Rocco mentioned in connection with UD job
- Thread starter MolivaManiac
- Start date
Chicken Little: Listen to me, everybody! I'm your new leader! I'm gonna save your lives! I'm gonna tell you what to do!
Cocky Locky: Don't listen to that pipsqueak. The sky isn't falling.
Chicken Little: I tell ya it is too falling!
Cocky Locky: And I tell you it isn't.
Chicken Little: Is too!
Cocky Locky: All right, if the sky is falling why doesn't it hit me in the head?
[Foxy Loxy hits Cocky Locky with a piece of wood]
Hen: Chicken Little is right! What do we do? Oh, Chicken Little, you've got to help us!
your coach stays and wins 2 more fcs playoff games..thats my prediction
I think that Coach Rocco has presented a very interesting question. I think that we all want to know the administration's vision of the future of the football program. If it is too limiting to realistically pursue another national championship, I certainly want to know. Now is the time to clear the air and make an unambiguous statement about our long term goal so that it does not remain an issue. If the administration goes with what we all want, we will certainly see some further concessions for our student-athletes. So, whether DR leaves or not, I applaud his statement about needing to know the vision. If a vision is not articulated, whether DR stays or leaves, it will certainly impact my interest in maintaining close ties to the university.
Our coach stays and we win 4 more fcs playoff games this year...that's my prediction.
There are many expert coaches inside RC that also question the lack of vision for UR athletics,those coaches have had similar conversations with Danny about the "severe lack of vision".If Danny does leave,he ain't leaving alone.The stability of assistant coaching which we have enjoyed will also evaporate.It is likely that some of the verbal recruits will follow too.
A glass half-full perspective is that Danny has done an excellent job of building this program into one that can contend each year for a national championship. He has also broht in very good assistants and generally talented players.
However, the problems this season appear, to me, to be based largely on injuries. If Lauletta were not injured, I believe we beat W&M and I believe we have a realistic shot at a national championship. The injuries obviously have nothing to do with our administration's support for the program. So, there may be lots of stuff going on behind the scenes that may be discouraging to DR, but he seems to be doing a fine job despite any such obstacles. I hope that a "show of support" will be provided and that DR will stay for a few more years.
If DR should get an offer from another school that he feels he cannot turn down, I have no doubt that there would be a negative impact on both our football program and our overall athletic program, and it will take a few years to re-build that, even if we go after a big name coach. Here's hoping that DR will look at the facilities and the opportunity to impact the lives of all these young men that he has recruited over the past 3-4 years, and will decide to follow-through and help them all to develop their skills and graduate from a fine university....
However, the problems this season appear, to me, to be based largely on injuries. If Lauletta were not injured, I believe we beat W&M and I believe we have a realistic shot at a national championship. The injuries obviously have nothing to do with our administration's support for the program. So, there may be lots of stuff going on behind the scenes that may be discouraging to DR, but he seems to be doing a fine job despite any such obstacles. I hope that a "show of support" will be provided and that DR will stay for a few more years.
If DR should get an offer from another school that he feels he cannot turn down, I have no doubt that there would be a negative impact on both our football program and our overall athletic program, and it will take a few years to re-build that, even if we go after a big name coach. Here's hoping that DR will look at the facilities and the opportunity to impact the lives of all these young men that he has recruited over the past 3-4 years, and will decide to follow-through and help them all to develop their skills and graduate from a fine university....
Geez, why are y'all making this so hard? He's a good coach at a small school. Of course he's gonna get better offers. Would be stupid to stay. If the admin doesn't want/can't afford him then he's gonna go.
You are starting to sound like one of "Mo's cronies".
I might need to get a tee shirt made up.
