(05-27-2021 07:31 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(05-27-2021 05:46 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(05-27-2021 04:55 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(05-27-2021 04:39 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Just read the email from the President of the BOT thanking Leebron and enumerating the changes at Rice during Leebron’s tenure. My quick read found only one sentence referencing anything related to Athletics.

“Other new and refurbished athletics facilities, including Tudor Field House, the Patterson Sports Performance Center, George R. Brown Tennis Center and enhanced facilities for soccer and track and field, helped bring support and excitement to our athletics programs.”

16 paragraphs and that’s it. Says a lot IMO.

??? What did you want them to include? The President is not responsible for the on-field or on-court performance of the individual sports programs.

On the counterpoint, if Rice had had significant athletic success in his tenure, dollar to donuts that paragraph would be far, far beefier.

There was plenty of athletic success during his tenure-- in baseball, football and, especially, the women's sports programs which are currently far and away the best in the history of the university.

The problem with that history is that it is the history of 'flash' followed by the dull thud of a body hitting on the rocks at the base.

For baseball, it can be argued that Leebron oversaw probably the most dramatic and comprehensive crash of an elite baseball program in the timeframe. Leebron started his tenure with the baseball program near the apogee of its success, and ended it nearly a score years later unable to even get into a dumpster fire of a conference championship tournament. I hardly call that a 'success'.

Football? Kind of the same course, but with far fewer up points. Rice football high points were two 10 win seasons, with an 8 win and a 7 win. At the end of the tenure we have 5, 3, 1, 2, 3, and 2 wins. Which, and I am not a stats guru, kind of plants us probably at least in the bottom 5 win total in D1 for that 6 year period we have endured.

So no, I would *not* characterize the marquee sports as having anything near a 'success' in that 18 year time span.

Is this an indictment of Leebron for the sports dumpster fire in marquee sports? No. But I understand why the 16 paragraph list of achievements short-shrifted the dumpster fire of a sports program that Rice lapsed *back* into during his tenure.

I mean, it would be fair to call the marquee sports at Rice at the end of his tenure even worse than when I was there in the mid- to late-80's, which is a pretty strong indictment of the ineptness of the Rice D1 marquee program.