(05-23-2019 09:25 AM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  The problem was that Wayne had no intention of stepping down last year, this year, or apparently any other year. How would that have helped us?

Tiki-This is a complete lie. I am not accusing you of starting it, but you should not repeat it. I do not know where this information came from, although I can guess that it was floated by administration types to cover their asses when the Sarloos hiring fell through. Frankly it is stupid- we can't let Wayne stay another year because then he will never leave. As last year showed, you take away his contract, he will go away.

If Wayne gets his one year extension last year, Joe could have grown as an AD by having a thorough search and considering the feelings of many loyal Rice alums and supporters who have now cut the University off because of this arbitrary decision making. Rice is so small that you can piss off that many billionaires, millionaires and even thousandaires and not feel it. I personally know of $10's of millions of dollars that were slated for Rice that are now gone forever because of the way this was handled.

IMO, this will go down as the second dumbest thing in the history of Rice athletics. The first being the refusal to upgrade the facilities when we were in the SWC to gain access to a power 5 conference.

Let me be clear, since I was in a part of these discussions and read the correspondence between Wayne, the BOT, Leebron, and the AD. Since Wayne is not speaking for himself here anymore, As his friend, I feel obligated not to let his legacy be tarnished by nonsense.

Wayne wanted a one year extension and he wanted it in writing that it would be for only one year. LET ME REPEAT HE NEVER WANTED TO STAY PAST ONE YEAR! This decision was about the legacy of the program as this plan, actually arrived at in conversations Between Wayne and Leebron, and helped along by a couple of powerful Rice baseball supporters, would give Rice the opportunity to properly honor him with a victory lap like Mike Martin is taking and the Stanford guy did. The best part of this is it would allow Joe to use that time to evaluate the best options and get ahead of the game so he could make a good choice. Wayne even offered to help him. A resource like that might have been useful, but it was ignored which is how you get urgent "Who should I hire calls" made to sports writers after you've sent Wayne packing and your only choice said no.

So, do not keep giving them cover with this lie that a one-year extension meant Wayne would be here for 2 or 5 or until he died. That was never an option and was never on the table in any of the discussions.

I am having a difficult time deciding if we are better off now vs. this time last year.

Who made the decision to place the RBI Club and its funds under the control of the Athletic Department? I know very little about the group, but it seems that it played a key role in assisting Wayne to obtain things that were not in the athletic department budget. Was this a power move to decrease the influence of a helpful support group? I remember a few years ago when a previous AD took funds from the sports' SIGs in order to balance the budget. This RBI Club episode sounds at least as bad.

(05-23-2019 10:19 AM)RiceOwl Wrote:  I am having a difficult time deciding if we are better off now vs. this time last year.

Not even close. This year we don’t have a coaching change looming over us and our recruiting.

The problem with the "he never wanted more than one year" theory is that "never" encompasses too long a time to be accurate. He only reduced his ask to the "one more year" level after the program was in crisis. Preceding that, *but still during the downhill slide,* there was no "just one more year" talk. And that's when proactive measures needed to be taken to develop a succession plan to put the program back on sound footing.

The "one more year"/victory lap should have been last year, and it should have been agreed upon well before last year. That that didn't happen is the fault of both the AD and the coach. Not just the AD.

There was no one more year talk until it became clear that change was inevitable. In over two decades, there was also no talk of you need to go now and the SOP was simply keep renewing and give pay hikes when others try to steal you.

I guess that all depends on how you define crisis. Maybe the one year out of over two decades when they had a losing record and still won the conference tourney and placed second in the tough LSU regional? If that is how you define crisis than this current team is in it and so are about 200+ more of them every year.

I do agree that if Joe was determined to ditch him he should have said so one year before and given Wayne that victory tour. Coach had no say over this as this is Joe's job. Was he paralyzed by the fear of butting heads with Wayne? Did he need another year to build up his courage? I just don't know.

It would have been easier for Joe if Wayne's team would have started losing year in and year out. One year without an NCAA appearance, even though Rice was not likely to get back to the CWS any time soon with Wayne or anyone else, hardly constitutes a crisis unless it os one of your own making.

(05-23-2019 10:23 AM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(05-23-2019 10:19 AM)RiceOwl Wrote:  I am having a difficult time deciding if we are better off now vs. this time last year.

Not even close. This year we don’t have a coaching change looming over us and our recruiting.

...but we have lost (probably for good) hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not several million) in support of Rice Baseball. That will pay a significant price over time.

(05-23-2019 03:30 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(05-23-2019 10:23 AM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(05-23-2019 10:19 AM)RiceOwl Wrote:  I am having a difficult time deciding if we are better off now vs. this time last year.

