I think of Gene Nichol when I try and make sense of the changes that Huge has made in the athletics department and the backlash among members of the William & Mary community.

When Nichol was ousted, many of the changes he championed remained, but things calmed down under new leadership. Those who had wanted the change were satisfied since the changes remained, and those who wanted to blame Nichol for all of it were more than happy with his replacement.

I could see the same thing happening with Huge.

There was a time in my career where I was the "designated agent of change", aka "hatchet man." They move you in to do a job and move you on to your next assignment when the "change" has been completed.

I realize universities have more complex relationships with stakeholders that does a regular for profit business.

I may be oversimplifying the W&M scenarios, but we will see.

What struck me was the comment, "Our goal was to emulate best practices, not imitate." There are true genuine, innovative leaders, and there are those who simply copy and paste and don't have the ability/vision to cut paths unique to the group/organization they are leading. Not only should we never imitate, we should not just be emulating. We should be running our own, unique course worthy of others emulating. A flag was raised with me early on when we brought in a consulting group to advise what we should be doing. Own your own path, not someone else's.

I find the use of pronouns in this communication interesting. By my count 4 "I"s; 9 "we"s; 4 "ours"; 1 "us". The way that they are interspersed in the text makes me wonder about the use of singular and plural pronouns and to whom they might refer.

Yes, I realize posts like this are why the Barnies refer to us as nerds...

(09-19-2020 08:23 AM)LeadBolt Wrote:  I find the use of pronouns in this communication interesting. By my count 4 "I"s; 9 "we"s; 4 "ours"; 1 "us". The way that they are interspersed in the text makes me wonder about the use of singular and plural pronouns and to whom they might refer.

Yes, I realize posts like this are why the Barnies refer to us as nerds...

Without getting too in the weeds, this very much reads to me like the stance is that her people wrote it and the “mistake” she made was not making sure more other people vetted it.

Which is a bit of a lack of ownership, but still more ownership than she has taken before.


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I think she's feeling the pinch. This is really bad PR, and unlike the Shaver decision, this one is getting national attention and really questions her credibility. The turning over stones quote along with the cut and paste show a couple of things that are troubling. First, she makes statements that just aren't accurate. Lying? I don't know. Misleading? All day long. People aren't stupid. Second, which was alluded to earlier, she isn't good at execution. Whether it is how she manages her people or how she decides to make changes, she stinks. The cut and paste was just cutting corners. Again, people aren't stupid, especially this crowd of eggheads. Great leaders enable everyone around them to be better. Great leaders motivate people to follow them. Dictators lead with fear and disregard.

(09-19-2020 09:05 AM)Tribe32 Wrote:  ...Great leaders motivate people to follow them. Dictators lead with fear and disregard.

So true! But are we talking about Huge, or someone else?

Brown University reaches settlement in women's sports fight

https://www.foxbusiness.com/sports/brown...settlement

(09-19-2020 09:09 AM)Zorch Wrote:  

(09-19-2020 09:05 AM)Tribe32 Wrote:  ...Great leaders motivate people to follow them. Dictators lead with fear and disregard.

So true! But are we talking about Huge, or someone else?

Yes. Pick one and you win the prize.

(09-19-2020 09:05 AM)Tribe32 Wrote:  I think she's feeling the pinch. This is really bad PR, and unlike the Shaver decision, this one is getting national attention and really questions her credibility. The turning over stones quote along with the cut and paste show a couple of things that are troubling. First, she makes statements that just aren't accurate. Lying? I don't know. Misleading? All day long. People aren't stupid. Second, which was alluded to earlier, she isn't good at execution. Whether it is how she manages her people or how she decides to make changes, she stinks. The cut and paste was just cutting corners. Again, people aren't stupid, especially this crowd of eggheads. Great leaders enable everyone around them to be better. Great leaders motivate people to follow them. Dictators lead with fear and disregard.

It makes it difficult to support what might be reasonable decisions/actions when the execution is enveloped in shady behavior. Also, "TWAMP" is a thing for a reason. Most of her audience for all of these actions are going to be pedantic and will care about the specific words chosen as well as the methods used in execution. If any of the individual things was a one-off, it could be excused as such, but repeated problems are indicative of a fundamental lack of understanding of the fan base.

