Post by theDarkHawkReturns on Mar 21, 2016 13:59:18 GMT -6
While my profile on this site indicates I am new to the board, many of the regular posters here are familiar with my history going back to the Bruce Pearl era. I was not active here for a pretty long stretch as time became hard to find. The recent events have reignited the fire, but for reasons I wish were not the case.
I apologize for the length of this post in advance.
For those in the AD lurking these pages, and sometimes posting in disguise….well, you probably aren’t going to like what follows.
Let’s start with some quick history. UWM has been a “modern” D1 program since 1990. There was a brief D1 stint from 1973 to 1980, but that era was nothing like what D1 means now.
This brief D1 history has a direct impact on the program. Milwaukee cannot hail to the glory days long past like other programs can. For example, Marquette will always have a national championship and coaching legend to use in promoting its current program, as well they should.
That means Milwaukee can really only “look back” to the early 2000’s regarding history, tradition and legacy. That really isn’t that far back to go. We don’t have generational fans and their seemingly endless supply of money to turn to when needed, either.
The good news is that the program, in a very real sense, is still in its infancy.
The bad news is that it is also very possible to kill the program in the crib. Too many bad decisions will be enough to end this endeavor before it has the chance to mature.
Some good decisions were made early on, to be sure.
Hiring Bo Ryan was a bit of a coup, but a short lived one. Everyone knew he was merely burning time until Madison called. And call they did.
The decision to hire Bruce Pearl was a calculated risk, and one that paid off in many respects. Milwaukee reached the Sweet 16 and gained national attention for the first time ever. Pearl was a ceaseless promoter (as much of himself as the program, but you take the good with the bad sometimes), which was needed at the time.
This success gave Pearl the chance to move up, something that no Milwaukee fan should have been surprised at. Milwaukee was not, and is not today, a “destination” coaching job. Maybe when I am old and gray, this will finally change, but I doubt it.
After Pearl, the AD made what I believe was a wise choice in Rob Jeter. Rob was known as a strong recruiter, good floor coach, and solid leader for the program. He had spent years learning from a legend in Ryan, and knew how a major program was run. Unfortunately, he was not the carnival barker Pearl was and the profile of the program shrank a bit, and the on the court performance was not enough to overcome Rob’s quiet persona.
Then came the retirement of Bud and the subsequent revolving door/circular firing squad in the AD’s office. Milwaukee made one awful AD hire after another, in rapid fire succession.
Blame for this turmoil rests squarely at the feet of the Chancellors during that period. It was their responsibility to hire someone who understood, as they should have, that Athletics is more than a distraction to a major university.
Instead of following the lead of Donna Shalala in Madison who made Athletics a priority, we hired retreads, weirdoes and pencil pushers.
The most recent hire was made with input from, and the blessing of, the same brain trust that moved basketball back to the Klotsche Center (I assume because the gym at Riverside High School was already booked). How you let the guy who made that brilliant call have anything to do with hiring his replacement is beyond me, but the leadership at Milwaukee did it.
The current AD comes from arguably a lower profile program. While there, she “oversaw” men’s basketball, so her bio says. Under her “oversight”, that program was in the NCAA tournament ZERO times. They were 1 and Done in the NIT twice. Her claim to fame apparently is that she “stayed within budget”. That’s fantastic if you are running a factory. However, success in sports is rarely a measure of how well you counted the beans.
I wonder what exactly distinguished her as a candidate from the only other finalist. A man who ran an athletic department with more national championships in the last 10 years than all the D1 programs in WI for all time – combined. What exactly did she do at Northeastern, or Green Bay before that, that was more impressive than winning 9 national championships? I will let the readers ponder this and draw their own conclusions as to why she was hired…I know I have mine.
The program at Milwaukee is now at a crossroads, and making the wrong decision here may be the last nail in the coffin.
I am not anyone important. What follows is my opinion on what should be done. Feel free to rip me, per the rules of internet message board etiquette.
First, and most importantly, Milwaukee’s Chancellor needs to wake up and realize that sports, primarily men’s basketball, is the single most effective marketing tool he has at his disposal. If you want to improve the profile of the school, win on the court. It isn’t “jock centric” to understand that…it’s the reality of the world we live in. People know all about Gonzaga now not because they have a great fresh water studies program, but because they made multiple deep runs in March. Ditto Butler, VCU, and George Mason. You may hate sports, but that’s just too damn bad. If you want Milwaukee on the map, make athletic success a high priority.
