Large Donation Coming in?

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MaxyJR1

MaxyJR1

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Large Donation Coming in?...and Najarian as AD

Doogie said that he and his colleagues at Channel 5 have confirmed a significant donation to the U's Athletic Village will be coming in very soon. Has not confirmed who and how much.

He also said that boosters and alumni really want Pete Najarian to be the next AD.

I think if he gets it he should do like Kill and get more for his top assistant in Goetz to make sure she stays and helps lead the department. He can focus on $$$.

This was in his scoops on 1500ESPN.
 

A few of you have been adamant about not wanting Najarian to be considered for the AD position. Curious to know the reasoning behind it. I don't have an opinion either way on the guy or his ability to be the AD but again some of you seem to have really strong opinions against, just don't recall seeing the reasoning behind those opinions. If I missed it in another thread I apologize.
 

MNVCGUY said:
A few of you have been adamant about not wanting Najarian to be considered for the AD position. Curious to know the reasoning behind it. I don't have an opinion either way on the guy or his ability to be the AD but again some of you seem to have really strong opinions against, just don't recall seeing the reasoning behind those opinions. If I missed it in another thread I apologize.
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A number of times posters have stated the desire to get an A.D. with either previous experience as an A.D. or more specifically, experience as an A.D. at a school that had a BCS level football team.

Najarian has neither.
 

Think it would be pretty surprising if Pete Najarian ended up with the AD position.
 

Iceland12 said:
A number of times posters have stated the desire to get an A.D. with either previous experience as an A.D. or more specifically, experience as an A.D. at a school that had a BCS level football team.

Najarian has neither.
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That makes complete sense. Still felt sometimes like a few posters had a strong personal feeling against Najarian, above and beyond his qualifications, but maybe what you mentioned is all it is.
 


Iceland12 said:
A number of times posters have stated the desire to get an A.D. with either previous experience as an A.D. or more specifically, experience as an A.D. at a school that had a BCS level football team.

Najarian has neither.
Click to expand...

Forgive for being ignorant on this, but what the hell does an AD do that requires experience?
It's a figurehead and gladhanding job first and foremost. Secondly it's a position that requires delegation to the associate ADs for day to day operations jobs.
Finally, it requires final decisions to be made upon budget items, department hirings/firings, and athlete support.

We essentially are coming out of two eras.
One where we had an AD who had very little to offer in the way of figurehead/gladhanding in Maturi(his personality and fundraising numbers back this up), and lead the dept to several disastrous hirings/firings, as well as enacted an overall feeling of superiority among non revenue sports that just bit the U in the ass when the track team somehow lead a successful hostage campaign of the football team's critical facility upgrades. All of that was bad. Maturi had LOTS of experience.

And then we hired mega tongue, who also had lots of experience. He appeared to be a great figurehead/gladhander, but in reality apparently wasn't. He started an interdepartment war with enough people to get a BS title IX investigation prompted, and lost that war BTW since the track team will be enjoying a brand new facility in a place nobody at the U is happy about except the track team.
His budgets apparently caused enough of a stink to trigger an internal audit that the papers have been running with even if it's done everywhere.
IMO the U could do a hell of alot worse than Narjarian, who at least has some charisma and local connections.
 

Ole said:
Forgive for being ignorant on this, but what the hell does an AD do that requires experience..?
..
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You're ignorance is forgiven. As for the question itself, don't ask me. Ask someone who has posted that A.D. experience is necessary to them.
 

Ole said:
Forgive for being ignorant on this, but what the hell does an AD do that requires experience?
It's a figurehead and gladhanding job first and foremost. Secondly it's a position that requires delegation to the associate ADs for day to day operations jobs.
Finally, it requires final decisions to be made upon budget items, department hirings/firings, and athlete support.

We essentially are coming out of two eras.
One where we had an AD who had very little to offer in the way of figurehead/gladhanding in Maturi(his personality and fundraising numbers back this up), and lead the dept to several disastrous hirings/firings, as well as enacted an overall feeling of superiority among non revenue sports that just bit the U in the ass when the track team somehow lead a successful hostage campaign of the football team's critical facility upgrades. All of that was bad. Maturi had LOTS of experience.

