Former Gophers want a voice with the new HC hire

[Silvio]

Seriously though, how much money needs to be donated to get you to ban Wren? I'm broke as a joke, but I can start up a pledge drive if necessary. Let me know what kind of $ we're talking about, and I'll try to make it happen.

There was one very long post in this thread with unique capitalization that forced me to search to the end of gopher hole and finally figure out how to use the ignore feature. My life is better now and it cost me nothing!

 

[monk10]

I don't think this group has any back channels to work.

Didn't you read their quotes, the silver spoon business jobs they were promised in return for playing football were pulled away at the end of their time on the grid iron.

Maybe a marketing/public relations job isn't a silver spoon job, so nobody wanted it?

 

[RodentRampage]

You are aware that this administration did not move the Gophers out of Memorial Stadium, right? You want to punish the current administration for something done close to 30 years ago by another administration? We moved out of Memorial Stadium because it was in need of renovation, and there was going to be no funds for it at a time when the Vikings were demanding a new stadium. The choice was to move to the dome or to stay in a deteriorating Memorial Stadium. And even then, the legislature could put the squeeze on the general funding for the U to pressure the U to move to the dome.

The boosters do have to bear some of the responsibility for the firing and hiring decisions that have been made. Yes, the administration could have stood up against the boosters. We got Joe Salem because the boosters demanded him, because he was a former player.

Punishing the U might give some satisfaction, but it will do nothing to help the situation.

 

[Silvio]

Maybe a marketing/public relations job isn't a silver spoon job, so nobody wanted it?

It is hard to know what they want they want that is realistic. I want Phil Mickelson's golf talent and Tiger Wood's course management skills, but I got neither.

 

[tikited]

Now you are blaming the players for the schemes and abilities of their incompetent coaches????? And these incompetent coaches were fired and hired by totally incompetent administrators!!!!!!!! There is the answer for you. The administrators are responsible for the entire WILDERNESS WALKING period of Gopher Football History. QUOTE]

I wasn't blaming anyone. I just stated a fact that most of the former players played on bad teams. Can you argue that? No.

Players play the game-coaches coach the players. How is it not the fault of both groups by the way?

 

[monk10]

Now you are blaming the players for the schemes and abilities of their incompetent coaches????? And these incompetent coaches were fired and hired by totally incompetent administrators!!!!!!!! There is the answer for you. The administrators are responsible for the entire WILDERNESS WALKING period of Gopher Football History.

And you try to blame the players????????

Who abandoned the BRICK HOUSE????? Was it the players???? Was it the Coaches????? No, that's right, it was theadministrations with the help of the Board of Regents!!!!!!!!! Bingo! The problems are right at the top. And you people try to blame the players??????? With attitudes such as yours, perhaps there is NO hope for Golden Gopher Football. I will never quite believe that though. Put the pressure on the administration. That is where the problems originate.

We are currently being led by a lame duck and a dead duck (prexy b and maturi). And the spin is being provided by Dave Mona. Who is paying for his services? Do we get a double our money back guarantee from Dave Mona if this process isn't all he's cracking it up to be?????

 

[Word]

Seriously though, how much money needs to be donated to get you to ban Wren? I'm broke as a joke, but I can start up a pledge drive if necessary. Let me know what kind of $ we're talking about, and I'll try to make it happen.

I'd chip in $5.

 

[CWCWCW]

Don't read him if you don't like him

I'd chip in $5.

Simple as that. I like to read most of imthewalrus posts. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't.
Big deal. For those of you with 2000+ posts, I'm sure you're bright enough to figure out the ignore button. Move on.

 

[Monty519]

So do they just want Maturi fired? I'm not thinking any decent coach wants to go into a situation where some former players rallied to get an A.D. fired, that's just bad vibes all around. I just don't see how this can help us get a good coach here, maybe I'm missing something. Like, when they say "input", what do they mean? They can't believe they should have power to tell the A.D. who to hire, do they? That doesn't make sense to me either. Do they just want to be able to tell him the characteristics they believe the next coach should hold? Or the credentials? I'm looking through their site and I just don't see any of that, all I see is bashing.

