Just curious what folks would like to see from our Athletic Director after the disappointing results of this year.
What I would like Keith Gill to do
- Thread starter 97spiderfan
- Start date
Meanwhile, VCU is going to win their Quarterfinal game, and has probably played their way into the NCAA tournament for a 5th straight year since their final 4 run. Mooney hasn't been back since. A real fan base wouldn't stand for this.
I didn't vote because I didn't see my choice up there:
"Fire Mooney, take that money and double Rocco's salary, then quit"
"Fire Mooney, take that money and double Rocco's salary, then quit"
- Fire Mooney, 5 straight years of no NCAA bids is not meeting program expectations
- Force a change from among the assistant coaches, we need a different perspective on staff
- Public statement saying the program has not met expectations and the product needs to be better
- Nothing at all, the program is in fine shape, why does anything need to change?
2. Not the the answer since it probably wouldn't include a coach with more experience than CM.
3. Yes. Strong statement saying the higher ups know the loyal UR fans deserve better.
4. No. Silent treatment won't work this far into CM's tenure and only make loyal fans feel unimportant.
I am pretty sure 0% of the respondents are ADs. I am also pretty sure Gill is not happy with the state of the program, but when taking everything into account realizes that currently this is the best path to take.
So let's play this out. If the survey were to include an addendum that said "fire mooney and risk losing 1-3 highly rated recruits" would the voting remain the same? That's an important consideration.
Most people seem fine with the public statement, but that doesn't necessarily translate to a definitive change in a approach, does it?
Most people seem fine with the public statement, but that doesn't necessarily translate to a definitive change in a approach, does it?
It might be the only path to take. I think even if he wanted to, for a number of reasons Gill can't fire Mooney right now. I think that having an AD meddle in the assistant coaches or other staff sets a horrible precedent for our program in the future and may make hiring a new coach harder. I think a public statement about not being satisfied with the program completely undermines the team and accomplishes absolutely nothing. I cannot imagine an AD actually doing that without firing the coach, it makes no sense. I think Gill not doing one of the first 3 options does not mean that he is satisfied with the current state of the program, and I have no idea why people on this board want our program's problems to be put in a spotlight on public display.
In fairness, Gill said more than I expected in the Woody article yesterday. There was an acknowledgement of our frustration and he said we needed to be better. I was actually pretty surprised.
Well, so much of this "debate" centers around what may or may not be in Mooney's contract, which is something none of us know. But it's sort of standard practice in business and with contractual arrangements that goals and expectations are clearly outlined, along with consequences. I doubt his contract just says, "We agree to pay you $12M for 10 years" and that's it. Maybe there's a clause that says, "If after a period of X number of years, the team has not made the NCAA tournament, then the AD will review things and will have the ability to do X" (which could include requiring new assistants, etc.).
I'm not saying that's likely, but it is possible. And it's certainly not unprecedented. It happens regularly in college and the pros when teams are not meeting expectations. It's like if you own a business (as I do) and you have salespeople (as I do). The bottom line is that I don't particularly care how they achieve their goals (as long as they are being true to the vision and morals of the company), and I won't micro-manage them if they're hitting their targets.
But once they start missing goals month after month, I'm getting a lot more involved and a lot more specific. They've lost the flexibility to do whatever they want. Now they may have to do things my way. That's where I see our program right now – Mooney's had 5 years to do it his way, and we have failed to meet expectations every year. So now he loses some of the ability to do things his way.
Analogies tend to disregard important specifics of the case being analogized, in this instance I think it presumes that you know as much or more about your business than your salespeople do. I don't know that the AD knows anywhere near what the coach knows about basketball, so meddling could be ineffective or disastrous.
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That's fair, but at the same time, he's the AD for a reason. I don't expect him to know the intricacies of the box-and-one or the substitution patterns we use, but I do expect him to recognize and address problems within the department. When he sees something that is not meeting expectations over a prolonged period of time, I expect him to do "something." It's nice that he has told everyone, including the RTD yesterday, that these results are not acceptable or what anyone had hoped for. But if he does NOTHING to address them, then inherently they ARE acceptable.
