Maturi says nature of Twin Cities media market makes U more challenging than other BT

Donate To GopherHole
bleedsmaroonandgold said:
Yes, it is not the easiest market in the world. If only there were some kind of person who was supposed to be in charge of taking the U's unique position and finding a way to succeed in it. Perhaps a director-level post housed in the athletics department. Wait! I've got it! We can call this person the "athletic director".
Click to expand...

That sounds completely ridiculous. :rolleyes:
 

EG#9 said:
Man, reading that article it is so blatantly obvious that Joel Maturi had no business being a big time athletic director. Measuring success by something other than wins and losses ends in little league. It's no wonder Mason and Monson were kept on and allowed to fail as long as they were. If Monson was "not in the right place in the right time" why in the hell was he in that place for EIGHT years?

Let's judge the media market when/if Gopher 2 biggest revenue sports compete for B1G titles every few years. I don't hear much complaining about how the media market holds back Gopher Hockey.
Click to expand...

Completely agree. The media didn't make Maturi extend a coach who was "was not in the right place at the right time." The media didn't make Maturi hire a football coach who literally had no head coaching experience beyond high school. That was all on Maturi and his incompetence. During his tenure, Maturi himself was the department's single biggest problem. The media called him out on those stupid decisions and he apparently wants to blame the media for it. In today's world, the media is going to call you out when you do stupid things that set entire programs several steps backward. Is our media difficult? Absolutely. But just about any media members in any market would have called out Maturi on the constantly bad decisions.
 

I would argue that Northwestern and Minnesota have it the easiest in the Big Ten in regards to the media. Think about the amount of the coverage the Vikings get as opposed to the Gophers. It is at least 2 or 3 to 1. But, that is what the other schools face in scrutiny. The college is the Vikings of their area.
 

MRJ said:
The media didn't make Maturi hire a football coach who literally had no head coaching experience beyond high school.
Click to expand...

Plenty of successful college head coaches have had zero (or almost zero) previous head coaching experience before they got their first high major job. People only point it out because it's something else to rip Brewster and Maturi for. If Brewster had been successful here, no one would've cared about his prior lack of head coaching experience. Hiring a coach with little previous head coaching experience doesn't/didn't make Maturi incompetent.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Plenty of successful college head coaches have had zero (or almost zero) previous head coaching experience before they got their first high major job. People only point it out because it's something else to rip Brewster and Maturi for. If Brewster had been successful here, no one would've cared about his prior lack of head coaching experience. Hiring a coach with little previous head coaching experience doesn't/didn't make Maturi incompetent.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The lack of HC experience isn't that big of a deal - he just wasn't the right fit. The other two finalists were Charlie Strong and Lane Kiffin - neither had HC experience before their interviews with Minnesota either. So either way, we were likely hiring someone with no HC experience if our three finalists was any indication.

Go Gophers!!
 


BleedGopher said:
Agreed. The lack of HC experience isn't that big of a deal - he just wasn't the right fit. The other two finalists were Charlie Strong and Lane Kiffin - neither had HC experience before their interviews with Minnesota either. So either way, we were likely hiring someone with no HC experience if our three finalists was any indication.

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

As usual Bleed, spot on.
 

BleedGopher said:
Agreed. The lack of HC experience isn't that big of a deal - he just wasn't the right fit. The other two finalists were Charlie Strong and Lane Kiffin - neither had HC experience before their interviews with Minnesota either. So either way, we were likely hiring someone with no HC experience if our three finalists was any indication.

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

There are several in the Big Ten right now who didn't have experience prior:
Kevin Wilson - Indiana
Bo Pelini - Nebraska
Pat Fitzgerald - Northwestern
Bill O'Brien - Penn St.

Pelini and Fitzgerald have been successful, and O'Brien was coach of the year in his first year.
 

Joel Maturi could say he likes puppies and apple pie, and someone would come on this board and criticize him.

Look, I'm not defending the guy - I don't think he was a very good AD, but the outright hatred of the man is over the top.

People on this board are always ripping the Twin Cities media - but Maturi does it, and he's wrong?

Whatever you think of Maturi, the guy worked hard, and he genuinely seemed to care about the athletes and coaches at the U. Nobody's perfect.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Plenty of successful college head coaches have had zero (or almost zero) previous head coaching experience before they got their first high major job. People only point it out because it's something else to rip Brewster and Maturi for. If Brewster had been successful here, no one would've cared about his prior lack of head coaching experience. Hiring a coach with little previous head coaching experience doesn't/didn't make Maturi incompetent.
Click to expand...

