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Post by rickii on May 10, 2019 10:36:26 GMT -5
Exactly how....need some relevant specifics.
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Post by bringbackcaro on May 10, 2019 11:23:50 GMT -5
Exactly how....need some relevant specifics. What the hell does "well connected to the athletic world" even mean? How does a guy like Pine, who doesn't know if footballs are blown up or stuffed, meeting other guys like him at AD conventions actually help improve the Holy Cross athletics program? It certainly didn't help with hiring coaches -- something that Pine did an ABYSMAL job of. The only good hire he made was a guy who was waiting in the wings ~5 miles from the HC campus. Connections in the "AD World" or not, I think someone like Gordie could have found Chesney over on Salisbury Street.
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Post by hc87 on May 10, 2019 11:32:41 GMT -5
Let's face it, the AD job at HC is largely ceremonial i.e. taking marching orders from O'Kane/Fenwick...that being said, there is no way there are bettah qualified (or "right" for the position) candidates for the job than people like Gordie or RP Jr if they want the position.
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Post by sader1970 on May 10, 2019 12:09:12 GMT -5
One can always count on the extremes on Crossports which makes it both laughably enjoyable and maddeningly frustrating at the same time.
1. It should not take 5 months to hire a new AD. This is not a billion dollar business. It should also not be a completed and announced process in 2 months. There can be legitimate reasons for delay. But it certainly isn't because they can't find and determine who they want. Despite the bashers, this would be a very attractive gig for many qualified candidates.
2. I guarantee you that this was purposely strung out to save dollars. I have seen this in "real" life outside of academia numerous times. You have an open position; you believe you can "make do"/keep status quo because things are in stasis; the position is relatively high paying (which an AD at HC is - compare his salary to a professor or "regular staff"); you are looking to save money and a delay in hiring will do that. Saving a half year of a big salary, especially if the assistant AD is willing to work as "interim AD" for the same or only marginally higher salary.
3. An AD at Holy Cross is more than a figurehead and needs to have basic business sense (MBA or CPA not a requirement) and should know sports and, for Holy Cross, be able to work with and communicate with the alums because they are big donors and make up a large portion of the fan base. He/she should be a fundraiser because unless the AD can come up with the bucks, little will come from the general fund. That was Nate's forte. BTW, he definitely knew whether a football was blown up or stuffed - you don't have to have played all or even any sport to know enough to be an AD. And from my observation and feedback from a few athletes, he knew and interacted much more closely with the student athletes than his predecessor who was an HC alum.
Gordie would be good. John Andreoli even better but neither/both might be willing to give up their probably higher salaries, especially John [who is head football coach at St. John's H.S. as well as CEO of a large Worcester insurance agency]. Ron Perry, Jr. would have the AD genes and all 3 know HC athletics and the culture of the College. They've participated as athletes, are well known among alums (good for fundraising) and have been observing HC athletics for decades. Gordie most actively.
All that said, it doesn't have to be any of these three. Today is Friday. Let's see if there is an announcement early next week.
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Post by bison137 on May 10, 2019 12:27:08 GMT -5
Fwiw, the timeline for two recent PL schools AD searches were; (1) Colgate - just under three months; (2) Bucknell - 3.5 months.
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Post by longsuffering on May 10, 2019 12:28:36 GMT -5
If you will excuse the alliteration, Gordie's Got Gravitas.
Who else would have more credibility with all of the stakeholders in HC Athletics when it comes time to require adjustments be made to push and pull HC out of the (overall) cellar?
Ronnie the younger has credibility, too, but he is a decade or so and forty miles more removed from the community so I would place him as slightly less ideal, but still a good choice. A great career professional who has turned around a D-2 or 3 program might be a good choice also. With the success of Chesney moving up from turning around a D-2 FB program, I would be leaning against a career Assistant AD at D-1 schools who is now considered ready to take on his own gig. The patient is in serious condition, so I would be more comfortable with someone who actually was the AD when a college turned their Athletics program around...if we are not going the returning jock route.
