DAMBROT IS MY KIND OF COACH!

[ZipAnalyst]

From the ABJ report on the Tiffin game: ``This team is a little unsettled. We have a lot of growing to do to be an upper-echelon team.''And Dambrot is working on it and we will see progress as the season wears one. No excuse making a la the football program. Just fundamentally sound acceptance of responsibility for producing results. It was good to extend KD's contract and I support that move. But there was no urgent need to do so right now because this guy's end game is being at Akron and taking Akron to the mountaintop. The only way he would leave Akron is if the administration takes him for granted and fails to show him adequate respect.The only other coach who has had who was as committed to Akron as KD was Dennison. Akron treated him atrociously. Has the administration learned from the past mistakes made at Akron? Time will tell!

[ZachTheZip]

I seriously doubt KD will let the same thing that happened to the football team happen to the bball team. He has been in championship situations before, and has dealt with the pressure of being #1 quite well. The fact that KD got a contract extension is good news and hopefully a sign that we have learned our lesson since Dennison.

[zip37]

Dennison got stiffed by Muse & Adams-- they are long gone, as are Bobinski his cohortsso I think that Proenza knows what he is doing. Muse was good for getting Buchtel closed and making the campus look like a real college campus, but he did not realize the benefit of a great basketball program to go along with a football program. That is easily seen in his trade of Dennison and Huggins for FAUST!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And of course :screwks:With ball ammunition lock and load.

[skip-zip]

Some interesting commentary here. Let me add some insight.I was a student in the early 80's, and have lived here ever since. I have been close to our athletic programs ever since, and have known many people within the administration. So, let me clear up a few things....Jim Dennison was a great guy, and a decent football coach. But for many many reasons, he was not going to give us the things we needed to grow into a I-A football program. Spending the rest of his career as an NAIA football coach is all the proof you need to justify this. His exit may have been less than cordial, but it was necessary. After 20 years, we need to let this go, and move forward. We were never going to be able to pay Bob Huggins enough to stay here...period.I totally agree about Bobinski. He was completely out of his league being an athletic director of a D-1 school at the time he was hired by Akron. And the president at the time let him make some huge mistakes. Unfortunately, the painful Owens and Hipsher eras were the result. KD does indeed want to be an Akron basketball coach. And since JD probably has no other choice right now but to stay here, lets hope our current administration has the right guys in place for us for now. Only time will tell. But the last couple of years have given us some encouraging signs. Go Zips!!

[Captain Kangaroo]

From the ABJ report on the Tiffin game: ``This team is a little unsettled. We have a lot of growing to do to be an upper-echelon team.''And Dambrot is working on it and we will see progress as the season wears one.

I've noticed Dambrot and the players making some strong statements over the past few weeks too. It really seems like all of them are on a mission. You could see the attitude manifest itself in the Tiffin game. Instead of it turning into the sloppily-played dunkfest typical of such a blowout, the Zips played balls-to-the-walls the entire 40 minutes. You mention the football team. I think that's an interesting comparison. The vibe I get from this basketball team is they have a swagger, and a determination to be champions from top to bottom. I got that vibe from the football team @ NC State. But I never felt it the remainder of the year.

[ZipAlumn]

....... Jim Dennison was a great guy, and a decent football coach.  But for many many reasons, he was not going to give us the things we needed to grow into a I-A football program.  Spending the rest of his career as an NAIA football coach is all the proof you need to justify this.  His exit may have been less than cordial, but it was necessary. After 20 years, we need to let this go, and move forward.   

I just have to disagree with your assessment of the coach's abilities and the adminsitration's action during the period that the University of Akron went to D-1A. First Muse was going to make a name for himself and drag Akron into the "Big Time" no matter who he ran over. The AD was nothing more than Muse's gopher. Look at the conference they put us in to get to D-1A status. No basketball, so Huggins left, it wasn't about money. Dennison was never given a chance try to bring the team into D-1A, Muse saw a chance to get a "BIG NAME" coach so he did. And speaking of the abilities of Gerry Faust, I grant you he could recruit, when did he ever win at the college level. He lost at Notre Dame (which is pretty hard to do) and he came to Akron and lost even with the gravy schedules and the cake teams they gave him to play against. I was there in the 60's with Gordon Larson, in the 70's with Dennison, and I was there when they hired Faust. Don't get me started :mad_flame: :mad_flame: I do agree that it was almost thirty years ago, and it is time to go on ...........

