We have a rare opportunity as WSU fans

[dgibbons]

I'm not talking about a shot at the playoffs, or a Rose Bowl berth. I'm talking about a second chance.

I'm going to post this article a second time. Wilner and Chun discuss the 2001-2003 run that resulted in exactly jack squat being reinvested into Athletics. Instead of capitalizing on the best run in school history the administration decided to rest on its laurels.

We're faced with an ever more rare opportunity- a second chance. WSU can take a huge step forward here. We can't blow this.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/11...GkJTpwpFJHPdX4zuOHvRRwD_CpZUbF4FJ_bqPIBAY596M

 

[ttowncoug]

Thankfully we have leadership in place that understands we need to invest in our programs.

Sterk and Rawlins were ignorant and arrogant and just assumed the success Price had would just continue. 2 of the worst names in WSU athletics history, IMO. Sterk gets an asterisk for the Bennett hire -- although I think Dick initiated that discussion -- but "wronged that right" by hiring Bone.

 

[Cougatron]

I’ve told people on here before that nothing...absolutely nothing scares the sh*t out of UW than parity.

Building WSU up is the ultimate revenge against the Huskies and we are on our way to doing it. It’s a great opportunity and Bill Moos paved the way for this.

We took a lot of debt gambled on a quarky Pirate coach and are now poised to reap the benefits, but we must continue to build and build.

The debt service will be paid off sooner and quicker the more we donate and we can do a lot of tremendous things in the future.

 

[Observer11]

WSU's lack of 'progress' was solely on V. Lane Rawlins. Period. He held the purse strings and instead built his edifice golf course with money that should have gone into the stadium at the time. Now, the golf course is awesome, no doubt about it - but his spending priorities were just whack. He lost the best coach to date because of his penny pinching soul too -over a few hundred thousand for assistants.

Sterk did his job as instructed by his boss -and that was V. Lane. Balance the budget or GTFO. Sterk did that. In subsequent stops at SDSU and Mizzou, Sterk has spent big on facilities and coaches. His bosses supported him in that. The decade from hell was solely on V. Lane's shoulders.

Don't even get me started on the debacle of athletes being NCAA eligible and getting denied admissions to the school. Lawrence Ball, anyone?

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

WSU's lack of 'progress' was solely on V. Lane Rawlins. Period. He held the purse strings and instead built his edifice golf course with money that should have gone into the stadium at the time. Now, the golf course is awesome, no doubt about it - but his spending priorities were just whack. He lost the best coach to date because of his penny pinching soul too -over a few hundred thousand for assistants.

Sterk did his job as instructed by his boss -and that was V. Lane. Balance the budget or GTFO. Sterk did that. In subsequent stops at SDSU and Mizzou, Sterk has spent big on facilities and coaches. His bosses supported him in that. The decade from hell was solely on V. Lane's shoulders.

Don't even get me started on the debacle of athletes being NCAA eligible and getting denied admissions to the school. Lawrence Ball, anyone?

Rawlins and his politics were a bit before my time of caring about anything other than wins and loses, but I was under the impression that he was staunchly of the opinion that schools are schools and not athletic vehicles, and that pretty much WSU would be just as fine with zero sports on campus. "Necessary evil" I supposed would be a good way to put it. Not sure if that's 100% correct, but that was my understanding.

 

[Cougatron]

Rawlins and his politics were a bit before my time of caring about anything other than wins and loses, but I was under the impression that he was staunchly of the opinion that schools are schools and not athletic vehicles, and that pretty much WSU would be just as fine with zero sports on campus. "Necessary evil" I supposed would be a good way to put it. Not sure if that's 100% correct, but that was my understanding.

Indeed he was an economist turned University Administrator.

I have a lot of issues with his thoughts on economics as well as being an administrator.

His economic ideas are good for labor, but terrible for growth. Absolutely awful for growth.

If you really want to see growth you have to build and open up markets. He didn’t know how to do that, and honestly his views are basically the classic cost cutting vs entrepreneur mindset.

Cost cutters like Rawlins never see growth because they think growth is attributed to operating lean and investing in people (read general labor) they are afraid of risk and are extremely conservative economically.

