The Illinois AD Search

Status
Not open for further replies.
#526      

peace davids

P
Colorado
peace davids
IlliniCaboose said:
I just got an email from the university about "Giving Tuesday" asking me for money. I'm very, very tempted to send one back saying that "While not giving my hard earned money to this laughingstock of a university is "not ideal" I don't think it will be a "dagger to the heart" of this once proud school, and I really don't think I have anything to be "fundamentally ashamed of". Now, if you were asking for money specifically to give PR lessons to all of our interim leaders, or to maybe actually hire ones who already know what the hell they are doing I might be able to consider donating. But as of right now I have no confidence that any money I would give would be put to good use. Perhaps in 2 years I'll be in a more financially stable place in my life. Perhaps this was a bad week for you guys to ask for money, good luck with that."
Click to expand...

Got this email too. My response.

Thank you for your email. I understand the need for financial help in the state of Illinois in order to continue to demand excellence within the University. However, I have not witnessed leadership that strives for excellence in recent months. I suggest that you look diligently for and hire leaders who have high expectations and lead with a plan to achieve greatness. Only then will the faith return with the alumni that the University is going to invest our gifts wisely.

Good luck, and Go Illini.
 
#528      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
ILLinoize92 said:
Really? You make good points at times but then you say things like this...
Click to expand...

Your mileage may vary with how the truth makes you feel, but the truth is the truth.

And this latest thing with athletics is far from the only element of this, but it has really crystallized my feelings about the school. Just speaking from the heart. The broken, broken heart. :tsk:
 
#529      

Ransom Stoddard

Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
Bloomington, IL
Ransom Stoddard
Second and Chalmers said:
Your mileage may vary with how the truth makes you feel, but the truth is the truth.

And this latest thing with athletics is far from the only element of this, but it has really crystallized my feelings about the school. Just speaking from the heart. The broken, broken heart. :tsk:
Click to expand...

I choose to look at it from the perspective that I attended a university when it was probably at its peak of greatness.

The funny thing to me about all of this (and this is not directed specifically at you, 2&C) is that a lot of Illini fans are also Cubs fans. You should be conditioned to having promise yanked out from under you and replaced with mediocrity and despair.
 
#530      

BZuppke

BZuppke
Plainfield
BZuppke
Not sure when you were there Ransom, but I attended for most of the 1980s. Neale Stoner was AD, Mike White, then Mackovic as HCs. We felt that we had taken our place in the upper half of the B1G. Hard to believe all of the promise of that decade has been frittered away.
 
#532      

WesterveltVictoryCigar

WesterveltVictoryCigar
WesterveltVictoryCigar
BZuppke said:
Not sure when you were there Ransom, but I attended for most of the 1980s. Neale Stoner was AD, Mike White, then Mackovic as HCs. We felt that we had taken our place in the upper half of the B1G. Hard to believe all of the promise of that decade has been frittered away.
Click to expand...

Another bad decision with the AD job, giving it to Mackovic.
 
#533      

BZuppke

BZuppke
Plainfield
BZuppke
It's why this AD hire may be the most important moment in Illinois athletic history. You need an AD who knows what the heck he's doing. There has to be more to the Mike Thomas firing. Timing and "not for cause" aspect of it doesn't make sense.
 
#534      

dmac279

D
dmac279
AutoPoster 3000 said:
A few things from this article stood out for me.

First, that there is absolutely zero acknowledgement that there needs to be any urgency concerning any of these decisions, as if it's the norm to drag this out for months or even a year or more. And complete tone-deafness to the fact the fanbase is going to be highly displeased with this unnecessarily leisurely pace. Do any of these people get that 16 months is not an acceptable waiting period for them to get around to naming the real permanent head coach? Yet it's all shrugged off with, "Meh, this is how this kind of stuff unfolds." Uh, actilually, no. Weeks typically. Not years.

Second, Wilson's comment that they "haven't worked out the details yet" of the buyout or if there will even be one. That's the whole point of their asinine two-year contract. How was that not the first thing worked out?