Not even close. This year we don’t have a coaching change looming over us and our recruiting.

...but we have lost (probably for good) hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not several million) in support of Rice Baseball. That will pay a significant price over time.

Oh well. Those people clearly don’t care much for Rice baseball. It’s their money and they can choose to do what they want with it but if they’re going to pull support forever because they disagree with a hiring decision they’re being petty. Everyone complains that Rice is small time but when we operate like a real athletic program and don’t extend the coach of a program in decline they want to pull their $? Ok.

(05-23-2019 03:30 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(05-23-2019 10:23 AM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(05-23-2019 10:19 AM)RiceOwl Wrote:  I am having a difficult time deciding if we are better off now vs. this time last year.

Not even close. This year we don’t have a coaching change looming over us and our recruiting.

...but we have lost (probably for good) hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not several million) in support of Rice Baseball. That will pay a significant price over time.

I'm not a millionaire but I have above average disposable income for a very recent grad and I have stopped giving any money until Rice until our revenue sports (football, basketball, and baseball) improve. Sucking and spiraling downward has its price too. I know this seems counterproductive but I do not trust the current athletic or university leadership with my money.

I'd rather give to cancer research than give it to what seems like a bottomless pit.

I think the lack of contributors from this year's freshman class shows that this would have continued. Next year we have several immediate contributors coming in from the JuCo ranks.

(05-23-2019 10:52 AM)illiniowl Wrote:  The problem with the "he never wanted more than one year" theory is that "never" encompasses too long a time to be accurate. He only reduced his ask to the "one more year" level after the program was in crisis. Preceding that, *but still during the downhill slide,* there was no "just one more year" talk. And that's when proactive measures needed to be taken to develop a succession plan to put the program back on sound footing.

The "one more year"/victory lap should have been last year, and it should have been agreed upon well before last year. That that didn't happen is the fault of both the AD and the coach. Not just the AD.

Total B.S. It's the AD's job to make such decisions. It's not the responsibility of the coach to volunteer when he will retire. As I've said all along, it was very clear that Joe had no intention of extending Wayne's contract. As such, he had the responsibility-- not only to Wayne, but to the Rice Baseball fan base and, especially, to the financial supporters-- to announce such a decision well prior to the last season. Many of us may not have liked that decision, but we would have understood the rationale...and it would have allowed for a proper "farewell tour". Instead, we went into the season with total uncertainty-- to Wayne, to the players, to the recruits, to the coaching staff and to the supporters. This motivated a couple dozen of Rice Baseball's biggest financial boosters to write a letter mid-February of last year to Joe and Leebron, cc.ing the BOT, throwing our support behind Wayne's request for one more year (made formally earlier that week, just prior to the Stanford series). Joe didn't even have the courtesy to respond to the letter, and reached out to only one or two of the signees. Mind you, many of the individuals who signed the letter were among the University's (not just the Athletic Department's) biggest donors.

I'm one of the few signers of that letter who still support Joe and Rice Baseball, but his handling of the situation was inexcusable and an embarrassment to the University as a whole.

(05-23-2019 06:33 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  It's as if our athletic program is being run by AOC....the Rice way.

Seems the majority of those associated with Rice would be ecstatic. Imagine if our whole country was run by the same philosophy. Would it take the same 40-60 years to get to Rice's current level of "success" using that perspective? A few disagree, but what do they know?

Open up the corporate sponsorships and act like a real athletic program. Set a positive successful example for other D-I programs instead of a laughingstock. With Rice's history and academic standing, that combination would likely dominate after a while. Add in firm and open marketing partnerships with Med Center folks literally across the street. But, that's the opposite of collectivism, and there appears little room at Rice for that. Rice Fight Never Die now= Carry On, Comrades.

AOC gets you not D-III...rather gets you out of business altogether. We could be a model for the nation.

(05-23-2019 06:08 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(05-23-2019 06:33 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  It's as if our athletic program is being run by AOC....the Rice way.

Seems the majority of those associated with Rice would be ecstatic. Imagine if our whole country was run by the same philosophy. Would it take the same 40-60 years to get to Rice's current level of "success" using that perspective? A few disagree, but what do they know?

Open up the corporate sponsorships and act like a real athletic program. Set a positive successful example for other D-I programs instead of a laughingstock. With Rice's history and academic standing, that combination would likely dominate after a while. Add in firm and open marketing partnerships with Med Center folks literally across the street. But, that's the opposite of collectivism, and there appears little room at Rice for that. Rice Fight Never Die now= Carry On, Comrades.