Given the present situation, the Chancellor should immediately fire Braun. She is in way over her head, and her ham handed bungling of the Jeter affair should be the very last straw. She was never qualified for the position she holds, and now is demonstrating that daily. When your donors are on the record in print that they are done with you, I hope you are listening.
Make things right with your major donors and alums, and tell them you want to turn things around. Tell them you need their financial backing to make it happen. A few major donors who care can be a powerful tool for you to use (see: Strong, Richard – Marquette University). Use it. Don’t be an ivory tower elitist who abhors the jockocracy. Join us all in the real world for a little while where sports is a pretty big deal.
Go offer Paul Plinske whatever he wants to take the job, and tell him he has your full support and whatever he needs to make things work at Milwaukee. Tell him there are donors ready to commit to success and GROWTH of the program.
Next, tell Plinske that one of his first orders of business (after hiring a head basketball coach since we don’t have one anymore) is to get Milwaukee out of the Horizon League at the first possible opportunity. Being in the 18 – 20th ranked conference is a death sentence. Get into a better conference ASAP.
Marquette showed the way on this front, too. Follow their example. A better conference means more exposure, more potential to play in March, and better recruiting ability. If we stay in the Horizon, we may as well go back to DIII and stop spending all this money. Sure it’s risky, but no risk, no reward.
Next, do whatever needs to be done to get the facilities upgraded. Never, EVER, entertain playing “on-campus” as an option. Shoot anyone who even suggests it from now until the end of time. MU plays off campus, and so should Milwaukee. Students have no problem getting to bars off campus so there is no reason to think they would have trouble getting to the Panther Arena. It isn’t the distance that keeps them from games now…not winning and being small time is.
Finally, once the ball is rolling, capitalize on the momentum to finally embrace your status as the ONLY D1 baseball program in WI. Find out what it will take to partner with Zimmerman and The Rock (seriously awesome) or (less likely) the Brewers to use Miller Park as much as possible as a home stadium and get the hell out of a County Park. Having two high profile D1 programs takes Milwaukee to another level.
I realize that this is a very ambitious list of things to accomplish. I realize that it will not be easy, either.
But if the goal is for UW-Milwaukee to become a household name to people beyond your alumni, the current student base and their parents, this is what you must aspire to. No one is just going to hand you national name recognition and a rabid fan base. You have to earn it, and be willing to set big goals and do all you can to achieve them.
Or you can “stay within budget”, bumble press conferences, lie to players and their parents, and be generally unlikable.
Whatever works for you, I guess.
I apologize for the length of this post in advance.
For those in the AD lurking these pages, and sometimes posting in disguise….well, you probably aren’t going to like what follows.
Let’s start with some quick history. UWM has been a “modern” D1 program since 1990. There was a brief D1 stint from 1973 to 1980, but that era was nothing like what D1 means now.
This brief D1 history has a direct impact on the program. Milwaukee cannot hail to the glory days long past like other programs can. For example, Marquette will always have a national championship and coaching legend to use in promoting its current program, as well they should.
That means Milwaukee can really only “look back” to the early 2000’s regarding history, tradition and legacy. That really isn’t that far back to go. We don’t have generational fans and their seemingly endless supply of money to turn to when needed, either.
The good news is that the program, in a very real sense, is still in its infancy.
The bad news is that it is also very possible to kill the program in the crib. Too many bad decisions will be enough to end this endeavor before it has the chance to mature.
Some good decisions were made early on, to be sure.
Hiring Bo Ryan was a bit of a coup, but a short lived one. Everyone knew he was merely burning time until Madison called. And call they did.
The decision to hire Bruce Pearl was a calculated risk, and one that paid off in many respects. Milwaukee reached the Sweet 16 and gained national attention for the first time ever. Pearl was a ceaseless promoter (as much of himself as the program, but you take the good with the bad sometimes), which was needed at the time.
This success gave Pearl the chance to move up, something that no Milwaukee fan should have been surprised at. Milwaukee was not, and is not today, a “destination” coaching job. Maybe when I am old and gray, this will finally change, but I doubt it.
After Pearl, the AD made what I believe was a wise choice in Rob Jeter. Rob was known as a strong recruiter, good floor coach, and solid leader for the program. He had spent years learning from a legend in Ryan, and knew how a major program was run. Unfortunately, he was not the carnival barker Pearl was and the profile of the program shrank a bit, and the on the court performance was not enough to overcome Rob’s quiet persona.
Then came the retirement of Bud and the subsequent revolving door/circular firing squad in the AD’s office. Milwaukee made one awful AD hire after another, in rapid fire succession.
