(03-29-2018 10:31 AM)Clad Scheme Owl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 10:16 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 10:08 AM)Clad Scheme Owl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 09:59 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 09:55 AM)Clad Scheme Owl Wrote:  Actually he/she makes a good point. No one has had any logical response to this other than dismissing it.

That's simply not true. Several of us have repeatedly provided detailed responses regarding the scholarship issues, and how other programs have gotten around it.

We have the same number of scholarships as everyone else. Is it more expensive to go to Rice? Yes, however we have always had top talent come in that was on financial aid as well. In many ways we have advantages to cheaper state schools who have surpassed us. Scholarships are not an issue. Having an uncertainty at the head coaching spot, lack of production on the field, and lack luster overall athletics at Rice are the main reason we are at a disadvantage. People would simply play elsewhere at this point in time. That is the hard truth.

Again, you don't have a clue what you're talking about regarding the scholarship situation. I'm not going to repeat the issue here, but encourage you to look back at a number of previous threads and posts that provide the details behind why we are losing recruits due to the scholarship situation.

Private schools with the same financial situation: TCU, Duke, Baylor, USC, Clemson, Vanderbilt, and Stanford to name a few. I saw your comment awhile back on Stanford and I have yet to double check it but let's just say it's true. These other schools have similar tuition as Rice. Some are more and some are less. Some are more expensive than Rice (especially when factoring in out of state tuition) with similar grade requirements. So how are they not disadvantaged? We need to stop playing victim. This sounds nothing more than an excuse to tell donors as to why we are all of a sudden so bad at baseball. To be honest the decline of Rice athletics really started to show when all sports were forced to use the same apparel to make it fair for all sports at Rice. Baseball went from one of the only D1 baseball schools that wore the professional Majestic brand to a bottom tier Nike school that got the scraps of what Nike had to offer. During this time though we still inked plenty of talent off of financial aid that did not go against our scholarships. Assistants started to leave and were replaced with younger assistants that were afraid to speak up against Graham. But you should know this right? You know all of the inner workings. You've sat in on locker room meetings and gotten a players perspective. There has to be a price tag for that right?

Walt is clueless on many issues. He shapes the narrative to fit his agenda. There is NO scholarship issue period! They all play by the same rules. This isn't basketball or football where players are handed cash. The scholarship issue is an excuse to justify sticking with a "dog that won't hunt". Scholarship issue LMAO. There were people saying Rice was losing players to La Tech because of scholarship issues and now those same people are saying La Tech has JUCO transfers. Make up your mind. The fact is we have a coach that has led the program in decline for the past 10 years. He has brought the program right back to where he found it. So to that I say no more is owed. Last time I checked he was paid and didn't volunteer his services. Unless the school owes Wayne unpaid salary nothing more is owed. One national championship which is the same as Coastal Carolina. It is quite an accomplishment by both the coach and players. It does not however entitle someone to a lifetime contract. The institution is owed a successful program. One that can compete with similar academic schools such as Vandy and Stanford. Right now Rice is more on par with Duke than than those two. Also, if it was strictly about cost then UT would be in the top 5 every year with all the talent in Texas. Go on and dismiss it Walt after you remove your head from Wayne's arse.

Some of these schools can give academic or other targeted scholarships that Rice's governing docs do not allow.

As Walt said, this has been discussed at length in this forum over several years. Do your homework.

(03-29-2018 12:08 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Some of these schools can give academic or other targeted scholarships that Rice's governing docs do not allow.

As Walt said, this has been discussed at length in this forum over several years. Do your homework.

This is true, but I do feel the impact is grossly overstated here. Targeted scholarships or lack thereof aren't the reason we can't field ground balls consistantly and have one mega meltdown a game at least.

We are not being out talented by WKU. We just screwed the pooch on that one (and others) and the cause cannot be attributed to scholarships or JUCOs

The scholarship issue I think explains a SMALL AMOUNT of the decline, but not most of it:

Bigger problem is all the Wayne Worshippers in the donor class. There aren’t many on the team who’d be unhappy to see him go, I can tell you that.