An entrepreneur on the other hand is not afraid of risk and isn’t afraid to break new ground.

And this is why cities like Seattle / San Francisco are wealthy, and other places are not.

Entrepreneurial growth can create chain reactions for opportunity.

Boeing > Microsoft > Starbucks > Amazon

Hewlett-Packard > Apple > Google > Uber

 

[ShockandAweWSU]

I'm sold on Chun...between having all the sports teams over at his house for dinner to bringing more big donors on board. The guy is a stud.

 

[Cougsocal]

I'm not talking about a shot at the playoffs, or a Rose Bowl berth. I'm talking about a second chance.

I'm going to post this article a second time. Wilner and Chun discuss the 2001-2003 run that resulted in exactly jack squat being reinvested into Athletics. Instead of capitalizing on the best run in school history the administration decided to rest on its laurels.

We're faced with an ever more rare opportunity- a second chance. WSU can take a huge step forward here. We can't blow this.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/11...GkJTpwpFJHPdX4zuOHvRRwD_CpZUbF4FJ_bqPIBAY596M

Spoken like a typical dotard AD -- legacy over reality. I'd rather spend the money on securing a proven winning basketball, baseball and/or track coach than 10 million on a baseball club house. Bring in a winner, then build to take it to the next level.

Does anyone really think that the day Price left, had we put 100 million into facilities, thing would been significantly different under Doba and Wulff? A career assistant and a douche, who were hired on the cheap. If you do, you must also agree that our priority should be on building, not retaining Leach, because basically you believe any idiot can win, if you have top notch facilities.

I ask you, how many Pac-12 coaches have been canned since the the facilities war began? Who went out a made "a splash" coaching hire? Who relied on the facility upgrades over coaching?

Now imagine if we had replaced Price with Leach, don't you think the winning would have continued and the nightmare would have been avoided? Facilities are salt and pepper, the program enhancer, your coach is and will always be the prime rib. No matter how much salt and pepper you use you can't turn Paul Wulff into prime rib. Let's not forget we won our only national championship without a track and before Mooberry was built. Why was that? Prime Rib.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

Spoken like a typical dotard AD -- legacy over reality. I'd rather spend the money on securing a proven winning basketball, baseball and/or track coach than 10 million on a baseball club house. Bring in a winner, then build to take it to the next level.

Does anyone really think that the day Price left, had we put 100 million into facilities, thing would been significantly different under Doba and Wulff? A career assistant and a douche, who were hired on the cheap. If you do, you must also agree that our priority should be on building, not retaining Leach, because basically you believe any idiot can win, if you have top notch facilities.

I ask you, how many Pac-12 coaches have been canned since the the facilities war began? Who went out a made "a splash" coaching hire? Who relied on the facility upgrades over coaching?

Now imagine if we had replaced Price with Leach, don't you think the winning would have continued and the nightmare would have been avoided? Facilities are salt and pepper, the program enhancer, your coach is and will always be the prime rib. No matter how much salt and pepper you use you can't turn Paul Wulff into prime rib. Let's not forget we won our only national championship without a track and before Mooberry was built. Why was that? Prime Rib.

Swing and a miss. It's been stated from the get go that the main reason why Leach picked WSU is because we had already demonstrated the willingness and intent to invest heavily in our facilities. If we weren't building the luxury suites project.....we wouldn't have gotten Leach. It isn't an either/or thing. You need both these days to be highly competitive.

 

[Loyal Coug]

I'm sold on Chun...between having all the sports teams over at his house for dinner to bringing more big donors on board. The guy is a stud.

Could you name some of these big donors he has brought in and the amounts of their donations?

 

[acgcoug]

Rawlins and his politics were a bit before my time of caring about anything other than wins and loses, but I was under the impression that he was staunchly of the opinion that schools are schools and not athletic vehicles, and that pretty much WSU would be just as fine with zero sports on campus. "Necessary evil" I supposed would be a good way to put it. Not sure if that's 100% correct, but that was my understanding.

