GP1

This in and of itself doesn't influence my decision. What would influence me is if the quality of student entering UofA is better than before. Not only is Tressel part of the admissions process, but he is also head of the Encouraging Department. The development and expansion of this department tells me they may be letting in less qualified students in order to collect student fees to fund the "building process". This is a morally bankrupt way to run a university, but then again, with the influence of Athletic Directors on schools across the country, it should be no surprise universities are becoming progressively morally bankrupt. If striving for excellence is generating applications, then I guess Tressel is the guy. If striving for excellence is improving the quality of student so the school produces better graduates, it remains to be seen if Tressel is the guy. Until we know the quality of applicants, we don't really know if they are striving for application numbers or quality. Surely, a university needs to be more than striving for applications.

I agree he is going to be the next President because our Board of Trustees took such a lazy approach. We might in fact have a Board of Trustees problem. I'm not going to root for him or against him. I don't root for or against my employees. I expect him to do his job well in the areas that really matter at a university: advancing research and teaching the results of the relevant research of the day. Tressel isn't just an employee of UofA, he is an employee of the State of Ohio. Most of you, I would assume, pay taxes in Ohio in one form or another. That means he is your employee as well. For those who plan on rooting for him, my question is, For how long? What if the guy is a complete disaster? Can we be critical of that or do we have to continue to root for him like the children in the Encouraging Department? I will say this. When this charade is over the Tressel is the President, I will wish him luck. Most people who take job in which they are unqualified for frequently need a lot of luck to succeed, so we should all wish him good luck. He'll need it.

Ah, the illusion vs. reality argument. The reality is, these taxes are never enough to pay for what they say they are going to pay for so more taxes have to be levied in order to pay for the broken promise. Again, I'll restate, there is zero evidence that the construction of stadiums brings in enough revenue to pay for themselves. Numbers are reality and the reality is they don't. The hookers on Prospect Avenue argument. Prostitution is the world oldest profession. The new stadiums didn't eliminate prostitution in Cleveland. They just moved it somewhere else. The girls are conducting business on another street. The restaurant argument. There are a limited amount of people who want to go get drunk in Cleveland on the weekends. They will go somewhere. My guess is the drunks have moved to the stadium area and away from the flats because the Flats ain't what it used to be. The downtown housing argument. This goes on in every city and is going on right now in Charlotte. Downtown housing attracts young people with limited income. As soon as they get older and meet someone they would like to marry and start a family with, they leave for the great white suburbs. The problem Cleveland has is their inability to keep this demographic because they really fill up the public bank accounts with their money. As sad as this sounds, there really is a limit to the number of nights a person can go out drinking. Nobody ever asks about the rest of Cleveland though. My guess is it hasn't gotten any better and has probably gotten worse in the past few years. The City of Cleveland is like the person who owns what looks like a great house because the front of it looks nice, but when you look in the back yard, it is fully of rusted out cars and old tires. More money for stadiums is not what Cleveland needs. Getting back to the Akron arena case. Until I moved away from Akron (I actually lived in the City), I had no idea how bad the tax burden was around NE Ohio. Specifically, Akron and Summit County in general. I now live in a suburb of Charlotte (in SC) and have a much more expensive home than when I lived in Akron and my taxes are lower at every level. All around us, new neighborhoods are being built with accompanying schools, wider roads and good public services. It's funny how a community like this can spend their tax money on things that matter. When the Charlotte Knights wanted to move uptown, they didn't panic and spend a fortune renovating their stadium, they waved goodbye, are in the process of demolishing the stadium and turning it into a transportation park that is already filled when construction is complete. The next part is going to sound like Cleveland. In Charlotte, the City is spending a fortune renovating Bank of America Stadium for an average team in a league that makes billions. The schools in Charlotte/Meck (there is a county school system in Charlotte) are becoming a disaster and communities like mine are seeing the relocation of families out of Charlotte to enjoy better schools and a less crippling tax burden. In the next 15 years, the population of my town is projected to triple. Uptown Charlotte is building one high rise apartment complex after another hoping they can fill them with people who want to go get drunk every night. Keep taxing yourselves for the Browns, Cavs and Indians you idiots. Heap on a tax for Akron as well. I don't live there anymore, what do I care?

You answered Zach's question for me. Thanks. This is not the best group of candidates. Maybe it's normal for a mid major school like Akron, but the field isn't all that great. The guy from Toledo certainly has some baggage, but at least he as been at a high level making hard decisions. Tressel has been at a high level making decisions about the Encouraging Department. There is a huge difference there in the type of experience one would need to face the challenges of solving the "building process" overspending. It seems to me Tressel's strengths center around him being a likable guy and glad handing. He is the feel good candidate. The guy from Toledo seems to be the guy who has made tough decisions and ruffled some feathers along the way. He is the prick candidate. Right now, UofA may need a prick to straighten some things out.