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Post by CHC8485 on May 10, 2019 13:32:17 GMT -5
Easy there, Joe. Five months on May 13. And outside of an internal promotion, any expectations to have a permanent replacement for the head of a $35+ million operation in less than 3 months were unrealistic. And had they hired anyone not named Lockbaum in February, the cries of incompetence for not looking thoroughly enough, moving too quickly, and incompetence for settling for someone would be deafening. And we’ll probably still hear the last complaint regardless of who is hired. You're treating this like it's hiring a someone at some huge corporation in the business world, which it is not. This is an in-demand job (there are very few D1 AD jobs that open up, and a lot of people waiting for the ones that do) and we hired a search firm. Also, the same leadership was at the school 4-5 years ago when Pine was hired. It should have been easy for them to come up with the profile for what they're looking for based on the last search. If you want to talk about people running large college athletics operations, I took a look at the chain of events that led to Jack Swarbrick becoming the AD at Notre Dame: 1) 4/2/08 -- Joe Alleva leaves Duke for LSU job 2) 5/30/09 -- Kevin White leaves Notre Dame for Duke job 3) 7/15/08 -- Jack Swarbrick hired at Notre Dame Duke and Notre Dame each hired ADs to run much larger operations than Holy Cross in less than two months. There is no excuse for HC taking 5+ months to make this hire -- especially considering that they should have known about the possibility of Pine leaving well before the date he was officially hired by Air Force. If you think Holy Cross or any other school are not corporations, and run that way, you are wrong. They literally are businesses with, in HC's case, $150 - $200 million in annual revenues. You can argue whether colleges are or should be run as corporations - and I can assure you that the faculty at many schools are deeply distressed at how much more like corporations colleges are becoming - and Holy Cross is no exception. I honestly think that is part of the reason HC has been stumbling over itself recently - corporation for education or altruistic institution of higher learning doing the Lord's work. Now argue that HC is not a well run corporation all you want, but TPTB view a department (Athletics) that represents ~20% of the HC operating budget (Phreek, please correct me if I have those numbers wrong) as a major division of the corporation and are trying to run it as such. And note I said an expectation of less than 3 months. Is 5 - 6 months longer than average to hire an AD - probably but I don't know for sure. But as I have said on several occasions in the last 5 months, use the past to inform the future. It was 5+ months from FADDR "resignation" to hiring Nate Pine. Why would you expect it to be different this time when they had less notice? Duke & Notre Dame know what their athletic departments are, want to be, and need in order to be successful. In the last 7 years, Holy Cross, reportedly, is changing/has changed - at least a little - how they view athletics in the larger context of the college. Isn't it possible that TPTB realize that maybe they got something wrong in hiring FADNP and took the time to try to figure out what that was and correct it?
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Post by bringbackcaro on May 10, 2019 14:02:09 GMT -5
You're treating this like it's hiring a someone at some huge corporation in the business world, which it is not. This is an in-demand job (there are very few D1 AD jobs that open up, and a lot of people waiting for the ones that do) and we hired a search firm. Also, the same leadership was at the school 4-5 years ago when Pine was hired. It should have been easy for them to come up with the profile for what they're looking for based on the last search. If you want to talk about people running large college athletics operations, I took a look at the chain of events that led to Jack Swarbrick becoming the AD at Notre Dame: 1) 4/2/08 -- Joe Alleva leaves Duke for LSU job 2) 5/30/09 -- Kevin White leaves Notre Dame for Duke job 3) 7/15/08 -- Jack Swarbrick hired at Notre Dame Duke and Notre Dame each hired ADs to run much larger operations than Holy Cross in less than two months. There is no excuse for HC taking 5+ months to make this hire -- especially considering that they should have known about the possibility of Pine leaving well before the date he was officially hired by Air Force. ..... Isn't it possible that TPTB realize that maybe they got something wrong in hiring FADNP and took the time to try to figure out what that was and correct it? One can only dream!
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Post by joe on May 10, 2019 14:15:05 GMT -5
Isn't it possible that TPTB realize that maybe they got something wrong in hiring FADNP and took the time to try to figure out what that was and correct it?
No.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on May 10, 2019 14:42:03 GMT -5
Easy there, Joe. Five months on May 13. And outside of an internal promotion, any expectations to have a permanent replacement for the head of a $35+ million operation in less than 3 months were unrealistic. And had they hired anyone not named Lockbaum in February, the cries of incompetence for not looking thoroughly enough, moving too quickly, and incompetence for settling for someone would be deafening. And we’ll probably still hear the last complaint regardless of who is hired. You're treating this like it's hiring a someone at some huge corporation in the business world, which it is not. This is an in-demand job (there are very few D1 AD jobs that open up, and a lot of people waiting for the ones that do) and we hired a search firm. Also, the same leadership was at the school 4-5 years ago when Pine was hired. It should have been easy for them to come up with the profile for what they're looking for based on the last search. If you want to talk about people running large college athletics operations, I took a look at the chain of events that led to Jack Swarbrick becoming the AD at Notre Dame: 1) 4/2/08 -- Joe Alleva leaves Duke for LSU job 2) 5/30/09 -- Kevin White leaves Notre Dame for Duke job 3) 7/15/08 -- Jack Swarbrick hired at Notre Dame Duke and Notre Dame each hired ADs to run much larger operations than Holy Cross in less than two months. There is no excuse for HC taking 5+ months to make this hire -- especially considering that they should have known about the possibility of Pine leaving well before the date he was officially hired by Air Force. Okay-- are we sure we are comparing the right dates? Is May 30 the date that Kevin White notified ND he was leaving or was it the day he started the Duke job? Did he go to Notre Dame TPTB six weeks earlier and give them six weeks notice and then leave at the end of May? If so, then add six weeks to the length of Notre Dame's search, OR start the HC clock on the day that Nate Pine started at the Air Force Academy.
