Pruning my rant from a recruit thread

[Buffnik]

(This was in reaction to a track athlete committing somewhere else for football.)

As much as anything, this is where not making a bigger commitment to the CU track & field program hurts football.

It's ridiculous that the funding for the academic building development of the East Campus is eliminating Potts Field but the money raised for the project didn't include the money for new T&F facilities. It's ridiculous that Indoor T&F is relegated to Balch - a facility that was poor 30 years ago and has been allowed to fall apart since. In Bohn's recent statements, he acknowledged that Balch wasn't a facility that we could continue using but also said he wasn't sure that building a new Indoor facility made sense because CU rarely hosts an Indoor event. Ummmm.... earth to Mike... CU doesn't host because of the horrible facility, not because college and high school meets wouldn't be able to attract anyone to come to Boulder. I'm past the point of being annoyed at some of the **** with the way CU runs things. **** it. Let's just all make a bunch of money so we can take over. I'll take the damn AD job and make all the decisions through Allbuffs polls. Things would be 100x better with CU athletics.

issed4:

 

[GoonieBuff]

Thanks for the rant. Many of us in the track community have felt this way for years. CU has made it difficult to support the track program, and I hope this changes, but I'm not holding my breath. It's a shame that the AD hasn't done more to support the program, especially with all of the elite, nationally recognized talent currently in the high school ranks in CO.

 

[aik]

Not to mention our T&F and XC programs are doing a tremendous job and winning titles with what we've currently got. Time to raise the profile, especially since there's already a lot of homegrown talent here. Baylor is consistently getting some of the best track athletes from the state of Colorado. I'd heard before there was a connection between the Baylor and Valor staffs. Big surprise. We could be the dynasty of the NCAA in this sport if we had a commitment to excellence including facilities that could potentially make an already great university sport the leader in the nation.

 

[NashBuff]

Are we really required to have a T&F facility in order to have a T&F team?

Perhaps they will put the T&F at the new soccer/lacrosse stadium to be built over the practice fields after we build the IPF.

 

[Buffnik]

So, while I was annoyed last night I decided to look up why CU dropped a nationally ranked baseball team, nationally ranked gymnastics programs, swimming & diving, and wrestling back in 1980. Title IX was coming into play, but that wasn't the main driver for this. The main driver was that there was $1 million in AD debt. Seriously. And while I'll never understand Bohn dropping a nationally ranked men's tennis program in 2006, this issue of not being able to raise AD funds to even a modestly average level at CU is a decades old problem.

And while I like that women's lacrosse has been added and I like that women's sand volleyball looks to be coming, I'm getting sick of how out of balance things are toward women's sports. It's clear that politics and the opportunity to win a Title IX excellence award is more important than doing what will get fans excited. We are going to have volleyball, soccer, tennis and lacrosse programs on the women's side without having the men's equivalent. That's ridiculous.

 

[absinthe]

So, while I was annoyed last night I decided to look up why CU dropped a nationally ranked baseball team, nationally ranked gymnastics programs, swimming & diving, and wrestling back in 1980. Title IX was coming into play, but that wasn't the main driver for this. The main driver was that there was $1 million in AD debt. Seriously. And while I'll never understand Bohn dropping a nationally ranked men's tennis program in 2006, this issue of not being able to raise AD funds to even a modestly average level at CU is a decades old problem.

And while I like that women's lacrosse has been added and I like that women's sand volleyball looks to be coming, I'm getting sick of how out of balance things are toward women's sports. It's clear that politics and the opportunity to win a Title IX excellence award is more important than doing what will get fans excited. We are going to have volleyball, soccer, tennis and lacrosse programs on the women's side without having the men's equivalent. That's ridiculous.

You've pointed this out a couple of times but we actually arent in great title IX balance we need a program that chews up scholly's for women and doesnt cost much, LAX is a start becuase of the home grown tallent but we likely need another before we tack on several mens sports.