We talk about Maturi's track record with hiring football coaches. He's hired one. And he bombed. We get it, the guy went into the last process way too rushed (his own doing of course), and without the legitimate time to consider all options. Plus, there was probably a tad too much emphasis on recruiting, which I don't totally blame him for since we were gettin killed in that dept. Using the same search firm isn't gonna be an issue as long as we got more people involved (Pres, regents more involved than last hire is my impression), and also more money, which is probably the most important. You don't get much for a little more than a mil. But when you drop $2.5 mil, you're gonna get someone pretty good. This hiring process is much different than the previous one IMO.

 

[GoAUpher]

Maybe its trivial but I'm really annoyed by the fact that the color scheme on the website isn't even close to the current standard U colors. Nothing screams stuck in the past like using a very old uni color scheme.

Add in all the good points raised by others and I'm ready for them to quiet down. Also, the best part about their ad in The Daily was the Tweet from the football writer pointing out that no one (including himself) from the editorial board approved the ad and that it was a decision made solely by the person/people on the money side who took the payment from the group. In other words, if it had gone before the ed board it wouldn't have gone into The Daily in the first place.

 

[RodentRampage]

My take on it that this group (do we know how many it really represents?) doesn't have coherent ideas of what to do, it's just a lot of anger.

 

[GoAUpher]

I wonder if they think they are the only ones who want Maturi gone or making the hire...or if they are capable of understanding that pretty much everyone wants him gone/doesn't want him making this hire but that the rest of us live in the real world and recognize they aren't going to fire the AD while the school is hiring a new President.

 

[ShushPush]

maturi and prexy b have BOTH failed miserably during the past 7 or 8 years. The have wasted millions and millions in their coaching blunder moves. They have butchered the Football Program by being SO incompetent in their handling of the coaching position. First they let Mason's contract run down for three years, then extended so they could get the stadium. Then, the fiscally incompetent prexy b wrote out a loan of 7 million dollars from the General fund to the athletic department to handle the buy outs of Mason and Monson...the people they had quite recently extended. Then, they hired a total disaster of a coach in brewster. There were SIX offensive and defensive coordinators during the next three years. That, in itself shows what incompetent administrators prexy b and macturi are. That, as much as anything drove the program back from the lower-mid ranks of the Big Ten Conference in football to being at the absolute basement level. THAT was abusive to the football players in every regard.

KNOWING how incompetent brewster was, they EXTENDED his contract. For that they should be banished from the Twin Cities Campus for ever.

And NOW they are in the process of hiring a new football coach. They have hired a pr guy in Dave Mona to try to sell it and spin it for them.

And, you "so-called" fans who trash the former letter winners of the football program are an indication that Gopher Football has once again entered the WILDERNESS. You NEED TO respect, &honor the players from the last Big Ten championship team from 1967 You HONOR the players who always gave their best for the Maroon and Gold in any and EVERY decade and era. THEY are the good guys here. The administrations of this era and in eras past are the BAD guys. THEY need to have a pound of flesh...PLUS... a unit or two of blood (I have read the MERCHANT OF V...")extracted for their sins and the pain that they have caused Gopher Fans during the past half century or longer.

You said M-Men forced Bierman and Warmath out? I say b.s. to that. Weak administrations caved in and tried to appease the masses with a "fire the coach and fool the fan-base for a few years" type of approach.


I totally support these players in their outrage at the administration at the U of M. They are players I have admired and cheered for over my half-century plus of being a Golden Gopher Football Fan and Season Ticket holder.

Take prexy b and maturi out behind the woodshed and "shoot them in effigy..." the way Murray was burned in effigy back in 1959. M-MEN: be loud, be strong and give 'em "what for...". As an old Gopher Fan, I totally support your efforts. YOU have been the face of Golden Gopher Football for me from my very youngest days right up through my 60's. I thank all of you who have worn the Maroon and Gold on the football field during the 1950's right up through 2010.

The administrators have totally let me down year after year...decade after decade.