(03-29-2018 10:16 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 10:08 AM)Clad Scheme Owl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 09:59 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 09:55 AM)Clad Scheme Owl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 09:52 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  You don't have a clue what you're talking about. As for LaTech, you do realize they have 18 JUCO transfers on their roster?

Actually he/she makes a good point. No one has had any logical response to this other than dismissing it.

That's simply not true. Several of us have repeatedly provided detailed responses regarding the scholarship issues, and how other programs have gotten around it.

We have the same number of scholarships as everyone else. Is it more expensive to go to Rice? Yes, however we have always had top talent come in that was on financial aid as well. In many ways we have advantages to cheaper state schools who have surpassed us. Scholarships are not an issue. Having an uncertainty at the head coaching spot, lack of production on the field, and lack luster overall athletics at Rice are the main reason we are at a disadvantage. People would simply play elsewhere at this point in time. That is the hard truth.

Again, you don't have a clue what you're talking about regarding the scholarship situation. I'm not going to repeat the issue here, but encourage you to look back at a number of previous threads and posts that provide the details behind why we are losing recruits due to the scholarship situation.

(03-29-2018 12:08 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Some of these schools can give academic or other targeted scholarships that Rice's governing docs do not allow.

As Walt said, this has been discussed at length in this forum over several years. Do your homework.

Those threads will also show at least an equal number of posts (I have made a few myself and here goes another one) engaging in good faith with and disputing this issue.

The same Baseball America that published an article a few years ago about public schools (mostly in the southeast) being able to augment their partial-scholarship offers with automatic state-sponsored merit scholarships (which could only affect us if we were trying for a recruit from that state, same as always w/r/t OOS public schools) is the same Baseball America that published an article within the last year or two ranking us among the strongest baseball programs in the country due in part to the "loads of institutional aid" at our disposal.

Stanford's automatic free ride to any kid from a family making $65K or less, and free tuition if it's $125K or less? Look up the Rice financial aid stats. For families that make $80K or less the average out of pocket cost to attend Rice is $4K a year and under $120K it is about $21K, which is the same as tuition-free at Stanford. We are competitive with our peers in this area.

Then came the canard about our private competitors stacking merit scholarships on top of partial baseball scholarships and how we can't do this because of the stratospheric academic stats of our student body. Doesn't explain why Stanford and Vanderbilt are continuing to excel despite same. Then came the urban legend about how Vanderbilt does it by admitting all its players through its ed school where the qualifications are lower and they can give merit scholarships that way without breaking the rules. Totally unsubstantiated - there is no back door into Vanderbilt.

Then the last redoubt became TCU & Baylor - lesser academic privates more able to stack "automatic" merit scholarships are supposedly killing us. Well, for A, Baylor is killing no one. For B, per NCAA rule the athlete still has to have a pretty high minimum SAT (1270) or GPA (3.5) or class rank (top 10%) to qualify, which is going to knock plenty of recruits out of this discussion. For C, this could only even potentially be a disadvantage to us if the recruit is from a family well off enough not to qualify for our financial aid. Therefore, for D, simply go to the net price calculator for any school supposedly beating us with this tactic (here is TCU's) and enter some hypothetical numbers for a recruit with the above-detailed academic stats and a "full pay" family income, and see how much merit scholarship money they project. I have done this for TCU and it spits out a big fat zero.

And it was just reported here recently that La. Tech (of all places) has at least one player whom we recruited that is choosing to pay more out of pocket at LTU than he would have had to pay at Rice. That really should administer the coup de grace to this excuse.

(03-29-2018 11:11 AM)Bulldinkydurham Wrote:  There is NO scholarship issue period! They all play by the same rules. This isn't basketball or football where players are handed cash. The scholarship issue is an excuse to justify sticking with a "dog that won't hunt". Scholarship issue LMAO.

