An Apology to dpodoll68

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They both deserved to be run out of town.
 


Urbandale said:
Oh, come on. Don't parse words by saying that in a literal sense you didn't say that stealing a car and shoplifting a candy bar are the same thing. Of course you didn't. But that's figuratively exactly what you were saying.

If you're using words like "truly horrific" for what happened at Minnesota, then what words are you using to describe what happened at places like Louisville and Baylor and North Carolina and Kansas and Arizona and on and on and on and on and on and on?

I'm very interested in knowing the next level of outrage you reserve for murders and strippers and payments for players. Because if it's not something more vigorous than "truly horrific" then you truly are figuratively saying that stealing a car and shoplifting a candy bar are the same thing.
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Truly horrific for cheating programs. Dignity for those that do the right thing. Murderers are worse, i believe in death penalty for those that take a life. Not attacking you for your view on such things. Free country to think what you want. I like how the University handled it.
 

golfing18now said:
I've thought about making this post a few times in the latter half of the Pitino tenure but never pulled the trigger. In fact, I had to do a search to make sure I hadn't actually posted it (perhaps I don't have JTF's searching skills and I missed it). In any case.....

For anybody that has posted on this site back to the end of the Tubby regime and beginning of the Pitino regime will remember the fervor with which dpodoll68 came to the defense of All Things Tubby. Whether it was Tubby's character (undeniable) or his accomplishments on the court (debatable), dpodoll68 was lethal in his response and left no Tubby criticism unchallenged. Many questioned whether or not dpodoll68 was in fact Saul Smith or somebody else close to the Smith family. His obsession with responding to any poster's criticism of Tubby made any current day combatants (i.e. @BarnBurner vs @builtbadgers) look minor league in comparison. At the core of his criticism was the belief Tubby would accomplish more than Pitino at Minnesota -- a notion that seemed laughable at the time.

I, golfing18now, would like to apologize to dpodoll68 for whatever I contributed to that conversation.
You were right! :((y)
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I don't get why you'd apologize. Just because he was a Tubby defender and things didn't work out with Pitino doesn't means he was right. Firing Tubby could have been the right decision. Just because the guy they hired to take his spot didn't work out after eight years doesn't mean you owe anyone an apology.

By the way, Tubby is the highest paid coach in the Big South and has the best budget in the Big South, but is currently sitting at 9-14 overall and 6-11 in the conference (and is 12-23 the last two years in conference and 18-37 overall). So, it could be that things would have been worse, too. I think it was clear Tubby was losing some off the fast ball and there's a chance the 2013-14 team was going to be terrible. If Pitino doesn't go find Deandre Matheiu, Joey King, and Malik Smith, that roster was going to be awful under Tubby. Tubby's conference record since leaving Minnesota (including at Memphis, where he stepped into a good spot) is 58-83. Tubby has been to exactly 1 NCAA since he left Minnesota. Pitino has been to two in the same time frame. And the guy who took over Texas Tech after Tubby left had them in the national title game four years later. Let's say this...neither Tubby or Pitino set the world on fire.

As for, dpoll, a good poster over the years. He surely wasn't Saul Smith. I think he referenced a few times he was a fundraiser at the U in some capacity.
 
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Firing Tubby was the right choice and hiring Pitino was a exercise in how to run a program poorly. Teague was a fool and a slimeball.
 


tjgopher said:
I don't get why you'd apologize. Just because he was a Tubby defender and things didn't work out with Pitino doesn't means he was right. Firing Tubby could have been the right decision. Just because the guy they hired to take his spot didn't work out after eight years doesn't mean you owe anyone an apology.

By the way, Tubby is the highest paid coach in the Big South and has the best budget in the Big South, but is currently sitting at 9-14 overall and 6-11 in the conference. So, it could be that things would have been worse, too. I think it was clear Tubby was losing some off the fast ball and there's a chance the 2013-14 team was going to be terrible. If Pitino doesn't go find Deandre Matheiu, Joey King, and Malik Smith, that roster was going to be awful under Tubby.