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Post by bringbackcaro on May 10, 2019 14:57:56 GMT -5
You're treating this like it's hiring a someone at some huge corporation in the business world, which it is not. This is an in-demand job (there are very few D1 AD jobs that open up, and a lot of people waiting for the ones that do) and we hired a search firm. Also, the same leadership was at the school 4-5 years ago when Pine was hired. It should have been easy for them to come up with the profile for what they're looking for based on the last search. If you want to talk about people running large college athletics operations, I took a look at the chain of events that led to Jack Swarbrick becoming the AD at Notre Dame: 1) 4/2/08 -- Joe Alleva leaves Duke for LSU job 2) 5/30/09 -- Kevin White leaves Notre Dame for Duke job 3) 7/15/08 -- Jack Swarbrick hired at Notre Dame Duke and Notre Dame each hired ADs to run much larger operations than Holy Cross in less than two months. There is no excuse for HC taking 5+ months to make this hire -- especially considering that they should have known about the possibility of Pine leaving well before the date he was officially hired by Air Force. Okay-- are we sure we are comparing the right dates? Is May 30 the date that Kevin White notified ND he was leaving or was it the day he started the Duke job? Did he go to Notre Dame TPTB six weeks earlier and give them six weeks notice and then leave at the end of May? If so, then add six weeks to the length of Notre Dame's search, OR start the HC clock on the day that Nate Pine started at the Air Force Academy. www.espn.com/college-sports/news/story?id=3420093today.duke.edu/2008/05/kevin_white.html
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Post by joe on May 10, 2019 17:32:24 GMT -5
Need to blow it up and start fresh. Need a new philosophy that prioritizes winning along with academic excellence. Need to triage what sports need increased emphasis and jettison the rest. Need fresh league affiliations and the Crusader mascot brought back as a tribute to those that came before. Some coaches need to be terminated and others hired. The stadium needs lights and a renovation, and the basketball and hockey arenas need to be renovated. Need more schollies and non-medical redshirting. Need to do away with AI and go back to judging student-athletes by the eyeball test. Before all this we need a president and a BOT with the courage, conviction, and faith to get this hire right. 5 months. 6 months. Just get it right.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 10, 2019 18:45:19 GMT -5
The chair of the BoT spoke highly of ADNP, and the college gave ADNP a farewell party. IMO, ADNP largely accomplished what the BoT sought with respect to the athletic program during his tenure.
In all likelihood, the APR is a higher priority of TPTB than W-L records. That's because HC has so many student athletes whose parents are footing most/all of a $70,000 yearly bill; --thus the college and these parents have a great interest in their son or daughter's academic success.
As reported elsewhere on this forum, [the?] three finalists were on-campus this week for interviews, and a selection will be made shortly. There appears to be a bit of ambiguity in the phrasing of the chair of the BoT in this regard; i.e., whether [the] three finalists are all outside candidates, or not.
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Post by sader1970 on May 10, 2019 20:56:50 GMT -5
Sort of tangential to this point, the Class of 2023 had 7,198 applicants with 2,400 admitted which they say is 243 fewer than last year with the hope to have a Class of 795-815. But, most importantly, the "needs blind" is a little less "blind" (the "vast majority are admitted need blind") with a small increase in international students - 39, which we were told in the Volunteer Leadership call was something they are looking to increase because they tend to pay their own way and there are concerns about being able to meet the need of the many students who need financial aid. [Operating costs are going up but financial aid going up at an even faster rate].
2023 Class will be roughly 54% female.
And, further off topic, there are no immediate plans for new/remodeled hill dorms but it is a "super high priority" (I know, that sounds contradictory) and once started, would be done one at a time and they would have to work around having a dorm closed each year.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 10, 2019 21:25:42 GMT -5
With respect to the Easy St. dorms, the Chair of the BoT was more specific earlier this year. The college needed to construct a new dorm (or find an alternative) to use as swing space for displaced students while an Easy St dorm was closed for a year for renovation / reconstruction. (Once the Easy St dorms were done, this new dorm would then allow the college to increase enrollment.)
Each of the Easy St. dorms would take about one year to do. The Chair of the BoT said that renovation of the Easy St dorms should have begun ten years ago.
Rough plans may already exist for a new residence hall, IIRC, the college told the re-accreditation committee some years ago it planned to construct one, and possibly two new residence halls. Figge became the one new hall.
