LosAngelesZipFan

agreed-- the phrase "we could do alot worse than..." comes to mind. They did ALOT worse by picking Scar. BTW, this is why i think they should install Dr. P as interim president... put someone in place that understands, and loves, the institution but that isn't a candidate. Put together a process that will take as long as it takes to find the right person, that's not arbitrarily time-boxed.

I was on the fence on Tress-- clearly a super competent person who had an enormous number of connections but... he wasn't a phd/didn't have an academic pedigree so if you view UA as what it is-- an academic institution-- then he wasn't the best choice. The role he had at UA under Proenza was probably right for him at UA. BTW, I haven't read any signal accomplishments he had at UA. I agree w Capt on the talent eval issues-- after icoach and Scar, there needs to be some sort of a process in place that really double confirms these hires. We know what happened with icoach-- he was one and only choice of the new AD and there was a bias to find someone with 'big time' experience. I really have a hard time believing that Scar flew through the interview process without raising yellow flags, but for some reason he wasn't bad enough to get washed out but wasn't good enough to win it outright. From what I remember, he seemed sort of the last man standing and there was pressure to do something quickly since YSU had decided to move forward with Tress. I think there needs to be significant outreach to the Akron business community so that they are involved, engaged, and invested in this decision. This is a critical position and an important moment for Akron.

Oh thank God... I would like them to put Proenza back in as interim prexy, since they have to pay him anyway. They need to do a deliberate, no stone unturned, national search. They have to find a tier of candidates above the pool that Scar was in. Someone w academic accomplishment, but that is also dynamic and energetic. The need to find the right person, not the conveniently available one...

It would be incredible if the BoT pulled the trap door that quickly... but remember, they are the ones that hired him in the first place. Let's take a brief trip down memory lane and remember the keystone cop-like process that led to the hiring of Scar... the many months of advance notice Proenza gave, the haphazard search that seemed to be kabuki theater to hire Tressel, the push back on that by actual academics, the sudden announcement of Scar because YSU had forced our hand by hiring Tressel. Cripes. It was all a disaster from the beginning...

Good intentions doesn't/shouldn't cut it... this is another key initiative that has proven to be a pig in a poke. Anyone know the status of the cadet corp? I can see that being the next idea to get yanked...

Very cool for you to join the board! Welcome and best of luck to Kato!

Uh, yes, it would make sense to focus on the current issues rather than taking on a steaming turd pile. Basically, Akron's reputation was sullied for even considering this when it was never a realistic possibility in the first place. Worst of all worlds...

And for what it's worth, I am happy to see jesuschristmonkeyballs get through the profanity filter. That made my day.

It is the definition of dumb-assery. If there was any doubt about the haphazard, ill-considered, tone-deaf stupidity of all that has transpired the last 24 months, this should be the final confirmation. Besides wasting money at a time of supposed grave financial crisis, it just makes the whole U look stupid and amateurish. Sure will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple of years-- if enrollment craters, it will precipitate a true financial crisis. And that would open the door on a state takeover. And that would lead to a consolidation that is not over our choosing or control, like the CSU merger talk of 5 or 6 years ago. The idea of shaping UA around a polytech is sound, I think-- it's actually very consistent with UA's history. It's not a stretch. The problem is that the term "polytech" doesn't mean anything to most people and for those that do have an impression, it is more akin to "trade school" than "technical institute with a practical/career-minded bent". So stipulated: it should never have been launched this way. But, now that it has, now that Scar and co. have been attaching the U to this for the last year and a half as the future and saving path, you can't just walk away from it. Instead, shift to translating "polytech" into terms that make sense to the consumer. Instead of saying "we got some pushback on our plan to rename the university, after being here for all of a cup of coffee, and when faced with that, we pretended that we had no intention of renaming but instead are re-positioning...well, not even really re-positioning, we are really just re-branding... well, not even that, it's just a tagline, really just a smudgy squiggle of meaningless words that someone stuck on there under the logo, just ignore it and pretend it never happened", they could be saying "we do constant tracking of consumer sentiment and have been paying particular attention to the saliency of the term polytechnic because that is really what we were hoping would take root. It hasn't, in part because Ohio doesn't have any heritage of this unlike California or Georgia or, well, France. So, we know now we need to go past the term to actually explaining it." Hence new tagline options: The University of Akron: We Really Really Don't Know What the f We Are Doing or The University of Akron: Somehow Making Kent Look Like a Well-Run Institution or The University of Akron: JesusChristMonkeyBalls We Have GOT to Get Our S*** Together.