No doubt we have a fine, beautiful stadium but there are a couple of big obstacles that Rocco and his staff have done a remarkable job of overcoming. One is the locker and weight rooms. I know that when recruits visit they are steered away from these areas if at all possible. This is the opposite from what they find at any other campus. The other obstacle is that UR is rare at the D1 level that scholarships do not include summer school. I have heard recruits say that of the multiple FCS offers they had, Richmond is the only school that does not pay for summer school. So in order to stay for summer workouts if players aren't local, their parents must come up with $3000/ session of summer school, or pay for off campus housing for the summer, or the kid goes home for the summer and misses workouts in June and July. Rocco and staff need props for succeeding in spite of these limitations.
Wolf thanks for the heads up on the summer school, I don't know that I have ever heard that. couple that with many kids have to work the summer to earn their spending money for the upcoming year, it's tough to get them back in large numbers
Some things shouldn't be discussed on a public forum. In short Dr. Ayers could not say no to certain factions in the faculty and thus they ran much of the show. The BoT did not seem to want to check the situation. Do you know what the University's vision is in relation to how athletics fit into the bigger picture? I believe most of us recognize we only want to recruit good citizen students that can graduate on time, I believe that pool to be larger than is currently being admitted into the University.
Fan, fair enough. What you revealed is something that I have pieced together as well. Given some of the strategic plan, admission decisions, and trend towards political activist students, I feel there is a group of faculty/admin that see competitive sports as a bastion for people they find deplorable. Not sure if this is what is happening here, but there seems to be something rotten in Denmark.
On the Summer School issue, I did not want to give the impression that it just effects football. It is my understanding that all athletic scholarships at UR exclude SS. It would obviously impact football more than most other sports. Also some may think that this is more of a private school issue, but I know a kid playing at Furman and they include summer school down there.
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Looking over Rocco's resume, no doubt if the right FBS opportunity came along, he would jump at it without hesitation. As you guys know that's how it as always been at UR and any FCS school. Have no clue what's going on here in his case but letting him go to another FCS team (especially within your league) would be embarrassing.
Best post in this thread - unlike the founders of our fine institution there are some in the chain of command at the University of Richmond who "need to go to church more."
Frankly the Broadus thing may have been a blessing in disguise, Having seen Broadus QB a few times he couldn't and likely wouldn't have done a better job than KJ. If any of the speculation is true, I still don't like the guilty until proven innocent aspect, no matter who the person involved is.
Count me in as well. Saying a few thousand dollars a year won't be a bad thing. We overpay and keep one coach and let a great one take an in conference lateral move. I hope this is all overblown, but if it isn't....I very likely will have had enough.
As I said before a head coaching job at an FBS school no problem a lateral move to an in conference team unacceptable.
All these issues can be fixed. I just hope the administration has the will to do it.
It's possible he's not saying anything because there's nothing to say. If this is all a bunch of nonsense, then you don't feed the fire by breathing life into it through a support statement. That's PR 101.
Seems like a giant leap to consider that all of this is a bunch of nonsense. Explains why I majored in accounting and not PR, I guess.
This looks pretty bad.
http://www.richmond.com/sports/coll...cle_73992add-ce26-5449-9000-a955ccab9ca4.html
http://www.richmond.com/sports/coll...cle_73992add-ce26-5449-9000-a955ccab9ca4.html
It's not about the quality of play of a backup. It sucks how this athlete was treated more than a year after being cleared, but the issue is bigger than that.
{The third 'C' is for .....}'s
The response from the administration that "many of the assertions of fact are inaccurate" has not been retracted. However, when it came time to defend that response, the administration circled the wagons around the dean and focused on only his alleged statement.
Have you seen any of the Collegian's footage of the meeting? How many times did someone stand up and yell something like "Why is there still a {jilted lover's ex-boyfriend} on the football team?" or "Why are you protecting a {allegation} athlete?"
There is a very vocal group propagating the idea that this program protects monsters and the administration is doing nothing to shut that $#!^ down.
We might be witnessing the beginning of the move of our football program to the Patriot League. A "Cooper goal" about a decade ago.
I don't think we can go D3 unless we dropped our basketball program to D3.
Of course the UR Haters (JMU & VCU) would love to see this happen!
FRS
UR Class of 1976
I don't think we can go D3 unless we dropped our basketball program to D3.
