(06-17-2013 11:02 AM)I45owl Wrote:  My concern is simply this - I do not think that using the AD office as a stepping stone would be good for Rice, especially at this juncture. Are we really better off now for the time that CDC spent on campus? The only lasting tangible result is Tudor Fieldhouse - an initiative was begun (though not concluded) prior to his arrival, IIRC. Time would have healed the damage from Todd Graham by now one way or the other. Had he remained here to date, the story may be substantially different, and that's setting aside suspicions that he "cooked the books" to make things look better during his tenure than they really were.

I don't think a five year plan will suffice for Rice at this stage, I think it requires more of a 10-20 year plan, and I trust that would be done better by someone who intended to remain for that kind of duration. I disagree that the AD office is similar to a coach's job in desiring someone with the ambition to move on. Coaching - especially in college - is very fluid, where you have a built-in four year turnaround with every program. There is no such turnaround in the athletic director's position - everything should be building for the long term.

I still don't have as big a problem with the stepping stone as so many of you seem to have.

We may or may not be much better today than we were before Chris, but the problem is not so much that Chris was using Rice as a stepping stone as it is that we replaced him with someone who clearly was not. If we had replaced Chris with Sayler, who probably would also have been using us as a stepping stone (see South Dakota), we'd be far better off today. Our track record is that we've done a whole lot better with people who were using Rice as a stepping stone (Chris, Fred Goldsmith, Scott Thompson) than with people who weren't (Red, Augie, Bob Polk).

That's not saying that I WANT a guy who is using it as a stepping stone. I'd be very happy to get a Rice guy who would stay. But I think it is far more important to find someone who would be ambitious and strongly committed to change and improvement, rather than somebody who was just occupying space and having mass. Fortunately, there are any number of Rice guys who would fit into the first group, and one of those would be ideal. Some of those have been named, and I have my own favorite(s) among those who have been named.

But many of the young, ambitious, aggressive types that we need would be using us for a stepping stone. And ambitious and aggressive is far more important that "will stay here 20 years" at this point. My first choice would be to find a young, ambitious, aggressive Rice guy who would be sufficiently dedicated to the university to stay, and fortunately there are several of those out there. If we came down to a short list of nothing but those guys, I'd be happy.