in our school from the get go. And it was the whole point of doing a National Search. (find the best available)Let's just see what his plans for the athletic department are and where it takes us. 3 years or 10 years who cares as long as we are farther along (more successful) than we are right now.

How do you skip this Some people in the building think it's Rasor's fault Yurachek didn't get it?

Nice! Guys back on the roof of our favorite buildings too. I think they are waxing it.Wax on? or Wax off?

Because the players never made it on to the field? And we don't know what the outcome of the appeals will be?

Answer: Nothing......In fact, with the exception of one 7-3-1 season long ago now and one MAC Championship over the past 20 odd years, we have not done anything to deserve respect. Respect is earned, not given. This team can be very good this year. The talent is there. The problem is that the players playing for the Zips don't have a track record of coming through in the clutch. I don't see that changing this year. I'll wait for one of the 50 prediction threads that will pop up over the next couple of weeks, but I don't see good things ahead for the Zips this season. When posting the prediction thread, please post the schedule as well starting with the sentence....."Given the schedule below (post schedule below), what is your prediction for the 2009 season." Yay! More self deficating "we suck and we'll always suck" comments. Soon to come fromg GP1 "MAC is 'toilet bowl' football" and "all you dumb Browns fans"; also don't miss "even my wife thinks the MAC stinks" and "we are a mid-level program in a toilet conference".

I never said it as "golly gee we were so close last year to having a good record" I said it as "we were competetive while being inexperienced in very key positions, so why wouldn't we be competetive this year?" Hell we were 2 close games from being 3-9 (there are only 12 games in a season afterall). The point remains that what the tool of a writer said about Temple is actually more appropriate for us, then them.

Geez, that hurts. Shall I dust off the "my roommate is a convicted felon" stories?That's really not as bad as huge academic dishonesty cases. See because while UA allowed a felon to be in a dorm room, you basically allowed the integrity of your engineering program to be thrown out the window. That calls into question every degree that has been awarded out of that program. Also your $90 Million, was mostly property if I remember correctly.Listen saturnalso or is it uranusaswell you need to realize that all you have on UA is 66 years and that OU hasn't advanced much since 1804.

That's not entirely true. The National Research Council conducts an extremely thorough survey and ranking of universities and individual departments. They take several years of data into account, which is why they come out less than once a decade. The next rankings are due out this year or the next I believe.Here's a link to the last ones that came out in the 90s. Our OU compatriots might not like what they see.http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.htmlAkron--79Miami--82OU--86Nice try, but if you read the introduction at the top of the file, it clearly states that those are rankings only of doctoral programs (not undergrad) and only in 41 categories, mostly sciences related. No business. No communications. No undergrad. There are over 100 doctoral program categories overall.Wow. Too bad for you, so what you're telling everyone here is that you can go to "tough" OU, drink and party your way through to a nice graduate degree? Sorry but your little school in the hills is just way over-rated and you know it.

Not 100% sure but $61.6 million buys you a lot of love at the Bunny Ranch. And we were 5-7 and had 4 extremely close games that could have been wins. Typically that kind of season with 15 returning starters buys you a little bit of "watch out for this team"2007- yeah should not have got love lost quite a few key people and had no clear QB option2008- we had an inexperienced unproven QB, and a RB by committee that was injury prone, lost our top receiver that deserves no love2009- 15 returning starters, healthy d-line, experienced (though thin) defensive backfield, 3 yr QB, new digs, new coaching staff, something to change the attitude of the players = a little bit of love