As for, dpoll, a good poster over the years. He surely wasn't Saul Smith. I think he referenced a few times he was a fundraiser at the U in some capacity.
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My post is a little bit tongue in cheek to be honest. I've had a running dialogue over the years with dpodoll68 around this topic. His contention of Tubby's last year being the best year in Gophers basketball since the late 80's due to the "longest" run in the tournament was ridiculous. I made sure to remind him of his characterization when Pitino made his "longest" run in the tournament a couple years back. To his credit, dpodoll68 gracefully started a thread with that very thing as @Cayman noted in a previous post. Obviously he wasn't Saul Smith, but his defense of Tubby was unconditional for sure.

Apology is probably the wrong term. Maybe more of an admission that he was right when he suggested Tubby's accomplishments at the University would be higher than Pitino's. Granted a very low bar.

dpodoll68 could be overbearing/obnoxious in his posts for sure, but I kind of miss the guy on here for some reason.
 

By the way, I agree with all on here that said Tubby's firing was justified.

I also agree with everybody now (it took me awhile) to agree the imminent Pitino firing is justified.
 

Keyser Söze said:
Tubby deserved to be fired and so does Pitino.
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I’m not sure Tubby “deserved” to be fired after an NCAA tournament win, but i thought it was the right move at the time.

I think the problem was mega tongue didn’t have his guy ready. If you’re gonna make a move like that, you better be sure you have your guy locked up. I don’t think Pitino was his first choice.
 

SJUgopher said:
I’m not sure Tubby “deserved” to be fired after an NCAA tournament win, but i thought it was the right move at the time.

I think the problem was mega tongue didn’t have his guy ready. If you’re gonna make a move like that, you better be sure you have your guy locked up. I don’t think Pitino was his first choice.
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Like 8th choice and the real mistake is Teague. What was Pitino suppose to do, turn it down ? People begged Teague not to do it but he was in over his head in every possible way.
 



Urbandale said:
Oh, come on. Don't parse words by saying that in a literal sense you didn't say that stealing a car and shoplifting a candy bar are the same thing. Of course you didn't. But that's figuratively exactly what you were saying.

If you're using words like "truly horrific" for what happened at Minnesota, then what words are you using to describe what happened at places like Louisville and Baylor and North Carolina and Kansas and Arizona and on and on and on and on and on and on?

I'm very interested in knowing the next level of outrage you reserve for murders and strippers and payments for players. Because if it's not something more vigorous than "truly horrific" then you truly are figuratively saying that stealing a car and shoplifting a candy bar are the same thing.
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What? Your reasoning, your logic, in this post is so bad that had you been writing those papers for Clem's basketball players, they never would have passed their courses.
 

Keyser Söze said:
Tubby deserved to be fired and so does Pitino.
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I agree with this but never felt that they would be at first when each were hired. I liked both hires. Unfortunately I was wrong. Wanted the program to turn into a contender for the long haul.
 

let'sbeclear said:
What? Your reasoning, your logic, in this post is so bad that had you been writing those papers for Clem's basketball players, they never would have passed their courses.
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Riiiiiiiiiight. I'm anxiously awaiting the details of my disjointed reasoning, my lack of logic, and the general badness of my post. Please provide details. I'm looking forward to the illumination of your intelligence.
 

