GP1

Sure there are. It all starts with philosophy though. I can't think of a good leader that once said, "I'm going to create a process and then put a philosophy around it." I think we can all agree John Wooden was one of the great coaches of all time. He used a philosophy to become great. The "process" was just something he used to reinforce his philosophy. If anyone reads his Pyramid of Success, they will see it transcends they normal "building process" that even good coaches use. There is none of the usual tripe we hear from coaches like, "Defense wins championships" or whatever they use to cover up their averageness. I guess this all brings us around to the Zips. Can we go from good to great with our current philosophy?

A guiding philosophy isn't just "also important", it is the key to any successful organization. Process is easy because one can read about process in a book. Someone can get a Six Sigma black belt from following the proper process and it takes almost no creativity to get it. Examples of black belts in college athletics can be athletic directors. These numbskulls who run athletic departments all go to the same seminars and basically all do the same thing because they are "building process" oriented. IMG is a good example of a tool (funny I would use the term tool when writing about a group of tools) all of them use in the "building process". They take all of their former employees with them from school to school so they can have people around them who think like them and will do their process for them. There is little vision involved. Many of them can be described "good" at their jobs. Mack was very good at his job. Process allows someone with minimal talent to be "good". Most good college coaches struggle to go from good to great, not because they can't execute what they learn at all of the clinics; they fail to go from good to great because they don't have a guiding philosophy behind them them that allows their thinking to extend beyond the clinics and those around them who think like they do. Getting to "great" is more difficult and it requires a guiding philosophy. We have seen greatness at Akron and see it today. Mike Thomas was/is a great AD. Caleb Porter is a great coach. They see outside of the annual athletic directors/coaches conventions and produce great results. I think Terry Bowden has shown himself and will show himself to be a great coach at Akron because of philosophical reasons. Philosophy...difficult. Process....read about it in a book.

Thanks for your deep analysis.

Winning and losing can also be part of a failed philosophy. If you build a process around an unworkable philosophy, losing will take place. For example, the pro style offense Coach I brought to Akron was a failure of philosophy more than it was a failure of process. If a business leader wants to bring back the horse and buggy as the primary means of transportation in the US, he can put together the best process in the world, but failure (losing) will take place. Process is for people who don't have much vision. Process is how people pretent to be smart. Process people are the "survivors" of the world. I represent major manufacturers of construction products for a living. Very few executives have a winning philosophy, but their company does well with little intelligence being applied to what they do. All of them have a process (see how Six Sigma is destroying creativity in this country). By the time they really screw anything up, they are off to another job and others are left behind to take the blame and clean up the mess. I see it all the time with thse companies. Process is easy. Philosophy is difficult because it challenges norms and forces people to act outside of their comfort zone.

I about fell out of my chair when I saw these words from our esteemed colleague from Green. Could this mean DiG has had enough of the "building process" and would like to see a "winning process" at this point that involves post season glory? If so, this is a huge step not only for Dig, but for ZNO.

I don't care if they play in their jockstraps as long as they win.

As far as the first line, leave Captain Kangaroo out of this. I couldn't agree more with the second statement. What your name is doesn't matter. What you do matters. If I told you a college football coach had winning records in 14 of 18 seasons, was the National Coach of the Year, went undefeated in the SEC and made the playoffs in 5 of 10 seasons in the lower divisions at two different schools, would you call that person a great coach?

Link Maybe this has already been posted. If it has, please delete the entire topic.

The building process lasts forever as it only builds a line of incompetents as far as the eye can see. On the other hand, the winning process in the MAC can take as little as two years. I'm a big fan of the winning process. There is actual evidence it has worked in the past.

Good post wadszip. This team does need talent. Right now, it needs wins more than anything. Coaching change or not, 3 or fewer wins for I believe would be four years in a row looks horrible to any recruit. Kids don't want to play at a program with the stink of losing all over it. I don't care how good of a coach you have or how good of a recruiter he is, the stink takes over everything if it is allowed to go on long enough. Winning brings in good players. The promise of winning does much less. If we can, get the kid here for a year and let's get this "winning process" moving.

Every dog has his day. His is coming....

UofA made a lot of mistakes in the move to major college football. No need to go into all of them. This was the biggest mistake of all. Dennison had zero qualifications to be the AD to kick off the D1A era. I like to look forward and not backward, but I often wonder if a different AD, with better experience, had been hired, where would we be today?

The only thing more stupid than the ideas of this man is the abj printing his ideas. Jim "The Victim" Dennison stories have long ago run their course. Dennison was a D2 coach with D2 ideas. Not the guy to take the program forward. I'm not sure what the abj is thinking when they print this sstupidity. Mayme Mr. Thomas can help us out.

Actually, the money grubbers are the university presidents, athletic directors and coaches. The ncaa doesn't represent the athlete-students. If they did, they would actually treat them better and include them in their money grubbing. The ncaa represents the institutions. The presidents say college athletics is important to the overall life of a student even though most would gladly give up good educational programs for a good football team any day. The ADs use college athletics to convince the presidents they need more stadiums to become a world class institution and the presidents fall for it every time. For a bunch of people with PhD's, they sure are stupid. The ADs use these construction programs to pad their resumes in order to move on to another school and make more money. The coaches go right along with it because participation in a "building process" is easier than putting together a "winning process". The athlete-students do all of the real work. Actually, I think a good topic would be: "Who Is More Sleazy, University Presidents, Athletic Directors or Coaches?" All three are pretty bad and I would have a hard time picking which is worse because they are so intertwined at this point. I lean towards ADs but could be swayed with a good argument.

