GP1

Corrupt, lazy and greedy business leaders are just as much to blame for the conditions in Detroit, Cleveland, Akron, Pitt and Ytown as unions. When is the last time you guys have been to Pittsburgh? Yeah, it's a beautiful city here. The bike trails are wonderful and the culture is great (especially during football and hockey seasons). Relative to the other cities, I would say Akron trails Pittsburgh, but is far ahead of the others. I agree with DrZ and trimy10. Pittsburgh is a great place and I should have left it off my list. Oh well....

Corrupt, lazy and greedy business leaders are just as much to blame for the conditions in Detroit, Cleveland, Akron, Pitt and Ytown as unions.

GP1 Buddy, the only "smart" comment you are going to get on this issue is liable to sound like a smart alecky one. The idea that you give up constitutional rights by working for the democratic sector is laughable. Unless there is some national security/public safety context involved (which is the reason why I as a military civilian worker and health and safety workers are prevented from striking -- not from collectively bargaining pay and privileges) it's unbelievable that some hot-headed pol like the newly enshrined Gov of Wisconsin would use budgets as an opportunity to destroy basic rights and responsibilities of government. Period. Good answer, but not the right one. Public employees will still have much better benefits than the rest of us. Maybe they need to be reminded who they work for and who is paying the bill. A private employee union (ie: UAW) is fighting for how much of the profits the rank and file will get as a result of their hard work. These types of unions share in the risk associated in business. If they are getting too much and the company can't afford it, the company goes out of businss. They all lose their jobs and there isn't a member who wants that. What risk does a public employee union share if they bankrupt the government? The answer is nothing. The govt just borrows more money if the can't pay the bill. Public employee unions are fighting for how much tax money they can put in their pockets, not over the value added to society through the production of goods. The corruption is a real issue as well. Basically, Democrats repay these unions with HUGE benefits programs for their votes. We are watching a bubble burst just like we saw the housing bubble burst. Just like we can't afford to throw money at stadiums, yet another hall of fame or any of the things we have in the past, we can't afford to have people work for 30 years and retire forever while we pay for them to go fishing for 30 years. The party is over. Public employee unions need to be smart here. There is talk of allowing states to file bankruptxy. If that happens, a judge may take a hatchet to their benefit programs.

Let me say this first. I'm completely in favor of private labor unions being legal. Before I tell all of you why public unions should be illegal, I'll let each of you take a shot if you wish. Try to include in your discussion the role of a member of a private union vs a public union. It's very simple if you think about it. I'm sure Z.I.P. will have something smart and interesting to say as he always does on these matters.

I wouldn't even say I expect to be the class of the MAC in all sports every year. There are too many good programs for that to be the case. Every once in a while would work for now. Is the team below Akron standards? Heck yes! And our standards aren't even that high. Winning six games a year should be our lowest standard. Never finishing below third in the MAC East should be our lowest standard. The golf outings, parking and off the field stuff is not important to me because I can't participate in them any longer. All I want is for this program to win more than they lose. Make it worth me investing three and a half hours on my weekends to go to a bar and watch them on some network I can't get at home. I'm not asking for much right now. Make it so I can go to McHale's with my UofA clothes on in the fall and when someone asks me, "How are they doing this year?", my answer in October isn't, "Not so good, they are 0-6." College football is second to religion in the south. When your team is bad, for whatever reason, it reflects badly on you. There is too much potential for this program to be this bad for this long.

A better candidate? Maybe a chimp from the Cleveland zoo? It would have been a better candidate......

Losing drives people away more than anything. I can take the losing too, but the poor play is what I cannot take. At some point it has to be entertaining and it just is not.

Well put. I don't think TW is up for the job. He has made one bad decision after another starting with the Reno issue, which should have been a big red flag for everyone. Other than the soccer program, I'm concerned about the general direction (or lack of direction) of all the athletic programs. We can and should be better than what we are in all sports. This is not a good time for Akron sports. That football stadium cannot continue to sit empty and we need to start winning. If not, it will become unforgiveable to the people of Akron and it will take years to recover. There was a hiring committee that hired him. I wonder what they were thinking when they hired him. Who was on that committee?

It is if you look at a bigger trend. Fans follow winners and people like new things. CSU has become a winner and people want to see that thing which is different and positively new. Everyone has seen what the Zips offer so there is nothing new to attract fans. My bet is this season ends up like all of the other seasons we have had in recent years. Nothing new or interesting in Zipsland for the average fan.

