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Gill Wipe

ChoppinBroccoli

ChoppinBroccoli

Graduate Assistant
Dec 18, 2008
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There is some big nationwide event next week; that is not the focus of this thread.
But....next week also marks the 3rd anniversary of the announcement of John Hardt as our Athletic Director! Of course, he technically didn't start until Jan 1.

In your opinion, how has he done to erase the damage done by his predecessor? Has he wiped away your bad memories? Are you only seeing Gill in your nightmares after a bedtime SpiderNation session, when Rivals inexplicably runs that 6 year old photo?
 
ChoppinBroccoli said:
Are you only seeing Gill in your nightmares after a bedtime SpiderNation session, when Rivals inexplicably runs that 6 year old photo?
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It's not inexplicable...it's just that no one's written any articles for SpiderNation in over three years, so the "Gill is out" story is still near the top. There's an easy solution: contact 05 and volunteer to write some articles!

As for the main point of this thread, the jury is still out on Hardt for me, but the things I've heard have not been reassuring.
 
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HA EL, we think the same - first thought I had was this was a new top recruit. 2nd was that Broc reversed the first letters of our DBO's name - or whatever his title is.

SF - I am wondering if you are just recollecting my numerous posts on Jabba the Hardt? Don't get me started. I probably have no idea how he is doing, but he seems to be a guy that is really not that dynamic, and a bit slow to the punch. I recall an interview in which he said he toured VCU's practice facility and it got him thinking and understanding how important it could be. C'mon, you should have known that before you took the job. And I really love how he equates the GMU coaches success with his strong voice. I actually almost forgot Hardt was the AD. For kneepad, I will make this comparison - I compare him to Keith Gill. Both nice guys, just showing up and playing nice.
 
Wow, nothing gets past you guys.

SF, I'd love to write an article for the Nation, but I think the AD employees who troll this board would lose their minds if it was me.

Jury is still out as well; I think it's an improvement over Gill, and I'm certainly glad we are not <knock on wood> cutting programs.
 
23, my perspective is a combination of things I'm hearing from inside the building, reading on here like the baseball guys not feeling their monetary contributions toward upgrades are being valued, etc. Hardt has had to overcome the not uncommon feeling that his hiring was a sham, and unfortunately we haven't seen a whole lot of evidence to prove otherwise.

My general impressions are that the university administration is on the ball, but athletic administration is not.
 
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SFspidur said:
23, my perspective is a combination of things I'm hearing from inside the building, reading on here like the baseball guys not feeling their monetary contributions toward upgrades are being valued, etc. Hardt has had to overcome the not uncommon feeling that his hiring was a sham, and unfortunately we haven't seen a whole lot of evidence to prove otherwise.

My general impressions are that the university administration is on the ball, but athletic administration is not.
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Perhaps the university administration planned it that way.
 
whampas said:
Perhaps the university administration planned it that way.
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I don’t think that’s the case, but who knows. From what I’ve seen and heard, the university at large has handled the challenging COVID situation remarkably well, while athletics has seemed like it’s been rudderless.

On a broader level, I love that Coughlan’s been appointed FAR...terrific bridge between academic and athletic sides. The guy gets it. But while I hope he can help foster relationships “across the aisle,” he doesn’t have a role with operations within the athletic department.

is Hardt ensuring our programs have the resources they need and that our coaches are happy? Hoops and lax are Queally’s babies, so they get what they need. Beyond that, I have some questions.
 
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I’ll judge Hardt by our basketball results. Recruiting has gotten a lot better, so I’ll give him some credit for loosening the straps there. If he keeps us highly successful there, he’s a success. If not, he’s not. It’s that simple.
 
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All things considered, i think i would give Hardt a solid B.

-He is accomplishing some good things with facilities.
-He seems to be accomplishing some things with recruiting/admissions.
-Fundraising appears to be going well, all things considered.

While i don't find him to be particularly charismatic or affable, he is, generally, accomplishing the things that i'd like to see an AD to UR be accomplishing.

Biggest incomplete/question mark for me relates to the football roster size (lack thereof). We cannot win CAA titles with 70-80 players on the team. Who gets the blame for the small roster?
 
