(06-18-2013 08:38 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(06-18-2013 08:20 PM)Riceman2004 Wrote:  After a self-imposed blackout of Rice due my boycott of participating in all Rice activities (alumni, admissions volunteering, giving) due to the Basketball scandal, with the exception of lurking during the Baseball post-season, I just saw this and am thrilled to hear the news. Obviously, it is sad whenever someone loses their job, but it was a necessary step for all involved.

Some thoughts:
1. It hasn't been mentioned but the program is too much of a mess to just go out and hire someone. I would propose a "McKinsey II" process where Leebron and the BOT endorse a rough vision for Rice Athletics for candidates to understand BEFORE serious interviews are conducted.

2. Leebron must unambiguously acknowledge the damage caused by the Basketball scandal and vow for a change in culture with Rice athletics. This can be done without overtly throwing Greenspan more under the bus than he already has. This is a necessary step in making clear that the University will not tolerate even the implication of anything close to what was alleged (whether true or not) so that we can move forward.

3. It's important that those of us who walked away from Rice due to frustration over athletics be brought into the fold and show a demonstrated commitment. Does anyone know what the deadline is for the Annual fund? It would be great if those of us who feel this way were able to pool funds together to show that we love Rice, are committed going forward and that there are incentives to making decisions that further Rice's reputation.
[deletia by gsloth]

The annual fund calendar year coincides with the University's fiscal year, and ends June 31st (and starts again July 1st).

Wow, Walt, you have a different calendar than me. Though I could certainly use that extra day.

Don't worry - I'm having that kind of day already today, on less than 4 hours of sleep. For each of 4 of the past 5 nights. Hope my boss doesn't notice too much.

As has been pointed out, an extremely experienced person in college athletics administration just resigned.

Give me a break. I mentioned Michigan because it is obviously a school that could literally have attracted the most qualified candidates from every athletic office in the country. They CLEARLY didn't need to take a "flier" on someone who had never worked in athletics administration before... but they did. They aren't that unique in that regard. How about Rutgers who hired someone without AD experience in 2009 who successfully migrated them from the imploding Big East to the Big 10? He was hoisted by a similar problem to ours in basketball of a "wayward" coach. The University of Arkansas did a study in 2011 of 99 schools and found that 18 of their athletic directors had no previous experience in college athletics administration when they were hired as AD. 3 were lawyers and 4 were businessmen. No idea on the other 11 as that wasn't really the focus of the study... but the bottom line is, a decent number of ADs come from other industries. If it were the guaranteed failure you seem to think it is, that number would be much smaller.

Basically what you are saying is that we need someone to do a turnaround, so let's hire someone with LOTS of experience in doing exactly what everyone else does??

If you've identified the need as the ability to build something from the ground up, why isn't THAT skill your key hiring criteria?

(06-19-2013 10:31 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Basically what you are saying is that we need someone to do a turnaround, so let's hire someone with LOTS of experience in doing exactly what everyone else does??
If you've identified the need as the ability to build something from the ground up, why isn't THAT skill your key hiring criteria?

Exactly.

If you're going to put the emphasis on athletic administration experience, I know the perfect candidate--Rick Greenspan. How did that work out?

(06-19-2013 11:16 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-19-2013 10:31 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Basically what you are saying is that we need someone to do a turnaround, so let's hire someone with LOTS of experience in doing exactly what everyone else does??
If you've identified the need as the ability to build something from the ground up, why isn't THAT skill your key hiring criteria?

Exactly.

If you're going to put the emphasis on athletic administration experience, I know the perfect candidate--Rick Greenspan. How did that work out?

He met expectations. Based on his storied tenure at Army and Indiana, that is

Throw me in the crowd that likes the idea of looking outside the box. We need to do something extraordinary. Those who work in the ordinary (albeit very well) may not be the right fit for the task we have ahead of us.

Everyone here can agree that experience in athletics administration would serve the new AD well, as opposed to not having any at all. This discussion is tired.

(06-19-2013 10:04 AM)gsloth Wrote:  Wow, Walt, you have a different calendar than me. Though I could certainly use that extra day.

Don't worry - I'm having that kind of day already today, on less than 4 hours of sleep. For each of 4 of the past 5 nights. Hope my boss doesn't notice too much.

When asked for something late in the month by the end of the month, I often tell the requestor he/she will get it on June 34th or 35th. They are ususally so flustered they just let it go.

Whatever works!

(06-19-2013 09:03 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  We aren't Michigan. Now's not the time for OJT at Rice. We need someone who's done it before. Failure isn't an option this time around.

