factman's greatest day ever

[h2oville rocket]

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2013 ... c-director

[factman]

Greg Christopher "I can't wait to get down here and start to build."

Can we help you pack?

[Class of 61]

Factman: I hope you're not considering ALL of us in the "we" category. I've found Greg to be very easy to deal with...I know you're ticked off about the baseball program (in particular), but I'm looking at coach of the year honors for volleyball, swimming and gymnastics this year alone...the hockey situation is improving as is men's soccer.... while I didn't agree with continuing Orr's contract, this might make sense now if he knew he was leaving. FWIW, I also enjoyed dealing with Paul Krebs while he was here. The AD can't be accused of everything that goes wrong with a program as long as you're not going to recognize successes along with it.

[factman]

Nope....not including everyone.......it's strictly voluntary!

[Falcon137]

An article I read from 2009 stated that the Xavier AD was one of nine employees at the university who were receiving more than $200,000 a year. That's three years ago. Mike Bobinski, the AD at the time, has since moved on the Georgia Tech at $650,000 a year in spite of having no D1 football experience at Xavier. Don't think this is a downward move for Christopher.

Globe, you can't know for sure because Xavier isn't required to release any monetary details.

But, adding on to what H2o said. Xavier is set to receive 2+ million more from their move to the Big East. Christopher is going to be getting a large pay raise.

[hammb]

An article I read from 2009 stated that the Xavier AD was one of nine employees at the university who were receiving more than $200,000 a year. That's three years ago. Mike Bobinski, the AD at the time, has since moved on the Georgia Tech at $650,000 a year in spite of having no D1 football experience at Xavier. Don't think this is a downward move for Christopher.

Globe, you can't know for sure because Xavier isn't required to release any monetary details.

But, adding on to what H2o said. Xavier is set to receive 2+ million more from their move to the Big East. Christopher is going to be getting a large pay raise.

Sounds like they want a guy to help with fundraising. If that's the main goal of your AD then Christopher is a good choice. I'm sure he's getting a pay raise as well. Good for him.

BG needed somebody to come in and find money for the program and update some facilities. He did that. I also think he did a very poor job at building winners during his tenure here, which should still be the primary goal/focus of the department, IMO.

I'm glad for the money he found/raised, but I hope they can find somebody to come in and do a better job increasing coaching salaries and building winners in all of our sports, but especially the big revenue sports.

[mscarn]

What "building" at Xavier? The basketball coach (Chris Mack) is pretty much ensconsed and no other sport is of significance over there.

He stayed ahead of the posse. He maxed out the donor base, modernized facilities that brought us up to par with our bretheren, won in football and didn't completely embarass himself in basketball up until this year, which we now know might not have been his call anyway.

His fundraising acumen is derisively used as a pejorative around here when it should not be. Athletic departments are starving for money and people who have this skill set get hired for jobs like this. It can be done by superior organization and talented people or by riding the positve wave of winning programs. We can probably agree he relied more on the latter, which speaks even more to the potential of this university.

We basically need another Greg Christopher who can hire a basketball coach. If we examine the candidates last time around:

Whit Babcock: AD at Cincinnati
David Sayler: AD at Miami (OH)
Janna Blais: SWA at Northwestern (great lady, not the right fit for this position)
Shelley Appelbaum: Assistant AD at MSU (ditto)

My pick is Tom Hof. BG guy, tons of expereince at Ohio State, personable, great family and can sell ice to Eskimos in Alaska.

Another name to keep an eye on given Mazey's history:

http://www.auburntigers.com/genrel/jackson_tim00.html

This will be the most consequential decision of her tenure and I hope she gets is right.

[Falcon137]

I was wondering when people would start throwing some names out there.

Hof seems like a great fit, undergrad and masters from BG, is a marketing and promotions guy and comes from a school with hockey.

An SEC guy would be intriguing.

Off the top of my head here are the main things that need addressed:

The basketball program.
Renovations to The Doyt and Perry Fieldhouse.
Baseball program.

What areas need serious improvement?

Hockey, Golf, swimming, gymnastics, women's basketball and volleyball all seem to be in good shape and moving in the right direction.

[It's the Journey...]

Gymnastics as a program is moving in the right direction. Gymnastics from a facility stand point MUST be addressed. I would love to know where their training and competitive facility will be in three years!

[footballguy51]

I don't understand why so many people disliked Christopher. He did some amazing things for this University, hired some great coaches (not all great hires, but many great hires), and has given BG national exposure multiple times. What am I missing besides reducing scholarships to a non-revenue baseball program? Also, are we able to add those back, or does Title IX restrict that?

[hammb]

I don't understand why so many people disliked Christopher. He did some amazing things for this University, hired some great coaches (not all great hires, but many great hires), and has given BG national exposure multiple times. What am I missing besides reducing scholarships to a non-revenue baseball program? Also, are we able to add those back, or does Title IX restrict that?

As his first order of business he let Dakich come back on a lame duck season...although it may have been too late to find a new hoops coach by the time Christopher was here...so I guess we could let him slide on that, but it was a pattern of behavior...
Waited two years too long to rid us of the Gregg Brandon Experience.
Threatened to end the hockey program if donors didn't come forward with money right away.
Waited too long on the Paluch experience.
Waited too long on the Orr experience.
Your aforementioned cuts to non-revenue sports funding.