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You guys amaze me- Miller was always getting blasted, especially for the Mooney contract. Then Gill,
who deserved every criticism he got. But now that we’re on Hardt’s case.
Who have you liked?
I guess being an AD is like being a whipping post for the constantly disgruntled.
 
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AnnapSpider said:
You guys amaze me- Miller was always getting blasted, especially for the Mooney contract. Then Gill,
who deserved every criticism he got. But now that we’re on Hardt’s case.
Who have you liked?
I guess being an AD is like being a whipping post for the constantly disgruntled.
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That was not the intent of my post (getting on Hardt's case) - I was more curious about people's thoughts about the damage wrought by Gill (or if I may be overstating that) and whether he has repaired it.

I am grateful to hear from others who have sources inside the RC, especially regarding the sports that are not Queally's pets.
 
Chuck sent an underling to let us know our team was under consideration to be cut. And while I know the final decision ultimately came down from above, he showed little interest in supporting affected athletes. That was about the extent of my interactions with him, so needless to say, I didn't come away with a great impression.

I actually didn't have many objections to Miller. The Mooney contract turned out to have been a bad bet, but I understand why it was made. We were flying high, looking to be in the mix for the new Big East, and the big boys were looking to poach him. There would have been a mutiny if we hadn't done everything we could to keep him.

If we truly wanted to be with the big boys, we also needed to be willing and able to buy out the deal, but when we missed the Big East boat and the A-10 was left down a rung from where it had been, we found ourselves in a tight spot. I think we recognized it was going to be very difficult to compete at the top level on a regular basis no matter who the coach was, given some of our institutional constraints and handicaps, so was it worth throwing buyout money at Mooney to get someone else who still couldn't get us over the hump? Regardless, Miller was long gone by the time that came to a head, so hard to put much blame on him beyond doing the 10-year deal in the first place, but maybe he did it under the belief that we'd be willing to take action if things weren't working out.
 
MolivaManiac said:
Biggest incomplete/question mark for me relates to the football roster size (lack thereof). We cannot win CAA titles with 70-80 players on the team. Who gets the blame for the small roster?
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Hey Mo, in Iowa they don't complain about roster size, losing seasons, etc, etc. They just show up in the rain, snow, freezing weather and cheer.
 
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Just had a funny thought, my sr year at Richmond, we did a fantasy basketball league, all manual - AOL was just starting that year and internet we had no clue about or options. Chuck Boone's son was in the league, and he would go into his office first thing in the morning and pull the AP reports of the fax machine - with the little perforated edges with the round holes and we would pull together stats. The old days. It was nice to have access to the stats in "real" time haha.
 
Wow. Do I feel old. In 1972 we went to the NCAA Baseball Regionals in Gastonia NC with Chuck as our coach. Chip Boone rode on the bus with us. He was around 2 or 3 years old at the time.
 
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MolivaManiac said:
All things considered, i think i would give Hardt a solid B.

-He is accomplishing some good things with facilities.
-He seems to be accomplishing some things with recruiting/admissions.
-Fundraising appears to be going well, all things considered.

While i don't find him to be particularly charismatic or affable, he is, generally, accomplishing the things that i'd like to see an AD to UR be accomplishing.

Biggest incomplete/question mark for me relates to the football roster size (lack thereof). We cannot win CAA titles with 70-80 players on the team. Who gets the blame for the small roster?
Click to expand...

Title IX and who wants to pay $70k to be a walk on.

Keith Gill destroyed the athletic department. He let Malcolm Bernard AND Danny Rocco walk.

The only AD worse than him was Eight Legger's GF Samantha "Let me take some money from the Swimming Endowment and move it to Football and see if nobody notices" (*allegedly) Huge.

His posts praising her and "thinking outside the box thinking: have not aged well......
 
I can't disagree about Samantha Huge but we found a way to get 90+ players on the football team a few short years ago. We had Title 9 and a high tuition then.
 