Third, that Killeen describes the Cubit decision as "well thought out" when meanwhile, they never even explored the option of looking to Kowalczyk to find a head coach, haven't even decided on forming the search committee that will "get [them] a short list of people that will be phenomenal" for the AD, and can't set any kind of time table for accomplishing anything. What indications are there that any of this was thought out at all?

Fourth, Killeen's curious comment that the team under Cubit "has been competitive in all the games that I've watched." Huh? We were blown out in four of our seven losses, literally a third of the games we played in this year.

Fifth, Killeen's utterly clueless statements that he Is "very much looking forward to next season and the recruitment that coach Cubit will be able to undertake next year," and also his statement that "This is a time of rebuilding ..." You just committed the program to at least 12 more months of interim head coaching. By necessity you've postponed the start of any rebuilding for at least a year. Dude, what are you talking about?

Lastly, Wilson's rather sorry comments about her process of learning what the criteria for a good AD should be, like she's trying to find a quality caterer for her daughter's wedding.

There's more embedded in there, I could go on. But I just hope the folks who thus far have viewed this a reasonable decision made by informed people who understand the world of major college football are taking note of this stuff. There is nothing about these comments that give you any confidence these decision makers have any clue what to do here. It comes off as amateur hour in the worst way and confirms all of our worst fears.
Click to expand...
There will be an urgency if the football and basketball Arabs are empty
 
#537      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
BZuppke said:
There has to be more to the Mike Thomas firing. Timing and "not for cause" aspect of it doesn't make sense.
Click to expand...

This was discussed more on one of the other boards, but the backstory there is total bad faith on the part of a large swath of our donor base. The money is just as dysfunctional as the administration and our next AD faces a hugely difficult task just to get the boosters all rowing in the same direction again.

The fear is, Guentherism may be the only way to make that happen.
 
#538      

EJ33

E
San Francisco
EJ33
BZuppke said:
Not sure when you were there Ransom, but I attended for most of the 1980s. Neale Stoner was AD, Mike White, then Mackovic as HCs. We felt that we had taken our place in the upper half of the B1G. Hard to believe all of the promise of that decade has been frittered away.
Click to expand...

Yep, we clawed our way out of the basement to become a credible program.

Don't forget basketball in the 80s when the question was "are we a 1, 2, 3, or 4 seed" not "are we going to make the tournament."

The people at the top of this university just don't seem to understand the importance of athletics in terms of fundraising and building your brand and national reputation.
 
#541      

HerbertFish

H
HerbertFish
Second and Chalmers said:
This was discussed more on one of the other boards, but the backstory there is total bad faith on the part of a large swath of our donor base. The money is just as dysfunctional as the administration and our next AD faces a hugely difficult task just to get the boosters all rowing in the same direction again.

The fear is, Guentherism may be the only way to make that happen.
Click to expand...

Ehhhh. I'd argue the money is dysfunctional because of the administration. Any sort of competence will go a long ways to getting people on the same page.
 
#543      

Dan

Dan
Admin
Dan
Booster: 'Just poor leadership'

Thanks to Philip Sarnecki's $500,000 gift last year, the swanky new coaches' locker room at State Farm Center will be named in honor of his dad, a longtime janitor on campus.

But on the eve of the arena's grand re-opening — and on the heels of Bill Cubit's promotion to head football coach — the Illini athletics donor isn't feeling much school spirit these days.

"I think the entire university leadership just looks dysfunctional," Sarnecki said from the Kansas City area, where he's the managing partner of a financial firm. "It's frustrating to see and probably unprecedented. We have an 'interim' chancellor, who hires an 'interim' AD, who now essentially — with a two-year contract — hires an 'interim' head football coach. I've never seen anything like it."

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2015-12-01/booster-just-poor-leadership.html
Click to expand...
 
#544      

ijustkrushalot

I
Iowa Corridor
ijustkrushalot
Second and Chalmers said:
I hate myself for accepting admission to this fraud of a University all those years ago. I am ashamed to call myself a graduate.
Click to expand...

I spent 6 years on campus (with a hiatus for 2 years between undergrad and grad school.

My sophomore year was the national-runner up basketball team. 11 years ago at this moment I was in my 17th hour standing in line for the Illinois vs. Wake Forest basketball game (I spent the night of my 20th birthday freezing my !!! off in a tent by the front door, and met some of my best friends from undergrad huddling for warmth).