I dug through my old posts to find one that is responsive. Copied & pasted below to make life easy. There is a scholarship issue. That doesn't mean it is solely responsible for Rice's fall from the elite. But the issue exists, and pretending like it doesn't just to try and make Coach Graham look worse undercuts the credibility of your argument. My post from last year:

Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and presumably some other states benefit from in-state tuition programs that they can give to athletes:

Quote:TOPS has allowed LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri and previous LSU baseball coaches Smoke Laval and Skip Bertman to move more money around as if they had 15.7 scholarships to offer, enabling them to sweeten the scholarship money to the most elite recruits, particularly those from out of state who have the higher out of state tuition included in their scholarships. TOPS gave Mainieri the luxury of extra scholarship money to attract an Alex Bregman – one of the top high school shortstops in the country in 2012 out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He signed with LSU, led the Tigers to the College World Series in 2013 and ‘15 and became the second player picked in the Major League Baseball Draft last summer.

Colleges in Alabama and Mississippi, for example, do not have similar academic scholarship incentive programs for the masses as those in Louisiana, Georgia and Florida.

“With TOPS, LSU can afford to go get, say, a 6-foot-4, 230-pound left-hander from Mississippi,” Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco mused in 2004 in reference to then-LSU redshirt freshman left-hander Clay Dirks (6-4, 235) of Hernando, Mississippi. Dirks was 26-11 in four seasons for the Tigers.

Rising tuition for all students hurts a school like Rice, who used to be quite inexpensive compared to peers. Baylor hurt as well:

Quote:Because a full scholarship is a rare species in baseball, the value of whatever a team offers a player is tightly tied to the cost of attending a certain school. This creates more financial imbalance in the sport, particularly between public and private schools.

Former Baylor head coach Steve Smith, who was dismissed after 21 years following a 23-32 season in 2015, saw this financial crunch when the university looked to expand its footprint while raising tuition to compensate for increased spending.

“Ten years ago, if I awarded you 75 percent (of a scholarship) you owed about $4,000,” Smith said. “Today, if I give you 75 percent, you owe about $15,000. So my situation, scholarship-wise, has been blown apart by Baylor’s increase in cost.”

Stanford has a way to help work around this difficulty (though this decision was not made specifically to benefit athletics):

Quote:In late March, Stanford announced it was raising an important financial aid threshold. Previously, any family with a yearly household income of $100,000 or less could expect to contribute nothing to a student’s tuition payments. This year, that number became $125,000....
...
With the change in criteria for full tuition coverage, then, Stanford gained another advantage, apart from its prestigious academics, numerous major league alums and place in one of the nation’s top college baseball conferences. Its built-in scholarship for some recruited athletes got a little bigger. The playing field became a little less level.

edit:None of this is an argument in favor of extending Coach Graham. The scholarship situation is one of many factors (including Coach Graham) that has lead to Rice's fall from the elite.

(03-29-2018 12:08 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Some of these schools can give academic or other targeted scholarships that Rice's governing docs do not allow.

As Walt said, this has been discussed at length in this forum over several years. Do your homework.

We have found a way around this for years. Trust me, I have done my homework on this.

(03-29-2018 11:11 AM)Bulldinkydurham Wrote:  Right now Rice is more on par with Duke than than those two.

We wish we were on par with Duke. They are ranked 19th in coaches poll, while Vanderbilt and Stanford sit inside the top 10. Can't use the Peabody School of Education excuse with Duke or Stanford!

(03-29-2018 12:33 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 10:16 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 10:08 AM)Clad Scheme Owl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 09:59 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 09:55 AM)Clad Scheme Owl Wrote:  Actually he/she makes a good point. No one has had any logical response to this other than dismissing it.

That's simply not true. Several of us have repeatedly provided detailed responses regarding the scholarship issues, and how other programs have gotten around it.

We have the same number of scholarships as everyone else. Is it more expensive to go to Rice? Yes, however we have always had top talent come in that was on financial aid as well. In many ways we have advantages to cheaper state schools who have surpassed us. Scholarships are not an issue. Having an uncertainty at the head coaching spot, lack of production on the field, and lack luster overall athletics at Rice are the main reason we are at a disadvantage. People would simply play elsewhere at this point in time. That is the hard truth.

