(11-23-2018 12:46 PM)olddawg Wrote:  Wow! I read deeper on those tweets and connected stories. That program as a whole is in shambles. Almost makes me feel bad for Withers. I like the reporter- he's not going to give up until people are held accountable.

He's a good reporter - I started following him when I saw a video posted of him dealing with Withers' testy behavior after a loss and standing up to him.

(11-23-2018 12:21 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(11-23-2018 12:08 PM)DirtyDukes Wrote:  This is crazy - read this thread from the the TXST beat writer about how they don't have a qualified trainer - read til the end to hear about Withers own kid.

Sounds like he might be getting out of a really bad situation:

https://twitter.com/Keff_C/status/1065995615857860609

Texas St is a big dumpster fire, and it's not all on Withers.

He might not be the world's greatest coach, but there are other reasons he had 9-3 seasons at JMU and 2-10 at Texas St.

Any coach that goes there is going to struggle, even a great one.

That reporter is a great read just for the dysfunction in that athletic department. Any coach who takes that job absent serious, major change is going to struggle. Some of the things he's written:

-Tx State's women's volleyball team took the conference championship. They fired Withers before the season ended, the day before the women's team played in that match, guaranteeing that coverage of his firing would come first in any sports coverage of the school.

-Tx State promised to cover Withers' $350k buyout at JMU, then reneged. Withers had to go back to JMU and negotiate it down to $250k, which he paid out of his own pocket.

-It's apparently been a longstanding issue that the AD, Larry Teis has very little connection to athletes on the school's various sports teams. In 2016 on a trip to NMSU, 8 student-athletes (non-football), admin workers and cheerleaders were hurt. Neither the AD nor the school president acknowledged or contacted anyone hurt in the crash.

-Teis, the AD, is the object of a lot of scorn in booster conversations, but athletes also apparently do not care for him either. When Teis came in to a football meeting in the locker room to announce Withers had been fired, one of the team leaders challenged him, saying Withers wasn't the only source of problems with the team. When Teis argued with him, the players said, "Who am I? What's my name?' Teis didn't know and couldn't answer. Another player asked the same question, which led to things getting heated enough that Teis had to be escorted from the locker room by administrative personnel.

-Apparently someone (or more than one person) went to Teis and the director of football operations alleging problems with academics, drug use, and outside activities by members of the football team. When they didn't respond, an anonymous note was sent to the school president, who responded by emailing the entire department that was an incorrect way to deal with the problem.

-All authority to act on the AD rests with the school president, who apparently supports him completely.

It sounds like an ugly situation, and i feel bad for the student athletes and coaches caught up in it.

Wait, Withers and Texas State still owe us 100k? We shouldn't have budged there. We have an athletic department to fund.

(11-23-2018 01:05 PM)Potomac Wrote:  Wait, Withers and Texas State still owe us 100k? We shouldn't have budged there. We have an athletic department to fund.

I'm not sure I'd put the blame on Withers for this one. When a school that wants to hire you tells you that they'd pay the buyout why wouldn't you believe them? I'm sure he was concerned about it at the time and brought it up to them. I have never heard of a coach having to go out of his pocket to pay his own buyout. Sounds like JMU was being incredibly generous in allowing Withers to only have to pay back 250k. That's a great PR move by JMU and makes them really look good in this.
As for Tx State... wow. The dirt just keeps getting uncovered. The admin is looking terrible in this and I'd be shocked if any of them have a job next year. If I were a Tx State fan, I wouldn't give them a penny until all those involved were gone. They can really make a difference in this and I'm sure they know it. Money talks.
I do feel bad for their fans, but especially the athletes of Tx State. None of them should have to deal with this.
If the NCAA doesn't do something about it, there's something incredibly wrong with the system (not that there isn't already).

(11-23-2018 02:01 PM)JMad03 Wrote:  

(11-23-2018 01:05 PM)Potomac Wrote:  Wait, Withers and Texas State still owe us 100k? We shouldn't have budged there. We have an athletic department to fund.

I'm not sure I'd put the blame on Withers for this one. When a school that wants to hire you tells you that they'd pay the buyout why wouldn't you believe them? I'm sure he was concerned about it at the time and brought it up to them. I have never heard of a coach having to go out of his pocket to pay his own buyout. Sounds like JMU was being incredibly generous in allowing Withers to only have to pay back 250k. That's a great PR move by JMU and makes them really look good in this.
As for Tx State... wow. The dirt just keeps getting uncovered. The admin is looking terrible in this and I'd be shocked if any of them have a job next year. If I were a Tx State fan, I wouldn't give them a penny until all those involved were gone. They can really make a difference in this and I'm sure they know it. Money talks.
I do feel bad for their fans, but especially the athletes of Tx State. None of them should have to deal with this.
If the NCAA doesn't do something about it, there's something incredibly wrong with the system (not that there isn't already).