True, but it is almost unheard of to hire someone at this level who hadn't been at least a coordinator. It happens (in the NFL Singletary and Tice that I can think of off the top of my head), but it is very uncommon. It may not make him incompetent in and of itself, but it is one in a series of questionable decisions that together paint a legitimate picture of his overall competence. I do agree that point probably does get hammered a little more than it deserves. And if Brew had worked out here, Maturi would be legendary. But you can say that about almost any of his decisions...

One of my biggest problems with Maturi (and to an even greater extent, Bruininks) is that Maturi was very public that the job had passed him by, and he was almost proud of still being an AD who wasn't doing the job as it existed today. And yet, even knowing he wasn't doing the job he accepted at least one extension and wanted an addtional one that Kaler did not give him after publicly saying he wasn't qualified for the job.

Who says they aren't qualified for the job, then keeps saying they want it anyway? And who keeps paying someone who openly says they aren't doing the job that they need to do?
 






Halsey Hall said:
Joel had a great sport coat and he loved those badminton games. Thank God he spent all that time following every minor sport team around the country while football and basketball burned.
Click to expand...

This.

I remember nearly driving off the road listening to him get interviewed by Mike Max while riding the bus with the volleyball team to an away game. Apparently he liked to make one trip a year with each team. What a great guy.

Presently, athletic directors & commissioners at BCS schools are debating how to formally recognize that not all FBS football programs are created equal. Back in Minneapolis two years ago, Joel had yet to reach the conclusion that football was not equal to volleyball, wrestling, and gymnastics.
 



Lakeville Goldy said:
True, but it is almost unheard of to hire someone at this level who hadn't been at least a coordinator. It happens (in the NFL Singletary and Tice that I can think of off the top of my head), but it is very uncommon. It may not make him incompetent in and of itself, but it is one in a series of questionable decisions that together paint a legitimate picture of his overall competence. I do agree that point probably does get hammered a little more than it deserves. And if Brew had worked out here, Maturi would be legendary. But you can say that about almost any of his decisions...
Click to expand...

I didn't mind that Brewster didn't have head coaching or even coordinator experience. You can hire coordinators for that stuff, as long as the head coach has other essential traits/skills. It's the AD's job to determine who has the necessary traits and whether they make up for deficiencies.

Sometimes ADs get hires wrong, for sure. But in hindsight the gulf between Brewster and others was pretty wide. Big Ten athletic directors get paid pretty well to distinguish the Tim Brewsters of the world from the Charlie Strongs before the rest of us can.

He went out on a limb really far, and it snapped. I wish he could just say that. He shrugs off the criticism of the Brewster hire with "it comes with the territory," sort of like, "hey, you can't make everyone happy ... you win some, you lose some." That ticks me off almost as much as the hire itself.
 

Big Ten Mind said:
huh? There are more jock-sniffing media homers in this market then nearly anywhere in the country (homersota)...if the Gophs earned a few Jan 1 bowls over the past 20 years I'm guessing the few that do rip would be a bit more kind
Click to expand...

Referencing a five years dead website that never had more than what, a couple of hundred readers? Oh and that on a great day?

Spoken like a guy who's knowledge of football begins and ends with the NFL. The Common Man show is still on, now go skeedaddle back to the radio.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Plenty of successful college head coaches have had zero (or almost zero) previous head coaching experience before they got their first high major job. People only point it out because it's something else to rip Brewster and Maturi for. If Brewster had been successful here, no one would've cared about his prior lack of head coaching experience. Hiring a coach with little previous head coaching experience doesn't/didn't make Maturi incompetent.
Click to expand...

Not sure if this is right and I don't care enough to look it up but I believe one of the problem with Brewster's resume was that he didn't have any coordinator experience. To me that should have been a big red flag! I agree that you don't necessarily need head coach experience but Brewster was way under qualified for a head coach position at a Big Ten school. He just wasn't ready and it showed from day one. That's not necessarily Brewster's fault but it was Joe Maruri's fault. He should have recognized that Brewster's lacked the prerequisite training an experiences to be able to move into a head coach position.
 

Hates Monikers said:
...Charlie Strongs before the rest of us can.
Click to expand...

Charlie Strong was the DC at South Carolina 1999 - 2001, and was DC at Florida before he was hired in 2010. Not the same discussion as someone who was never a coordinator at any level.
 

These are all examples of coaches that mentored under good leaders and were ready.