This from someone who was still hyping Greenspan less than a week ago.

The list of college athletic administrators who have done what Rice needs is very very short. The list is arguably empty. So, finding "someone who's done it before" is easier said than done.

I'm not opposed to hiring someone who's already in athletic administration, but it would be foolish to rule out a David Brandon type if one is available.

Quite obviously, Rice needs to hire another CDC. That type of hire certainly worked out well the last time. It's easy to forget how effective CDC was, and we should never forget how unforgivably horrible and lazy Greenspan was. It's rather jarring that we went from a great hire to such an abominable hire. It's not like CDC and Greenspan were similar in their portfolios.

I might add: CDC represents the new breed of ADs. They are business-minded, good at fund-raising and PR, and excellent people-persons. Greenspan was none of these. The good news is there are other young ADs or assistant ADs in the CDC mold.

If Rice was able to hire another person with the CDC skill set, I'd be overall happy (despite the lack of Rice ties, which to me are very nice, but not a total prerequisite), but I would still have 3 concerns:
(1) I don't see CDC v.2.0 connecting with some of the interest groups at Rice that are either ambivalent or antagonistic toward Rice athletics. Where an alumni with a Rice degree might be able to put the value of athletics in perspective, I worry a non-Rice hire won't have as much traction. This problem barely exists at many of the larger schools out there, so no guarantee that athletic department experience would help.
(2) I worry that CDC v.2.0 would leave after 2-4 years, which presents 2 sub-problems:
(a) I don't trust Rice to hire CDC v.3.0 instead of Greenspan v.2.0; and
(b) Even if rice hires CDC v.3.0, there is no telling how much of the progress made can be continued. Unless they hire someone from within the department, there is going to be some loss of momentum and/or change of direction at a time where Rice really still won't be able to afford it in the greater college landscape.
(3) I'm not sure someone from outside Rice will bring any out-of-the-box thinking. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. But there are some things specific to Rice that I think could be capitalized on (like trying to tie the med center with Rice athletics on a number of fronts) that could be successful across athletics, academics, and private industry. I just don't know if a non-Rice person can work across so many different lines to pursue some of these possibilities.

I'm not saying Rice alum could do #1 or #3, but I'm not sure past Rice alum AD's have tried either.

But yeah, I'm with Afflicted that the discussion is getting tired. We need some Rice Athletics news to fill the information void that develops over the summer months!!!

Simple solution: hire two people
1. One head AD with business, fund raising, and networking acumen that can get us in the door of the P5 conference and get facilities initiated.
2. One assistant with Rice ties who can be groomed to take on the role should the AD depart. Until such a time, this would be the primary communications liaison with the Rice community.

One sucessful Rice graduate AD was Harry Fouke 1935 at UH. However, Harry is long gone but the coaches under him included Guy Lewis in basketball, Bill Yeoman in football and Williams in golf. Also, UH had a good track team.

Here's another out of the box candidate who might be looking for something new:

(06-19-2013 02:33 PM)Bay Area Owl Wrote:  Quite obviously, Rice needs to hire another CDC. That type of hire certainly worked out well the last time. It's easy to forget how effective CDC was, and we should never forget how unforgivably horrible and lazy Greenspan was. It's rather jarring that we went from a great hire to such an abominable hire. It's not like CDC and Greenspan were similar in their portfolios.

I might add: CDC represents the new breed of ADs. They are business-minded, good at fund-raising and PR, and excellent people-persons. Greenspan was none of these. The good news is there are other young ADs or assistant ADs in the CDC mold.

+1

(06-19-2013 01:23 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(06-19-2013 09:03 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  We aren't Michigan. Now's not the time for OJT at Rice. We need someone who's done it before. Failure isn't an option this time around.

The list of college athletic administrators who have done what Rice needs is very very short. The list is arguably empty. So, finding "someone who's done it before" is easier said than done.

Who was TCU's AD in the 1998-2005 time frame (Eric Hyman?)

(06-19-2013 07:35 PM)texd Wrote:  Here's another out of the box candidate who might be looking for something new:

Two thoughts...

1. Not exactly a great communicator
2. In his most recent job, had no need to do any sort of fundraising because capital constraints are not a problem

(06-19-2013 08:01 PM)Hardball Owl Wrote:  

(06-19-2013 02:33 PM)Bay Area Owl Wrote:  Quite obviously, Rice needs to hire another CDC. That type of hire certainly worked out well the last time. It's easy to forget how effective CDC was, and we should never forget how unforgivably horrible and lazy Greenspan was. It's rather jarring that we went from a great hire to such an abominable hire. It's not like CDC and Greenspan were similar in their portfolios.

