Marbut was a bad hire, a CC baseball coach with no D1 experience. One could argue Wulff was a better hire than Marbut. No Lees hasn't turned it around yet, he inherited Marbuts poor recruiting classes, However unlike Marbut, the HS coaches and summer league coaches have a lot of respect for Lees, and that's where it all starts.
Thoughts on Jim Sterk?
- Thread starter PeteTheChop
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Marbut was a bad hire, a CC baseball coach with no D1 experience. One could argue Wulff was a better hire than Marbut. No Lees hasn't turned it around yet, he inherited Marbuts poor recruiting classes, However unlike Marbut, the HS coaches and summer league coaches have a lot of respect for Lees, and that's where it all starts.
heard it all before, the fact is he left didn't look back while trashing WSU. he may hav e stayed if he had gotten alabama level pay, not possible so he left, basically for UTEP
***********************Good stuff Stretch, thanks. Particularly the 1st party insight. Your first paragraph sums it up quite nicely.
My only dithering here is that Sterk's plan for Martin Stadium, and improvements that did happen, were good. The fact that the footings are in place for the end zone second deck indictaes some forward thinking. However, the $ and execution of the latter phases didn't come to fruition. Other than the notion of building the suites on the student side. Never will understand why it wasn't the reserved side all along but whatever.
On the $1,000 bricks for the IPF. I gave to that thing, and am sure that it was at the "brick" level, but I don't remember it being $1,000. On the other hand, that was a long, long time ago and maybe I did pony up that much.
It is an unfortunate reality in many places, not just WSU Athletics, that the insiders and administrators too rarely listen to anyone outside their circle. "We know better" is a common mantra. Kind of like the emperor has no clothes fable. Or the WSU fable - semi gets stuck under the Stadium Way overpass. All the professionals are standing around scratching their heads. Little boy sticks his head out of a passing car. "Why don't you let the air out of the tires?". Problem solved.
(I was that little boy)
$1,000 was a bunch for us at the time also, more than we had been giving back then. As I recall, they allowed us to spread it out over five years, which is likely why you have forgotten about the larger amount. It did ease the "pain" of the larger donation that way.
I'm not a Marbut apologist, but he was the 3rd small time coach in a row hired by WSU. Farrington came from some CC, I think Mooney came from North Idaho College? Both of them had bigtime losing records.
Marbut took us to the NCAA's twice, nearly winning the subregional against Arkansas, and had a .505 overall record as WSU coach. Competed in league, was 2nd and 3rd in the Pac-10/12 in those NCAA years. Not quite sure how you equate that to him being a worse hire than Wulff or who would argue that point.
And WSU was 24-30 and 29-27 in Marbut's last 2 years. And that got him fired! So I don't know that you can blame all of Lees' struggles to date on Marbut's recruiting. As I recall, Lees did kind of pull a Wulff-like purge when he first came in. And his 3rd year was worse than the first 2, even with his highly ranked 2016 class. That class what what - #28?
Lees' resume was impressive, and I hope he gets it together. 2019 will be an important year. IMHO, with the top high schoolers and college juniors going pro, Baseball should be a 3-4 year turnaround project as opposed to 5-ish for Football?
https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.si...ments/2019/2/13/2019_Baseball_Media_Guide.pdf
Didn't Marbut get in Moos' doghouse after publicly complaining (and rightfully so) about the lack of progress on a clubhouse? It may have been that as much as his winning percentage that cost him his job. I always liked Donnie...he was good to my son who was not a D-1 prospect but still gave him some of his valuable time and attention when we visited WSU. I think Marty Lees is better equipped to turn the program around. This is a critical year. I hope Lees gets at least as much time and patience as Kent has received.
Glad Cougar
I would give Sterk a C+. His biggest "lacks" were leadership, charisma, and the possession of a classic CYA corporate mentality. He did many things reasonably well, but really could not be considered either great or fully competent in many (any?) categories.
As someone who’s in management for a Fortune 500 company, the bean counters are necessary. However, when a bean counter gets into a position of authority (President/CEO), it usually doesn’t turn out very well for the organization.....And to Loyal’s point.... Lawyers are a bunch of “blood suckers”.
He didn't value charisma in a lot of his hires as well. Doba, Wulff, Bone, etc, had the personality of a turnip.
The Times "gotcha" article about Marbut's lies on his resume also details him stealing from his previous employer (and the taxpayers) by renting out Edmonds CC baseball field to others. And other low level shakedown efforts.
That type of behavior is pretty typical in the local baseball subculture (you'd be surprised what some of the local HS baseball coaches are doing) but a no-no in a state audit.
If he is "spraying umps" (got suspended for series), no longer winning, complaining about money (but with a past history of "theft" from his previous employer), and wasn't hired by the current AD no wonder his number was up.
He also had that weird car accident on Stadium Way. On the way to a game if I remember correctly. No evidence that there was alcohol involved. That may have been before using cell phones while driving was prohibited.
A few recollections from the years in question about issues raised by others in this thread:
The rowing facility was funded primarily by a designated six-figure donation from a couple who had a special interest in that sport.