Give 'em hell M-MEN!!!!!

 

[GoAUpher]

My take on it that this group (do we know how many it really represents?) doesn't have coherent ideas of what to do, it's just a lot of anger.

Oh! That was favorite part of the article:

The advertisement, and a website, savegopherfootball.com, were created by a group of former Gophers players -- about a dozen were actively involved, but they say they have the support of several dozen and perhaps a couple of hundred other players -- to demand that Maturi not be allowed to hire Brewster's replacement.

I love that everyone should just take their word that they have several dozen, or possibly hundreds, or supporters. So, while you only have a dozen actively involved members you MAYBE hundreds that support you? Great support they lend by caring enough to avoid be actively involved. I'd suggest that they start an online petition to get the names of those "hundreds" of supporters on the record but I forgot that such things take months to build because they are complex and new fangled. That and the fact that signing one of those things is such a burden on the time of their supporters, what with the clicking of an e-mail link and the filling out of 6-10 fields of basic personal information. That could take about 3 minutes to do!!! Otherwise I'm sure they'd have done so by now and that's the only reason we have to take their word for it.

 

[RodentRampage]

I love that everyone should just take their word that they have several dozen, or possibly hundreds, or supporters. So, while you only have a dozen actively involved members you MAYBE hundreds that support you? Great support they lend by caring enough to avoid be actively involved. I'd suggest that they start an online petition to get the names of those "hundreds" of supporters on the record but I forgot that such things take months to build because they are complex and new fangled. That and the fact that signing one of those things is such a burden on the time of their supporters, what with the clicking of an e-mail link and the filling out of 6-10 fields of basic personal information. That could take about 3 minutes to do!!! Otherwise I'm sure they'd have done so by now and that's the only reason we have to take their word for it.

It doesn't take a lot of support to put up a web page, and to buy ad space in a student newspaper isn't terribly expensive. It's one way to make your group look larger than it is. To say that there are hundreds of former players out there who agree with them is weak. I don't think anyone is satisfied with the state of the football team, but there isn't widespread agreement with their idea that the solution is to let the former players hire the next coach.

 

[Mulligan]

My take on it that this group (do we know how many it really represents?) doesn't have coherent ideas of what to do, it's just a lot of anger.

Are we talking former players or GopherHow now?

 

[Silvio]

It doesn't take a lot of support to put up a web page, and to buy ad space in a student newspaper isn't terribly expensive. It's one way to make your group look larger than it is. To say that there are hundreds of former players out there who agree with them is weak. I don't think anyone is satisfied with the state of the football team, but there isn't widespread agreement with their idea that the solution is to let the former players hire the next coach.

Their website originally had a "roster" of who they were and who supported them, but I see it is longer an active page.

 

[RodentRampage]

Are we talking former players or GopherHow now?

This message board isn't an organization attempting to speak with a unified voice. There are posters who have their own ideas of what should be done. This group is attempting to give the impression that they do speak with a unified voice, but it doesn't seem any more unified than Gopherhole.

 

[RodentRampage]

Their website originally had a "roster" of who they were and who supported them, but I see it is longer an active page.

That gives the impression that the use of those names and quotes didn't actually mean they supported this website.

 

[MaxyJR1]

So do they just want Maturi fired? I'm not thinking any decent coach wants to go into a situation where some former players rallied to get an A.D. fired, that's just bad vibes all around. I just don't see how this can help us get a good coach here, maybe I'm missing something. Like, when they say "input", what do they mean? They can't believe they should have power to tell the A.D. who to hire, do they? That doesn't make sense to me either. Do they just want to be able to tell him the characteristics they believe the next coach should hold? Or the credentials? I'm looking through their site and I just don't see any of that, all I see is bashing.

We talk about Maturi's track record with hiring football coaches. He's hired one. And he bombed. We get it, the guy went into the last process way too rushed (his own doing of course), and without the legitimate time to consider all options. Plus, there was probably a tad too much emphasis on recruiting, which I don't totally blame him for since we were gettin killed in that dept. Using the same search firm isn't gonna be an issue as long as we got more people involved (Pres, regents more involved than last hire is my impression), and also more money, which is probably the most important. You don't get much for a little more than a mil. But when you drop $2.5 mil, you're gonna get someone pretty good. This hiring process is much different than the previous one IMO.