Students despised him from the get go, and it didn't take long for alums to feel the same. He was terrible for athletics, and he openly hated the Greek system. I'm not sure if you remember, but he started the campaign to end the term "Wazzu". Floyd was a breath of fresh air the moment he set foot on campus, and the students + alums loved him. He embraced everyone, and everyone embraced him back.

Oh, and I'll just leave this here:



and another one:

https://pac-12.com/videos/celebrating-life-late-washington-state-president-elson-s-floyd

 

[425cougfan]

Wow, lots to respond to here. Rather than quoting, here goes:

1. Chun seems to get it, but I haven't seen any big donors. CAF donations are up about 30% year over year, but it's hard to separate out how much of that is due to anything Chun is doing versus the success the football team is having and/or Moos leaving (I heard some people say they are going to donate more now that Moos is gone ... seems odd to me, but I heard it). This isn't to say Chun isn't doing a good job ... I think he is, and I think his view on things is good. Just speaking to the "big donors" point.

2. Re facilities vs. proven winners, that's a false dichotomy. Leach and any other proven winner wouldn't have come here if the FOB and stadium upgrades weren't being built at the time. I think it is more important at WSU than just about anywhere to get a proven winner with name recognition for recruiting purposes, but they aren't coming, and/or wouldn't stay or succeed, if you saddle them with facilities in Pullman well below the Pac-12 water mark. Even if you think Moos could have chosen a bit better, I still think Ernie Kent is a great example of the kind of "proven winner" we realistically could get in Pullman with bad facilities. We see how well that is working out for his recruiting and performance.

3. As much as the post-Price era sucked, the good news now is that the very magnitude of how horrendous that was, and how clearly the school screwed that up, may help the school avoid screwing it up again. There's a very clear, pretty much inarguable example of how letting a winning coach walk over some trifling money, and/or letting the program otherwise fall behind, can be ruinous. If we didn't have such a stark example, it might be harder to convince some now of the need to maintain investments going forward. Not glad we had to go through that, but at least now we may reap the benefit of it.

 

[Loyal Coug]

Thankfully we have leadership in place that understands we need to invest in our programs.

Sterk and Rawlins were ignorant and arrogant and just assumed the success Price had would just continue. 2 of the worst names in WSU athletics history, IMO. .

I don't share your opinion that Sterk was arrogant. Rawlins, yeah. And on Price, I don't know the full/true story about asst pay, etc. But didn't he go out and actively lobby for the Alabama job? BUt whatever, I don't care now.

Students despised him from the get go, and it didn't take long for alums to feel the same. He was terrible for athletics, and he openly hated the Greek system. I'm not sure if you remember, but he started the campaign to end the term "Wazzu". Floyd was a breath of fresh air the moment he set foot on campus, and the students + alums loved him. He embraced everyone, and everyone embraced him back.

Oh, and I'll just leave this here:.

I openly hate the Greek system too, but I'm not a bad guy. The Wazzu thing was stupid and handled so poorly. On ESF - man the video sure shows how bad of shape he was in at the end, as compared to earlier years when he was getting chubby. 99% of us had no idea, but he was literally dying as he willed the Medical School through the legislature. Go get a coloscopy. I had one and it was fun. Well, not that much fun. In fact, there are a few posters here that I would love to personally administer a coloscopy to. Except with a regular camera with one of those big telephoto lenses!

 

[acgcoug]

I don't share your opinion that Sterk was arrogant. Rawlins, yeah. And on Price, I don't know the full/true story about asst pay, etc. But didn't he go out and actively lobby for the Alabama job? BUt whatever, I don't care now.



I openly hate the Greek system too, but I'm not a bad guy. The Wazzu thing was stupid and handled so poorly. On ESF - man the video sure shows how bad of shape he was in at the end, as compared to earlier years when he was getting chubby. 99% of us had no idea, but he was literally dying as he willed the Medical School through the legislature. Go get a coloscopy. I had one and it was fun. Well, not that much fun. In fact, there are a few posters here that I would love to personally administer a coloscopy to. Except with a regular camera with one of those big telephoto lenses!