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Post by sader1970 on May 10, 2019 21:35:16 GMT -5
Phreek, everything you just posted is consistent with what he said yesterday. Indeed, the renovations were described as "overdue." We got the Cliff Notes version because of limited time and so much for him to cover.
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Post by matunuck on May 10, 2019 22:11:08 GMT -5
With respect to the Easy St. dorms, the Chair of the BoT was more specific earlier this year. The college needed to construct a new dorm (or find an alternative) to use as swing space for displaced students while an Easy St dorm was closed for a year for renovation / reconstruction. (Once the Easy St dorms were done, this new dorm would then allow the college to increase enrollment.) Each of the Easy St. dorms would take about one year to do. The Chair of the BoT said that renovation of the Easy St dorms should have begun ten years ago. Rough plans may already exist for a new residence hall, IIRC, the college told the re-accreditation committee some years ago it planned to construct one, and possibly two new residence halls. Figge became the one new hall. If the plan is to eventually increase enrollment, won’t we need a corresponding increase in applications so we don’t end up diluting the academic quality of the respective classes?
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Post by purplehaze on May 10, 2019 22:58:09 GMT -5
Have a friend on the BOT and he told me they are not looking to increase the enrollment and in fact would like to get under the 3000 student level a bit
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 11, 2019 9:46:50 GMT -5
Have a friend on the BOT and he told me they are not looking to increase the enrollment and in fact would like to get under the 3000 student level a bit True, they are not looking to increase enrollment near-term. However in 10-12 years, assuming they build a new dorm for swing space, and finish renovating the Easy St dorms (and Brooks Mulledy??, which will be 60 years old in 2026) they will have a relatively new 225-250 bed dorm available. That also assumes Wheeler (86!!! years old in 2026) is not closed and converted to another use. See also the college's land-banking on College Hill, --what are all these properties the college is acquiring to be used for, or is HC simply avaricious by nature?
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on May 11, 2019 11:49:08 GMT -5
Is the Center For The Performing Arts still going to be built? LoveHC Yes. According to the copy of the "Being More" update I just received, in April 2018 the BOT agreed to move forward with both the Chouinard-Luth Rec Center and the Performing Arts Center. The Campaign has now reached $369.9MM towards its goal of $400MM. The article goes on to say that the budget planning requires that 2/3rds of of the cost of all new facilities be secured prior to the launch of construction. The funds needs $4.5MM more and may well have received it by now....
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 11, 2019 16:19:21 GMT -5
Is the Center For The Performing Arts still going to be built? LoveHC Yes. According to the copy of the "Being More" update I just received, in April 2018 the BOT agreed to move forward with both the Chouinard-Luth Rec Center and the Performing Arts Center. The Campaign has now reached $369.9MM towards its goal of $400MM. The article goes on to say that the budget planning requires that 2/3rds of of the cost of all new facilities be secured prior to the launch of construction. The funds needs $4.5MM more and may well have received it by now.... No announcement yet of the $4.5 million, but my sense is that the donor(s) is identified, and it may be a case of timing it for tax purposes. The capital campaign is up to $372-373 million.
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Post by timholycross on May 13, 2019 8:57:44 GMT -5
So, what would one say has been done to Lehy/Hanselman/Clark/Healy since I left in 1973?
Sounds like very little; probably the bathrooms have been upgraded and not much else. Maybe window replacements too (given they would most likely not be usable by now and would have saved a great deal of energy)
Wonder if one of the rooms in Clark I had still has royal blue cinder block walls (courtesy of yours truly and a couple of gallons of Benjamin Moore from Spag's).
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 13, 2019 9:24:54 GMT -5
So, what would one say has been done to Lehy/Hanselman/Clark/Healy since I left in 1973? Sounds like very little; probably the bathrooms have been upgraded and not much else. Maybe window replacements too (given they would most likely not be usable by now and would have saved a great deal of energy) Wonder if one of the rooms in Clark I had still has royal blue cinder block walls (courtesy of yours truly and a couple of gallons of Benjamin Moore from Spag's). As I understand it, the core utilities -- electrical, heating, water are original. The windows are not energy efficient. The buildings are to be gutted, and the floorplan reconfigured. Apparently, some of the utilities do not meet current code. Some of the roofs have been replaced; one can tell which ones from the satellite photos. Some of the fire protection is probably not original. Its possible/probable that the steam heating pipes are asbestos covered.
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Post by hc87 on May 13, 2019 9:37:36 GMT -5
I don't think too much has changed...stayed in one 12 years ago during Reunion and they were basically the same as my days on the Hill essentially. I'm sure they pale in comparison to some school's digs today.
Back to the AD search, a little birdy told me the search may be down to 3, none of them familiar names of longtime Sader fans. We'll see.
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Post by joe on May 13, 2019 9:50:44 GMT -5
. . . none of them familiar names of longtime Sader fans . . .
Sounds about right.
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