He’s led the conference through a tumultuous period before and he plans to do it again.

Quote:“Difficulty is the excuse that history never accepts.”
That’s the Edward R. Murrow quote Aresco often thinks about.
In the end, Aresco knows nobody will care about the challenges. They’ll only know whether or not he led the conference to the same prominence held by..the Power 5.

Quote:“It tests your leadership, there’s no question about it,” Aresco said of the swirl of realignment conversations. “You have to tune out a lot of the distractions. But I also confront it head on. I continue to talk to our athletic directors and presidents about it. I fully understand the pressures on them and where they’re coming from on this. So we continue to have a really strong relationship, despite all this. These are all really good guys. They’re all friends and whether a few of them leave, down the road they’re going to be friends.”

Quote: SEC commissioner Mike Slive.
“For a period of a year or so you probably needed index cards to know who was in the conference and a color code to know who was leaving and who was coming in,” he said.
“He was a vigorous and tenacious advocate for his league,” Slive said. “I didn’t always agree with him. We would argue. We had different points of view, and Mike, in some ways, is a bulldog and he never let go of what he believed was the right thing for his league. He still is that way.”

Quote:Larry McHugh, Aresco’s high school football coach, who is also the chairman of the University of Connecticut Board of Trustees.
"He had a tremendous amount of heart and a never-quit attitude. I think the never-quit attitude has probably carried over into everything he has done in his life because he just hangs in there and keeps on going forward"

For each season of the AAC’s existence, Aresco has attended games at all the conferences’ campuses. He’s on the ground, supporting each school’s local initiatives such as facility upgrades and competitive salaries for coaches. At some schools, he’s on a first-name basis with the major donors.

Quote:“You never get anything really valuable without serious struggle,” Aresco said.

full article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybarca/2...nment/amp/

There is a reason the AAC is the apex of G5 conferences and the go to for any realignment talk. It's crazy to think there were those who bad mouthed a Aresco just a few years ago. He's a steady hand in a very difficult situation.


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Good article

i now some of you guys here hate him, i never got why..but i think he's done an outstanding job ...especially seeing the other g5 commish

1) aresco

big gap
2)Jon Steinbrecher (mac)

big gap
3) karl benson (sunbelt)
4) Craig Thompson (mwc)
5) judy (c-usa)

interesting contrast from media days was that hair (craig) said only 2 teams contacted them about big 12 but knew more would apply.... aresco says he has talked to every single member about it

Aresco is a great Commissioner. The league is taking on his never say die attitude. He is about to have the opportunity to have his finest hour. If anyone can get Air Force and Army to join he can.

He will probably give the teams that leave the conf name and get a good exppsure deal on the cartoon network

(08-03-2016 07:21 AM)pesik Wrote:  i now some of you guys here hate him, i never got why..but i think he's done an outstanding job ...especially seeing the other g5 commish

1) aresco

big gap
2)Jon Steinbrecher (mac)

big gap
3) karl benson (sunbelt)
4) Craig Thompson (mwc)
5) judy (c-usa)

interesting contrast from media days was that hair (craig) said only 2 teams contacted them about big 12 but knew more would apply.... aresco says he has talked to every single member about it

He's also being paid an outrageous amount compared to the others on that list. Look, in just about every measure other than serving as a rah-rah cheerleader, Aresco has come up short. He was brought aboard to negotiate a television contract and to maximize conference value. First he lost the basketball schools. Then he lost Boise and SDSU. Then he gave up the Big East name. Then he negotiated a media contract that was a pittance compared to expectations. Were a lot of these things largely out of his control? Sure. Were expectations too high? Maybe. But as the man himself says: “Difficulty is the excuse that history never accepts.” At the end of the day, under his watch, our conference is making good money for ESPN and in return we're underpaid and treated like second-class trash. Aresco has shown he's an excellent cheerleader. What we needed was an excellent leader.

He's played the cards he was dealt about as well as anyone could have.

I think he has done a very good job with what he has.
To expect him to be sble to keep schools from leaving to P5 is unrealistic.
It will be interesting to see what he does if we lose schools but I feel more confident with him at the lead than what BE had before

Im probably the only person that disagrees. He is a mediator not a leader. I think he conceded too often and got us suchb crap deal we are getting poached.

The fact that the schools in the conference have won games has been in spite of the conference. We are CUSA with temple, uconn and navy.

