GP1

I like it. The ticket information is the most clear they have ever presented on the web site. I'd like to see their calendar of events more full for July and August. This calendar should be full of speaking engagements for KD, JKest and Coach I. As it stands now, they have zero events scheduled.

Why in the world is Dennis Rodman in Akron?

As long as you aren't one of the people making the calls, it is a great place to work. The real sad part is, 30 years ago people would have laughed at the idea of a telemarketing company being a top employer in NE Ohio. It's really a statement of what has happened to NE Ohio and less of a statement about InfoCision.

I never once said it was a modern day sweatshop. What I have always said is InfoCision is a company built off of scaring little old ladies into giving $25 at a time. The only reason I say that is because that's exactly what they did. Before they had respectable clients like Newt Gingrich and formerly Alan Keyes , they worked for any Evangelical conman from the 1980s who would allow them to fundraise for their wacky church or cause or whatever reason they were using to pocket money in the name of God. InfoCision was right in the middle of all of it. Later, many of those same Evangelical conmen became mainstays in the Republican Party (Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, etc.) and they were able to use the same methods to raise money for the Republican Party. Gary Taylor is a brillianat businessman. He would bill these non-profits on the basis of a "completed call". He would also offer a "break even guarantee" which meant that the non-profit stood no risk of losing money on the program. However, the non-profit did not make a dime until the program broke even. InfoCision could repeatedly call clients for a period of time until the program did break even. Google "InfoCision break even guarantee" and you can see some of the law cases, it is all public record. If you look hard enough (ABJ reporters), you can find actual signed proposals from InfoCision to their clients in the internet. Basically, InfoCision raised money for itself in the name of these clients. It was a fantastic marketing concept for InfoCision. They were in control of everything from fulfillment letters, the PO Boxes they went to, the sweeping of those boxes and then sending the money to a local Akron bank, to the bank account the money went into. It was a great deal for the non-profits as well. InfoCision would develop lists for them that paid (oops) off down the road. All of the PO Boxes, accounts, etc. were agreed upon by the non-profit. InfoCision provided a great turn key service for them. While it is all disgusting on many levels, it was never illegal. The completed call billing was the real genius. InfoCision used this billing method to back the Brinks truck up to their doors and unload cash. Most companies were biling around $32 per hour, per sales agent in the early 1990s. InfoCision did not bill by the hour because they used a completed call method. What the client never knew was InfoCision knew exactly what they were billing per sales agent hour, but the non profit didn't. They had a goal of billing $60 per sales agent hour. They were operating at almost double the hourly billing rate of the rest of the industry. Their employees would fly around in private jets to go see these non-profits, but they were strictly informed never to tell the clients how they traveled. InfoCision made their money the way they made it. People have the right to cast their own moral judgements upon it. If anyone believes they made their money in an honorable way, then they are entitled to that opinion. On some level, they are correct. On other levels....well...ask that little old lady who is concerned about where she will end up after she dies. Think of that the next time you are watching a game in the Big Dialer in lieu of the Rubber Bowl.

Link

I've thought about posting what I'm about to post for a while. You post made a good segway for me. It isn't just the people who come and go who are the problem. There are lots of people in the Athletic Department who have seen many ADs over the years. I'm not sure that's good for the school. The Athletic Department needs change, and I don't just mean the AD. If you look at the highest levels of the Athletic Department, some of those names have been around for a long time. I'm not so sure that is good for the Department and I'm not sure that is good for those people as well. I would take the following steps if I was Dr. Proenza: 1. Fire the AD. This guy is in over his head. 2. Get some help hiring a new AD. He didn't do a very good job last time and he may need better advice. 3. Require new AD to start searches for positions at highest levels of the Athletic Department. This task can be accomplished with recruiters. Don't let new AD hire his friends. 4. Require existing employees in those positions to re-interview for their jobs and demonstrate they are rowing the boat in the same direction as Dr. Proenza and the new AD. Keep those who are...can those who aren't. Get rid of the rats. I'm sure within the University, there are those who know who the rats are and they should be released. 5. Change culture of Athletic Department by repeating steps 3 & 4 all the way down to kids in work study. A cultural change is badly needed and a culture involves more than just the guy at the top. One guy can't do it alone. EVERYONE needs to be rowing the boat in the same direction. Sharpen your axe Dr. Proenza...and hurry up about it. While you are at it, sharpen one for the new AD as well and tell him to use it liberally.

A different perspective.