Like I posted in the basketball forum, I don't think he was ever truly committed to building WINNING programs. I think he was committed to fundraising, and keeping the bottom line in order, but I think winning was secondary to him.

It's often mentioned on here that BG operates with a shoestring budget as an athletic department, even when compared to our conference brethren. I actually believe that Christopher was making this the case moreso than him having his hands tied. I believe he felt cutting expenditures were the best way to make the department stay afloat. Personally, I think a far better approach is to actually invest in WINNING and then reap the rewards of increased revenue and a larger fanbase. Christopher's predecessor may not have had the fun raising acumen that Christopher has shown, but Krebs put winners on the field and court and the major sports of Hoops & Football had far better fan support in his day to show for it.

Kudos for his fund-raising, and I do think he got it right with the Clawson hire. Even more importantly maybe he finally realized the error of his penny pinching when he gave Clawson that nice extension recently. I just wish that he'd have done a better job committing competitive dollars to coaches right away. For all his ability to drum up new funds, we never saw those funds properly used to improve the products on the field or court....this is IMO, obviously...

[MarkL]

I don't fault GC at all on the Gregg Brandon scenario. When should he have been let go? After 2006, when when the team lost all of its playmakers the previous year and was breaking in new starters, including a lot of freshmen, at just about every position? After 2007 when the team had a four game turnaround? Even with the blowout in the bowl game, it would be odd to fire a coach after flipping around from 4-8 to 8-4 and finishing on a four game regular season winning streak. He was let go less than 24 hours after the 2008 season's last regular season game. About the only alternative I see is letting him go after the UB game and the odd rant aimed at the lack of fan and student support. (BTW, I don't blame Brandon for being frustrated and angry about the lack of fan and student support, but the public fuming was the wrong venue for such.)

[BGWriter]

I don't fault GC at all on the Gregg Brandon scenario. When should he have been let go? After 2006, when when the team lost all of its playmakers the previous year and was breaking in new starters, including a lot of freshmen, at just about every position? After 2007 when the team had a four game turnaround? Even with the blowout in the bowl game, it would be odd to fire a coach after flipping around from 4-8 to 8-4 and finishing on a four game regular season winning streak. He was let go less than 24 hours after the 2008 season's last regular season game. About the only alternative I see is letting him go after the UB game and the odd rant aimed at the lack of fan and student support. (BTW, I don't blame Brandon for being frustrated and angry about the lack of fan and student support, but the public fuming was the wrong venue for such.)

I'm not an expert on all the facts surrounding Brandon, but I do know he left that program in dire straights so far as its APR goes...and that's something that typically doesn't happen overnight.

I would have to believe that an AD would be aware of the inner workings of the program and how the academics, transfers and dismissals were affecting the APR as it was happening.

By waiting too long, it put Clawson in one helluva bind coming into the program, as BG had to give up something like 18 scholarships that first year while, at the same time, trying to build some continuity by redshirting younger players.

Is it any wonder the team struggled so mightily after that group of seniors graduated his first season?

Yes, a competent AD should have realized his football coach was digging a very deep hole that was putting the program in jeopardy, and he should have stopped it well before it got to that point.

As for how he operated the other sports: running things on a shoestring and not focusing on winning (at basically any level) is not how I view the role of an athletic director. It's their job to get people in place and create WINNING programs.

He did not do that, for most of his tenure at BG. And he waited far too long to rectify coaching problems that led to continued losing. We're still discussing Orr because Christopher extended his contract instead of firing him when he should have been looking for a new coach.

I don't believe he was a very good AD, period. At least not in the sense that you want an AD to improve your programs as soon as possible, and stop problems from festering too long. He did neither.

[BGSU33]

Off the top of my head here are the main things that need addressed:

The basketball program.
Renovations to The Doyt and Perry Fieldhouse.
Baseball program.

I agree with these things you mentioned. From what was reported, the Fieldhouse is supposed to get Fieldturf this summer. There was talk of that happened several years ago when it was put in The Doyt but I assume money was an issue then. We were also told there would be a report of some sort coming out this spring about what they planned to do with The Doyt. With GC now leaving, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see the movement towards this come to a standstill. I hope I am wrong. The men's basketball program is in major need of attention, improvement, direction, etc. The baseball facility is also in need of much improvement. It makes me laugh when BG states improvements to the stadium as a new batter's eye or back screen netting. That is putting a band-aid on an open wound. The dugouts were a step in the right direction, but many of our upgrades to this facility were done way on the cheap side. In the MAC there are three schools with quality baseball facilities: Ohio, Miami and CMU. Kent State has closed the gap but has done so more with numerous improvement (OU, MU and CMU are still much better IMO). The rest of the MAC has a bunch of glorified high school facilities that rival one another.

[BGFalconfromCincy]

We're still discussing Orr because Christopher extended his contract instead of firing him when he should have been looking for a new coach.

He extended Orr after the 09 season. Yes I think Orr should have been fired after this season, but lets not confuse the timeable of when the extension came to make it look like instead of firing Orr after last season or this season he gave him a contract extension instead