Urbandale said:
Riiiiiiiiiight. I'm anxiously awaiting the details of my disjointed reasoning, my lack of logic, and the general badness of my post. Please provide details. I'm looking forward to the illumination of your intelligence.
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One can call what happened in the Haskins era as "truly horrific," call the payment of players and the use of strippers "truly horrific," and not believe they are the same thing or necessarily at the same level of wrongdoing. To not have a different term for every level or type of offense does not mean you think shoplifting and stealing cars or murder are equally serious. And by the way, Minnesota's violations went to the heart of what the "student-athlete" label means. That makes it pretty darn serious, far more than shoplifting a candy bar, even in comparison to your other examples of misconduct.
 



let'sbeclear said:
One can call what happened in the Haskins era as "truly horrific," call the payment of players and the use of strippers "truly horrific," and not believe they are the same thing or necessarily at the same level of wrongdoing. To not have a different term for every level or type of offense does not mean you think shoplifting and stealing cars or murder are equally serious. And by the way, Minnesota's violations went to the heart of what the "student-athlete" label means. That makes it pretty darn serious, far more than shoplifting a candy bar, even in comparison to your other examples of misconduct.
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The definition of student-athlete has changed nearly 180 degrees in the last 20 years. Many of the star players in the college game don't even attend classes the spring semester, which is 3/4 of the season. So yeah, getting papers written hardly sounds "truly horrific"
 

This is highly comical. Quite a good percentage of D1 athletes in Men's revenue sports at power 5 conferences don't do much schoolwork, are afforded MUCH MUCH more and better circumstances than a standard student and get a leg up.

I think it's laughable that some act as if these kids are put to nearly half the task of a normal enrollee in order to graduate or even get a job.

NONE get by without tons of help. Its impossible actually. The schedule these kids run in order to make profit for their University's athletic department is hectic at best.

What Clem did wasn't right. It also isn't uncommon. Others have just found a better way to hide it. I laugh every time I hear someone come on here and act like there are schools doing it right. It's just funny really. Not even possible for these kids. They have the weight of an entire university on their backs. They get help. All of them.
 

WriterGoph said:
The definition of student-athlete has changed nearly 180 degrees in the last 20 years. Many of the star players in the college game don't even attend classes the spring semester, which is 3/4 of the season. So yeah, getting papers written hardly sounds "truly horrific"
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It does to me. One and done is a small number. Programs i follow do not even have sham classes and many players get their masters. Cheating is for losers.
 

Go Gophs said:
This is highly comical. Quite a good percentage of D1 athletes in Men's revenue sports at power 5 conferences don't do much schoolwork, are afforded MUCH MUCH more and better circumstances than a standard student and get a leg up.

I think it's laughable that some act as if these kids are put to nearly half the task of a normal enrollee in order to graduate or even get a job.

NONE get by without tons of help. Its impossible actually. The schedule these kids run in order to make profit for their University's athletic department is hectic at best.

What Clem did wasn't right. It also isn't uncommon. Others have just found a better way to hide it. I laugh every time I hear someone come on here and act like there are schools doing it right. It's just funny really. Not even possible for these kids. They have the weight of an entire university on their backs. They get help. All of them.
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Well if you have been part of a program that does it the right way you would know your wrong. I had a relative play for one of them and the academics were brutal, even for a valedictorian. Ask Malcom Brogdon how he did it. Ask Blake Hoffarber.
 

builtbadgers said:
It does to me. One and done is a small number. Programs i follow do not even have sham classes and many players get their masters. Cheating is for losers.
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So DeAndre Hunter had a full class load the spring semester of the national title year?
 

WriterGoph said:
So DeAndre Hunter had a full class load the spring semester of the national title year?
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Hunter has 3.75 years of school, left 2 weeks after the season to prepare for being the 4th pick. Hardly the same as cheating on papers especially since he was a high achieving student and will finish this summer. Hell, my son left school with a month left as a high level college tennis player to start a huge paying job and finished in the summer. Of course it matters when your coach recruits with academics in mind as he himself was academic athlete of the year. Agree that at a ton of schools it is a sham and it was here. Not hard to figure out that Courtney James should never been admitted here. Digraceful to cheat these kids. UW did it with Rashard Griffith and Sam Okey and with too many to count football players. But it is not true that all do it.
 