That should all have been in the contract, no? If Tx State refused to pay, then shouldn't Withers or JMU been able to sue for it?

Wait, Withers and Texas State still owe us 100k? We shouldn't have budged there. We have an athletic department to fund.
[/quote]

IMHO, it's the best 100K JMU ever spent.

(11-23-2018 02:25 PM)JMUsince89 Wrote:  Wait, Withers and Texas State still owe us 100k? We shouldn't have budged there. We have an athletic department to fund.

IMHO, it's the best 100K JMU ever spent.
[/quote]

Wasting $100K because Withers and his crappy new employer have words worth nothing is the best money we've ever spent? It was stupid of Withers to not get that in a signed contract and then take them to court if they tried to renege.

(11-23-2018 02:27 PM)Potomac Wrote:  

(11-23-2018 02:25 PM)JMUsince89 Wrote:  Wait, Withers and Texas State still owe us 100k? We shouldn't have budged there. We have an athletic department to fund.

IMHO, it's the best 100K JMU ever spent.

Wasting $100K because Withers and his crappy new employer have words worth nothing is the best money we've ever spent? It was stupid of Withers to not get that in a signed contract and then take them to court if they tried to renege.
[/quote]

Seriously, why would we ever accept anything less than what is owed? I don't get it. About the only negotiations I could see is allowing payments over time, but not giving away $100k.

(11-23-2018 12:53 PM)QuinDuke Wrote:  

(11-23-2018 12:21 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(11-23-2018 12:08 PM)DirtyDukes Wrote:  This is crazy - read this thread from the the TXST beat writer about how they don't have a qualified trainer - read til the end to hear about Withers own kid.

Sounds like he might be getting out of a really bad situation:

https://twitter.com/Keff_C/status/1065995615857860609

Texas St is a big dumpster fire, and it's not all on Withers.

He might not be the world's greatest coach, but there are other reasons he had 9-3 seasons at JMU and 2-10 at Texas St.

Any coach that goes there is going to struggle, even a great one.

That reporter is a great read just for the dysfunction in that athletic department. Any coach who takes that job absent serious, major change is going to struggle. Some of the things he's written:

-Tx State's women's volleyball team took the conference championship. They fired Withers before the season ended, the day before the women's team played in that match, guaranteeing that coverage of his firing would come first in any sports coverage of the school.

-Tx State promised to cover Withers' $350k buyout at JMU, then reneged. Withers had to go back to JMU and negotiate it down to $250k, which he paid out of his own pocket.

-It's apparently been a longstanding issue that the AD, Larry Teis has very little connection to athletes on the school's various sports teams. In 2016 on a trip to NMSU, 8 student-athletes (non-football), admin workers and cheerleaders were hurt. Neither the AD nor the school president acknowledged or contacted anyone hurt in the crash.

-Teis, the AD, is the object of a lot of scorn in booster conversations, but athletes also apparently do not care for him either. When Teis came in to a football meeting in the locker room to announce Withers had been fired, one of the team leaders challenged him, saying Withers wasn't the only source of problems with the team. When Teis argued with him, the players said, "Who am I? What's my name?' Teis didn't know and couldn't answer. Another player asked the same question, which led to things getting heated enough that Teis had to be escorted from the locker room by administrative personnel.

-Apparently someone (or more than one person) went to Teis and the director of football operations alleging problems with academics, drug use, and outside activities by members of the football team. When they didn't respond, an anonymous note was sent to the school president, who responded by emailing the entire department that was an incorrect way to deal with the problem.

-All authority to act on the AD rests with the school president, who apparently supports him completely.

It sounds like an ugly situation, and i feel bad for the student athletes and coaches caught up in it.

Glad at least someone is enjoying our dysfunction lol

(11-23-2018 02:01 PM)JMad03 Wrote:  

(11-23-2018 01:05 PM)Potomac Wrote:  Wait, Withers and Texas State still owe us 100k? We shouldn't have budged there. We have an athletic department to fund.

I'm not sure I'd put the blame on Withers for this one. When a school that wants to hire you tells you that they'd pay the buyout why wouldn't you believe them? I'm sure he was concerned about it at the time and brought it up to them. I have never heard of a coach having to go out of his pocket to pay his own buyout. Sounds like JMU was being incredibly generous in allowing Withers to only have to pay back 250k. That's a great PR move by JMU and makes them really look good in this.

I'm sure we figured we had better take $250K. The alternative was probably $0. What sh!theads at Texas State to welch on a deal like that. Seems like JMU and Withers could have taken them to court and gotten every dime. If Withers didn't have the buyout in writing then he had a moron for an agent/contract attorney and wasn't so bright himself.