AOC gets you not D-III...rather gets you out of business altogether. We could be a model for the nation.

You know nothing about AOC, and even less about Rice athletics. 99% of the problem is conference affiliation - and there's no way out of that hole. The very last moment for Rice to salvage its athletic program was immediately after Texas and Texas A&M (and the others) announced that they were leaving the SWC. Rice made its choice to try being competitive in a lower level conference. TCU got together hundreds of supporters to make a long-term plan to become relevant again. It took a long time, but they did it. Rice, on the other hand, has continued its goal of trying to be competitive in whatever trash conference we fall down into. There's no TV money, and the administration would be foolish to pump even more money than it does already - into a program that has no future in the "big leagues" of college athletics.

(05-23-2019 06:27 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(05-23-2019 06:08 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(05-23-2019 06:33 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  It's as if our athletic program is being run by AOC....the Rice way.

Seems the majority of those associated with Rice would be ecstatic. Imagine if our whole country was run by the same philosophy. Would it take the same 40-60 years to get to Rice's current level of "success" using that perspective? A few disagree, but what do they know?

Open up the corporate sponsorships and act like a real athletic program. Set a positive successful example for other D-I programs instead of a laughingstock. With Rice's history and academic standing, that combination would likely dominate after a while. Add in firm and open marketing partnerships with Med Center folks literally across the street. But, that's the opposite of collectivism, and there appears little room at Rice for that. Rice Fight Never Die now= Carry On, Comrades.

AOC gets you not D-III...rather gets you out of business altogether. We could be a model for the nation.

You know nothing about AOC, and even less about Rice athletics. 99% of the problem is conference affiliation - and there's no way out of that hole. The very last moment for Rice to salvage its athletic program was immediately after Texas and Texas A&M (and the others) announced that they were leaving the SWC. Rice made its choice to try being competitive in a lower level conference. TCU got together hundreds of supporters to make a long-term plan to become relevant again. It took a long time, but they did it. Rice, on the other hand, has continued its goal of trying to be competitive in whatever trash conference we fall down into. There's no TV money, and the administration would be foolish to pump even more money than it does already - into a program that has no future in the "big leagues" of college athletics.

There was a second chance to be in an upper tier G5 but Greenspan refused to believe the AAC would be a step up (as is the MWC). He privately and publicly ridiculed the idea doing so infamously during the discussion section of his announcement of the “football annex in the parking lot”. Unfortunately Leebron bought what Greenspan was saying. Remember the sandwich board comment?

(05-23-2019 11:34 AM)Owlmaha Wrote:  There was no one more year talk until it became clear that change was inevitable. In over two decades, there was also no talk of you need to go now and the SOP was simply keep renewing and give pay hikes when others try to steal you.

I guess that all depends on how you define crisis. Maybe the one year out of over two decades when they had a losing record and still won the conference tourney and placed second in the tough LSU regional? If that is how you define crisis than this current team is in it and so are about 200+ more of them every year.

I do agree that if Joe was determined to ditch him he should have said so one year before and given Wayne that victory tour. Coach had no say over this as this is Joe's job. Was he paralyzed by the fear of butting heads with Wayne? Did he need another year to build up his courage? I just don't know.

It would have been easier for Joe if Wayne's team would have started losing year in and year out. One year without an NCAA appearance, even though Rice was not likely to get back to the CWS any time soon with Wayne or anyone else, hardly constitutes a crisis unless it os one of your own making.

(05-23-2019 03:43 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(05-23-2019 10:52 AM)illiniowl Wrote:  The problem with the "he never wanted more than one year" theory is that "never" encompasses too long a time to be accurate. He only reduced his ask to the "one more year" level after the program was in crisis. Preceding that, *but still during the downhill slide,* there was no "just one more year" talk. And that's when proactive measures needed to be taken to develop a succession plan to put the program back on sound footing.

The "one more year"/victory lap should have been last year, and it should have been agreed upon well before last year. That that didn't happen is the fault of both the AD and the coach. Not just the AD.

Total B.S. It's the AD's job to make such decisions. It's not the responsibility of the coach to volunteer when he will retire. As I've said all along, it was very clear that Joe had no intention of extending Wayne's contract. As such, he had the responsibility-- not only to Wayne, but to the Rice Baseball fan base and, especially, to the financial supporters-- to announce such a decision well prior to the last season. Many of us may not have liked that decision, but we would have understood the rationale...and it would have allowed for a proper "farewell tour". Instead, we went into the season with total uncertainty-- to Wayne, to the players, to the recruits, to the coaching staff and to the supporters. This motivated a couple dozen of Rice Baseball's biggest financial boosters to write a letter mid-February of last year to Joe and Leebron, cc.ing the BOT, throwing our support behind Wayne's request for one more year (made formally earlier that week, just prior to the Stanford series). Joe didn't even have the courtesy to respond to the letter, and reached out to only one or two of the signees. Mind you, many of the individuals who signed the letter were among the University's (not just the Athletic Department's) biggest donors.

