Interesting start to an article by Tom Herman, where he used the example of recruiting Andrew Luck to kick things off and about changing attitudes within the program. Sounds like he's having to kick a few butts over there, and hope that Rice is also taking a similar tack on things. The current athletic admin certainly seems to say the right things.

Quote:When I was the offensive coordinator at Rice in 2007, there was an elite quarterback coming out of Stratford High in Houston. He made it very clear: If Texas didn't offer him a football scholarship, he was going to go to an academically minded school. So, his final three schools were Northwestern, Stanford and Rice. We were on his list for three reasons: He's from Houston; his dad was the president of MLS's Houston Dynamo; and his mom and maternal grandparents graduated from the school. Long story short, he had been on campus a couple of times, and I had always known well in advance he was coming.

Rice didn't have very nice facilities, so I knew which hallways to walk him down and where to hide him—I knew what doors to keep closed so he did not see certain things. Meanwhile, we planned any way we could to polish up the facilities. But during the spring my office phone rang and it's the quarterback's dad. I'm thinking, "Great!" I take the call, and he says, "Coach Herman, my wife and son and I are in the parking lot. Can we come up and spend some time with you?" I said, "Of course," but I'm thinking to myself, "Oh no! Oh god! What do I do?"

So, I spent the next two hours fumbling around, and the kid saw all our warts. I went home that night feeling terrible—a combination of wanting to vomit profusely and curl up in the fetal position. I knew he was getting on a flight to Palo Alto the next day to visit Stanford. I knew what they were going to show him. And I knew that we were done. We had failed. Would we have gotten him? Probably not. But we failed. We did not put our best foot forward.

That quarterback was Andrew Luck.

I've told that story every day since I arrived at Houston. Every day when I roll into the parking lot, close my car door and start walking into the football facility, I say to myself, "What if Andrew Luck shows up today?" And I walk in, pick up gum wrappers and inspect the floor. We need new paint on the walls, new pictures, all sorts of things. In the city of Houston, there's a very real chance that the next Andrew Luck could show up in our offices today. It's almost a mantra for our coaches: Your offices better stay neat. You better have a highlight tape ready, a recruitment presentation ready, all your spiels ready, because there are 10 five-star prospects living within 20 minutes of us and they can show up at any time. Before I got here this building was not seen as a recruiting tool, but as a place to house employees. We're slowly but surely changing that.

source: https://www.campusrush.com/tom-herman-ho...62958.html

Some interesting backstory there to confirm probably many of our suspicions.

Figure things have been like that for 40 years and figure how many, if not Andrew Lucks, still very talented student athletes came to visit and got turned off. I know of several, and I'm guessing there were many more.

Great story.

Emeka Okafor. Sigh.........

It is a good story, and it's illustrative of the issues we have dealt with over the years. The fact that it's even a story is Rice's fault alone.

It is also next-level negative selling on Herman's part.

(09-09-2015 12:06 PM)Middle Ages Wrote:  It is a good story, and it's illustrative of the issues we have dealt with over the years. The fact that it's even a story is Rice's fault alone.

It is also next-level negative selling on Herman's part.

It's safe to assume that every Rice football recruit is aware that we're in the process of a major facility upgrade. With that in mind, I don't think that Herman's comments about our old facilities are negative in intent or effect. IIRC Bailiff said something similar when the Patterson Center was announced.

And contrary to the popular (around here) notion that Rice "lost" Luck because of facilities, Herman acknowledges that he probably wasn't coming here anyway.

I read Herman's comments less about Rice's facilities than about keeping any facility looking presentable, and more generally being prepared for an unexpected visit. One of the implications was that if Stanford had any warts, Luck didn't see them on his recruiting trip, because they knew he was coming and were prepared for his arrival.

(09-09-2015 12:54 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(09-09-2015 12:06 PM)Middle Ages Wrote:  It is a good story, and it's illustrative of the issues we have dealt with over the years. The fact that it's even a story is Rice's fault alone.

It is also next-level negative selling on Herman's part.

It's safe to assume that every Rice football recruit is aware that we're in the process of a major facility upgrade. With that in mind, I don't think that Herman's comments about our old facilities are negative in intent or effect. IIRC Bailiff said something similar when the Patterson Center was announced.

And contrary to the popular (around here) notion that Rice "lost" Luck because of facilities, Herman acknowledges that he probably wasn't coming here anyway.

I read Herman's comments less about Rice's facilities than about keeping any facility looking presentable, and more generally being prepared for an unexpected visit. One of the implications was that if Stanford had any warts, Luck didn't see them on his recruiting trip, because they knew he was coming and were prepared for his arrival.

That's a good point, and you are probably right that I am reading too much into it. I just cringed reading it and- regardless of the fact that we are addressing it- the comparison of UH and Rice in that story was unflattering.

For at least the last 50 years, Rice has looked better on the academic side of campus than the athletic.

(09-09-2015 12:54 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  One of the implications was that if Stanford had any warts, Luck didn't see them on his recruiting trip, because they knew he was coming and were prepared for his arrival.

I'm sure you are right, but as I read your post I started to imagine what kind of warts Stanford might have:
- Remote for one of the big screen TVs in the players' lounge needs new batteries.
- Post game cracked crab served with unclarified butter
- Locker room cologne dispenser out of Drakkar Noir

Horrors.