Ranking don't get me excited. I would get excited at the football team at least winning their division every year. A MAC Championship wouldn't be that bad either...maybe two in a row. Winning is the sign of progress. Rankings are something people who don't see all of the games hand out.

And it isn't now? So far, what has been the story for the NCAA 2011 football season? It is a complete circus and it is bad for college football.

The player makes money because of himself and for the school he plays for. He could make money for himself and the school. As it stands right now, the players make money for the schools and aren't allowed to benefit directly from the money they make for the schools. Allowing the kid to have a job allows the school to benefit from having the player and it allows the player to benefit from having he school. At the end of the day, this isn't really about money. The lack of integrity doesn't come from the money. The lack of integrity comes from the SECRETS that have to be kept in order for the players to make money. CK is worried about integrity because a player might fix a game. The money itself does not cause the problem. It is the secret the player and the guy giving the money share that causes the potential lack of integrity. That guy can hold that secret over the players head for a long time, or at least in the tosu case, the guy with the secret gets busted by the Feds. Bring the money making into the light and integrity will be restored. As it stands now, the secret ghosts in closets will be haunting college football for decades unless they bring the money into the open. I remember growing up, the Olympics were for amateurs. Anyone with half a brain knew the Communist countries were using professional athletes. There were a ton of people who wouldn't give up on the idea of the Olympics being for amateurs....very similar to those who don't believe college athletes should be allowed to benefit from their ability. One of the big stories of every Olympics was about the "professional" Soviets vs. the amateur "insert country name here". It was horrible for the Olympics because that was the story, not the athletes (similar to college football stories are now about players taking money, not the sport itself). Finally, sanity took hold and now professionals compete in the Olympics. Unless someone is blindly holding onto the past, it would be hard to argue the Olympics are worse off today because professionals are playing than when they were "amateurs". Anyone watch the US vs. Canada gold game last Olympics? If you know anything about hockey, you would have to agree it was one of the greatest hockey games ever. Basketball is awesome because there are so many good players playing professionally in the NBA and for other countries...the games are very entertaining once the rum-dums are out of the tournament. Bringing money into the light was good for the Olympics. It will be good for college football as well. The secrets with the scumbags around these players need to go away.

Of course it is never enough (it is never enough) and the schools shouldn't have to pay it. The players should be allowed to go out and earn money on their own. Which scenario preserves the integrity of the game better: 1. Player selling memorabilia under the table to a tat shop owner who is under investigation by the Feds for drug dealing. 2. Player getting paid by local car dealership in a signed legal contract at the end of which, player receives a 1099 for services, for signing autographs for four hours in September before school starts. The problem with the way things are right now, of these two options, option 1 is the only one that can exist. How is that good for college athletics? How does that contribute to the integrity of the game? Of course Newton woudl and should get more money. Would you rather have a guy who looks like him signing autographs at your car dealership, or would you rather bring in a blubbery offensive lineman stinking of french fries to sign autographs all day?

Want to preserve the integrity of the game? Let them make money so it can all be out in the sunlight as we know who is making the money and where it is coming from. Preserve the integrity of the game by making it so they don't owe anyone anything and you put them in a position where the players don't have to expose themselves to the jocksniffers and low lives. Is the integrity of the game damaged in professional athletics because the players take money? Of course not. Want to preserve the integrity of the game? Stop allowing tosu to play the likes of ysu. Those games are frauds. Want to preserve the integrity of the game? Make it so guys like Tressel can never coach again in college. He'll be the next Rick Pitino. I could go on all night. The point is, it is laughable to look at what goes on in college athletics/ncaa and apply the word integrity to much of it.

Maybe they would if they could, but they can't get anyone to give them a nickle.

Are those of us on this board squirrel hunters or moonshiners. I like think of my self as a moonshiner.

If we want to end up on the business end of the ncaa whip, we could be like BSU and Marshall. Marshall had ncaa problems. The darling of the non-bcs teams, Boise State, is having ncaa problems. There are too many reasons to get into why the Florida schools are doing well. One of them only won four games least year, but since we only won one, I guess that counts as doing better. The other won their league. It is money. They are also in an attractive places to attend college so they draw better players. They also have a better pool of players around them (please don't tell me how many D1 players Ohio produces every year....MAC schools are flooded with them and it inflates the numbers). College football is a religion in the south and people around Akron are professional sports fans so they won't support the program. We have a stadium named after a telemarketing company....a freaking telemarketing company that made it's money taking money off of little old ladies $25 at a time making them believe they would go to Hell if they didn't donate the money. The list is long....we are truely pathetic.

