jupitertoo

According to the PeeDee.

Dambrot gives a good interview. He offers thoughtful and, often, brutally frank answers. None of the typical coach-speak.

I am 49 and a member of the faculty in Akron. If you saw the "writing" I do or tried to have meaningful conversations with a large percentage of today's students, you would consider moving to New Zealand. Imagine discussing global terrorism and its impact on the future of our nation and then noticing that most students are reading text messages.

Twitter and Facebook illuminate a huge divide in how "our" generation communicates versus "today's" generation - and it's frankly very disturbing. When my kids were in high school at a local Catholic institution, I was horrified by the FB posts by 9th and 10th grade students (large percentage girls, BTW). The language they used - the "N" word, "bitch," "whore,"...these were white girls who had attended St. Sebastian and St. Hillary, for gosh sake. Twitter just takes it down to the next level of the gutter. Our society is in trouble today, but I can't imagine in 15-20 years...

Ohio shot badly against UB but still beat them by 10. I agree Akron is number one by a good margin, but Buff is not number 2.

I was there. Full all the way to the top five rows. I've seen sell outs there and this was close. There were no tickets left as of yesterday.

Dambrot has a bit of a quandry: this team is significantly faster and more athletic with Zeke on the bench.

13,011 at the Convo. Bobcats tight in the first half but get hot late.

Wow, the program has dropped farther than I thought.

I attended the BG-Ohio game. BG is far from a solid club and seems eminently beatable by the Zips. Ohio just played like dog-crap, as they have since X-Mas.

Ohio is playing just horrible basketball right now. Horrible. They're loaded with talent but Groce hasn't shown he can knit it all together.

Solich went the four year recruit route, not heavily Juco. The university never would have allowed it.

If he earned his degree, no requirement to sit out, right?

With the current job market, it might be a good time to stay in school at Akron and get an advanced degree. I'll be interested to see how many other D-1A schools are lining up to sign an undersized player with a knee injury that forced him to miss the last game. See you on the field in The Big Dialer next fall Brian. Wow, way to stay classy with one of the Zips' only highlight players, GP1.

I was surprised to read in Rasor's blog that Wagner is thought to be looking to transfer. Has that been discussed here? I hadn't heard that rumor.

Aren't you the same hypocrite that rudely chastised the members of ZN.o who confirmed Iannello was fired because it wasn't written in any newspaper? Now you're telling me a newspaper might not know everything? That a team's beat writer might be pathetic? How can that be? Please strive for some consistency. You can't have it both ways. Thomas is pathetic; Gaffney was serviceable. Big difference. I guess I'm just amazed at how lazy some "news" organizations have become. And I'm not convinced the university decided to can Ianello until the horrendous performance in the final game. I think you are pathetic. Captain is correct. How do you have the time to post on Zipsnation, shouldn't you be helping your husband move to Kansas? Best of luck. How did all this name calling get started?? Name calling and personal attacks on fellow Zip fans...pretty lame in my book. Jupitertoo isn't a zips fan. Not quite sure what I did to warrant 2Ball's (there's irony in that name) rant, but, whatever. And someone responded that I'm not a Zips fan - I do have season tickets for both major sports, so I guess that allows me to post my comments, right? I was not criticizing the Zips in any way - just the Beacon.

Aren't you the same hypocrite that rudely chastised the members of ZN.o who confirmed Iannello was fired because it wasn't written in any newspaper? Now you're telling me a newspaper might not know everything? That a team's beat writer might be pathetic? How can that be? Please strive for some consistency. You can't have it both ways. Thomas is pathetic; Gaffney was serviceable. Big difference. I guess I'm just amazed at how lazy some "news" organizations have become. And I'm not convinced the university decided to can Ianello until the horrendous performance in the final game.

So far the level of "reporting" from the new ABJ beat writer has been pathetic. Today's article has no facts, no signs of research, nothing. John S. Knight must be turning over in his grave.