"Criticism is the price of leadership." When people make hard decisions, they upset people. The problem with universities is you deal with kids and a lot of people on faculty who behave like kids. Children are easily upset. Just try to take a piece of candy away from one of them. It isn't a popularity contest.

I think he is the candidate they wanted so they stacked the deck in his favor. The charade of the hiring process continues, but it is all for decoration. Something wrong with the Board of Trustees? Hmmmm. The Chair and both Vice Chairs not having degrees from UofA is a concern of mine. Four of nine do not have degrees from UofA (honorary degrees don't count). Unfortunately, donating to political campaigns can land one a Trustee position and that is the worst way to land one. The real question now is, what to do about the Trustees after Tressel gets hired. JT won't stay around forever so eventually a new President will need to be hired. Hopefully, the Board will have people in executive positions by that point so this disaster doesn't happen again. I'm curious. Is there anyone out there who believes this search process is a serious one that is going to land someone other than Tressel in the President's office?

Especially if you live outside of Cuyahoga County where the taxes don't really reach. If the idea is a new arena will stimulate the downtown of Akron, there is zero evidence that in any city, the money brought in from stadiums exceeds the costs for construction and maintenance. Book after book has been written about this subject. It's happening now in Cleveland. I think if people simply don't care whether or not a new basketball arena can be paid for, they should just say it. Now that I don't pay taxes in Ohio, I say build the arena and soak the future taxpayers of Ohio for the maintenance costs. Worse yet, go ahead and put the costs of maintenance on future students through student fees. They can take out a lifetime of loans to pay for Zips fans to watch basketball games.

Here is one. His argument is UofA is in a crisis and it needs managed. I would argue they are close to a crisis and need a good manager with experience in managing a university in these circumstances, which Tressel has none. Second argument. Tressel will bring lots of publicity. Be careful of what you wish for. We'll get publicity for about five minutes. Most of it dealing in the fact he is unqualified and the circumstances behind his departure from tosu. Then the media will move on to other things and Tressel can then use his vast experience in the Encouraging Department to right a university in near crisis.

Maybe I'll just forget to pay my car bill for a couple of months and see where that gets me. Winston seems like a completely unaware person....maybe a better term is stupid.

Why would they even bother? The deck is stacked in Tressel's favor. He'll give a fluff fulled presentation on his successes in the Encouraging Department in which he looks really polished and people will swoon.

Do they? They have set it up from the beginning for Tressel to get the job. All of the rest is ceremony. I don't believe for a second that anyone other than Tressel is going to be selected because they have taken the easy road of letting Proenza decide the next President.

Please hurry and save us from making a huge mistake.

First of all, what is wrong with accounting and finance? Ohio universities have been in the process of bankrupting themselves with the "building process" for decades now and the bill is going to come due. An accounting and finance guy is probably a better guy to have in charge than the guy in charge of the Encouraging Department. Change the words DePaul University to The Ohio State University and the same thing could be said about Tressel.

We think a lot alike on this. It is so unbelievably childish to think anyone in the State House gives a crap about Tressel any longer. Why? Because he can't do anything for them anymore. The only thing he could do before was get his picture taken with them so they could put it on some campaign literature or website. They would get their photo taken in a second with Meyer right now and the might even pretend to care about what he says, but not Tressel. Tressel is a product of the past. Tressel becoming President is not a forward looking move on the part of the University at all. He is a near Social Security age man with his life experience as a football coach. Only in a struggling midwest region is this background taken seriously. It's a sad comment on almost every level. The problem for us is this backward and odd thinking is about to place an unqualified person into the Presidency of our school.

@Zach, Sorry, I live out of the state and there is no buzz anywhere about Tressel becoming the President of UofA. Everyone I have brought it up to only rolls their eyes. Only in Ohio do people think the name Tressel and his association with tosu matters. Most people now remember him as a disgraced college football coach. That's exactly the type of buzz we should be trying to stay away from. I worry about the admittance of students (and their parents by extension) who think Tressel would make UofA a real university. We should be keeping this kind of childish thinking out of our school. Improving academic profile by letting more people in? Doesn't that just bump up the number of students at a university? So, we let in an extra 5,000 to get 50 really good students and the rest can have weekly appointments in the Encouraging Department? Terrible idea and plan if you ask me. It seems to me that the academic profile of a university is increased by top notch academic programs(which Tressel has never been involved with), hiring top notch professors (which Tressel has no experience in), securing research grants (which Tressel has no experience in or experience in hiring people who do), teaching the newest and greatest to top notch students (which Tressel has no experience in). tosu is the flagship university of Ohio. They are going to get a disproportionate amount of state funding. It's something we have to live with. I see nothing in Tressel's resume, with the exception of his hiring "encouragers" (makes me feel like I'm writing about a pre-school) or his ESPY nomination that says to me he knows how to maneuver in the halls of government. Again, Tressel is the most flimsy of the candidates and shouldn't even be in the final three. He is a football coach, not a serious candidate for a university presidents position. It is a childish road UofA has taken.