I might add: CDC represents the new breed of ADs. They are business-minded, good at fund-raising and PR, and excellent people-persons. Greenspan was none of these. The good news is there are other young ADs or assistant ADs in the CDC mold.

+1

But instead of spending money on marketing, CDC employed security goons for events-i counted 40 or so one time at a crowd of about 300 at Autry and did all these other "big time" kind of things. If you build it, they will come kind of thing, instead of grass roots marketing.

(06-19-2013 09:30 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Who was TCU's AD in the 1998-2005 time frame (Eric Hyman?)

Not sure if this is a joke...

I have posted several times that the first thing TCU did -- before the facilities, before the highly-touted recruits, before moving to a big conference -- was to stop fixating on their disadvantages and view TCU as a winner. Every time I post that, somebody immediately retorts that TCU doesn't have Rice's admission standards. The implications are clear: nothing TCU did is relevant to Rice, and Rice must fixate on its disadvantages. So to that crowd at least, Hyman hasn't done what Rice needs.

Aside from that, I think Rice in 2013 is in worse shape than TCU in 1997.

In any event, Hyman is now the AD at A&M, so we can assume he is not an actual option.

(06-19-2013 10:40 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(06-19-2013 09:30 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Who was TCU's AD in the 1998-2005 time frame (Eric Hyman?)

Not sure if this is a joke...

I have posted several times that the first thing TCU did -- before the facilities, before the highly-touted recruits, before moving to a big conference -- was to stop fixating on their disadvantages and view TCU as a winner. Every time I post that, somebody immediately retorts that TCU doesn't have Rice's admission standards. The implications are clear: nothing TCU did is relevant to Rice, and Rice must fixate on its disadvantages. So to that crowd at least, Hyman hasn't done what Rice needs.

TCU is not a perfect model for Rice to emulate in athletics, but it is a much better model than the one Rice has followed for much of the last 15 years.

TCU did find and keep a great football coach in Patterson, and very importantly, they promoted their product in Fort Worth in an aggressive way that I wish Rice would emulate.

I was and am a huge fan of CDC, but another CDC is not quite what Rice needs now. Chris was a fundraiser, we need a marketer. The difference may be subtle, but it is real. To a large extent, fundraisers focus on getting more money out of people already committed to the program, while marketers focus on attracting new people to the program. We've historically done a decent job at times with the former, but have never had anything approaching an effective comprehensive approach to the latter. While getting funds for major undertakings is clearly always important, right now we have more pressing needs with operating budgets than with capital spending for facilities. Chris was a bricks-and-mortar guy, we need a butts-in-seats AD. I have always been underwhelmed by Rice's marketing actions, even under Chris. That cannot continue.

(06-19-2013 10:40 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(06-19-2013 09:30 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Who was TCU's AD in the 1998-2005 time frame (Eric Hyman?)

Not sure if this is a joke...

I have posted several times that the first thing TCU did -- before the facilities, before the highly-touted recruits, before moving to a big conference -- was to stop fixating on their disadvantages and view TCU as a winner. Every time I post that, somebody immediately retorts that TCU doesn't have Rice's admission standards. The implications are clear: nothing TCU did is relevant to Rice, and Rice must fixate on its disadvantages. So to that crowd at least, Hyman hasn't done what Rice needs.

Aside from that, I think Rice in 2013 is in worse shape than TCU in 1997.

In any event, Hyman is now the AD at A&M, so we can assume he is not an actual option.

No joke. You stated (probably correctly) that the list of athletic administrators who had done (successfully) what Rice needs to have done was short (or an empty set).

IMO, TCU did accomplish that, so their AD at the time would belong on that short list. So I thought I'd point that out. Understandably this board fixates on the current TCU AD, but Hyman deserves some attention.

Don't think Boise's situation is really applicable. They're a public school with a different mission. TCU is definitely the private school model.

These schools have some positives that we probably would like to have here, and presumably there were AD's tied to them getting better national attention: SMU and Gonzaga.

However, I'd hesitate to say that other than better athletic image they've fully attained what this board wants.

I don't know what Hyman's current relationship is with his bosses at A&M, whether he's paid adequately, or whether he's grown weary of dealing with larger-than-life Johnny Football.

But would it really kill Rice to talk to him? There's something biblical about not receiving because you didn't ask.

Would our feelings be hurt if he said no?