Also all of those men's sports you just listed are huge money sucks if you want to compete not just field a team.

 

[Buffnik]

You've pointed this out a couple of times but we actually arent in great title IX balance we need a program that chews up scholly's for women and doesnt cost much, LAX is a start becuase of the home grown tallent but we likely need another before we tack on several mens sports.

Also all of those men's sports you just listed are huge money sucks if you want to compete not just field a team.

Why do we "need" to do that, abs? Is there a penalty if we don't have the same number of scholarships awarded for women's sports as men's sports?

Look at New Mexico.

Men's sports include all the ones we have plus baseball, tennis and soccer. The women have all that we do plus softball, volleyball and swimming & diving. So the latter two take up about 30 scholarships versus the 85 from football. Are federal lawyers, the NCAA, women's rights groups and an outraged public beating down the doors of their athletic department?

This bull**** has been shoveled by the CU AD for so long that we accept it. The real issue is that CU is cheap and politically driven. All they care about is football and men's basketball since they make money. And then it's a matter of trying to be the most PC AD in the nation on Title IX with the other sports offerings. I swear, we'll see women's rowing before we see men's lacrosse.

 

[Swish]

We are going to have volleyball, soccer, tennis and lacrosse programs on the women's side without having the men's equivalent. That's ridiculous.

Yes but then haters would argue we need a Lady Buffs lingerie football team to balance the football gap. :wink2:

All kidding aside the state of CU athletics could really use someone with vision and some deep pockets. I've been reluctant to skewer Bohn up to this point but I don't think he has the tools the department needs in the long run.

 

[Creebuzz]

I find the fundraising at CU to be a joke.

As an example, I live in a town of 10,000 people. We have a little museum that stores old cars. It looked like this...




Fundraising kicked in, $20 million was raised, and this was just completed..

 

[Gold]

Diversity, I believe that's an old wooden ship...

A week ago Benson said they're restructuring the fundraising. The fundraisers were relegated to a non-profit group that didn't report to the university, and they thought they were doing a great job. Now they're under the administration and report to CU and Bohn.

I don't know how they let that go on for so long, but that's the deal. Saw this from their FAQ:

Q: What is the CU Foundation?
A: Established in 1967, the University of Colorado Foundation (the CU Foundation) is an independent, privately governed nonprofit corporation whose mission is to support the University of Colorado. Foundation staff are located on all of the CU campuses, in the central offices in Boulder and in the university president’s office.


Q: Why is the Foundation separate from the University?
A: Having an independent, nonprofit foundation results in greater fundraising efficiencies and benefits for the University by assuring proper stewardship of private gifts, providing flexibility and responsiveness, managing assets strategically, engaging volunteers as informed advocates, and ensuring confidentiality of donor records.

Going to need to revise those first two questions!

 

[absinthe]

Why do we "need" to do that, abs? Is there a penalty if we don't have the same number of scholarships awarded for women's sports as men's sports?

Look at New Mexico.

Men's sports include all the ones we have plus baseball, tennis and soccer. The women have all that we do plus softball, volleyball and swimming & diving. So the latter two take up about 30 scholarships versus the 85 from football. Are federal lawyers, the NCAA, women's rights groups and an outraged public beating down the doors of their athletic department?

This bull**** has been shoveled by the CU AD for so long that we accept it. The real issue is that CU is cheap and politically driven. All they care about is football and men's basketball since they make money. And then it's a matter of trying to be the most PC AD in the nation on Title IX with the other sports offerings. I swear, we'll see women's rowing before we see men's lacrosse.

Let me see if i can find the data our imbalance is something like 50 currently.

Isnt women's crew the sport you've advocated on here previously as a cheap solution to this issue? dont make me find those posts.

 

[buffaholic]

Absinthe is correct. One of the cost issues remains the out-of-state tuition our AD gets billed which is bogus.

