(04-04-2019 07:00 AM)dannyb73 Wrote: Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but folks who don't know the personal aspect of it would look objectively at our situation and say we are doing pretty well.
https://kentstatesports.com/news/2019/4/...pzVI83VU24
Your point is well taken Danny. I would suggest, however, that more than looking objectively or taking out the personal aspect, it would be people who are unfamiliar with Kent State Athletics who would think that KSU is doing well.
I admit I have a bias because I know Nielsen, and I know the people and programs who have suffered during his tenure. I also admit it is always difficult to attempt to see any situation clearly when looking through the stain of even a recognized bias. When trying my best to take my own feelings and beliefs out of the equation, I still don't see how Nielsen has moved the needle in any significant way during the last nine years.
I look at the Excellence in Management Cup as a "treading water" award for Kent State. The programs keeping KSU at the top of this kind of ranking were set up for success long before Nielsen's arrival in Kent.
People in and around KSU Athletics know the culture is toxic. They can see how interest has waned in the community, alumni and fan base. Love him or hate him, Nielsen has not been able to crack the code to increase interest, revenue, fundraising, attendance, etc. over the course of a decade.
I've used this example before, but KSU Athletics is "zhoozhing." It's a term my mom used to use... The sound made by a car with its wheels buried in the snow and trying to become unstuck... The car (KSU coaches and staff) can be working as hard as it can, but without the driver (Nielsen) knowing how or trying new ideas to get out of the snow, all of that hard work is wasted.
90KSU was an attempt in year one, but it was really just a shell game. The Gameplan was a joke that KSU hopes people have forgotten about. Even moves like hiring me as director of new media in 2012 was a halfhearted attempt to try something "cutting edge." I tried to have an impact, but I ended up "zhoozhing," too.
Is finishing high in the rankings of the Excellence in Management Cup a nice honor. Sure, if we consider "doing pretty well" enough. KSU has been doing pretty well going back to the late 1990s. Maybe "doing pretty well" is the most to which a school like Kent State can aspire in athletics. Maybe doing the most with less is an honorable goal.
BUT...
Kent State can accomplish the same more for less by paying less for the same in an athletic director who is treading water.
Anyone who cares about Kent State Athletics should go back and read all of the quotes in newspaper articles from the day Nielsen was hired. Look at what he either promised or aspired to. Did any of it come true? Maybe for a brief moment in 2012 when KSU football was nationally ranked or when baseball reached the College World Series. Those moments on the national stage were fleeting.
Again, I would argue Nielsen inherited a healthy athletic department from Laing Kennedy. Nielsen did a good job of simply sinking that car into a snow drift rather than crashing into a brick wall. But "zhoozing" isn't enough for an athletic department spending almost half a million dollars per year on its driver.
KSU can bring in some fresh ideas and continue to compete for the Excellence in Management Cup and save a few hundred thousand dollars by looking to new leadership. At the very least, there's a chance that a new culture and improved morale might reignite a spark that has been missing in the department.