It would make us a national laughing stock. Other than YSU.....YSU, can anyone think of another school in Ohio that would take this guy this seriously. We are competing for a guy who is also looking at the YSU job.?.? If that 's the best we can do, then I'm very concerned about the results of what has been going on at UofA over the past 20 years.

What makes you think he would be good at it and why wouldn't the guy at Toledo, who has already done many of these things in his current job, not be able to do it? I realize how many could look at Tressel's resume and see that he was nominated for an ESPY and think he is qualified, but I simply don't see it.

Thanks for the recommendation. I followed your advice and I like what I see in the guy. It seems to me that in an era when there is soon to be declining attendance in universities, difficult decisions need to be made by universities. He seems to understand those need to be made. He also asked full time, tenured faculty to work more and eliminated some of the part time positions teaching classes. Sound efficient to me. I couldn't get a good feel for what eliminating classes means, but I'd much rather see the elimination of majors as a cost cutting effort. There are many majors that are useless and can be eliminated. I'm not so concerned about how faculty and students will "feel" about him. I take that back. I could care less about how faculty and students "feel" about anyone they hire. I care about if they person can do the job. Further, I care about if this guy can make a degree from UofA more valuable. This guy has made hard decisions. Tressel, on the other hand, has spent his days at UofA engaging in the type of "feel good" crap that has turned American universities into playgrounds for spoiled kids who what to spend four year playing and not learning. All the while, kids from other countries are coming over here and cleaning their clocks. They don't know it because they are too busy playing on rock walls to see it, but they sure as heck will feel it when they graduate with their mountain of debt as a result of paying for the playground.

The attached document linked to earlier in this thread shows the arena will not be used for hockey. UofA basketball has thrived and should continue to do well under KD in the years to come. If it is going to take more than five years to get a deal done for UofA to have their new arena, then do a deal with the City/County. If not, wait it out.

It's not an either/or for me. Great question. I don't know if they are dumbed down or beaten down. Dr. Proenza has, for many years not, gotten to do whatever he wanted to do without much regard for the faculty. Tressel is his guy and maybe they just figure he is going to do whatever he wants to do anyhow. I've mentioned before I have a friend who is on faculty at USC (Los Angeles) and I posed your question to him and sent a link of the finalists. First, he was shocked there has not been a large public outcry from faculty about Tressel and thinks Tressel making it this far is a joke in itself. Additionally, while he doesn't know much about the candidates, he feels the candidate from Toledo would be the best just on a reading of the resumes because he would understand the needs of an Akron since Akron and Toledo are sort of like institutions. Personally, I don't see how anyone can look at the resumes of Tressel and the guy from Toledo and not pick the guy from Toledo. Tressel's resume is so flimsy it isn't even funny. The guy from Toledo has major accomplishments, in the ways it matters, at a university "similar" to Akron. My fear is there are many within the University who have gone so far down the Tressel Highway they can't turn back even if they know they are wrong.

The most positive thing I see in this is the non binding nature of the agreement. Gives UofA flexibility if they can somehow come up with the money themselves and not have an agreement with the City of Akron or Summit County. I see the best long term outcome being UofA building their own arena and being able to support it themselves. I'd be willing to wait a few years longer to get this outcome than others that could turn into an 80 year mistake.

"There isn't enough data available yet to understand the fine details of the proposed facility. But the limited data we have so far suggests that it's an 8,500-seat arena with the possibility to add 500 temporary seats. It doesn't say if those 500 temporary seats would be for basketball or for other events." DiG My guess is the 500 are for basketball. Bobcats arena, or whatever they call it, in Charlotte has temp seating behind one basket they pull out for basketball games. They get pushed back for concerts so the stage can be placed in that area and the rest of the permanent seating can be maximized.

I'm not contending it, but I will defend Pohl. There is a big difference between a fifth year senior and a sophomore. I think the one thing we have seen with Bowden is good player development. It's hard to say how good KP could have been last year had he not been hurt. For sure, he would have been better, so based upon that alone, I expect him to be better this season. Combine that with good coaching and player development, I expect a really good season from him. I don't believe for one second he is going to take a step back. If the Zips have a slow start to the year, as most MAC teams do, there will be the usual questions of..."Has he regressed?" Fair enough, but the comparison has to be between his MAC performance from one year to the next.

Thanks for the photos DrZ. The guys look in pretty good shape for spring football. Specifically, the physical development of they guys who are coming up to start next season looks good. A few more months in the weight room and they should look really good come August. Lots to be optimistic about.

Yes No. They don't show anything because spring is for experimentation. The finished product takes place in the fall. Yes. It comes from the abuse the University has heaped upon Zips fans since 1986. It's not your fault...well, it is your fault if you know why you are paranoid and realize is it unwarranted, yet you remain paranoid.