Again, you don't have a clue what you're talking about regarding the scholarship situation. I'm not going to repeat the issue here, but encourage you to look back at a number of previous threads and posts that provide the details behind why we are losing recruits due to the scholarship situation.

(03-29-2018 12:08 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Some of these schools can give academic or other targeted scholarships that Rice's governing docs do not allow.

As Walt said, this has been discussed at length in this forum over several years. Do your homework.

Those threads will also show at least an equal number of posts (I have made a few myself and here goes another one) engaging in good faith with and disputing this issue.

The same Baseball America that published an article a few years ago about public schools (mostly in the southeast) being able to augment their partial-scholarship offers with automatic state-sponsored merit scholarships (which could only affect us if we were trying for a recruit from that state, same as always w/r/t OOS public schools) is the same Baseball America that published an article within the last year or two ranking us among the strongest baseball programs in the country due in part to the "loads of institutional aid" at our disposal.

Stanford's automatic free ride to any kid from a family making $65K or less, and free tuition if it's $125K or less? Look up the Rice financial aid stats. For families that make $80K or less the average out of pocket cost to attend Rice is $4K a year and under $120K it is about $21K, which is the same as tuition-free at Stanford. We are competitive with our peers in this area.

Then came the canard about our private competitors stacking merit scholarships on top of partial baseball scholarships and how we can't do this because of the stratospheric academic stats of our student body. Doesn't explain why Stanford and Vanderbilt are continuing to excel despite same. Then came the urban legend about how Vanderbilt does it by admitting all its players through its ed school where the qualifications are lower and they can give merit scholarships that way without breaking the rules. Totally unsubstantiated - there is no back door into Vanderbilt.

Then the last redoubt became TCU & Baylor - lesser academic privates more able to stack "automatic" merit scholarships are supposedly killing us. Well, for A, Baylor is killing no one. For B, per NCAA rule the athlete still has to have a pretty high minimum SAT (1270) or GPA (3.5) or class rank (top 10%) to qualify, which is going to knock plenty of recruits out of this discussion. For C, this could only even potentially be a disadvantage to us if the recruit is from a family well off enough not to qualify for our financial aid. Therefore, for D, simply go to the net price calculator for any school supposedly beating us with this tactic (here is TCU's) and enter some hypothetical numbers for a recruit with the above-detailed academic stats and a "full pay" family income, and see how much merit scholarship money they project. I have done this for TCU and it spits out a big fat zero.

And it was just reported here recently that La. Tech (of all places) has at least one player whom we recruited that is choosing to pay more out of pocket at LTU than he would have had to pay at Rice. That really should administer the coup de grace to this excuse.

It should be game, set, match but the Wayne proponents will think up another excuse. Wayne built the program and he has succeeded in also running it down. It is really hard for a coach to check his ego at the door and step aside out of the limelight for the good of the program. Does anyone really believe that Rice Baseball is headed in the right direction other than Walt? Duke has surpassed Rice. Other prestigious academic schools have figured out how to sell an education to ball players. What you have hear is a coach who refuses to step aside for the good of the program and foreign the Athletic Department to make a politically tough decision. Based upon results the decision is obvious however the donor class can't let go of history. It is time for Wayne to show some class and resign instead of being selfish. I also know a JUCU coach in Texas from a JUCO per that advices players against going to Rice. Basically says "are you sure you want to go through that?". This is not a scholarship issue but point to an individual where the game has passed them by right before our eyes.

(03-19-2018 02:07 PM)temchugh Wrote:  

(03-19-2018 01:39 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-19-2018 01:18 PM)temchugh Wrote:  2. Publicly announcing that you plan to fire your legendary coach at the end of this season no matter how well the team does might impress a couple of clueless fans who think that they deserve to "know the truth", but it would not impress any current players, recruits, or most fans.