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excuse my ignorance, but how often do walk-ons play? my guess would be close to never. I know we can only offer 63 scholarships and I assume will fill those 63.
I believe rosters are capped at 85 including walk-ons.
 
spiderman said:
excuse my ignorance, but how often do walk-ons play? my guess would be close to never. I know we can only offer 63 scholarships and I assume will fill those 63.
I believe rosters are capped at 85 including walk-ons.
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Roster is not capped at 85. What is capped at 85 is athletic aid. FCS gets 63 ships but you can divide among max 85. Very commonplace in FCS, also in other sports outside basketball where only full rides exist. Obv we give out lot of full rides in football too. Walk ons playing is more likely in football (and other sports) too. We've had some solid ones over the years - they likely ended up on partial scholarship or even full later on but some started as walk ons. Others can speak to specific UR players better than me. We used to do a better job at managing the 85/63 dynamic and separate financial aid in past, such as the Clawson era.
 
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Eight Legger said:
I’ll judge Hardt by our basketball results. Recruiting has gotten a lot better, so I’ll give him some credit for loosening the straps there. If he keeps us highly successful there, he’s a success. If not, he’s not. It’s that simple.
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Agreed. I'd also add a successful football program as well. I think he gets a hall pass for this year because the Spring season nonsense isn't going to tell us anything besides the fact that we will have the luxury of having JMU waxing our asses twice this year.

As for basketball recruiting, look at what Dayton, a fellow league member, is doing right now and ask again how much better our recruiting actually is right now. And we now have that coveted practice facility that was supposedly holding us back and we are still are getting guys who best offer is us. I suppose its better to what Mooney was giving us a few years ago but that wasn't a big hill to overcome. My expectation is not even that we could recruit like Grant is out at Dayton but hey getting some guys with some BCS offers would be nice. Hell, Duquesne, who hasn't won shit in literally forever just signed a guy with multiple BCS offers.
 
Yep, Grant is scorching the earth on the recruiting trail now. Not to mention also added - sitting out a year - a former top 50 player from USC in the back court. And Scoochie Smith's lil brother. We better get them this year, that is for sure. He did get a bit lucky with Obi - who was a late bloomer that did not pop until a post grad prep year when he grew four inches as well. BUT, he did find him and sign him. He is building Dayton back up with recruits, but dipping into the transfer market to get big names as well.
 
Didn’t Grant get fired from one school?
It was either a learning experience or at Dayton, luck of the roll of the dice.
Let‘s look at our team. Other than Burton, and maybe Golden, were we salivating
over any of these young men (they are 22) when we actually signed them.
It seems to me that one of our best recruits pretty much left with his head down.
 
Annap, dont be a hater on my man Grant. Mooney would have bee fired at Bama if he crapped the bed like he did here the last several years. Grant adpires to greatness, not being good every 8 years. Old man Dutcher at SDSU does too.
 
spider23 said:
Annap, dont be a hater on my man Grant. Mooney would have bee fired at Bama if he crapped the bed like he did here the last several years. Grant adpires to greatness, not being good every 8 years. Old man Dutcher at SDSU does too.
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Actually, I think Grant is a very coach. My point was that his recruiting hasn’t always been a winner.
And yes, if there hadn’t been”the contract” CM would not be here. But, he is getting his second chance
at the same school, and Grant had to go to another.
 
spider23 said:
Grant had great success at VCU too. Mooney took an NCAA team at AFA and lost more games.
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I already said I think Grant is a good coach, le’s face facts, he was handed a winning/established program at
VCU. And would you rather recruit players to Alabama, Dayton or Richmond?
Again, I think Grant has shown himself to be a good coach- no doubt about it. But, put a little reality into
your assessment .
 
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AnnapSpider said:
Actually, I think Grant is a very coach. My point was that his recruiting hasn’t always been a winner.
And yes, if there hadn’t been”the contract” CM would not be here. But, he is getting his second chance
at the same school, and Grant had to go to another.
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Sorry AnnaPSpider I don’t know where you are getting the recruiting failures from. Grant would have gone to NCAAs in his 3rd year at Dayton. So you are saying he can’t build a team? And as 23 has pointed out he is definitely leveraging the Obi success with his recent recruiting. Dayton is going to be a very formidable opponent over the next 4 years (doesn’t make sense to me to talk about any further out than that to me).
 
I shouldn’t have started with this. How many times do I have to say that I think Grant is a good coach.
But, if he had been able to recruit better at Alabama do you think he would be at Dayton.
You guys won’t be happy until I say he’s the next Coach K. Jeez.
 