There are also many good people that openly hate athletes and sports/teams, but as a president of a university, it is your job to support all groups affiliated with the school. Even the band geeks and chess club nerds like yourself deserved support....

 

[Cougsocal]

Swing and a miss. It's been stated from the get go that the main reason why Leach picked WSU is because we had already demonstrated the willingness and intent to invest heavily in our facilities. If we weren't building the luxury suites project.....we wouldn't have gotten Leach. It isn't an either/or thing. You need both these days to be highly competitive.

What arse are you pulling this out of? You mean the same man who couldn't get an interview with Arizona, was mocked at Maryland, picked WSU over whom exactly? Birds cherp. We were both desperate. Leach had been out of work for nearly two years with no job prospects. We were in the shitter. Moos was willing to woo, overpay some and the marriage was made. Talk about "deciding" to go to WSU because of commitment to upgrading, assumes that we were competing for his services, which simply wasn't the case. It was us, or at least another year of unemployment for Leach because he had committed the cardinal sin and was being informally blackballed.

USC has the worst facilities in the conference (possibly OSU these days, tough call) and it is in the worst neigborhor in LA. With Leach they win a national championship in year 1 or 2. So much for, "you need both great facilities and a coach to be competitive." The nicer LA school, with better facilities, in the rich neighborhood, near the beach, can't touch USC in football. Why is that? Facilities? Hell no, it is John McKay's legency and UCLA's lack thereof. McKay could have gone anywhere after his 1st National Championship 1962, but USC was smart and focused on retaining him, not building some momument. McKay was making 400K a year in 40 years ago for god sake.

Having actually worked in athletics, ADs sell the benefits of facilities like snake oil. The truth about winning is, it is all about hiring and retention (at which WSU utterly sucks, and sadly because of gross overspending will continue because of debt). It isn't sexy, but it is the cold hard truth.

 

[fingerdisco]

Could you name some of these big donors he has brought in and the amounts of their donations?

In classic Ed style, can you name or provide some factual evidence that indicates Chun is not accomplishing things...things that don’t necessarily make a huge splash (e.g., hiring a big name coach) but get done behind office doors and are important to the position but aren’t advertised or made privy to schmucks like us?

 

[Loyal Coug]

You mean the same man who couldn't get an interview at Arizona, pick WSU over who exactly? We were both desperate.

I don't know that CML was "desperate", but your point is well taken. CML didn't have to dodge a lot of AD's cars as he cycled up to meet with Moos. Of course, then there is Maryland, who made the classic blunder by not hiring CML because his interview was "bizarre". Fools. And they know it.

I'm sold on Chun...between having all the sports teams over at his house for dinner to bringing more big donors on board. The guy is a stud.

In classic Ed style, can you name or provide some factual evidence that indicates Chun is not accomplishing things...things that don’t necessarily make a huge splash (e.g., hiring a big name coach) but get done behind office doors and are important to the position but aren’t advertised or made privy to schmucks like us?

I hope you are correct, and that he is accomplishing things at $650K/year. But I was replying to the above post that stated he was "bringing more big donors on board". In that context, I don't think I was required to prove that he wasn't. Because no big donations have been announced, which they normally are.

 

[fingerdisco]

I don't know that CML was "desperate", but your point is well taken. CML didn't have to dodge a lot of AD's cars as he cycled up to meet with Moos. Of course, then there is Maryland, who made the classic blunder by not hiring CML because his interview was "bizarre". Fools. And they know it.





I hope you are correct, and that he is accomplishing things at $650K/year. But I was replying to the above post that stated he was "bringing more big donors on board". In that context, I don't think I was required to prove that he wasn't. Because no big donations have been announced, which they normally are.

Well you’ve said nothing good about the man, so presumably you have insider knowledge that shows he’s doing a bad job that you could share with the rest of us

 

[Loyal Coug]

Well you’ve said nothing good about the man, so presumably you have insider knowledge that shows he’s doing a bad job that you could share with the rest of us

I have no knowledge. But it slays me to read that he is doing such great (but unidentified) things after almost a year, did I mention at $650K/year? Sorry, but this great hire - what did Schulz promise, I forget the exact words - jaw-dropping or some superlative - needs to earn his $650K and until he does I will pick on him. I have that right as an American. And WHEN he does I will say good, you are earning your $650K finally. So there.