Darn right it is a joke. It misses on many levels. Where it hits is helping victims, but they are going about it the wrong way. If this effort is to reform psu in some way, why doesn't psu have to fund something on campus that would help further the understanding of what a victim goes through and methods of treating the damage? Isn't that what a university is supposed to do...further knowledge and science? Look towards the future? Forced funding for something for five years tells me after five years, the funding will discontinue...not exactly forward looking by the ncaa. Shouldn't they also use money to fund the criminology of this problem? Questions such as..., How do we better help law enforcement understand signs of abuse and act in a more efficient manner?....should be asked and researched. These are just a couple of ways of turning a negative into a positive. Everything the ncaa did was to damage psu. Nothing good will come out of it.

I'd argue he is both a survivor and a winner as well. I would probably use wins to explain why he is a winner. I would look at who he has designed the program to win against a lot, (and who he hasn't beaten) to complete the survivor part.

#1...He could play in better facilities and has seen better facilities. What we have is nice, but not as nice was what most BCS schools have. #2...Most kids who would transfer to a MAC school would probably start in the Big Ten in front of tens of thousands of people. #3...He could have a building process at PSU as well. #4...Toledo has better tradition. The Bowden name is important to us (unless TB never wins more than five games in a season in one of the next five years, at which point he is doomed) if you believe in that kind of thing. I believe in good coaching and I think TB provides that. Tressel? So what? I think a kid who has lived through this whole mess at psu might be looking for something other than Jim Tressel. He has seen enough "legends". Here is how you sell Akron... Assume marginal BCS player coming to Akron. 1. Potential to win a conference championship. 2. Potential to go to a bowl game. 3. Chance to play right away with a fresh start. That's about all we/MAC offer to a kid who has played at PSU.

I can't read it because I'm not an important Insider. Does the article say something like, "nd is a good fit for the acc as they are pitt and syracuse bad and the existing membership doesn't have to worry about them dominating the league like va tech and miami did when they entered." nd joins the acc and they are in the wilderness of college football five years from now. they have some hope if they join the big ten.

No doubt they have an impact. Handled properly, a negative can be turned into a positive. One recruit might stay away. Handled properly, ten more might replace him. Anzalone was pretty squishy about going to tosu in the first place and the whole twitter thing was his reason for getting out of something he was having second thoughts about.

Paterno turning Sandusky into the cops, standing up for a thorough investigation/prosecution and standing up against child abuse would have made him even more popular. It would have reinforced what people believe when they thought of Paterno: Honor, Integrity, etc. People wouldn't have had enough good things to say about him.

My brother just sent me a text saying, "Welcome to the Big Ten Notre Dame." Notre Dame isn't a better program than psu, but they have a big name. Short term it is a good move. I think the statement, Big Hat, No Cattle (or something like that) applies to Notre Dame.

I'd respectfully say there is a third option at work. That option is the creation of a tyrant in the president of the ncaa. The ncaa members today gave dictatorial powers to the president of the ncaa, just like the Galactic Senate gave power to the Sith Emperor in Star Wars. In Star Wars, the Senate gives up power because they lived in FEAR of some uprisings so they created a dictator and it brought everyone suffering because fear leads to suffering and the Dark Side. Everytime something comes up now, the ncaa members are going to want their dictator to deal with it because they are in fear of having to do anything about it. No good is going to come out of what happened today.

Or, the problem could have been dealt with in a proactive manner that wouldn't have had such drastic results. Paterno could have been forced to step down years ago and a modern coach could have taken control of the team. psu would be a lot better off today. It is a leap of logic I'm not willing to take to believe a competitive edge was created by this. One could easily argue Paterno staying around for as long as he did kept psu at a competitive disadvantage.

I don't know about the whole economy of central PA, but there will be people impacted. Who else is impacted? Well, how about the loads of Title IX programs the revenue from the football team was carrying? psu is going to have to make cuts. What about the Big Ten? They basically just lost one of the only three teams people around the US have any interest in. I don't think psu vs. Big Ten Team X is going to be quite the draw it once was. An average-good conference just became average. I wouldn't be surprised if the Big Ten gives the boot to psu within 10 years. This is the whole point about fear leading to suffering. It isn't going to happen tomorrow, but a lot of innocent people will suffer because of this penalty. The ncaa took the path to the Dark Side today.

I know I'm spot on. Fans are the same everywhere. After what I saw last year, I won't go to another Zips game until they are better. My time is too valuable to me. I still love them, but I can't put time/money into something that doesn't make me happy. Teams win, lots of fans go to games. Teams lose, lots of fans stop going. At the end of the day, it is a financial transaction. If fans see the value in going to a game, they will spend their money to go. If they don't, they won't. The fair weather fan is the best type of all because he cares and won't accept watching crap.