Of course the UR Haters (JMU & VCU) would love to see this happen!
FRS
UR Class of 1976
Yeah, I wasn't actually speculating that it's nonsense so much as saying that one scenario is that it is, and therefore there's not much to be said. I also posted that before I saw the interview article with Rocco which pretty clearly points to a problem.
Look at JMU's facilities. Their facilities rival top FBS facilities. Liberty's weight room, stadium and rehab equipment is far superior. Not paying for recruits to go through a bridge program over the summer puts our new recruits at a disadvantage. Bottom line, the administration needs to step up. We can't afford to lose Rocco. The AD should support Rocco's vision for this program.
I do not think that he engineered it all. I do think its played out that way. Here is my opinion and how I come to it. This is a story -- - plenty will disagree that this is what happened. It will be long - - - you are obviously free to not give a rats about what I heard or think and skip the whole thing!
I get information generally from 3 UR connected sources. These folks are higher up the UR food chain than I (which ain't saying much since I am nobody). Two of them are probably one source combined in that they know each other and the higher yet person they each know and get info from is the same person. It is fair to say these two are not big Queally guys and neither is their higher up guy. The third is unrelated to those two and his higher up yet connection is different. They share with me because we are friends and Spider supporters. On this particular topic I also have a Delaware source. That source is actually very much higher than my direct UR sources. He tells me things about what he hears as well. Things about what Rocco wants and what Delaware must commit to because they are Rocco hot buttons etc. What he shares can only be used to see if it fits with the story I hear from the UR sources or are there discrepancies somewhere etc.
Here is how I think its all come down , based on all I have heard (none of ot obviously from Danny, Gill, Crutcher etc.). I am filling in at some points with opinion and I am sure some details are wrong/missing but I do believe this is the jist of what occurred
A good while ago (as in not days, weeks or even months ago) Danny approached admin with a list of things he felt he needed. Admin was somewhat surprised by list, but more out of a lack of knowledge about what top level FSC programs have. At that point they said they needed to look at it etc. There was no animosity either way. Danny likely thought what he needed to do was educate the key folks some more about what top programs have and why they needed them but believed admin was committed but didn't necessarily understand what that meant.
Discussions continued over time with Danny pushing for what he wanted and as he did admin came to believe that Danny was "cherry picking" a bit - - that is, he was pointing to programs A, B and C and saying they have this (e.g. higher asst salaries) and then Programs D and E have this other thing (e.g. state of art weight/locker room) etc. etc. but that Danny's insistence that he had to have it all was overreaching. Danny likely thought he was negotiating, not truly expecting or demanding everything. To this point I think still no ill-will either way.
Admin comes back and does some cherry picking of their own, pointing to schools 1,2 and 3 that don't have this and schools 4 and 5 that don't have that and implying - - you don't need any of that stuff to be successful. They too probably thought they were negotiating and didn't intend to give nothing. The debate to this point was about "what does a Top level FSC team really need " not whether UR would commit to do whatever that was.
At that point, had it stopped there I think things would have been fine eventually as there was plenty of middle ground. Several things then seemingly happened that got the train off the tracks. Admin cited that one thing we did have already was a really high head coach's salary. How this was said and what was implied etc. is highly unclear, but Danny took a little (and maybe more) umbrage - - feeling his performance had earned that and it shouldn't be used against him. The next thing that happened is where things crash and burn. Someone tells Danny or Danny thinks he hears that it really doesn't matter what other Top level FSC programs have because UR doesn't have the money to do any of those things. This starts the Vision/commitment concerns. But also pisses Danny off because its clear (to him) we can afford it if we want to. He raises the commitment concern - - hey are we really committed to top flight FSC football. The admin says of course we are - - just keep doing what you are doing, its great. Danny thinks (and says) that's not so easy as you think - - are you really not committed to doing what it takes. A little bit of a pissing match ensues Admin - - Yes we are. Danny - - no your not!