I'm one of the few signers of that letter who still support Joe and Rice Baseball, but his handling of the situation was inexcusable and an embarrassment to the University as a whole.

No doubt the AD deserves blame and maybe even the majority of it but it's a bit tendentious to cast WG as a titan among coaches and men and deserving of super-special consideration and counsel on one hand (which he certainly was/is) but somehow also, when it suits a different narrative, just an ordinary, impotent employee with no larger responsibilities toward the caretaking and continuity planning for Rice Baseball, even if that may have conflicted with personal goals or desires. From my perspective, which is certainly more detached than either of yours, I can see more than one person as having contributed to what went down last year. But if you need your stories to have 100% pure heroes and villains, I guess that's your prerogative.

(05-22-2019 10:14 PM)interwebowl Wrote:  I share you frustration, but leave Coach Graham out of it. Yes these were his recruits, but he wasn't coaching them. If you think Wayne would trot out a pitcher who has blown virtually every chance he had in the past month then you must have been sleeping under a rock for the last 26 years. These kids committed to play for a program with a crusty old SOB coach who was going to give them hell when they didn't perform. He did that and usually got more results than anyone thought possible because he was a legend.

Imagine how hard is to all of sudden play for a "don't worry be positive" 500. coach who has taken away all the perks you had from previous seasons and run off almost all of the non-parent hard core fans who followed them around and gave them unconditional support.

A transition to a Graham protegee made so much more sense

Good post. (hyperbole aside)

(05-22-2019 11:28 PM)Musicowl1965 Wrote:  You obviously were not watching the same game I was. If Gayle gets the correct call on 3rd strike (I watched and rewatched and he got the shaft on that pitch which had been called all day in that location) you would likely would be saying what a good job he did (at least for this outing) and all would be happy in Owl land. However, he did not get the call and had to go on after what looked like a bad injury to a teammate. The kid absolutely executed his pitches (save WP on CB) if you were at all paying attention you would have seen this as well. He was spotting up his FB and should’ve been the call vs WP CB IMO. I don’t fault the pitch call in that count but maybe a better call with tie run on 3rd would be FB up for a possible chase pitch. Hindsight obviously but I thought Barton called a really good game in total.

I do so enjoy all the contributors to this board even the ones who think they know what they are talking about.

I don't understand what your post has to do with his. This isn't about one game or one call, but about a philosophy. It's very true that if you sign on with a guy who gets in your face to get you to succeed and suddenly you switch to a happy sunshine guy, you're going to get different results. It's not a question of good or bad, merely a recognition that people who benefit from unending positive reinforcement wouldn't have tended to sign on with Wayne.



(not directed at Music) Anyone who looks at Wayne's last few years as an indication that he may have 'lost it' should also look at the significant number of changes to baseball finance that are very obvious now. If anyone thinks that these were all new ideas this year and that while perhaps not as obvious, similar pressure wasn't put on 'other' parts of the budget in previous years they are mistaken. That flies in the face of logic that we'd hire someone with a decent reputation to take over for a legend and also cut the budget and he'd take the job. He and his agents are fools if that happened... and we would have never had a SHOT at Sarloos.

(05-24-2019 11:35 AM)illiniowl Wrote:  No doubt the AD deserves blame and maybe even the majority of it but it's a bit tendentious to cast WG as a titan among coaches and men and deserving of super-special consideration and counsel on one hand (which he certainly was/is) but somehow also, when it suits a different narrative, just an ordinary, impotent employee with no larger responsibilities toward the caretaking and continuity planning for Rice Baseball, even if that may have conflicted with personal goals or desires. From my perspective, which is certainly more detached than either of yours, I can see more than one person as having contributed to what went down last year. But if you need your stories to have 100% pure heroes and villains, I guess that's your prerogative.

So it's a coaches job to quit? Wayne should have said, well... it looks like Joe isn't going to extend my contract so I'll announce that I'm quitting a year early. Wayne owes a debt to Rice baseball beyond his contract?

He WANTED to be part of the caretaking and continuity. It was clearly denied him. They didn't hire a former assistant of his. They didn't hire a former player. They didn't hire a current assistant. They didn't even hire someone from the state.