It would be interesting to look at the athletic budgets, attendance/revenue generated, overall enrollment, endowment, alumni base, facilities, record of program success and media market size of the bottom tier of the p4/5 schools and compare that to UA. I think those are the key variables that any conference would be looking at. I think it would be a stretch for UA to be really attractive to a p4/5 in our current state. I don't think an objective review of our current status would yield a "ready for the next level" conclusion. The implosion of the football team under icoach, now being nicely repaired by Terry, and the lack of attendance for both football and basketball could be overcome if there was a demonstrated pool of financial support that could be readily tapped to fund upgrading, but instead UA is already one of the most egregious examples of making students shoulder athletic department costs. That indicates that the well of support either doesn't exist or can't be tapped. I think some have posted the assumption that moving up would unlock more interest locally, and I don't doubt that if we were competing at another tier, say in the vein as Cincy, there would be more local interest. But it's a chicken and egg thing-- we can't get to the next tier without that support; we can't get that support unless we are in the next tier. One big reason we can't get the support is because we are splitting the market, at minimum with Kent, but also with CSU and YSU to some extent, and all are entirely in the shadow of OSU. To me, the conclusion is that moving up is entirely dependent on a gamechanger of some sort-- either a super wealthy alum or group of alum, a group of local businesses, or some combo of that, get together and commit to the tens of millions it will take to push UA to the next level. That kind of demonstrated commitment (think Phil Knight, Nike, and Oregon or what happened in Cincy over the last 15 years) would seem to open the eyes of a next tier conference. Is there any prospect of that happening? The only obvious path is LeBron-related, but it feels like that would have already emerged if there was really a chance for that to happen. In the absence of that, the only other gamechanger scenario is some sort of consolidation with the other universities, at least athletically. I know most disagree with this approach, but it is hard to dismiss the fact that combining UA and Kent budgets for football or for basketball and will yield a much better supported team. The football budget goes from $8M-ish each to $16M for 1 team-- a budget in the range of Nebraska, Texas A&M, Oregon State, and Stanford (http://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciajessop/2013/08/31/the-economics-of-college-football-a-look-at-the-top-25-teams-revenues-and-expenses/#4a6887e42023). Similar result for basketball. We're all just noodling ideas here, so I thought I would add into the mix. I just think the only realistic conclusion to be made is that there needs to be some sort of gamechanger for Akron to be considered seriously by the next tier of conferences.

Clearly in protest to UA no longer being a polytechnic

Zips in my town! Awesome! Who on the board is in Cali or Cali-adjacent or might be interested in making the trip? Think the alumni office will plan something?

That this was even being entertained was attaching a stink to UA in the higher ed community... was really a half-assed idea that only garnered negative press and was never a realistic option.

Some folks earlier were alluding to the Cleveland-Akron market-- we share that market with a school 11 miles down the road. The only realistic chance of us going to a p5 would be combining with Kent. A combined UA-Kent, with a very large local alumni base and 50K students, would have a shot at moving up, if it was winning against top tier opponents and attracting real crowds.