And then we hired mega tongue, who also had lots of experience. He appeared to be a great figurehead/gladhander, but in reality apparently wasn't. He started an interdepartment war with enough people to get a BS title IX investigation prompted, and lost that war BTW since the track team will be enjoying a brand new facility in a place nobody at the U is happy about except the track team.
His budgets apparently caused enough of a stink to trigger an internal audit that the papers have been running with even if it's done everywhere.
IMO the U could do a hell of alot worse than Narjarian, who at least has some charisma and local connections.
Click to expand...

I'm with Ole, it would certainly be an outside of the box hire. But I'm frankly finding it hard to believe it could get any worse than the previous 2 AD's. Najarian seems smart enough to surround himself with experienced people as well.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Doogie said that he and his colleagues at Channel 5 have confirmed a significant donation to the U's Athletic Village will be coming in very soon. Has not confirmed who and how much.

He also said that boosters and alumni really want Pete Najarian to be the next AD.

I think if he gets it he should do like Kill and get more for his top assistant in Goetz to make sure she stays and helps lead the department. He can focus on $$$.

This was in his scoops on 1500ESPN.
Click to expand...

$50,000 from Kill and Claeys?
 




MaroonGold1 said:
I'm with Ole, it would certainly be an outside of the box hire. But I'm frankly finding it hard to believe it could get any worse than the previous 2 AD's. Najarian seems smart enough to surround himself with experienced people as well.
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The key to good leadership.
 

Ole said:
Forgive for being ignorant on this, but what the hell does an AD do that requires experience?
It's a figurehead and gladhanding job first and foremost. Secondly it's a position that requires delegation to the associate ADs for day to day operations jobs.
Finally, it requires final decisions to be made upon budget items, department hirings/firings, and athlete support.
Click to expand...

Everything you said here can be said about the CEO/president of any large company. Knowing who to hire, who to delegate things too, who to trust, and what decisions are the right ones takes experience. Narjarian as far as I can tell has literally none. Essentially what you're asking for is Goetz to do the job of AD while Narjarian gets the title for being a mascot.
 

Outside of coaching, what experience did Barry Alvarez have? I am not for or against Najarian, but I know he is well connected, smart, successful, and loves the University. Those traits would get him on the right path to success. Could they hire someone better? Probably. Could they hire someone worse? Probably. I am a pretty big college sports fan and couldn't tell you who the best five ADs in the country are.
 



MNVCGUY said:
A few of you have been adamant about not wanting Najarian to be considered for the AD position. Curious to know the reasoning behind it. I don't have an opinion either way on the guy or his ability to be the AD but again some of you seem to have really strong opinions against, just don't recall seeing the reasoning behind those opinions. If I missed it in another thread I apologize.
Click to expand...

I have no idea, like 99% of the others here, whether a particular person could or could not be a good AD. I do know that boosters want him, he's a former football player, and he played at Minnesota are no guarantee that he can do the job. Yet, that's what most people who keep pushing his name keep throwing out there.

I've said it before: Paul Giel met all of those qualifications and he was perhaps the worse AD the U ever had. Local connections and booster support got the skids greased to move to the Dome. His football background didn't lead to any brilliant coaching hires. Worse of all, his "support" of athletics and willingness to overlook things because jocks were involved, led him to botch up big time when dealing with Mitch Lee. Basically, set the basketball program back a long way.

Maybe Najarian will get through the process as the best person. That will be okay, but just don't hand him the job for superficial reasons.
 

MNfootballfan said:
Outside of coaching, what experience did Barry Alvarez have?
Click to expand...

A football coach works closely with his administration, has to know NCAA rules, works with trainers, monitors academics (jokes aside), deals daily with the media, must fundraise, develop good relationships with the business community, high school coaches, fans, the entire state....

He was the face of the athletic department.
 

Golden_Sloth said:
Everything you said here can be said about the CEO/president of any large company. Knowing who to hire, who to delegate things too, who to trust, and what decisions are the right ones takes experience. Narjarian as far as I can tell has literally none. Essentially what you're asking for is Goetz to do the job of AD while Narjarian gets the title for being a mascot.
Click to expand...