Football was an abject disaster while I was an undergrad, sadder than anything right now (although we're trying to go back to that)... we won 2 big ten games in four years... the fall after i graduated we went to the Rose Bowl, a trip I made with some of the people I met the night before the Wake Forest game and with other friends I made tailgating.

When I came back for grad school the sports were pretty mediocre (a tournament team that didn't do much in basketball... the Texas Bowl team in football, which is still the second most fun team I've watched at Illinois). I kept going to games, had fun, and met more people... some of them I went to games with, many of them that didn't give a damn about sports. Going back for a couple football games a year is a great excuse to also go visit the couple friends I have left in Chambana.

Ultimately I went to the #10 ranked public university in the nation, and my academic program is ranked #3 in the united states and the best in the Big Ten... I'm better off, and the people of Illinois are better off, for that than if we switched places with Iowa.

that said, I like sports, and following Illinois has been fun at times, and is now so completely frustrating. It made up a big part of my undergrad experience... and has continued to engage me in the school going forward (I would lie if I said it kept me close to my academic department, if anything it makes me reflect that I should mail them a few bucks each year instead of buying merch or tickets)

Ultimately Killeen and whoever replaces Babs as Chancellor are going to be tasked with keeping up the academic prestige of the school, it's an intsitution that is immensely valuable to the region and the state and nation as a whole.

...but those of us who like sports should be really upset at the idiocy on display in the last month... every single time someone has acted or opened their mounts to talk about the DIA they have made the wrong decision. Even in keeping Cubit (which maybe could be excused) they set him and the future of the program up for failure, a situation created out of whole cloth by firing mike thomas 3 weeks before the season ended.... last night they can't even get their ducks in a row to decide whether this program should go to a bowl game (the obvious answer is yes)... there are players currently tweeting about how they'd love to give the seniors one more game. We're failing the athletes and we're failing the fans... which is failing our future.
 
#546      

themudflap

T
themudflap
Maybe if some of you hold your breath until you turn blue they will change their minds and do what you want. Grow up people. You sound like those spoiled, whiny kids at Mizzou.
 
#548      

Flight 33

F
Flight 33
IlliniCaboose said:
I just got an email from the university about "Giving Tuesday" asking me for money. I'm very, very tempted to send one back saying that "While not giving my hard earned money to this laughingstock of a university is "not ideal" I don't think it will be a "dagger to the heart" of this once proud school, and I really don't think I have anything to be "fundamentally ashamed of". Now, if you were asking for money specifically to give PR lessons to all of our interim leaders, or to maybe actually hire ones who already know what the hell they are doing I might be able to consider donating. But as of right now I have no confidence that any money I would give would be put to good use. Perhaps in 2 years I'll be in a more financially stable place in my life. Perhaps this was a bad week for you guys to ask for money, good luck with that."
Click to expand...

I got the same email, and for the first time ever I deleted a request from my school for a donation. I also have stopped buying Illini logo gear and am not going to wear the stuff I already have until I see progress (hey, it's my little protest, but it's about all I can do!).

I'm also adopting Stanford as my 2nd team (first time I've ever rooted for another college sports program). I like their academics, have friends that have graduated from there, and my next door neighbor coached their football MVP in high school.
 
#549      

AutoPoster 3000

AutoPoster 3000
AutoPoster 3000
themudflap said:
Maybe if some of you hold your breath until you turn blue they will change their minds and do what you want. Grow up people. You sound like those spoiled, whiny kids at Mizzou.
Click to expand...
These entitled, so-called "fans" expected the university to make some kind of attempt to hire a permanent head coach and athletic director after they fired the previous ones. Grow up, people.
 
#550      

Flight 33

F
Flight 33
BZuppke said:
Not sure when you were there Ransom, but I attended for most of the 1980s. Neale Stoner was AD, Mike White, then Mackovic as HCs. We felt that we had taken our place in the upper half of the B1G. Hard to believe all of the promise of that decade has been frittered away.
Click to expand...

Me too. I grew up with Illinois basketball and football looking down on Wisconsin and Michigan State and if you looked far enough, there was Northwestern all the way down there.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.