(01-09-2022 03:03 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I still find it amazing that this guy was a hero to so many Owls.

I don't know that he was a hero to anyone. He shook things up at a time that things desperately needed shaking up. But he did a number of things that I did not approve from the beginning. Pulling the scholarship on the kid from Oklahoma whose brother had played at Rice was a really chicken move. If he did not do them directly, he was at least heavily involved in the firings of Bill Cousins, Mike Pede, and Steve Moniaci, all of them mistakes in my opinion. The practice where the player died may very well have been an illegal practice in excess of NCAA allowed practices. And there were just a lot of other things that suggested a level of sleaze that may not have reached Pony Express levels but still did not feel right.

I think the situation was well summarized by a couple of comments at a Parliament get-together at Damian's before homecoming several years together. Someone said, "Rice might not still have football if Todd Graham had not come when he did." And someone else replied, "And Rice might not have football if he had not left when he did." I think both are distinct and very likely possibilities.