I'm sure they want Bob Stein as the next AD.

 

[GophersInIowa]

That gives the impression that the use of those names and quotes didn't actually mean they supported this website.

That's what I'm thinking as well. Some of the quotes from former players may have been from other media sources, and they just put them on the website making it look like they gathered all the quotes. Then some of the players saw them and said they didn't want their name associated with that group.

 

[Ski U Mah 55]

maturi and prexy b have BOTH failed miserably during the past 7 or 8 years. The have wasted millions and millions in their coaching blunder moves. They have butchered the Football Program by being SO incompetent in their handling of the coaching position. First they let Mason's contract run down for three years, then extended so they could get the stadium. Then, the fiscally incompetent prexy b wrote out a loan of 7 million dollars from the General fund to the athletic department to handle the buy outs of Mason and Monson...the people they had quite recently extended. Then, they hired a total disaster of a coach in brewster. There were SIX offensive and defensive coordinators during the next three years. That, in itself shows what incompetent administrators prexy b and macturi are. That, as much as anything drove the program back from the lower-mid ranks of the Big Ten Conference in football to being at the absolute basement level. THAT was abusive to the football players in every regard.

KNOWING how incompetent brewster was, they EXTENDED his contract. For that they should be banished from the Twin Cities Campus for ever.

And NOW they are in the process of hiring a new football coach. They have hired a pr guy in Dave Mona to try to sell it and spin it for them.

And, you "so-called" fans who trash the former letter winners of the football program are an indication that Gopher Football has once again entered the WILDERNESS. You NEED TO respect, &honor the players from the last Big Ten championship team from 1967 You HONOR the players who always gave their best for the Maroon and Gold in any and EVERY decade and era. THEY are the good guys here. The administrations of this era and in eras past are the BAD guys. THEY need to have a pound of flesh...PLUS... a unit or two of blood (I have read the MERCHANT OF V...")extracted for their sins and the pain that they have caused Gopher Fans during the past half century or longer.

You said M-Men forced Bierman and Warmath out? I say b.s. to that. Weak administrations caved in and tried to appease the masses with a "fire the coach and fool the fan-base for a few years" type of approach.


I totally support these players in their outrage at the administration at the U of M. They are players I have admired and cheered for over my half-century plus of being a Golden Gopher Football Fan and Season Ticket holder.

Take prexy b and maturi out behind the woodshed and "shoot them in effigy..." the way Murray was burned in effigy back in 1959. M-MEN: be loud, be strong and give 'em "what for...". As an old Gopher Fan, I totally support your efforts. YOU have been the face of Golden Gopher Football for me from my very youngest days right up through my 60's. I thank all of you who have worn the Maroon and Gold on the football field during the 1950's right up through 2010.

The administrators have totally let me down year after year...decade after decade.

Give 'em hell M-MEN!!!!!

Go away idiot.

 

[Uffda]

These Gopher players have expressed themselves in a way that they felt they could to be heard --- the same way all posters on this Board dne difference I see is that those players attached their real names to their quotes -- unlike on this Board.
They clearly stated they disappointment about the present football status, the incompetence of the AD/Administration in the hiring and firing of coaches and their contract buyout $$$, and their mis-trust of letting the current AD select another football coach. The timing is good (eve of announcing a President Finalist ) and getting his attention. It also appears they felt that Maturi blew them off at their meeting by telling them that they are being represented by Tony Dungy only.Evidentally Tony Dungy has not communicated to these players--- and why is he the only one being asked for input? I respect them and their opinions as much as Tony Dungy's , who I also respect.