I agree with Z.I.P. At some point, reality has to set in. We have to live in the world of reality. The reality is, we are in a horrible conference and right now we are a horrible team. Not only that, we have 20+ years of evidence proving we and our conference have no business at the highest level of football. Anyone not able to see that has the intellectual ability of Sarah Palin. I get excited about the Zips being able to win a game against a like school, not getting their teeth kicked in by a bcs level team so we can tell everyone we are at least at their level. WE AREN'T!!!!! Let's say CK is right and it was all just about leadership. Where would we be right now? There are schools in the MAC that have had much better leadership throughout the past 20 years and they, like us, can only do well in the MAC. Miami comes to mind. They have very good leadership, great tradition and they still only get a few thousand fans to their games. There wasn't a respectable conference twenty years ago (the MAC didn't even want us) who would have taken us and there won't be one in ten years. With the best possible leadership, all we could expect is more winning in the MAC with a couple scattered bcs wins under our belts every 4-5 years. Where would the MAC be if it had better leadership? I would say it would be in exactly the same condition it is right now. The reasoning has nothing to do with the leadership of the conference and everything to do with who leads the ncaa. The bcs schools run the ncaa and we/the MAC are not part of that.

I agree. I also think it would happen that way.

Nobody should be shocked by this report. Once that number reaches 30 from the current 22, the ncaa should create a division for those schools. Add an extra 10 to the 30 and force the last ten to make cuts in order to be more profitable. Division 1 sports will change rapidly in the near future. Where will the Zips/MAC end up?

That's an interesting perspective. Only because he is such a boring personality. Without him saying what he said, the 2010-2011 Miami Heat march off much faster into obscurity. Give me Charles Barkley over a guy like LBJ any day of the week.

There is a difference between breaking NCAA rules and breaking the law. Laws make actions illegal because OTHERS are harmed by the actions of the criminal. NCAA rules are made in order to enforce an fantasy many have created for themselves about the nature and purpose of college athletics. Who is harmed by Pryor breaking ncaa rules? I would say that almost nobody is harmed by him breaking ncaa rules. Why?....Well, when everyone is already breaking the most moronic rules in the world, nobody can be harmed by the actions. "But GP1, schools like Akron are hurt by Pryor breaking the rules. It gives them an unfair advantage." This line of thinking is nonsense. We are our own worst enemy and the harm we do to ourselves is far worse than anything tosu or the other bcs schools could do to us.

Let me be clear. LBJ is a jackass. I just find it refreshing to have a player say exactly what he thinks even when he is being a jerk. His words made them losing even more interesting. In terms of missing the fourth period, I didn't see more than five minutes of the finals. Dallas is/was a great story. I'll read about it in the paper.

I find it refreshing when an athlete says what they all think but will not say. The losing was worse for his brand than what he said. The NBA will sell a ton of LBJ merchandise next season.

Real good turnout....maybe. If we had 525 people turn out for something at the Big Dialer, it would be right around 2% of the seating capacity of the stadium. It's all how you look at the numbers. Then again, if the Zips are as bad next year as last year, they'll be lucky to get 525 to show up for a game. I'm more impressed WMU has five guys in the NFL willing to come back to do it. They mention "tradition" in an article. That's how tradition is built...not a former star QB working camps at Ashland University. Again, real good event...maybe. The question is whether or not it will turn into additional ticket sales, or was this just something to do in a town with little to offer in terms of entertainment?

Here is what I would like to know. How many people attended the WMU event and how many ladies attended the Football 101 event? On the surface, they both seem like really good ideas. One event a year is not enough though. At the end of the day, marketing requires results.... meaning, selling tickets or other forms of revenue generation. The best way to generate money from the WMU event is to get some out of the players they had at the event. They are flush with cash right now, my as well get some of it before they blow it all buying a sports bar. Miami has a decent idea. However, waiting for someone else to do your job for you is the lazy way to do your job. My experience in life is the lazy way usually results in failure. The "silent sales force" will only take you so far when the task is difficult. An article on a local TV station or local paper doesn't generate much interest as not many people read those mediums. Few even watch the local news. The article has one comment and two reactions to it. Yaaaaaaaaawn says the folks from western Michigan. Please, someone find out how many people were at the WMU event, not including the countless Athletic Department paper pushers who show up to every event for free food?

I think you might be surprised.