The problem with Title IX is that Football eats up 85 scholarships, while also paying for every other sport. I would love to see an amendment as follows:

Sports that break even do not count against Title IX. They are considered businesses. All other sports that are "funded" by the University (i.e. do not break even) count against Title IX.
Thus the University would "hand out" $$$ equally. That would fix it to me. Use a 3 or 5 year sliding window for financials.

That would essentially free 85 scholarships. It would probably (in practice) allow us to add a Mens sport and eliminate a couple silly women's sports, and the AD would be much more financially healthy.

 

[Buffnik]

Let me see if i can find the data our imbalance is something like 50 currently.

Isnt women's crew the sport you've advocated on here previously as a cheap solution to this issue? dont make me find those posts.

I've been all over women's crew because it's cheap, 20 scholarships, and I don't have to pretend to care about it. We could do MLAX and MTEN if we added that. I recognize the politics. But if you look at what CU offers the emphasis has been on being frugal white knights instead of on winning championships and giving fans what we want.

 

[sackman]

Absinthe is correct. One of the cost issues remains the out-of-state tuition our AD gets billed which is bogus.

The problem with Title IX is that Football eats up 85 scholarships, while also paying for every other sport. I would love to see an amendment as follows:

Sports that break even do not count against Title IX. They are considered businesses. All other sports that are "funded" by the University (i.e. do not break even) count against Title IX.
Thus the University would "hand out" $$$ equally. That would fix it to me. Use a 3 or 5 year sliding window for financials.

That would essentially free 85 scholarships. It would probably (in practice) allow us to add a Mens sport and eliminate a couple silly women's sports, and the AD would be much more financially healthy.

The only "silly" women's sport that CU has right now is Tennis. It's also a Pac 12 sport, so it won't be going anywhere.


And this isn't directed at you, Holic, so please don't take it that way. But as long as we're on rants...

Bohn has a lot on his plate right now. If he manages to pull of this fundraising campaign and get the $250MM or so that he needs for the facility upgrades, he'll have to be considered the best AD we've ever had. What kind of facility upgrades did Marolt get done? The Dal Ward Center is it. People talk about Marolt like he was the pinnacle of AD competence. Dude didn't hire McCartney or Barry but managed to benefit from their success. What did he do with it? Folsom had a capacity of 52,000 +/- when he got the job. A national championship, three conference titles and a Heisman Trophy winner later, the capacity of Folsom was ... 52,000 +/-. Swell, thanks Bill. Crowder got the CEC built and promptly killed off a bunch of sports. Tharp got the Club level and luxury boxes built. What Bohn is attempting dwarfs all those efforts combined. And yet here we are bitching about it. Good Lord, people.

As much as I'd love to have all the issues with the athletic department fixed all at once, that's simply not going to happen. We all have said - repeatedly - that facility upgrades for the Football program have to be a priority. Guess what? That's the priority right now. What more do you want from the guy? He's fired two incompetent football coaches (that, admitedly, he hired). He's tireless about promoting the athletics at CU. I've seen the guy in the community.

The Bohn criticism is unwarranted, IMO. The guy had a huge job to do when he got here, and the things he's done already are impressive. Because the football team sucks, it's assumed that he's no good. Meanwhile, the basketball teams both made the NCAA tournament, the CC team has a two-year conference championship streak, and the Ski team is national champions.

Yeah, the guy needs to go. Clearly he's just not cut out for the job. Honestly, people.

 

[sackman]

I should add that just because he's done some good things, that doesn't mean we should be complacent. Maybe that's the point of Nik's rant. I don't know. I know that even after we finish this facility project, there will be another one, and another one after that. Big time college athletics is an ever-changing landscape. Eventually, we're going to need to have a baseball team at CU. Not because we really need one, but because without one, we are considered second tier in the Pac 12. The Pac 12 network is going to want programming, and we'll have to do our part. But that stuff is way, way down the road. Probably 20 years at least. The mistakes of the past will take decades to remedy.