 

[RodentRampage]

These Gopher players have expressed themselves in a way that they felt they could to be heard --- the same way all posters on this Board dne difference I see is that those players attached their real names to their quotes -- unlike on this Board.
They clearly stated they disappointment about the present football status, the incompetence of the AD/Administration in the hiring and firing of coaches and their contract buyout $$$, and their mis-trust of letting the current AD select another football coach. The timing is good (eve of announcing a President Finalist ) and getting his attention. It also appears they felt that Maturi blew them off at their meeting by telling them that they are being represented by Tony Dungy only.Evidentally Tony Dungy has not communicated to these players--- and why is he the only one being asked for input? I respect them and their opinions as much as Tony Dungy's , who I also respect.

Does this group of players represent former players as a whole, or do they just represent a handful of players? I disagree that their timing is good, it looks pretty poor, given that a decision has to be made pretty quickly. Do we want to have a committee of thousands pick the coach? Dungy is a former player, after all, so it can't be said that former players weren't consulted.

If Maturi doesn't select the next coach, who will? No matter who is chosen, there will be some former players will be upset with the hire.

 

[Uffda]

Does this group of players represent former players as a whole, or do they just represent a handful of players? I disagree that their timing is good, it looks pretty poor, given that a decision has to be made pretty quickly. Do we want to have a committee of thousands pick the coach? Dungy is a former player, after all, so it can't be said that former players weren't consulted.

If Maturi doesn't select the next coach, who will? No matter who is chosen, there will be some former players will be upset with the hire.

My point with timing was that they got the attention of the Regents and their finalist for University President before they were nominated by the Regents. They are not as famous as Dungy, their voice has a right to be heard. It sounds like they haven't felt a part of the football program and would very much like to be.
My question to you is this --- does Tony Dungy represent the players as a whole, or just himself?

 

[RodentRampage]

My point with timing was that they got the attention of the Regents and their finalist for University President before they were nominated by the Regents.

So, despite their statements that this was about Maturi not making the hire, this was really about influencing the hiring of the next President?

My question to you is this --- does Tony Dungy represent the players as a whole, or just himself?

Dungy doesn't pretend to represent players as a whole as this group does.

 

[GopherGod]

My point with timing was that they got the attention of the Regents and their finalist for University President before they were nominated by the Regents. They are not as famous as Dungy, their voice has a right to be heard. It sounds like they haven't felt a part of the football program and would very much like to be.
My question to you is this --- does Tony Dungy represent the players as a whole, or just himself?

I agree with a lot of what you saying. As much as I respect Dungy, he alone should not be representing the former players and alumni. How much is Tony Dungy really involved with this program, does he live here and or come to the games often, no. He is not vested in the results of the coaching search as much as some of the others who maintain their season tickets and attend all of the games and see the actual product on the field on a weekly basis.

 

[Uffda]

So, despite their statements that this was about Maturi not making the hire, this was really about influencing the hiring of the next President?



Dungy doesn't pretend to represent players as a whole as this group does.

According to these players, they were told by Maturi that Dungy represented them. I am not trying to be difficult -- but I appreciate their passion and their right to express their opinion about the situation.I don't know their intent on influencing the selection of the new President, but if internal candidates were being considered , then I guess they were expressing their desire to hire outside current administration in an indirect way.

 

[littlebigboy]

The group has not stated and never has wanted to HIRE the next coach!! Input and a representation on the process yes. This whole thing has been blown out of proportion. And when I see comments about benchwarmers and mgrs. I wonder how the Conf. Champs, Pro-Bowlers and Super Bowl winners feel about being called bench warmers! They are supporters, season ticket holders and avid fans, not someone who comes once in awhile.

 

[1983]

The group has not stated and never has wanted to HIRE the next coach!! Input and a representation on the process yes. This whole thing has been blown out of proportion. And when I see comments about benchwarmers and mgrs. I wonder how the Conf. Champs, Pro-Bowlers and Super Bowl winners feel about being called bench warmers! They are supporters, season ticket holders and avid fans, not someone who comes once in awhile.

Read their website content and then append to your post. They are, with all due respect, out of line and need MapQuest to find the campus. I especially like the parts about how the University does not stay connected....they are true kings of embellishments. I know M guys who are livid about these people and their claims of poor poor pitiful me.