And the lame duck aspect has no bearing? If so, why are we likely the only program in the country going down this route?

Graham has publicly said he wants a multi year extension. JK clearly doesn't agree. Nothing that happens this season will reach a happy middle ground. This feels like ostrich behavior versus a real strategy.

So which option would you have chosen:

1. Extension (how many years?)
2. Fire Graham after taking Rice to an NCAA regional for the 22nd consecutive year?
3. Other option?

There is a difference between i) not having a strategy and ii) having a strategy but not sharing it with you.

(03-19-2018 02:13 PM)temchugh Wrote:  

(03-19-2018 02:06 PM)Antarius Wrote:  Augie had 1 more year on his contract. his last year coach was his SECOND last contract year.

Why is that relevant?

Are you suggesting that JK should have given Graham a one-year extension and then fired him after this season anyway? I think that Rice has better things to do with the $$$.

This is a false equivalency that keeps being pushed out there and I just don't understand the motivation behind that, or perhaps the lack of understanding.

If JK wasn't ready to fire WG, then yes... he should have extended him.....

because wile Rice may have better things to do with the money....
a) you probably could have negotiated a relatively small buy-out or at least paid it out over a relatively long period
and more importantly...
b) we're ignoring the 'damage' done by indecision.

Any coach in his last year of a contract is going to be hamstrung. We can certainly debate how 'bad' that is, but it is certainly > 0....

and as everyone knows, recruiting is not done in 2018 after the season ends for 2019.... but for 2020 and 2021 and even beyond.

If I ruled the world, that would be the model across the board and I think it at least somewhat obvious that it IS the model. If you're not ready to fire (for ANY reason) and the coach is approaching the end of his contract, you have no choice but to extend him, otherwise you are harming the program. If performance is declining but for any of a number of reasons, you still aren't ready to fire, then you work that into your negotiations.

One model for doing this without the angst is to make this part of every contract.... that a contract will NEVER be less than say 2 years remaining... with some relatively minor buy-out after the initial few years.

Sort of like how most leases become 'month to month' after a fixed period.

Yes, this could be a bit of simple window dressing in that a coach with a contract with little buy-out is easily fired, but this is also the sort of thing more easily negotiated into a contract up front when everyone is optimistic.

5 year contract (with whatever buy-out is standard) that when you start season 4 becomes a 6 year contract etc etc with a reduced buyout of the last year unless renegotiated.

Let's throw some numbers at it....
750k/yr for 5 years with a rolling 2 year buy-out as above at 250 per extension year.

buy-out after yr 1 costs 3mm
after yr 2, 2.25mm
after yr 3, 1.5mm or roll
after yr 4, 1mm (750k for yr 5 plus 250k for 6)
after yr 5, 500k (250/yr for 6 and 7)
and it's fixed at that point.

When you comare that to 'what happens' in a traditional, non-rolling contract, the 'buy-out' numbers aren't significantly different, especially when taken over the life of the contract and accept that a coach who is killing it will have to be renegotiated anyway and a coach that isn't should be fired before he takes the program down.

(03-29-2018 10:31 AM)Clad Scheme Owl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 10:16 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 10:08 AM)Clad Scheme Owl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 09:59 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 09:55 AM)Clad Scheme Owl Wrote:  Actually he/she makes a good point. No one has had any logical response to this other than dismissing it.

That's simply not true. Several of us have repeatedly provided detailed responses regarding the scholarship issues, and how other programs have gotten around it.

We have the same number of scholarships as everyone else. Is it more expensive to go to Rice? Yes, however we have always had top talent come in that was on financial aid as well. In many ways we have advantages to cheaper state schools who have surpassed us. Scholarships are not an issue. Having an uncertainty at the head coaching spot, lack of production on the field, and lack luster overall athletics at Rice are the main reason we are at a disadvantage. People would simply play elsewhere at this point in time. That is the hard truth.