WMInTheBurg, I think your post is exactly where I am with this. I wanted her to be successful in the beginning, but then we started seeing the bloodletting followed by the spending spree followed by carnage and then the massacre covered up in a veil of ineptitude. Of course she got a couple of multi-billionaires to give 25 million or thereabouts which is a drop in the bucket to them. Maybe that's all anyone really cares about on the inside and with the BOV.

To me she has built a body of work that's undeniable.

Finally have the link

https://www.wm.edu/news/announcements/20...m-mary.php

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Richmond Times Dispatch

Chief Communications Officer at W&M responded to the opinion piece I linked Monday.

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What about the dead donors? I suppose they will leave no stones unturned to find the children, etc..

I'm sorry but that is bull****. You've had 5 ******* years to find the money for these sports after that "comprehensive report" and didn't bother trying. That response is infuriating.

Just be honest and say you don't care about those sports. (Huge has a fantastic track record with volleyball players too .)

That response makes it pretty clear that they want to move the endowments around.

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(09-19-2020 12:22 PM)zablenoise Wrote:  ... That response makes it pretty clear that they want to move the endowments around.

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I read it the same way. The legal niceties will, of course, be followed.

It’s evident from the word choice that somewhere in the small print, “donating to an endowment for X team” was defined to empower “the Foundation that holds these monies” (presumably W&MAF/Tribe Club) to exercise a whole lot of discretion if X team were ever to get the axe.

For the love of all that is good.

The Athletics Department needs to shut up, stop defending this, and start over.

This is the fundamental problem.

They have now admitted to studying the issue for the past five years, while simultaneously running a $1B campaign, and never put the two together. Because they never put the two together, common sense tells you one of two things happened. One, incompetence. Two, sports were going to get cut, there was no intent/desire to save them, and the intent of the five years of studying was to provide “cover” ...which means what is unfolding now is a semi-cover-up.

Stop with the BS. Tell it straight out!

But it is too late for that now ... lots of chips are being pushed to the middle of the table.

Train wreck.

(09-19-2020 12:54 PM)Blow Gym rat Wrote:  

(09-19-2020 12:22 PM)zablenoise Wrote:  ... That response makes it pretty clear that they want to move the endowments around.

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I read it the same way. The legal niceties will, of course, be followed.

It’s evident from the word choice that somewhere in the small print, “donating to an endowment for X team” was defined to empower “the Foundation that holds these monies” (presumably W&MAF/Tribe Club) to exercise a whole lot of discretion if X team were ever to get the axe.

And "If the donor's desire is for the gift to transfer to the club sports program, that recommendation will be made to the foundation responsible for the endowment". At which time the "recommendation" will be promptly ignored by the foundation controlled by the Athletic Department.

I don't think W&M would reallocate cut 7 money to another sport without donor blessing. Should the donor be deceased or otherwise unresponsive, I believe the money would go to a general fund. Anything else would involve a lot of people not name Samantha and would certainly be illegal. W&M, as an institution, is honest and the money handlers are keenly aware they are being watched.



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W&M AD Samantha Huge acknowledges statements 'clearly fell short' of school standards

JOHN O'CONNOR

 




https://richmond.com/sports/college/will...e=comments

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(09-21-2020 03:42 AM)Tribal Wrote:  W&M AD Samantha Huge acknowledges statements 'clearly fell short' of school standards

JOHN O'CONNOR

https://richmond.com/sports/college/will...e=comments

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The degree of "emulation" in the statement is embarrassing, no doubt. But to me, the bigger issues are the untrue "every single rock" quote and the ongoing equivocation about what will happen with the endowments.

Fundraising depends on trust. Trust is being squandered at an alarming rate. Needlessly.


Update: I wrote the above based on looking at the statements of W&M and Stanford -- you could see a little borrowing. Embarrassing. Yesterday, I compared their respective FAQ documents. The similarities there go way beyond embarrassment.