(10-03-2023 06:32 AM)Klake1987 Wrote:  

(10-02-2023 09:38 PM)Big Red Wrote:  

(10-02-2023 08:48 PM)uiniu57 Wrote:  

(10-02-2023 03:50 PM)Klake1987 Wrote:  Serious question. Is NIU a very desirable place for an up and coming AD? What makes NIU a place that someone would want to take a chance?

It was at one time.
Jim Phillips drove over from South Bend on his own to look around the campus, check out the athletic facilities, and used his contacts to quietly talk to a select few involved with athletics before he applied.
Compher was a carpetbagger who thought if Phillips could use NIU for something better he could do the same. He was just like Charlie Sadler thinking he'd be here two, maybe three years at best and move on to a P5 program like Pettibone did.
Neither realized you still had to put in a lot of hard work because NIU has limitations that you have to figure out how to overcome and you can only get out of here based on how much extra you put in.
Phillips and Novak were working on Vanderbilt's James Franklin who was dragging his feet and back-up choice Jerry Kill got the job. Dave Doeren was smart enough and had connections that told him he could do what Pettibone did if he avoided Sadler's misconceived approach.
STF is cut from the Jeff Compher cloth and figured he could still capitalize on the Orange Bowl coat tails that Compher had no idea how to use. With football sliding downward STF figured the diversity angle would help make him attractive but with men's and women's basketball plus football and fund-raising (no naming rights, failed masterbation plan, etc.) floundering, any success in men's soccer, wrestling, tennis, golf, etc. isn't enough of a companion with diversity.

From what you wrote, sounds like NIU still is a place where someone would go to take a chance. It's just the "who" matters a lot. Is that person someone wanting to show out and make themselves look good with accomplishments that speak for themselves or is it someone who just wants to talk a good game but have nothing to show for it other than hollow achievements.

NIU is a place where any coach or AD or administrator can be successful but they have to understand the situation and out work it.

Money talks. NIU athletics doesn't have much.

No one has ever gone to coach at NIU to get rich. But you go there for the opportunity to leapfrog to a place where you can get rich.

We talk a lot about Phillips but he was a relative nobody at Notre Dame before he came to NIU and sprinboarded to Northwestern and then eventually the AAC. Some folks see an opportunity and sieze it. Others see a decent paycheck and get complacent.