Again, you don't have a clue what you're talking about regarding the scholarship situation. I'm not going to repeat the issue here, but encourage you to look back at a number of previous threads and posts that provide the details behind why we are losing recruits due to the scholarship situation.

Private schools with the same financial situation: TCU, Duke, Baylor, USC, Clemson, Vanderbilt, and Stanford to name a few. I saw your comment awhile back on Stanford and I have yet to double check it but let's just say it's true. These other schools have similar tuition as Rice. Some are more and some are less. Some are more expensive than Rice (especially when factoring in out of state tuition) with similar grade requirements. So how are they not disadvantaged? We need to stop playing victim. This sounds nothing more than an excuse to tell donors as to why we are all of a sudden so bad at baseball. To be honest the decline of Rice athletics really started to show when all sports were forced to use the same apparel to make it fair for all sports at Rice. Baseball went from one of the only D1 baseball schools that wore the professional Majestic brand to a bottom tier Nike school that got the scraps of what Nike had to offer. During this time though we still inked plenty of talent off of financial aid that did not go against our scholarships. Assistants started to leave and were replaced with younger assistants that were afraid to speak up against Graham. But you should know this right? You know all of the inner workings. You've sat in on locker room meetings and gotten a players perspective. There has to be a price tag for that right?

USC has been very publicly whining about the scholarship situation since the early 2000s, and have long-argued that it's the primary reason for their dramatic fall from the elite level. Ditto Tulane, though Tulane's 5-year stint at the elite level was largely the result of elite transfers (before the sit-out a year rule was put in place). Stanford gets around the scholarship issue due to the school-wide policy of giving a free ride to any family earning under $100,000. TCU, Baylor and Clemson all have significantly lower academic requirements and, consequently, student-athletes often qualify for academic scholarships that Rice athletes simply cannot. Vandy has gotten around the scholarship issue by setting up special scholarships for out-of-state african-american applicants.

(03-29-2018 12:27 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 12:08 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Some of these schools can give academic or other targeted scholarships that Rice's governing docs do not allow.

As Walt said, this has been discussed at length in this forum over several years. Do your homework.

This is true, but I do feel the impact is grossly overstated here. Targeted scholarships or lack thereof aren't the reason we can't field ground balls consistantly and have one mega meltdown a game at least.

We are not being out talented by WKU. We just screwed the pooch on that one (and others) and the cause cannot be attributed to scholarships or JUCOs

Didn't argue it's the major reason for the program's slide. Just pointing out the issue is real for Rice.

(03-29-2018 02:12 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Any coach in his last year of a contract is going to be hamstrung. We can certainly debate how 'bad' that is, but it is certainly > 0....

and as everyone knows, recruiting is not done in 2018 after the season ends for 2019.... but for 2020 and 2021 and even beyond.

What hurts recruiting, it is the prospect that the coach will be gone from the school before the player being recruited graduates or leaves. I do believe that a coach on the hot seat (i.e., in danger of being fired) will have a harder time recruiting than a coach with a safe job.

Were we disagree is on how easy (or hard) it is to fool recruits. To the extent that a recruit is choosing the school based on the coach, I don't believe that making sure that the coach always have a multi-year contract in place will cause the recruit to significantly under-estimate the likelihood that the coach will be fired in the next year or two.

(03-29-2018 02:12 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  If I ruled the world, that would be the model across the board and I think it at least somewhat obvious that it IS the model. If you're not ready to fire (for ANY reason) and the coach is approaching the end of his contract, you have no choice but to extend him, otherwise you are harming the program. If performance is declining but for any of a number of reasons, you still aren't ready to fire, then you work that into your negotiations.

One model for doing this without the angst is to make this part of every contract.... that a contract will NEVER be less than say 2 years remaining... with some relatively minor buy-out after the initial few years.

Sort of like how most leases become 'month to month' after a fixed period.

Yes, this could be a bit of simple window dressing in that a coach with a contract with little buy-out is easily fired, but this is also the sort of thing more easily negotiated into a contract up front when everyone is optimistic.