 

[pcbuff]

Bohn made an aggressive extension on Hawk after a couple good wins. He then proceeded to allow Hawk to pull the team down over a two year period that has proven very difficult to overcome. (I know many who claim inside information indicate this was forced by Benson). Football drives an AD. Bohn has not faced consequences of the decisions he made concerning Hawk. If Mac doesn’t turn the program around in short order, I believe Bohn’s football decisions will cost him his position.I’ve tempered my opinion from when I called on him to be urine bombed the day of the second Hawk extension.

Note how many former CU runners are pro for Nike or Addidas. (Supporting Niks frustration)​

 

[Quattro]

The extension is a good example of hindsight being 20/20

 

[Buffnik]

Back to the motivation for the OP...

Name another NCAA D1 member that would do a campus development plan that removed its soccer and T&F fields/facilities but didn't include a plan and funding for relocating them.

Name another NCAA D1member that competes and trains in a facility like Balch.

This is the **** that drives me crazy about CU.

 

[boydbuff]

I have to admit I am with sackman on this and have been on record numerous times to support Bohn. As he said the BB programs are rocking big time and certainly on the way up. He had some kind of important role in getting us into the Pac 12 before the Big Texas was on the verge of disappearing. (While our fb team sucks donkey d**k in the Pac 12 I think we'd be hardpressed to find rational ABers to say that was a bad move).

On to football for a second. Bohn has been behind 2 of the worst hires in the history of CU football. BUT, anyone and everybody (almost) inside the football community as well as journalists, pundits and I suspect most ABers thought the Hawk was the real deal. Hard to blame Bohn for hiring the rising star of college football. Of course he extended his contract when he shouldn't have but most of the info on that was that Bohn's hand was forced.

This leads to the Embree hire. BAAAAAAAAD choice. While the Hawk choice was bad in retrospect as the football world learned the Peterson was behind BSU's recent success the Embree hire was bad from the beginning. Some of us tried to rally behind him but the football world knew he was in over his head having 0 coordinator or head coach experience, which was the same for our OC and basically for our DC too.

Again, most information we have was that Bohn's hand was forced on that one too due to the B4L and other forces. So I will give him a pass (barely) for Embree.

Will MacIntyre prove to be the 3rd time's the charm for Bohn on football coaches? I sure hope so. Some of you may recall I was the one who started the MacIntyre as HC thread so early on I was thinking he could be the guy. But time will tell. Also I'll accept that Bohn deserves some criticism for the way the whole B Jones thing went down although I put more blame on Jones himself for being an arse.

On to faciliities. Like everyone is saying and we all know, we are woefully behind in almost all sports except maybe basketball/volleyball with recent improvements. Football has to be a priority and Bohn has made it so. HOWEVER, the proof will be in the pudding if he can actually rally the troops and get the funding going. Colorado is a terrible place to raise that kind of $ for sports facilities but it can be done (hell last I knew CSU was trying to raise more than we are).

So, if he gets $ raised for facilities and if Mac turns out to be a good hire (and of course these 2 are intertwined), Bohn will have, IMHO a fantastic legacy at CU. If not, I'm all in for Nik as next AD.

P.S. Rep to Sackman for taking the less popular line.

 

[sackman]

Back to the motivation for the OP...

Name another NCAA D1 member that would do a campus development plan that removed its soccer and T&F fields/facilities but didn't include a plan and funding for relocating them.

Name another NCAA D1member that competes and trains in a facility like Balch.

This is the **** that drives me crazy about CU.

We know this - that they are planning on taking out some of the current family housing structures behind the practice fields to be used for the indoor facility. In theory, they *could* be planning on relocating the soccer fields and track facilities to the same area. They just renovated Potts Field a couple years ago. And while it remains woefully inadequate, it is light years better than what it was before. We also know that a renovation of Balch is part of the new facilities plan. So until we know exactly what that entails, I don't think we should be so quick to criticize. JMHO.