Seriously.....what kind of agent allows this to happen? There are only two scenarios that I can see in this saga

1) Withers agent is a child playing in a man's world to let this slip through the cracks. He should sue him.
2) Withers negotiated his own contract and didn't fully understand what he was signing. Sadly, he deserves his fate if going the cheap route.

You take the compromise because lawyers will end up sucking up a healthy chunk of the difference after months (or longer) of being mired in a legal quagmire.

Yeah, JMU may have had a scenario where they realized it was get $250k now or possible get nothing later. They likely realized the **** show and wanted to just take what they could get and move on.

These leaks by media about Texas State seem to be excuses for Withers to save whatever reputation he has left. Bottom line- when you jump to a higher paying job in what is supposed to be a higher level of play you are at the bigger boys table and you can't put up the record he did for 3 seasons and not expect to lose your job. We all knew Texas State was a bottom rung FBS program and it's likely bottom rung for a myriad of reasons but Withers didn't bring the juice nor did his team party in the end zone. At the end of the day- his teams lost and they lost a lot. He made a lot of money in a state that doesn't have income tax- he'll be fine but he's not a reliable head coaching candidate nor someone a program can turn to with any confidence that he can see through building a program that will win meaningful games. The same was proven while at JMU.

(11-24-2018 08:22 AM)NJDuke97 Wrote:  These leaks by media about Texas State seem to be excuses for Withers to save whatever reputation he has left. Bottom line- when you jump to a higher paying job in what is supposed to be a higher level of play you are at the bigger boys table and you can't put up the record he did for 3 seasons and not expect to lose your job. We all knew Texas State was a bottom rung FBS program and it's likely bottom rung for a myriad of reasons but Withers didn't bring the juice nor did his team party in the end zone. At the end of the day- his teams lost and they lost a lot. He made a lot of money in a state that doesn't have income tax- he'll be fine but he's not a reliable head coaching candidate nor someone a program can turn to with any confidence that he can see through building a program that will win meaningful games. The same was proven while at JMU.

It's coming from the same media/reporter that Withers snubbed previously. They aren't exactly buddies, and the story looks credible to me.

Kansas coach David Beaty reportedly interviewing for the job. 6-42 in 4 years at KU.

Yup, no chance that reporter would have latched on to this story if it didn't have traction. He is no friend of Withers.

He just got lucky that the athletic department was worse than his coaching.

(11-24-2018 08:49 AM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(11-24-2018 08:22 AM)NJDuke97 Wrote:  These leaks by media about Texas State seem to be excuses for Withers to save whatever reputation he has left. Bottom line- when you jump to a higher paying job in what is supposed to be a higher level of play you are at the bigger boys table and you can't put up the record he did for 3 seasons and not expect to lose your job. We all knew Texas State was a bottom rung FBS program and it's likely bottom rung for a myriad of reasons but Withers didn't bring the juice nor did his team party in the end zone. At the end of the day- his teams lost and they lost a lot. He made a lot of money in a state that doesn't have income tax- he'll be fine but he's not a reliable head coaching candidate nor someone a program can turn to with any confidence that he can see through building a program that will win meaningful games. The same was proven while at JMU.

It's coming from the same media/reporter that Withers snubbed previously. They aren't exactly buddies, and the story looks credible to me.

Kansas coach David Beaty reportedly interviewing for the job. 6-42 in 4 years at KU.

The fact they are interviewing Beatty is all you need to know in regards to veracity of the reporting.

(11-24-2018 02:10 PM)jmu98 Wrote:  

(11-24-2018 08:49 AM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(11-24-2018 08:22 AM)NJDuke97 Wrote:  These leaks by media about Texas State seem to be excuses for Withers to save whatever reputation he has left. Bottom line- when you jump to a higher paying job in what is supposed to be a higher level of play you are at the bigger boys table and you can't put up the record he did for 3 seasons and not expect to lose your job. We all knew Texas State was a bottom rung FBS program and it's likely bottom rung for a myriad of reasons but Withers didn't bring the juice nor did his team party in the end zone. At the end of the day- his teams lost and they lost a lot. He made a lot of money in a state that doesn't have income tax- he'll be fine but he's not a reliable head coaching candidate nor someone a program can turn to with any confidence that he can see through building a program that will win meaningful games. The same was proven while at JMU.

It's coming from the same media/reporter that Withers snubbed previously. They aren't exactly buddies, and the story looks credible to me.

Kansas coach David Beaty reportedly interviewing for the job. 6-42 in 4 years at KU.

The fact they are interviewing Beatty is all you need to know in regards to veracity of the reporting.

Different media/reporters. Justin Wells from InsideTexas with that news. They also had people like Mike Jinks (7-24 at BG) in the mix.

Texas St is likely the least desirable of all FBS jobs, and below many FCS opportunities if you want a good career path.

My point is if they are interested in Beatty then the original reporting in regards to dysfunction are on point.