5 year contract (with whatever buy-out is standard) that when you start season 4 becomes a 6 year contract etc etc with a reduced buyout of the last year unless renegotiated.

Let's throw some numbers at it....
750k/yr for 5 years with a rolling 2 year buy-out as above at 250 per extension year.

buy-out after yr 1 costs 3mm
after yr 2, 2.25mm
after yr 3, 1.5mm or roll
after yr 4, 1mm (750k for yr 5 plus 250k for 6)
after yr 5, 500k (250/yr for 6 and 7)
and it's fixed at that point.

When you compare that to 'what happens' in a traditional, non-rolling contract, the 'buy-out' numbers aren't significantly different, especially when taken over the life of the contract and accept that a coach who is killing it will have to be renegotiated anyway and a coach that isn't should be fired before he takes the program down.

Maybe coaches (and agents) like big buyouts more than you think.

Your solution assumes that a coach who has been in the job for four or five years is OK with a contract that makes it easy to fire him. I have been in my current job for 20 years, but I don't think I would agree to a new type of deal that made it easier to fire me (unless I got something equally valuable in return).

You also assume that the recruits will be fooled by this contract structure into thinking that it will be hard to fire the coach.

(03-29-2018 04:12 PM)temchugh Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 02:12 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Any coach in his last year of a contract is going to be hamstrung. We can certainly debate how 'bad' that is, but it is certainly > 0....

and as everyone knows, recruiting is not done in 2018 after the season ends for 2019.... but for 2020 and 2021 and even beyond.

What hurts recruiting, it is the prospect that the coach will be gone from the school before the player being recruited graduates or leaves. I do believe that a coach on the hot seat (i.e., in danger of being fired) will have a harder time recruiting than a coach with a safe job.

Were we disagree is on how easy (or hard) it is to fool recruits. To the extent that a recruit is choosing the school based on the coach, I don't believe that making sure that the coach always have a multi-year contract in place will cause the recruit to significantly under-estimate the likelihood that the coach will be fired in the next year or two.

(03-29-2018 02:12 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  If I ruled the world, that would be the model across the board and I think it at least somewhat obvious that it IS the model. If you're not ready to fire (for ANY reason) and the coach is approaching the end of his contract, you have no choice but to extend him, otherwise you are harming the program. If performance is declining but for any of a number of reasons, you still aren't ready to fire, then you work that into your negotiations.

One model for doing this without the angst is to make this part of every contract.... that a contract will NEVER be less than say 2 years remaining... with some relatively minor buy-out after the initial few years.

Sort of like how most leases become 'month to month' after a fixed period.

Yes, this could be a bit of simple window dressing in that a coach with a contract with little buy-out is easily fired, but this is also the sort of thing more easily negotiated into a contract up front when everyone is optimistic.

5 year contract (with whatever buy-out is standard) that when you start season 4 becomes a 6 year contract etc etc with a reduced buyout of the last year unless renegotiated.

Let's throw some numbers at it....
750k/yr for 5 years with a rolling 2 year buy-out as above at 250 per extension year.

buy-out after yr 1 costs 3mm
after yr 2, 2.25mm
after yr 3, 1.5mm or roll
after yr 4, 1mm (750k for yr 5 plus 250k for 6)
after yr 5, 500k (250/yr for 6 and 7)
and it's fixed at that point.

When you compare that to 'what happens' in a traditional, non-rolling contract, the 'buy-out' numbers aren't significantly different, especially when taken over the life of the contract and accept that a coach who is killing it will have to be renegotiated anyway and a coach that isn't should be fired before he takes the program down.

Maybe coaches (and agents) like big buyouts more than you think.

Your solution assumes that a coach who has been in the job for four or five years is OK with a contract that makes it easy to fire him. I have been in my current job for 20 years, but I don't think I would agree to a new type of deal that made it easier to fire me (unless I got something equally valuable in return).

You also assume that the recruits will be fooled by this contract structure into thinking that it will be hard to fire the coach.

