clarkwgriswold

Still pending in the Court of Claims. Groce was dismissed as a party a while back. Recently, the magistrate recommended dismissing the discrimination and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims, leaving only the negligence claim. It's not scheduled for trial until June of 2021.

Sounds like the Faculty Senate is unhappy about the President's plan. I guess it all comes down to whose ox is being gored.

Dear Zips Basketball- Please come back, and soon, so we can talk about something positive instead of COVID-19, budget cuts and football. Sincerely, Zips Basketball Fans

Agreed that we need some enthusiasm and creativity in the AD position, but PJ Fleck himself wouldn't make a difference if everyone isn't in the boat. This is much bigger than a one person issue.

Those types of "rowers" are pretty damn rare too. Guys like Fleck come along rarely.

Article from the Beacon about the golf team- https://www.beaconjournal.com/sports/20200519/separation-anxiety-hits-home-for-zips

They thought they were paying the market rate for a head coach. Remember, these decisions are made in a world (and state) where a women's rowing coach makes $400,000.

A snippet of information from something I read today about the Zips training staff. In 2013, the department has gone from seven full-time staff and six graduate assistants to having 13 full-time athletic trainers.

This article is now 2 years old but it sets out the pay for some of the top Ohio college coaches. Some of them are astounding. https://www.cleveland.com/sports/erry-2018/05/571c0d0f7b6137/49_ohio_college_head_coaches_p.html

I think the 5 year deal is that norm and that any school going outside of that norm would be at a disadvantage in the short term. I say short term as I think we're about to enter into a new era of coaching contracts with schools backing away from long term big money deals that tie them down in the event of bad hires. This will happen more on the level of the UA's than the Alabamas, but it is coming. An early example is what Western Michigan did with basketball. Pressed by the coronavirus and financial concerns, they hired an assistant of Hawkins (the coach they canned) on a two year deal at $120K salary and $100K for media obligations. Hawkins was making $225 salary plus $160 for media obligations. Hawkins last deal was signed in 2014 and still had a year left on it when they recently canned him.

My post acknowledged the fees. By "free" I meant not paying at the door. My point was that they could get more out of those fees by attending games.

It's a strange world where we have to hope for the kind of success that leads a more prominent program to take away the person that brought that success.

All of this roster number talk makes me think back to the broadcast of the 2017 game against Penn State when the UA radio color guy explained that the biggest difference between the teams was not in starting talent but in depth. This was in the 3rd quarter when the Zips were down 42-0 and the reserves had not seen the field. Yikes!

I was in school during prohibition so we didn't have that option.

You are correct that a little creativity could go a long way. Walsh's plan is probably easier for a small private college as opposed to a larger publicly funded school. When my son was looking at schools a decade or so ago, George Washington guaranteed that your tuition would not go up in your 4 years. I think some other schools have followed suit.

Not that it equates to a lot, but the UA students as a whole could get a little more of their money's worth by taking the opportunity to go to the damn games for free. Back in the dark ages the excuse was that it was a commuter school and students weren't on campus to go to the games. That's not the case any more. Those kids are living in or around campus and there can't be that much else to do.

I suspect that the odd distribution of cuts was brought to you by Title IX.

I guess it is all in how you define competitive. From 2007 through 2015, they had one season over .500 for the full schedule (and it was only 1 game over .500) and the best they ever did in conference was 2015 when they went 13-15.

I'm curious as to why you would make such an effort for something that obviously brings you so much misery. I also note that you use the pronoun "we" in referring to the University of Akron. That's telling.

...and yet Scarborough who was the impetus of the cuts that led to the elimination of baseball was the villain who was chased out of town in short order. Don't get me wrong, he did some questionable things (e.g. Ohio's Polytechinic University?), but the major difference in him and what we've seen with Miller is that Miller had an outside crisis to use and is better in the PR aspect of delivering bad news. Make a cut and you're the enemy to many. Undo the cut and you're the enemy to many. At UA, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

That's something we all need to consider when we propose cutting a program, the human element.

Beacon Journal opinion piece by Dr. Miller about the challenges facing the school and it's place in the City- https://www.beaconjournal.com/opinion/20200516/gary-l-miller-itrsquos-all-about-akron

Reading all of this, I have come to one simple conclusion. That conclusion is not that football is too much of a financial drain or is financially unfeasible. Rather, it's that $6.5 to $7 million dollars is a lot of money for awful football. It's the product that needs improved. I heard Urban Meyer on a radio show this week and in discussing assistant coaches stated that college football really all comes down to recruiting. It's all about talent on the field. Get kids that are better than PCCC's, OU's, Toledo's....and you will finally see a return on the investment. It's the administration's job to find the leaders that can accomplish that task

Agree with all of that. My point is that the program is probably not entirely out of the woods, especially if we see an ugly season. Announced as a sell out.