[Zip_ME87]

....... Jim Dennison was a great guy, and a decent football coach.  But for many many reasons, he was not going to give us the things we needed to grow into a I-A football program.  Spending the rest of his career as an NAIA football coach is all the proof you need to justify this.  His exit may have been less than cordial, but it was necessary. After 20 years, we need to let this go, and move forward.   

I just have to disagree with your assessment of the coach's abilities and the adminsitration's action during the period that the University of Akron went to D-1A. First Muse was going to make a name for himself and drag Akron into the "Big Time" no matter who he ran over. The AD was nothing more than Muse's gopher. Look at the conference they put us in to get to D-1A status. No basketball, so Huggins left, it wasn't about money. Dennison was never given a chance try to bring the team into D-1A, Muse saw a chance to get a "BIG NAME" coach so he did. And speaking of the abilities of Gerry Faust, I grant you he could recruit, when did he ever win at the college level. He lost at Notre Dame (which is pretty hard to do) and he came to Akron and lost even with the gravy schedules and the cake teams they gave him to play against. I was there in the 60's with Gordon Larson, in the 70's with Dennison, and I was there when they hired Faust. Don't get me started :mad_flame: :mad_flame: I do agree that it was almost thirty years ago, and it is time to go on ...........

I wholeheartedly agree with the assessments of Muse's destruction of UA football and basketball. I was a student at UA the day Huggins was hired. He was an AWESOME coach and still the only one to take the Zips to the NCAA Tourney at D-1. KD is OUTSTANDING and will get us back there. But, it's been a long time in the making. Muse deserves no credit for anything positive related to UA sports.

[Z.I.P.]

The only other coach who has had who was as committed to Akron as KD was Dennison.  Akron treated him atrociously.  Has the administration learned from the past mistakes made at Akron?  Time will tell!

I have read comments like this so many times on this board -- and the anti-Faust tirades that go along with it, that I can no longer hold my tongue! I studied at UA near the end of the Dennison era, and I truly respected and appreciated the coaching job that he did at UA, and I believe he was the veritable fine man and all that Schlemiel.But how can anyone who attacks the Terry Pluto "low expectations" mindset possibly be upset at what happened at Akron when Dr Muse arrived? Muse was the first person to step into Buchtel Hall with the idea that Akron could be something more than the veritable City College of Akron paradigm that most people in the area have still been unable to overcome. In this way, Muse should be considered the pioneer in Akron's athletic development. I'd say he should be in the Hall of Fame, Circle of Honor, or whatever they call it around the JAR.Now if it weren't for Muses's arrival with a new bigger perspective on the university's potential, we would have kept Jim Dennison as FB coach, and we would quite possibly still be fighting with rivals like Youngstown State and Wayne State for the right to play new Hampshire in the playoffs. Jim Dennison was committed to the University of Akron -- committed to keeping it as a small college athletic program. Is that what you all really would like?

[zip81]

....... Jim Dennison was a great guy, and a decent football coach.  But for many many reasons, he was not going to give us the things we needed to grow into a I-A football program.  Spending the rest of his career as an NAIA football coach is all the proof you need to justify this.  His exit may have been less than cordial, but it was necessary. After 20 years, we need to let this go, and move forward.   

I just have to disagree with your assessment of the coach's abilities and the adminsitration's action during the period that the University of Akron went to D-1A. First Muse was going to make a name for himself and drag Akron into the "Big Time" no matter who he ran over. The AD was nothing more than Muse's gopher. Look at the conference they put us in to get to D-1A status. No basketball, so Huggins left, it wasn't about money. Dennison was never given a chance try to bring the team into D-1A, Muse saw a chance to get a "BIG NAME" coach so he did. And speaking of the abilities of Gerry Faust, I grant you he could recruit, when did he ever win at the college level. He lost at Notre Dame (which is pretty hard to do) and he came to Akron and lost even with the gravy schedules and the cake teams they gave him to play against. I was there in the 60's with Gordon Larson, in the 70's with Dennison, and I was there when they hired Faust. Don't get me started :mad_flame: :mad_flame: I do agree that it was almost thirty years ago, and it is time to go on ...........