Based on that logic no one could ever change coaches. When someone fails to perform you make a change. Pretty simple.

(03-29-2018 04:05 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Vandy has gotten around the scholarship issue by setting up special scholarships for out-of-state african-american applicants.

Out of 36 players on Vanderbilt's roster, four are African-American (three of those are out of state). I find it difficult to believe that a scholarship that theoretically benefits 8% of the team is a game-changer.

(03-29-2018 05:11 PM)westsidewolf1989 Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 04:05 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Vandy has gotten around the scholarship issue by setting up special scholarships for out-of-state african-american applicants.

Out of 36 players on Vanderbilt's roster, four are African-American (three of those are out of state). I find it difficult to believe that a scholarship that theoretically benefits 8% of the team is a game-changer.

Even if that was the case we could do it as well. Excuses excuses. None of these issues explain our below 0.500 record and getting swept by LaTech or losing a home series to a bad WKU program.

Come to think of it. That’s probably how Vandy got Dansby Swanson on campus...

(03-29-2018 05:23 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 05:11 PM)westsidewolf1989 Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 04:05 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Vandy has gotten around the scholarship issue by setting up special scholarships for out-of-state african-american applicants.

Out of 36 players on Vanderbilt's roster, four are African-American (three of those are out of state). I find it difficult to believe that a scholarship that theoretically benefits 8% of the team is a game-changer.

Even if that was the case we could do it as well. Excuses excuses. None of these issues explains our below 0.500 record and getting swept by LaTech or losing a home series to a bad WKU program.

Come to think of it. That’s probably how Vandy got Dansby Swanson on campus...

FIFY

(03-29-2018 05:23 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 05:11 PM)westsidewolf1989 Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 04:05 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Vandy has gotten around the scholarship issue by setting up special scholarships for out-of-state african-american applicants.

Out of 36 players on Vanderbilt's roster, four are African-American (three of those are out of state). I find it difficult to believe that a scholarship that theoretically benefits 8% of the team is a game-changer.

Even if that was the case we could do it as well. Excuses excuses. None of these issues explain our below 0.500 record and getting swept by LaTech or losing a home series to a bad WKU program.

Come to think of it. That’s probably how Vandy got Dansby Swanson on campus...

It's definitely (well documented) how they got David Price on campus.

(03-29-2018 05:34 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 05:23 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 05:11 PM)westsidewolf1989 Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 04:05 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Vandy has gotten around the scholarship issue by setting up special scholarships for out-of-state african-american applicants.

Out of 36 players on Vanderbilt's roster, four are African-American (three of those are out of state). I find it difficult to believe that a scholarship that theoretically benefits 8% of the team is a game-changer.

Even if that was the case we could do it as well. Excuses excuses. None of these issues explain our below 0.500 record and getting swept by LaTech or losing a home series to a bad WKU program.

Come to think of it. That’s probably how Vandy got Dansby Swanson on campus...

It's definitely (well documented) how they got David Price on campus.

I see he’s paid it back with a $2.5 million donation recently. A) David price is from Tennessee (Murfreesboro is a suburb of Nashville). B) one player from 05-07 doesn’t explain why Vandy is so much better than us recently.

(03-29-2018 05:34 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 05:23 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 05:11 PM)westsidewolf1989 Wrote:  

(03-29-2018 04:05 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Vandy has gotten around the scholarship issue by setting up special scholarships for out-of-state african-american applicants.

Out of 36 players on Vanderbilt's roster, four are African-American (three of those are out of state). I find it difficult to believe that a scholarship that theoretically benefits 8% of the team is a game-changer.

Even if that was the case we could do it as well. Excuses excuses. None of these issues explain our below 0.500 record and getting swept by LaTech or losing a home series to a bad WKU program.

Come to think of it. That’s probably how Vandy got Dansby Swanson on campus...

It's definitely (well documented) how they got David Price on campus.

Enlighten us. It wasn’t through an out of state scholarship for African Americans, since Price went to HS In Murfreesboro.