I believe WSU had just boosted Price’s contract in the lean financial year preceding the year he left. They were in no position to compete with the Alabama offer. He was said to have made approximately $960,000 the year he left including incentives ($60,000 for the “coaching” job he insisted on doing at the Rose Bowl while he was preoccupied with managing Alabama recruiting efforts, IIRC). Doba donated $100,000 of his first year’s salary on the condition that it be divided amongst the assistants who stayed.
Donors contributed to a special fund set up by Sterk to boost Tony’s salary to seven figures to try to keep him in Pullman. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to keep him.
At WSU, Sterk was charged with administering the athletic department in the best interest of all sports and all student athletes, within the budget. He is well thought of by many across the collegiate athletic community, partly because of the overall job he was able to do at WSU with limited resources. San Diego State seemed sorry to lose him, and Missouri seemed glad to get him at a seven-figure annual salary including incentives.
The rowing facility was funded primarily by a designated six-figure donation from a couple who had a special interest in that sport.
I believe WSU had just boosted Price’s contract in the lean financial year preceding the year he left. They were in no position to compete with the Alabama offer. He was said to have made approximately $960,000 the year he left including incentives ($60,000 for the “coaching” job he insisted on doing at the Rose Bowl while he was preoccupied with managing Alabama recruiting efforts, IIRC). Doba donated $100,000 of his first year’s salary on the condition that it be divided amongst the assistants who stayed.
Donors contributed to a special fund set up by Sterk to boost Tony’s salary to seven figures to try to keep him in Pullman. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to keep him.
At WSU, Sterk was charged with administering the athletic department in the best interest of all sports and all student athletes, within the budget. He is well thought of by many across the collegiate athletic community, partly because of the overall job he was able to do at WSU with limited resources. San Diego State seemed sorry to lose him, and Missouri seemed glad to get him at a seven-figure annual salary including incentives.
As a college AD you have 3 things you have to do well. Raise money, hire great coaches, manage the budget. The more money you raise, the easier it is to hire right and manage the budget. Sterk was good at 1 of them.
Well that is quite interesting. If I understand it anyway - I've been told that my reading comprehension is limited. Thanks HCoug!
Moos had something else going for him. People want to work for/with him. People will take his call and meet him. Sterk not so much.
Your 3 criteria did not include whether people would take his call.
Fund raise
Hire coaches
Manage budget.
Actually, Observer, the "Hire Coaches" category directly relates to whether a coaching candidate would take your call. Just sayin'.
I'm not Ma Bell, but I'm pretty sure that CML would have taken Sterk's call if Sterk had still been AD.
INFIDEL!!! Only the Great and Powerful MOOS and his powers of persuasion could have made that happen. A magic Oz phone that only annointed ones are allowed to dial.
Don't look behind the curtain.
Sure. And hung up when Sterk offered $650,000 per year.
In reality, Leach's agent would have said no before any direct communication took place.
Why would Sterk have only offered 650k for an experienced coach ?
You always compare what Moos did like borrowing money for a house. A mortgage if you will. But only in the 2000’s would we not look at the financials of such an investment, and even in the hey day of Prime they didn’t look at the potential future of income like they did with the TV revenue that has fallen short.
Am I opposed to debt? Not really, only when other programs get funding cut because of that debt.
OK. Sterk rubs some nickles together and comes up with $700,000.
I suggest a mulligan on the rest of your post. The regents approved the bond issue. The bonds were issued. The debt is being paid. The university covered the deficit along with things like opening the new medical school with cash reserves.
So why the budget cuts ? Why the drama . If the debt isn’t an issue why is Schultz cutting back and why is Chun in need of more donors ?
C'mon Ed. We are talking about a University Athletics department and by extension a state government, not the US government.
Sure. Moos gets the win cause the football coach he hired wasnt the worst BCS coach of all time.
What program has been cut? You said you don't care unless a program has been cut.
What's wrong with using cash reserves to build facilities and open a medical school?
I remember thinking that was a strange move. Was it Sterk or Floyd that didn't have confidence he could hire a football coach?
Ferris, over the years it has seemed to me that when an organization is hiring someone and performance is the only selection criteria, his/her boss and their boss are usually the entire "search committee".
On the other hand, when performance is not the sole criteria and politics in any/all forms is a significant factor in the final choice, those involved often resort to using a search committee. By diffusing the responsibility, those interested in covering their behinds often feel that they are diffusing any potential blame.
On the other hand, when performance is not the sole criteria and politics in any/all forms is a significant factor in the final choice, those involved often resort to using a search committee. By diffusing the responsibility, those interested in covering their behinds often feel that they are diffusing any potential blame.
Ken Cassavant was head of the search committee.
Moos was a consultant who contacted the Black Coaches Association (they provided the name of the OU offense coordinator Kevin Sumlin)
Bill Doba was on the search committee and brought in Brady Hoke (then Ball St coach).
Jim Walden did an initial Claude Rains about the Doba firetirement. Then led the initial press offensive against Mike Price (who Jim Sterk also didnt want back).
Then started campaigning hard for a coach who a year earlier had lost to Central Washington University.