builtbadgers said:
Hunter has 3.75 years of school, left 2 weeks after the season to prepare for being the 4th pick. Hardly the same as cheating on papers especially since he was a high achieving student and will finish this summer. Hell, my son left school with a month left as a high level college tennis player to start a huge paying job and finished in the summer. Of course it matters when your coach recruits with academics in mind as he himself was academic athlete of the year. Agree that at a ton of schools it is a sham and it was here. Not hard to figure out that Courtney James should never been admitted here. Digraceful to cheat these kids. UW did it with Rashard Griffith and Sam Okey and with too many to count football players. But it is not true that all do it.
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Not saying all do it. Just saying that the rules have changed since the late 90s. The U took a way harder punishment than anyone would dare give out now. The hypocrisy of that has been cemented in the last 10 years. I think our banners should be hanging at this point - just like Michigan's
 

WriterGoph said:
Not saying all do it. Just saying that the rules have changed since the late 90s. The U took a way harder punishment than anyone would dare give out now. The hypocrisy of that has been cemented in the last 10 years. I think our banners should be hanging at this point - just like Michigan's
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I do not agree. No big deal. Not for a minute do i think my opinion is better than yours. It is simply mine. I will cease all future donations if we put up banners for seasons we cheated.
 

builtbadgers said:
I do not agree. No big deal. Not for a minute do i think my opinion is better than yours. It is simply mine. I will cease all future donations if we put up banners for seasons we cheated.
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At this point putting up the banners would be laughable.
 

Is dpodoll68 still around? I had a username before this one that I can’t use anymore, don’t remember seeing him for a while.
 


Tubby was the right hire, but it didn't quite work out (thanks Royce) and it was time to go. Things were not trending in the right direction.
 


builtbadgers said:
Hunter has 3.75 years of school, left 2 weeks after the season to prepare for being the 4th pick. Hardly the same as cheating on papers especially since he was a high achieving student and will finish this summer. Hell, my son left school with a month left as a high level college tennis player to start a huge paying job and finished in the summer. Of course it matters when your coach recruits with academics in mind as he himself was academic athlete of the year. Agree that at a ton of schools it is a sham and it was here. Not hard to figure out that Courtney James should never been admitted here. Digraceful to cheat these kids. UW did it with Rashard Griffith and Sam Okey and with too many to count football players. But it is not true that all do it.
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Okey went to grad school at Cost Cutters U
 


UpAndUnder43 said:
I don’t care what USC does.
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Did you ever cheat in high school or college? If no, then I guess you can be as sanctimonious as you choose.

I'll admit I did a couple times in classes I didn't care about and I'd say most of the college grads I personally know did at one time or another. It's just not something most people lose sleep over.

It's just funny that we as Minnesota fans seem to take pride in taking a punishment worse than any other college. Talk to any other fan base and they're laughing their way to Final Four after Final Four.

Look, I'm not saying I want us to cheat again. I just think anyone on here who is trying to strike positive memories and conversations about 1997 from the record needs to get over it.
 

WriterGoph said:
Did you ever cheat in high school or college? If no, then I guess you can be as sanctimonious as you choose.

I'll admit I did a couple times in classes I didn't care about and I'd say most of the college grads I personally know did at one time or another. It's just not something most people lose sleep over.

It's just funny that we as Minnesota fans seem to take pride in taking a punishment worse than any other college. Talk to any other fan base and they're laughing their way to Final Four after Final Four.

Look, I'm not saying I want us to cheat again. I just think anyone on here who is trying to strike positive memories and conversations about 1997 from the record needs to get over it.
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Did anyone write papers for me? No. They didn’t. Was it a systemic cheating set up within the confines of an athletic department and team? No.It wasn’t. This isn’t copy pasting a paragraph and rewording it. This was much larger. Are there bigger scandals? Of course. But if your program sucks so much that you need to hang banners from a year that was vacated—then your program sucks.

I’ll never forget those games. I was 11. Best time ever to be a fan. But that doesn’t mean the university needs to recognize it.
 

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