(08-03-2016 09:09 AM)shere khan Wrote:  Im probably the only person that disagrees. He is a mediator not a leader. I think he conceded too often and got us suchb crap deal we are getting poached.

The fact that the schools in the conference have won games has been in spite of the conference. We are CUSA with temple, uconn and navy.

Soo you think he could have gotten a deal that would make our schools turn down a P5 invite?

There is another way for ESPN/Fox to change or affect this expansion outcome - make the AAC a P6 conference or at least a P5-1/2 by giving the AAC more money per team. I think we'd all be happy (or at least content) with just half of what most of the current P5 are getting now.

It's not going to happen but it would be interesting if ESPN came out now to renegotiate the current AAC contract.

I don't think Aresco has done that bad of a job. In fact, I would not be surprised if he eventually takes the reigns as commissioner of a power 5 conference.

I guess for those who think he's done a great job, point me to one thing where he's exceeded expectations other than being a cheerleader.

(08-03-2016 09:16 AM)bearcatfan Wrote:  There is another way for ESPN/Fox to change or affect this expansion outcome - make the AAC a P6 conference or at least a P5-1/2 by giving the AAC more money per team. I think we'd all be happy (or at least content) with just half of what most of the current P5 are getting now.

It's not going to happen but it would be interesting if ESPN came out now to renegotiate the current AAC contract.

Even that wouldn't stop UC or any other AAC school from bolting to B12

(08-03-2016 09:19 AM)MickMack Wrote:  I guess for those who think he's done a great job, point me to one thing where he's exceeded expectations other than being a cheerleader.

Tv exposure of league it's best out of all G5 and even better than we had in BE

(08-03-2016 09:21 AM)Cubanbull Wrote:  

(08-03-2016 09:19 AM)MickMack Wrote:  I guess for those who think he's done a great job, point me to one thing where he's exceeded expectations other than being a cheerleader.

Tv exposure of league it's best out of all G5 and even better than we had in BE

Yeah idk about that. Way too much CBS sports net for me.

(08-03-2016 09:21 AM)Cubanbull Wrote:  

(08-03-2016 09:19 AM)MickMack Wrote:  I guess for those who think he's done a great job, point me to one thing where he's exceeded expectations other than being a cheerleader.

Tv exposure of league it's best out of all G5 and even better than we had in BE

Did that exceed expectations? My expectations were that we'd have good exposure and decent money.

(08-03-2016 08:55 AM)MickMack Wrote:  

(08-03-2016 07:21 AM)pesik Wrote:  i now some of you guys here hate him, i never got why..but i think he's done an outstanding job ...especially seeing the other g5 commish

1) aresco

big gap
2)Jon Steinbrecher (mac)

big gap
3) karl benson (sunbelt)
4) Craig Thompson (mwc)
5) judy (c-usa)

interesting contrast from media days was that hair (craig) said only 2 teams contacted them about big 12 but knew more would apply.... aresco says he has talked to every single member about it

He's also being paid an outrageous amount compared to the others on that list. Look, in just about every measure other than serving as a rah-rah cheerleader, Aresco has come up short. He was brought aboard to negotiate a television contract and to maximize conference value. First he lost the basketball schools. Then he lost Boise and SDSU. Then he gave up the Big East name. Then he negotiated a media contract that was a pittance compared to expectations. Were a lot of these things largely out of his control? Sure. Were expectations too high? Maybe. But as the man himself says: “Difficulty is the excuse that history never accepts.” At the end of the day, under his watch, our conference is making good money for ESPN and in return we're underpaid and treated like second-class trash. Aresco has shown he's an excellent cheerleader. What we needed was an excellent leader.

Tell me tgis are you in business? How do you make someone give you more money than they think the deal is worth? If you have the answer tell us. How could have gotten ESPN to pay more money than the schools are worth? I think you have some magical thinking.

(08-03-2016 09:09 AM)shere khan Wrote:  Im probably the only person that disagrees. He is a mediator not a leader. I think he conceded too often and got us suchb crap deal we are getting poached.

The fact that the schools in the conference have won games has been in spite of the conference. We are CUSA with temple, uconn and navy.

I couldn't disagree with you more. Aresco hired the two best TV consultants in the business. We got screwed by not having any bell cow football programs (like FSU/Clemson or OU/UT), and by the TV industry, not by Aresco.

And Aresco is 1000x better than Bowlsby. Bowlsby just has the two horses, and we don't.