 

[Quattro]

I just don't see why we have absolutely nothing on the facilities. No drawings, no website for the goals and aspirations and other things like that. Is it really that hard to get at least those two? Schools like Houston and KSjU have them, why can't we?

 

[Duff Man]

People are still giving Bohn a complete pass for Hawkins?:rofl:

 

[Buffnik]

We know this - that they are planning on taking out some of the current family housing structures behind the practice fields to be used for the indoor facility. In theory, they *could* be planning on relocating the soccer fields and track facilities to the same area. They just renovated Potts Field a couple years ago. And while it remains woefully inadequate, it is light years better than what it was before. We also know that a renovation of Balch is part of the new facilities plan. So until we know exactly what that entails, I don't think we should be so quick to criticize. JMHO.

We know some, sacky.

Balch is in like Phase IV. There isn't a timeline.

Regarding Potts, they did renovate. 2003 is not "a couple years ago", though. For Prentup, there have been new bleachers and locker facilities go in for soccer. It actually got to be pretty nice. Soccer is a fun day.

I wasn't complaining about what we have with Potts and Prentup, I'm complaining that we're losing them and the administration didn't give a **** about it. This was dumped in the AD's lap without providing the funding for it. That's the type of thing that drives me crazy about CU.

 

[Buffnik]

People are still giving Bohn a complete pass for Hawkins?:rofl:

Tell me about it. It's irrelevant whether he was a popular hire with fans and others. What's relevant is that it was a bad hire. The person who made it needs to be accountable for that. I don't think it's a huge red mark on Bohn's resume, but the extension was highly questionable (driven by financial concerns of locking him up for cheap), the inability to fire Hawkins when it was obvious he could no longer recruit, attract quality staff or win football games was unforgivable (though again this can be blamed on finances and administrative meddling), and the hiring of someone as underqualified for the position as Embree is also unforgivable (though again this can be blamed on administrative and booster meddling).

There is so much wrong at CU that I have been patient with Bohn as he plays his political games and connives/cajoles/asskisses his way to a balanced budget, friendly relations with the CU community, basic improvements to facilities and support that got CU out of the "embarrassment to college athletics" category on a number of things, transitioning to the Pac-12, and building the basketball program.

But now we've got to look at the whole package. Bohn either delivers on a transformational facilities project for football while also delivering on facilities for the small number of other sports that allow them to compete well on a national level... or CU needs to get someone in there who can deliver on that.

 

[Gold]

People are still giving Bohn a complete pass for Hawkins?:rofl:

That was massively expensive learning curve. I'd like to say Bohn learned his lesson from hiring unorganized HC's (Hawk, Embree) to super organized (MM), but he went out and desperately tried to get Butch Jones first, who probably would have been a disaster. Bohn is going to get a lot of cred for MM but he's more lucky than smart on this one.

 

[Quattro]

That was massively expensive learning curve. I'd like to say Bohn learned his lesson from hiring unorganized HC's (Hawk, Embree) to super organized (MM), but he went out and desperately tried to get Butch Jones first, who probably would have been a disaster. Bohn is going to get a lot of cred for MM but he's more lucky than smart on this one.

Butch was Solitch's main guy

 

[slider]

There is something seriously wrong with the CU AD regarding football. There is literally no other bcs program comparable to CU that has been "down" for going on 8 years now. Something is rotten in the football program. There is no way we shouldn't be at a minimum a bowl team

 

[sackman]

I must have missed the part where we are giving Bohn a complete pass for Hawkins. Can somebody point out who, exactly, is giving Bohn a complete pass for Hawkins?

Maybe this is just one of those situations where the perfect is the enemy of the good. Nobody is claiming Bohn is perfect. I'd make the argument that he's been pretty good, though.

 

[Duff Man]

Bohn actually met Hawkins and still hired him. Yikes.

 

[slider]

Bohn's been on the job for what, 8 years? Literally accomplished nothing re: the football program.