I tend to agree. I don't see a ton of grey area between letting Mooney run on his leash and cutting him loose. The quotes yesterday actually make me think we are getting closer to the latter than we realized.
Gill had some additional comments in Sunday's paper. I can't remember verbatim but basically acknowledged that they need to do a top to bottom review of the program to see where changes could be made (I would suggest starting at the top, but that's just me).
I think Gill has essentially done option 3 as we suggested and I for one appreciate a bit of candor from the AD. It shows his head is not completely in the sand. And unless Gills goes into a bunker and does not do any media interviews in the next 6 weeks, I would expect him to have repeat what he said after the A-10 tournament because assuredly he is going to get asked similar questions about the direction of the program under Mooney.
I think Gill has essentially done option 3 as we suggested and I for one appreciate a bit of candor from the AD. It shows his head is not completely in the sand. And unless Gills goes into a bunker and does not do any media interviews in the next 6 weeks, I would expect him to have repeat what he said after the A-10 tournament because assuredly he is going to get asked similar questions about the direction of the program under Mooney.
it cracks me up that the 6 people that post 90% of the comments on here can really think Mooney didn't know what the limitations of this team were and Gill isn't going to review the results of the program. Do you think these guys just show up to the Robins Center and post on a message board all day?
No, but since the only previous messages from the AD was that he was satisfied with the direction of the program under Mooney, it is refreshing for him to acknowledge publically that fans are frustrated and have reason to be.
And of course Mooney knew the limitations of this team, he just seemed very slow to adapt to those limitations (such as inserting our best all ball defender (Khwan into the starting line-up until the last 2 games of the year). So, maybe he was spending a lot of time on message boards, not this one apparently though
Here's the type of thing that I would love to see from Gill:
http://jmusports.com/news/2016/3/9/bourne-dialogue-mens-basketball-program.aspx
http://jmusports.com/news/2016/3/9/bourne-dialogue-mens-basketball-program.aspx
It's a good letter, the bullet points are interesting, you could certainly see some parallels to our own situation while others have probably no relevance.
I do think that it's hard to put a letter like this out while you have a coach you claim to be supporting. It sort of raises more questions/concerns than it resolves, particularly to a recruit who looks at it and wonders if a coach they sign with will be there in a year.
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2013/540/505/2013-540505965-0a69c711-9.pdf
Base salary: $447,446
Bonus: $10,000
Other Compensation: $287,171
Deferred Compensation: $384,625
Nontaxable Benefits: $15,889
Total: $1,145,141
Well in my version most everything would be the same, except "Matt Brady" would be replaced with "Chris Mooney" and "JMU" would be replaced with "Richmond.
Exactly, no AD would ever put out something like this without firing the coach.
but would you seriously put a letter like that out about a guy that was still your coach?Well in my version most everything would be the same, except "Matt Brady" would be replaced with "Chris Mooney" and "JMU" would be replaced with "Richmond.
I might, if I were staring at $6M that I had to pay him over the next 5 years after having just paid him $6M for the previous 5 for no results, yes. Why? To make him uncomfortable. To motivate him. Maybe to cause him to get so mad that he decides to leave on his own and then I wouldn't have to worry abot a buyout.
It might have those effects. It also might make it so no recruit wants to sign with us for the next year or two. Perhaps that's an ok tradeoff if we believe that coaching is a bigger problem than recruiting/personnel is. I think it's the opposite but as I'm fond of saying, I also stayed at Holiday Inn Express last night, so what do I know.
Just depends what the end game is. If Gill desperately wants Mooney gone, there are a number of things he can do to make that clear and to make it very uncomfortable for him. He can force him or strongly encourage him to hire new assistants. He can meddle in things. He can write that kind of letter, and if it affects recruiting and the team's record suffers even more, Mooney might leave on his own after one more season rather than suffer through 5 down years knowing that he won't have any jobs waiting for him once his contract here ends.
But Gill has made it clear that he likes Mooney and thinks he is the man to lead us to the NCAAs, so obviously he will not do anything. His prerogative.
