Wasn't going to get sucked into another Maturi thread but some irrational and even ignorant posts are hard to ignore. First, if you feel the need to pick the worst Gopher A.D. ever, you don't have to look any further than Paul Giel. He might be a Gopher icon, but he also was involved in all sorts of disasters as athletic director.
IMO, the biggest was the move to the Metrodome. At best, Giel was naive in thinking that this move would result in a return to Gopher glory. At worst, he was the point man in a cynical campaign in duping the public and betraying the U in favor of downtown money interests. Regardless, this decision might have been the single worse thing to happen to Gopher football. If that wasn't enough, how about the twin hirings of Joe Salem and John Gutekunst? It was those coaches that really established and cemented the mediocrity that has been so hard to rise above. In between was the hiring of Lou Holtz. It was applauded at the time, but the guy conned Giel into being used while the little SOB bided his time waiting for a better opportunity. A lot of Gopher fans first got their cynicism because of Holtz. Brewster might end up being a mistake also, but the jury is still out, and it's possible he still will pull it off. Anyway, it's a hiring that pales to Giel's screw-ups in football.
Giel also has his moments in basketball. He hired Bill Musselman who was the coach of a team that participated in one of the ugliest incidents in college basketball history. The same coach also had well over a 100 NCAA violations when he fled the U before the sanctions came down. As much of a slimeball as Calipari is, the U had one way before him. There was also a hell of a basketball team in the late 70's that had a season wiped out due to violations involving Mychal Thompson. Giel was A.D. then and, if my memory is right, he fought the original ruling which caused us to lose the season. Giel was also A.D. when Dutcher brought in Mitch Lee which led to the incident in Madison. This was the same Mitch Lee Giel let back on the team after a sexual assault trial. Mitch was found innocent but maybe showing up at a game afterward with a champagne glass shaved into his hair was a warning sign that shouldn't have been ignored. As one of Giel's last major acts, he also hired Clem. Again, good move at the time, but who knows when Clem actually started cheating? It was some time under Giel's watch. Giel's moves in basketball weren't as outright dumb as the football moves in that they did result in some fun years. However, all three coaches he hired left the U after a major scandal. It makes waffling on Munson and then getting Tubby look pretty good. It also makes decisions on poor Royce and on Mbakwe look pretty understandable and fair given our history.
Maturi isn't the greatest A.D. ever, but he hardly deserves the bashing he gets here. We've got a long history of mediocrity combined with population, climate perceptions, and cultural and political factors that make this a damn near impossible job. All in all, Maturi has done a decent job with some real accomplishments in navigating all this.
By the way, women's rowing is a convenient target and hard to defend. But, in reality, if you're going to blame it for football failures, you're sort of off base. Women's rowing exists because of Title IX which was overall a damn good idea. If you want to get rid of it, then you have to look at sports like wrestling, baseball, or men's swimming, or track and field. These are all sports the U is successful in and which traditionally have been part of college sports. Yes, there are other minor men's sports but they don't have the numbers to be as big a factor. They also have monied boosters which is another thing Maturi has to handle, and I would guess it's more important to keep those people happy instead of some disgruntled anonymous guy on GH.