 

[dgibbons]

I have no knowledge.

You don’t say....

 

[ShockandAweWSU]

You got to love these diehard fans who dont follow Chun or the CAF on Twitter and wonder how fundraising is going, or even better think it's going poorly. Stop being negative nancy and realize Chun is doing a bang up job. The man is working his ass off.

 

[ShockandAweWSU]

Btw....for those that dont realize it....everytime a big pledge or a small pledge is made its on the CAF twitter page.

 

[Coug90]

I'm sold on Chun...between having all the sports teams over at his house for dinner to bringing more big donors on board. The guy is a stud.

Me too. I don’t understand why people have issues with him. I’m impressed so far.

 

[Loyal Coug]

You got to love these diehard fans who dont follow Chun or the CAF on Twitter and wonder how fundraising is going, or even better think it's going poorly. Stop being negative nancy and realize Chun is doing a bang up job. The man is working his ass off.

Btw....for those that dont realize it....everytime a big pledge or a small pledge is made its on the CAF twitter page.

Well I don't do Twitter or Facebook. I've asked you to document all these big donations you speak of. Feel free to summarize them here or link them or whatever and I will be happy go look at them. Seriously. I want him to do a good job. Show me and shut me up.

 

[CrimsonDisciple]

Spoken like a typical dotard AD -- legacy over reality. I'd rather spend the money on securing a proven winning basketball, baseball and/or track coach than 10 million on a baseball club house. Bring in a winner, then build to take it to the next level.

Does anyone really think that the day Price left, had we put 100 million into facilities, thing would been significantly different under Doba and Wulff? A career assistant and a douche, who were hired on the cheap. If you do, you must also agree that our priority should be on building, not retaining Leach, because basically you believe any idiot can win, if you have top notch facilities.

I ask you, how many Pac-12 coaches have been canned since the the facilities war began? Who went out a made "a splash" coaching hire? Who relied on the facility upgrades over coaching?

Now imagine if we had replaced Price with Leach, don't you think the winning would have continued and the nightmare would have been avoided? Facilities are salt and pepper, the program enhancer, your coach is and will always be the prime rib. No matter how much salt and pepper you use you can't turn Paul Wulff into prime rib. Let's not forget we won our only national championship without a track and before Mooberry was built. Why was that? Prime Rib.

Could Leonardo Da Vinci have painted the Mona Lisa without a canvas?

Our training table, weight room, stadium, enhance winning. They are the canvas to the masterpiece we are seeing. That is a fact that can’t be denied.

 

[dgibbons]

Well I don't do Twitter or Facebook. I've asked you to document all these big donations you speak of. Feel free to summarize them here or link them or whatever and I will be happy go look at them. Seriously. I want him to do a good job. Show me and shut me up.

Get on Twitter and do your own work.

 

[Loyal Coug]

Get on Twitter and do your own work.[/QUOTE

No, I don't have to.

 

[dgibbons]

No, I don't have to.

Ok. Then refrain from asking others to provide information for you if you’re unwilling to look for it yourself. You’re turning into Ed.

 

[fingerdisco]

No, I don't have to.

 

[95coug]

I don’t care who you are, that’s funny right there.

 

[Loyal Coug]

Ok. Then refrain from asking others to provide information for you if you’re unwilling to look for it yourself. You’re turning into Ed.

Ok, gibby. Just for you I went and found the CAF Twitter page. Went back a full month - took me about 10 minutes to wade through all the nonsense. Geezus do people have nothing better to do than tweet tweet tweet?

I saw one $10K donation, one $25K donation, and that Hogg matching challenge - he ended up giving $15K. That's $50K of "big" donations in one month. Gee - not nearly enough to cover Chun's salary+benefits for that month. Let alone the salaries of the CAF gang.

So, I did my homework, Mom, as requested. You and Shock and others feel free to alert me when more of these massive donations hit and I will run over to Twitter to check them out. In the meantime, I will move on from this topic with my meh opinion of Chun intact.