"...and both Universities reside a good distance away from any "major" program in the state." Except for the other program that is 12 miles away from Akron competing in the same league at the same level. LOVE the look of Stephens Center...that'd be perfect

Yep-- this issue is going to continue to grow I think. We had a great discussion on the board last year about this as the faux fiscal crisis/polytech re-naming stuff was happening. If attention really ramped on this topic, there would be alot of focus placed on the UA-KSU situation-- two similar public schools 12 miles apart spending $20 million or so just on football, let alone the rest of the sports, with neither really drawing enough interest/support to pay for it.

watched the game this morning off my dvr... impressive to win, as has been said, when the bread n butter of the team wasn't falling at all for anyone. It amazes me-- and makes me incredibly excited for the next few years-- to see the depth at guard now, particularly compared to recent years where a really bad off court decision removed our only real guard and tanked the team in the tourney. That pass that Josh Williams made was incredible... And not take anything away from the team that tarted up the JAR for the game-- the clips they had of the beginning of the game with the smoke and lights and the glow sticks-- all looked great. But clearly lipstick on a pig...

I caught some of the game on the iphone on the drive home... was I mistaken, or did hear the announcers say the JAR is an impressive facility?! Oy....

future Zips HC?

I have to say that I really like the TB chillin video...

It's a bummer that UA is now a proof-point in articles like this-- the faux fiscal crisis coverage makes us a really easy example when in actuality the stadium was really not designed and built in an overly extravagant way. In fact, at $60 million and 30K seats, it was built at an institutionally appropriate scale and at a point when something had to happen given the condition of the Rubber Bowl. Unlike CSU, we didn't walk away from a suitable but less than ideal facility in hopes of greater glory and betting big on enhanced revenue. Which is not to diminish the point of the article-- spending on facilities, sports and otherwise, is on an out of control spiral that is needlessly jacking up the cost of a degree and in the end hurting society by making it harder and costlier to get a degree. However, I don't think UA's re-build over the last decade was overblown or extravagant-- it was a corrective from decades of little to no capital investment. The real issue is that Akron is a moderately sized area supporting 2 large public universities, both competing at the same level for nearly all of the same attention and resources.

I just came across an Akron alum and former Zips track athlete that has become one of the top crossfit competitors and recently appeared on Shark Tank. She also enlisted in the Ohio National Guard after graduating. Very cool that she is an elite athlete and a Zip! https://www.instagram.com/dani_sidell/?hl=en https://twitter.com/dani_sidell

Congrats to Terry and the football team...wasn't a pretty season but definitely is progress. And, not to beat a dead horse, but Scarphoon's henny penny ski-is-falling approach to budgeting leads to these type of observations from Elton ostensibly in an article about sports: "Yet even that is a dubious honor right now as the cash-strapped university will now have to find the funds to get coach Terry Bowden's crew to a December bowl game." Our new tagline isn't "Ohio's Polytechnic"; it's "The Cash-Strapped University".

This gets an award for most interesting reference in a post. I read a couple of other books that touched on this recently-- Haidt's The Righteous Mind and a really cool one called Sapiens. Definitely worth checking out!

have to add my 2cents here.... "which makes it either deliberate or a poor leadership"-- it was both. I started asking about $60 million number on this board last spring because it just didn't make sense. It just felt very Reichstag fire. The painting of the financial position is immediately dire (vs. challenged/unsustainable over the long term) seemed to quickly become about justifying immediate changes to the positioning, name, etc.--- the brand-- rather making a well-reasoned argument for making those strategic changes. As I wrote about a couple months ago after the PD finally poked a hole in the $60 million financial emergency balloon (http://zipsnation.org/forums/topic/34037-explaining-the-deficit/), the real budget gap could be managed with a less than 2% annual trim to the overall budget. The media absolutely has a negative news bias-- if it bleeds it leads as the saying goes-- in large part because that is how we are hard-wired as homo sapiens. We pay much more attention to danger, threat and down-side risk than good news and upside potential. I don't think the ABJ has been on an anti-Scar jihad. In fact, they have written several pro-Scar op-eds, including one that basically repeated/validated the financial emergency storyline. Their job is to push and ask tough questions. I don't think Scar has proved to be adept at handling any of this, and the deliberate misleading of the UA community about the finances is in fact the proof-certain of the poor leadership.