Blame for this turmoil rests squarely at the feet of the Chancellors during that period. It was their responsibility to hire someone who understood, as they should have, that Athletics is more than a distraction to a major university.
Instead of following the lead of Donna Shalala in Madison who made Athletics a priority, we hired retreads, weirdoes and pencil pushers.
The most recent hire was made with input from, and the blessing of, the same brain trust that moved basketball back to the Klotsche Center (I assume because the gym at Riverside High School was already booked). How you let the guy who made that brilliant call have anything to do with hiring his replacement is beyond me, but the leadership at Milwaukee did it.
The current AD comes from arguably a lower profile program. While there, she “oversaw” men’s basketball, so her bio says. Under her “oversight”, that program was in the NCAA tournament ZERO times. They were 1 and Done in the NIT twice. Her claim to fame apparently is that she “stayed within budget”. That’s fantastic if you are running a factory. However, success in sports is rarely a measure of how well you counted the beans.
I wonder what exactly distinguished her as a candidate from the only other finalist. A man who ran an athletic department with more national championships in the last 10 years than all the D1 programs in WI for all time – combined. What exactly did she do at Northeastern, or Green Bay before that, that was more impressive than winning 9 national championships? I will let the readers ponder this and draw their own conclusions as to why she was hired…I know I have mine.
The program at Milwaukee is now at a crossroads, and making the wrong decision here may be the last nail in the coffin.
I am not anyone important. What follows is my opinion on what should be done. Feel free to rip me, per the rules of internet message board etiquette.
First, and most importantly, Milwaukee’s Chancellor needs to wake up and realize that sports, primarily men’s basketball, is the single most effective marketing tool he has at his disposal. If you want to improve the profile of the school, win on the court. It isn’t “jock centric” to understand that…it’s the reality of the world we live in. People know all about Gonzaga now not because they have a great fresh water studies program, but because they made multiple deep runs in March. Ditto Butler, VCU, and George Mason. You may hate sports, but that’s just too damn bad. If you want Milwaukee on the map, make athletic success a high priority.
Given the present situation, the Chancellor should immediately fire Braun. She is in way over her head, and her ham handed bungling of the Jeter affair should be the very last straw. She was never qualified for the position she holds, and now is demonstrating that daily. When your donors are on the record in print that they are done with you, I hope you are listening.
Make things right with your major donors and alums, and tell them you want to turn things around. Tell them you need their financial backing to make it happen. A few major donors who care can be a powerful tool for you to use (see: Strong, Richard – Marquette University). Use it. Don’t be an ivory tower elitist who abhors the jockocracy. Join us all in the real world for a little while where sports is a pretty big deal.
Go offer Paul Plinske whatever he wants to take the job, and tell him he has your full support and whatever he needs to make things work at Milwaukee. Tell him there are donors ready to commit to success and GROWTH of the program.
Next, tell Plinske that one of his first orders of business (after hiring a head basketball coach since we don’t have one anymore) is to get Milwaukee out of the Horizon League at the first possible opportunity. Being in the 18 – 20th ranked conference is a death sentence. Get into a better conference ASAP.
Marquette showed the way on this front, too. Follow their example. A better conference means more exposure, more potential to play in March, and better recruiting ability. If we stay in the Horizon, we may as well go back to DIII and stop spending all this money. Sure it’s risky, but no risk, no reward.
Next, do whatever needs to be done to get the facilities upgraded. Never, EVER, entertain playing “on-campus” as an option. Shoot anyone who even suggests it from now until the end of time. MU plays off campus, and so should Milwaukee. Students have no problem getting to bars off campus so there is no reason to think they would have trouble getting to the Panther Arena. It isn’t the distance that keeps them from games now…not winning and being small time is.
Finally, once the ball is rolling, capitalize on the momentum to finally embrace your status as the ONLY D1 baseball program in WI. Find out what it will take to partner with Zimmerman and The Rock (seriously awesome) or (less likely) the Brewers to use Miller Park as much as possible as a home stadium and get the hell out of a County Park. Having two high profile D1 programs takes Milwaukee to another level.
I realize that this is a very ambitious list of things to accomplish. I realize that it will not be easy, either.
But if the goal is for UW-Milwaukee to become a household name to people beyond your alumni, the current student base and their parents, this is what you must aspire to. No one is just going to hand you national name recognition and a rabid fan base. You have to earn it, and be willing to set big goals and do all you can to achieve them.
Or you can “stay within budget”, bumble press conferences, lie to players and their parents, and be generally unlikable.
Whatever works for you, I guess.