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AnnapSpider said:
I shouldn’t have started with this. How many times do I have to say that I think Grant is a good coach.
But, if he had been able to recruit better at Alabama do you think he would be at Dayton.
You guys won’t be happy until I say he’s the next Coach K. Jeez.
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You are right. You shouldn’t have started it because you have a weak argument. I guess Grant gets no credit for the 2 NCAA years for the Broad St boys the 3 years AFTER he left either.
 
LongTimeLurkerFirstTimePoster said:
Title IX and who wants to pay $70k to be a walk on.

Keith Gill destroyed the athletic department. He let Malcolm Bernard AND Danny Rocco walk.

The only AD worse than him was Eight Legger's GF Samantha "Let me take some money from the Swimming Endowment and move it to Football and see if nobody notices" (*allegedly) Huge.

His posts praising her and "thinking outside the box thinking: have not aged well......
Click to expand...
I don’t give two craps about WM sports. My point from the beginning has been that I applauded her for coming in and trying to change a culture that didn’t seem to care about winning. She cared about winning. It’s evident that most of their fans would rather keep a bunch of third-tier sports and continue to fail at basketball and football. More power to them. It works to our favor.
 
Eight Legger said:
I don’t give two craps about WM sports. My point from the beginning has been that I applauded her for coming in and trying to change a culture that didn’t seem to care about winning. She cared about winning. It’s evident that most of their fans would rather keep a bunch of third-tier sports and continue to fail at basketball and football. More power to them. It works to our favor.
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Admittedly haven't followed the W&M situation super closely. But lord, I've never seen a group of people get their panties wadded up so much over losing a sports like women's swimming.

They have a culture there that obviously does not place great value on being highly competitive in basketball and football. Huge tried to change that and got promptly shown the door. That's fine, that is their sports culture down there, definitively not my cup of team and if I was a W&M football/hoops fan, I think I would just have to say, I'm gonna find another program to root for.
 
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GKiller said:
Roster is not capped at 85. What is capped at 85 is athletic aid. FCS gets 63 ships but you can divide among max 85. Very commonplace in FCS, also in other sports outside basketball where only full rides exist. Obv we give out lot of full rides in football too. Walk ons playing is more likely in football (and other sports) too. We've had some solid ones over the years - they likely ended up on partial scholarship or even full later on but some started as walk ons. Others can speak to specific UR players better than me. We used to do a better job at managing the 85/63 dynamic and separate financial aid in past, such as the Clawson era.
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thanks. learned something today.
 
RichmondNative said:
You are right. You shouldn’t have started it because you have a weak argument. I guess Grant gets no credit for the 2 NCAA years for the Broad St boys the 3 years AFTER he left either.
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Your opinion is your opinion. But, I ask again, would he be at Dayton if he had done a better job of recruiting for Alabama? Not likely.
 
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My point with Grant is not to have a debate
AnnapSpider said:
Your opinion is your opinion. But, I ask again, would he be at Dayton if he had done a better job of recruiting for Alabama? Not likely.
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Not disputing the fact that he got canned at Bama. But the argument here is not that, but what he is doing with recruiting now at Dayton. He's been there what 3 years and is literally running recruiting circles around Mooney, who has been here for 15 plus years now. We are excited now for recruits that actually have other (albeit lesser) offers than us, and there is Grant pulling down 4 star recruits, with multiple BCS offers with regularity.

This is why despite our success last year and probably success this year, I have little faith that we won't see a 3-4 year slide back to mediocrity following.
 
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AnnapSpider said:
Your opinion is your opinion. But, I ask again, would he be at Dayton if he had done a better job of recruiting for Alabama? Not likely.
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If we are talking alternate universes maybe so. Grant played at Dayton, which is obviously totally focused on basketball Alabama is a power football school, so basketball plays second fiddle. Maybe he does return to the alma mater even if he was faring better at Alabama.

AnnapSpider said:
And would you rather recruit players to Alabama, Dayton or Richmond?
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To bring this back to a more Richmond centered debate, what is your answer to your question above? Seems like you are suggesting that all CM needs to do is change teams to become a better recruiter?
 
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