This is why Proenza had better put together a hell of a Search Committee to find the coach. F the opinion fans on ZNO, make the right hire and lets get this thing turned around. Ummm..... no. This administration knows they have F'd the fans enough, and they are not going to make a hire such as Ianello again that may come out of a "process" but leaves everyone saying WTF and then places the blame squarely on them if and when he fails. If they all want to save their asses, they'll hire someone the fans and alumni are behind, which at this point can really only either be a big name or Paul Winters (Mike Johnson has alumni support too, but doesn't want the gig). If they go with a choice of the fans, everyone shares in the blame as a community when the guy fails. They go out on a limb, its squarely on their ass again, and they know they can't survive that. Come on..... To make a decison because it is safe? Absolutely the wrong approach! Those in the "administration" are paid to LEAD and make strategic decisions for this university. Plus, I am not convinced it is anywhere near unanimous among alumni that they are insisting on an "Akron Man". I'm not. I want the best coach available. That might be Winters, but I think there might be better people available. I will be angry if I find UA did not make every effort to find the best person they can get. If a legitimate process leads to the hiring of Paul Winters, he will have my 100% support. Anything less, and they will have people waiting to say "I told you so" if Winters isn't successful. How would that even be a "safe" approach for the administration? Good post. And they are indeed searching for the best people available. There are some great coaches out there. It all depends on whether they can get them to come to Akron. Good posts. The main reason I DON'T want the administrations listening to the fans is ME. I love watching football, but honestly, I don't know much. I have to imagine there are lots of passionate but basically football illiterate football fans out there (like me). My experience has been that things appear simple until you begin investing large amounts of time in it, then you realize why it is so hard to get ahead. I often summarize this sentiment with this sarcastic phrase: "Everybody is a race car driver. They admit they wouldn't win the race, but they could easily stay on the lead lap." Ignore the idiots, let people who know what they are talking about make the decision! Those people need to be on the search committee. What an awesome post. It's true of me and about 99.9 percent of posters on every forum everywhere. Bravo.

Clearly I was wrong. I am surprised, but perhaps it was the ugly nature of the final game that made the situation untenable for the administration. As for Fickell, I would avoid that hire. Here is a guy who has had very little experience outside of the OSU bubble. He has worked with a very small group of assistants, all of whom have worked primarily in C-bus. I think you want a guy who knows a lot of people and can put together a staff of very good assistants with varying levels of experience. Fickell doesn't have that reach at this point in his career.

Gaffney reported the rumor near the end of this story. I missed that. Thanks.

Hey, if doesn't happen fine. If it does, you have to publicly apologize for being a douche. By the way, why exaclty do you have your panties in a bunch about this anyway?Rasor and Gaffney both bring it up as rumor, and since the last rumor debacle of Yurachek getting the job only to find out he didn't the Beacon has been clamping down tight on this kind of stuff. Additionally knowing journalism and news the way I do, they probably have checked in only to get no answer in return. You notice that the rumor was posted on Tuesday, the same day he found out his mother died and cancelled his press conference there was plenty of cover up news available at the time. Also Scoop is a pretty reliable website.Don't know why I'm a "douche" for adding some facts to the argument. And I certainly haven't seen Gaffney report any rumors. Please share them with me. Rasor's only "source" is the same questionable Internet site as everyone else's. All I'm saying is that several of you have been assured that the coach is gone and have cited inside sources. I'm guessing Rasor has more inside sources - and certainly Gaffney does - and yet neither has reported anything new or definitive. I'd be interested in your knowledge of journalism, by the way.

Let's think about this for a minute: Several of you have claimed to have had multiple "inside sources" tip you off to the firing of the coach. In one laughable case, a poster claims to have been informed by someone who "works for the football program" that the administration decided to fire Ianello last week and only waited until this week due to the death of the coach's mother. Think about that for a second: Someone who works for the football program. You do realize that everyone in the football program - perhaps with the exception of the equipment staff - works for the head coach, right? In that case, one of Ianello's de facto employees, or an equipment manager, has been advised by an upper administration official that his boss was getting fired a week before it is scheduled to happen?With so many "inside sources," it's amazing this hasn't been headline news.Wait a minute: It HASN'T been in the news! Not a whiff of a report in the ABJ or PD. Now, if you know anything about news reporters, the planned sacking of a coach is absolute blood in the water - they are all over these types of stories. Moreover, their editors are all over these stories. There is nothing more embarrassing than getting scooped on this type of story, especially by some internet outfit. Yet somehow they have missed out on all the "inside sources" each of you claim to have. How is that possible? Are they part of some great conspiracy? Is Rasor in on it, too? After all, he certainly has better sources than most of you guys. Do you really think Gaffney and EA haven't been checking into this stuff and, had they detected even the slightest possibility of truth, wouldn't have written even a small story about it to cover their butts with their editors? I will be the first to admit, proudly, that I do NOT have inside sources within the football program. The assistant equipment manager is not whispering in my ear, nor is the 3-7 p.m. clerk in the team shop. You guys might be right about the situation, but I doubt it based on the facts above. It just does not pass the smell test. And believe it or not, Dr. Proenza and UA board members are not monitoring your Facebook page or paying attention to your emails. There are more important things than the year 2 performance of iCoach's undertalented team.

I think that may be the reason for all this. It's time for both sides to move on. he could be stepping down for personal reasons. This thread might be the biggest case of mental masturbation since the decision to hire Gerry Faust.

I think you folks are going to be disappointed.