Danny sort of doubles down, pushing his concerns and also citing what he believes are commitments already made and not delivered and strongly stating his long term concern over vision and commitment. Admin is now getting annoyed but still clearly wants to keep him. Danny refuses contract talks that don't also include resolution of other issues. Admin starting to get very annoyed and feeling like Danny is overstepping his bounds. Large ego's (on both sides) are now implicated because its shaping up as a winner/loser. Admin again says we can't afford it. Danny says - - so you aren't committed to Top Level FSC. Admin doesn't like Danny characterization of that and a number of things at this point. Danny is now fully concerned and pissed off. Admin expressed lack of money concern leads to comments from Danny about how come we can't afford any of this football stuff but Lax gets whatever they want! He cites that Lax has clear vision - - Top level program that competes for NCAA championship and they get whatever they need in pursuit of that. Lax benefactors are immediately inflamed. I will guess for multiple reasons - - - (1) hey just leave us out of your problems; (2) they didn't like being the villains before and sure don't want to be portrayed that way again and (3) if there are money concerns, they don't want to be losing anything they could or might get to football - - i.e. they don't want to be competing with football for resources. Admin is also inflamed that football coach is overstepping bounds and bringing up sore subject.
At some point both parties say - - you know there are other fish in the sea. who says it first, who the hell knows, but everyone is pissed off. Lax guy who hadn't been too involved now "advises" admin they need to get a hold of this situation and that they should call Danny's bluff (and put him in his place in some versions of the story) with a take it or leave it big contract offer but denial of most other things. His motivations for recommendation not entirely clear but LAX best interests almost certainly part of it - - to some no matter what the cost to other programs. That path is followed. Danny not bluffing (and not interested perhaps in being put in his place wherever that is) and flat out refuses the deal.
Some believe Danny is still negotiating. I do not. Some believe there are forces at work on UR side to save the day. I do not.
To specifically address the notion that Queally orchestrated this - - here is my view. He was a late entry to the dance. A lot of ground had been covered (or lost) before he got directly involved. He didn't even interject himself. Danny mentioned LAX - - no doubt because LAX's treatment is something which in fact really sticks in his craw. That brought Lax man in. Once he is in - - he is in charge because that's how he wants it. So from that point forward he's calling the shots and he's pissed off about the negative connotations around Lax (and maybe other things). This might very well (probably even by the sounds of things) have ended up here without his direct involvement at all however, because things hadn't gone very well up this point and everyone was already pissed off at one another.
Now, he's a smart guy and one who knows how to play the back room and board politics really well. I also believe he certainly is a strong UR supporter beyond the lax program as well. If he sees this now as a disaster about to happen (for both the school and/or football and/or himself and/or Lax) , it is very possible he changes his course and I hope that happens. He may have thought the course of action he advised was the wisest way to get past this with the least damage especially if Danny had accepted (as Q might have really believed he would) but now sees we are instead headed toward the iceberg and is working furiously to turn the ship before the crash.
As a last comment for what its worth, I do hear that UR may not have given up as much as many on this board (including me) have.
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This is exactly the problem. This young man's life, our coach, and our team have been sacrificed on the alter of political correctness.
Thanks,Philly.Your explanation-time line all makes sense.Not sure Danny can work with Gill going forward.
Never have known a college coach take such issues publicly and win vs admin.
Never have known a college coach take such issues publicly and win vs admin.
Why would you wait until after DR leaves to bombard them with emails, why not do it now when it might actually make some impact?
This and more.
Do we furnish the stipend for spending money allowed by the NCAA? Is this an issue with being in the CAA or just a school issue? Doesn't JMU provide its football players with such a stipend?
I am sure that there are other issues which need to be addressed as well to keep us a the most competitive advantage available.
I don't believe any CAA schools offer the cost of attendance supplement for football. Most schools around our level are only offering them for basketball for now.
Liberty offers them for football, and I believe NDSU and North Dakota have started as well.
Even in basketball, our stipends are rather low.
Liberty offers them for football, and I believe NDSU and North Dakota have started as well.
Even in basketball, our stipends are rather low.