I agree with some of what you have to say, but there are some inaccuracies.First of all, Muse didn't put us in ANY conference to go D I in football. If you remember, we were leaving the OVC to go DI in football and were going to be an independent. It is my honest belief that Gerry Faust wanted to take Akron to the Big-Time Division I indepdendent status, like Notre Dame or Penn State. The Rubber Bowl was a nice big stadium. I can even remember Faust saying the Rubber Bowl was one of the reasons he came here. In addition, I remember Coach Faust saying that he didn't want to join the MAC. He didn't consider the MAC big time enough. When we went DI in football and an independent, the basketball team lost it's automatic bid in the OVC. It is almost impossible for a mid-major program to get an at-large bid to the tournament. Huggins felt left out to dry. So...we joined the lame Northeat Conference consisting of teams that we, in no freaking way, could relate to. Marist? St. Francis? c'mon. I was at the news conference when they made the announcement. You should have seen Huggins. He had absolutely no enthusiasm...the wind was completely out of his sails. I knew he wasn't long for the Hilltop.If you remember, we never did join the Northeast Conference and had to pay a good sum of money to get out of the deal.Coach Dennison? Great guy. I personally believe he should have been given the opportunity to take Akron to the Divison IA level. He earned that right. However, as a previous poster said, Muse had the opportunity to put Akron on the football map with the hiring of Faust.I plead guilty to believing that Akron was now joining the big time and applauded Muse for what he did. However, unfortunately, Faust never got his act together and we had a bunch of mediocre seasons, never reaching the big time status that was envisioned.Finally, and thankfully, we joined the MAC, which is where we belonged in the first place.It's fun to talk about the old days, however, it is time to move on.I'm enthusiastic about the direction of the football and basketball programs now.However, we despirately need a new stadium. The Rubber Bowl is an embarrassment. How about a coat of paint until we move into the new place?I have always been disappointed in the JAR. I wish we could junk that thing too. It's a shame we couldn't build the 12,000 seat arena we originally had in mind. I've been in nicer high school gyms than that place.

[ZipAlumn]

First of all, Muse didn't put us in ANY conference to go D I in football. If you remember, we were leaving the OVC to go DI in football and were going to be an independent. It is my honest belief that Gerry Faust wanted to take Akron to the Big-Time Division I indepdendent status, like Notre Dame or Penn State. The Rubber Bowl was a nice big stadium. I can even remember Faust saying the Rubber Bowl was one of the reasons he came here. In addition, I remember Coach Faust saying that he didn't want to join the MAC. He didn't consider the MAC big time enough. When we went DI in football and an independent, the basketball team lost it's automatic bid in the OVC. It is almost impossible for a mid-major program to get an at-large bid to the tournament. Huggins felt left out to dry. So...we joined the lame Northeat Conference consisting of teams that we, in no freaking way, could relate to. Marist? St. Francis? c'mon. I was at the news conference when they made the announcement. You should have seen Huggins. He had absolutely no enthusiasm...the wind was completely out of his sails. I knew he wasn't long for the Hilltop.If you remember, we never did join the Northeast Conference and had to pay a good sum of money to get out of the deal.Coach Dennison? Great guy. I personally believe he should have been given the opportunity to take Akron to the Divison IA level. He earned that right. However, as a previous poster said, Muse had the opportunity to put Akron on the football map with the hiring of Faust.I plead guilty to believing that Akron was now joining the big time and applauded Muse for what he did. However, unfortunately, Faust never got his act together and we had a bunch of mediocre seasons, never reaching the big time status that was envisioned.Finally, and thankfully, we joined the MAC, which is where we belonged in the first place.It's fun to talk about the old days, however, it is time to move on.I'm enthusiastic about the direction of the football and basketball programs now.However, we despirately need a new stadium. The Rubber Bowl is an embarrassment. How about a coat of paint until we move into the new place?I have always been disappointed in the JAR. I wish we could junk that thing too. It's a shame we couldn't build the 12,000 seat arena we originally had in mind. I've been in nicer high school gyms than that place.

Your right Zip81, I forgot about the time we spent "searching' for a conference affiliation, and the fact we paid to get out of the Northeast Conference. Muse did get the JAR built when the legislature wasn't giving any university money for athletic buildings. It was a compromise and classrooms and the Governor's name had to be added, so with that in mind the building isn't all that bad. I would be happy if they just put a few new bulbs in the Rubber Bowl's scoreboard.But most of all I think it is time to move on ... what is past is past ... learn from history and move on.