He co-founded a company that as far as I can tell has more than 100 employees. You practically described what his background is and said he has none of it
 

Maximus said:
A football coach works closely with his administration, has to know NCAA rules, works with trainers, monitors academics (jokes aside), deals daily with the media, must fundraise, develop good relationships with the business community, high school coaches, fans, the entire state....

He was the face of the athletic department.
Click to expand...
I'm not pro or against Najarian, but I am confident from what I know of him he could work with administration learn the NCAA rules (more times than not the Compliance Directors deal with NCAA rules more so than the AD), Najarian would be excellent with the media, fundraising, and developing good relationships with the business community. I think some are writing Najarian off too early.
 

MNVCGUY said:
A few of you have been adamant about not wanting Najarian to be considered for the AD position. Curious to know the reasoning behind it. I don't have an opinion either way on the guy or his ability to be the AD but again some of you seem to have really strong opinions against, just don't recall seeing the reasoning behind those opinions. If I missed it in another thread I apologize.
Click to expand...

I'm by no means against the hire and actually support it. I hope he finds a way to keep Goetz or finds a top notch number to so things are in check below him. Goetz seems to be that person.
 

Does anyone know if he even wants the job?
 

Rog said:
Does anyone know if he even wants the job?
Click to expand...

This is from August...

"It's absolutely flattering beyond words to be in the conversation," said Najarian, 51. "Whether or not that's legitimate, we'll see. It'll be interesting once the university puts together a team (to decide) what they're looking for. I would be an out-of-the-box kind of guy."

"It’s a desirable role, it’s the only role I would ever want to have … I think somehow you have to recapture some of those folks who got disappointed. If you can get some of those alumni from the U, we all know they have big check books, if we can get some of that we could see an acceleration of that sport’s complex."
 

Getting back on topic, anybody have a clue about the donation?
 





I've always been a proponent of Narjarian becoming the AD, he's a Minnesota guy, a football guy who will make sure the
top grossing teams stay competitive and have what they need. He's also a money guy and has had success doing so.

To me, no brainer.
 

Gopher028 said:
I've always been a proponent of Narjarian becoming the AD, he's a Minnesota guy, a football guy who will make sure the top grossing teams stay competitive and have what they need. He's also a money guy and has had success doing so. To me, no brainer.
Click to expand...
Michigan fans said the same thing about Dave Brandon and then ran him out of town a few years later.
 

All of the reasons that people want Najarian hired are irrelevant to actually being successful in the job. Minnesota guy? Irrelevant. Wealthy? Irrelevant. Played college football? Irrelevant. He has zero experience working in athletics, zero experience fundraising (to my knowledge), zero experience hiring coaches, etc., etc., etc. The fact that he's even being discussed among otherwise functional adults as a "legitimate" candidate is a complete farce.

Oh, and how about that large donation coming?
 

dpodoll68 said:
All of the reasons that people want Najarian hired are irrelevant to actually being successful in the job. Minnesota guy? Irrelevant. Wealthy? Irrelevant. Played college football? Irrelevant. He has zero experience working in athletics, zero experience fundraising (to my knowledge), zero experience hiring coaches, etc., etc., etc. The fact that he's even being discussed among otherwise functional adults as a "legitimate" candidate is a complete farce.

Oh, and how about that large donation coming?
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+1
 

Nate said:
A good article about corporate AD's and ones who rise through the ranks.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news...s-directors-business-backgrounds-results-vary
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Just because a person has impeccable CEO pedigree guarantees diddly squat as far as how they will be as an AD. IMHO, CEOs have their share of pricks, dingbats, people promoted to their level of incompetence, etc... just like like people from the ranks of associate ADs who want to be AD.

They have to have a multitude of skills. People skills being the most prominent - in dealing with the public & donors, as well as dealing with the people under his charge. They don't need to know it all. They just need to know how to delegate and maximize the people resources he has. It is teamwork involving a whole bunch of people. The AD sets the mood of the whole program.

Integrity, treating people right, good communicator, and broad vision are on the top of my list of attributes that I consider important.

One person we cannot lose is someone like Beth Goetz who runs the day to day operations. If she is not picked to be the next AD, I agree with others that they need to do whatever it takes to secure her long term.
 

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