My wife and I always talk about what we would do if we were still living in Akron. We lived in the city around Stan Hewitt. We talked about it Saturday in fact. Going to BW3, the game and Crave for a snack after the game (because the "food" at the JAR is terrible) was the answer. I know we joke about the benches, but it is no laughing matter. The benches were the #1 reason we did not attend many games the last couple of years we lived there. Even if it means fewer potential spectators, they need to eliminate the benches and put in seats....with rows of steps leading a fan up to their row. I also like order so every fan could be assigned a seat. It cannot be that expensive.

Were there really so few people there? If so, shame on Akron. The Blue Jays are a name program and the game should have been close to sold out. For the last decade+ the Zips have played 3rd fiddle to K.e.n.t. State and Ohio State in NE Ohio hoops. The Zips have maintained a consistent level for the past 7 years, and K.e.n.t. has now regressed to our level. We've now slipped 1/2 a spot, to "3rd-and-1/2 fiddle," below CSU and Ohio State and tied with K.e.n.t. It is tough the Zips, tied for 3rd NE Ohio Fiddle, to draw more than 2,800 for Creighton. There simply isn't the interest or incentive. Especially if all you do to market the event is place a poorly ripped-off .jpg flyer on your web site promoting a whopping 20% off tickets. You reap what you sew, Marketing-wise. You are who you are, basketball-wise. 2,800 is exactly what should have been expected. If Marketing really pushed the event, and the hoops team hadn't experience such a bad Jan/Feb stretch, and the game was televised...then you approach a sell-out. I understand what you are saying, it's just a shame. What else is there to do in Akron on a Saturday in February? I used to live there and the answer is nothing. Heck, I live in Charlotte and there is nothing to do on a Saturday in February and it was in the 70s last weekend. I would have gladly paid full price to go to a UNCC game just to have some entertainment.

Were there really so few people there? If so, shame on Akron. The Blue Jays are a name program and the game should have been close to sold out.

Rebuilding? How about a quick turnaround? Everyone else does it.

I do not know if all crimes are related to Can't< but the ones where the criminal is found asleep in the get away car usually are. That is a stupid school full of stupid people.

Youtube Tom won Akron a Div I team national title. Like I said, doing well under him, not because of him.

Nobody in the mac has depth. Replacing a starter with a bad junior is the same as replacing him with a green freshman. Either way you are up poop creek.

Coastal Carolina Chanticleer doing well under Hunter. I realize the programs were established when he got there, but things continue to go well. 1. College World Series with #4 natioanal seed. 2. Basketball team having a great year and looks to win conference while hosting conference championships. 3. Football team was in I-AA playoffs. In all the sports that matter in SC, things are going well for him.

Right after we build our new downtown basketball arena.

We never stop building all over again.

Most career college football assistant coaches fall into the retread category. Most are a bunch of miserable guys who aren't really smart so they do this for a living. It is unnatural to have a job where you spend your life locked in an office 24/7 watching film of football games. If guys who run Fortune 500 companies can do it while going home every night to sleep, football coaches don't need to be working 24/7. They become manic and lose touch with reality. Abnormality becomes normal. Try to carry on a conversation with some of them. There isn't anything there.

The Zips would have to finish higher in the standings for this to happen. A very helter skelter season. They could continue to get better or they could play like they did in January. Time will tell.

Good points. Here is how I see it. With the past performance, we should have better players on the team. There are reasons we may not have better players right now, but I don't want to go into them as it may throw the board into a frenzy.

That would be interesting reading. Here is a study I would like to see. In the past ten years in the MAC, following a coaching change, how many coaches won the MAC in their first two years? Of those coaches, how many frosh, sophs, jrs and srs were starting on the team (lump juco players recruited by that coach in with frosh and soph numbers). Miami won last year with frosh and sphs on the field. We talk about it all the time. The MAC is the kind of league the Zips could win in the next couple of years if they just get some good players and don't shoot themselves in the foot. That's all Miami did last year. I don't follow it closely enough, but I believe Miami didn't have what were looked at as great recruiting classes. If they can do it, we can do it.

Want to understand how good a recruiting class is? Watch to see how many games they win. Today, we don't really know how good the class is. In four years, we will. I'm more interested in why fans get so caught up in recruiting more than I am the players themselves. There is an old saying. Garbage in....garbage out. If these recruiting rating services are indeed highly flawed, then why do we care about what they say? I don't care where they come from, who coaches them, who recruited them or anything else other than winning.

Haven't even started year two and the rats are abandoning ship. Try hiring someone good after a 1-11 season.....