GophersInIowa said:
There are several in the Big Ten right now who didn't have experience prior:
Kevin Wilson - Indiana
Bo Pelini - Nebraska
Pat Fitzgerald - Northwestern
Bill O'Brien - Penn St.

Pelini and Fitzgerald have been successful, and O'Brien was coach of the year in his first year.
Click to expand...
These guy's all had some substance to them something Tim Brewster never had, just a good sounding resume with some impressve names on it.

Tim Brewster may have worked for Mac Brown and was part of his coaching tree but even he never made Brewster any type of supervisor. Same can be said for Mike Shanahan, he said Brewster was a good schmoozer and BS'er and you need those types to sell free agents and keep people happy. Mac Brown said and I'm paraphrasing that when Tim Brewster was hired as head coach that he couldn't believe it? "Really someone hired Tim Brewster as head coach?" His immeditate reaction was to be as shocked as anyone. Brewsters first presser, a lot of us were skeptical of him and said so.
I never wanted Joel Maturi hiring a head football coach at the University of Minnesota, hopefully his hire of Jerry Kill cancels out the damge done by Tim Brewster.
 

Killjoy said:
Brewster was way under qualified for a head coach position at a Big Ten school. He just wasn't ready and it showed from day one.
Click to expand...

I disagree. He had 21 years of coaching experience before getting the Minnesota job, including 14 years in college and 5 years in the NFL. People focus way too much on whether he had the appropriate amount of experience (he did) and whether he had the appropriate type/quality of experience (debatable, but probably no) and ignore the question of whether he was good enough (he wasn't). I can name tons of guys who were "underexperienced" and still did just fine - sometimes amazingly so. I can name tons of guys who had all of the experience in the world and still sucked. Tim Brewster was more than adequately experienced, he just is not competent at all of the skill sets required to be a head coach at the major collegiate level, and certainly was not as of 2007. I think you could give him 40 years of experience as a coordinator or low-level head coach and it wouldn't have made much of a difference. He is really, really good at recruiting and not much else. A ton of experience doesn't necessarily make someone better at something, and it pretty much never makes anyone good enough to be sufficient at something they just don't have the skill set for.
 

dpodoll68 said:
I disagree. He had 21 years of coaching experience before getting the Minnesota job, including 14 years in college and 5 years in the NFL. People focus way too much on whether he had the appropriate amount of experience (he did) and whether he had the appropriate type/quality of experience (debatable, but probably no) and ignore the question of whether he was good enough (he wasn't). I can name tons of guys who were "underexperienced" and still did just fine - sometimes amazingly so. I can name tons of guys who had all of the experience in the world and still sucked. Tim Brewster was more than adequately experienced, he just is not competent at all of the skill sets required to be a head coach at the major collegiate level, and certainly was not as of 2007. I think you could give him 40 years of experience as a coordinator or low-level head coach and it wouldn't have made much of a difference. He is really, really good at recruiting and not much else. A ton of experience doesn't necessarily make someone better at something, and it pretty much never makes anyone good enough to be sufficient at something they just don't have the skill set for.
Click to expand...

I agree with Dpod on this one. I don't have a problem with Maturi higher someone with Brewster's expeience level. I have a problem with him hiring someone with Brewster's skill set. Maturi got plenty of money, and in return, it was his job to evaluate candidates' viability as a successful football coach. He failed in Brewster. I am hoping that Kill is the right guy, because I sure level Jerry's attitude and approach.
 

Dr.Don said:
You posters bitch and moan about the negativity of the Metro Media, and then when Maturi does it publicly, you hammer his ass. Ya can't have it both ways.
Click to expand...

Exactly right. The metro media feels it is their god given right to be negative about the Gophers at least 75% of the time. Even kfan takes its shots at Gopher FB and they are the home of Gopher FB.

I had to laugh the other day when I was listening to Jud and Dubay. Dubay was going off because the Gophers played Nelson last year. Gee Jeff it is over and we now have a QB who has game expereince. Who knows when Nelson is a Senior if he will be the QB. He might get hurt or maybe we will have someone better. Enjoy the season!
 

tap said:
Exactly right. The metro media feels it is their god given right to be negative about the Gophers at least 75% of the time. Even kfan takes its shots at Gopher FB and they are the home of Gopher FB.

I had to laugh the other day when I was listening to Jud and Dubay. Dubay was going off because the Gophers played Nelson last year. Gee Jeff it is over and we now have a QB who has game expereince. Who knows when Nelson is a Senior if he will be the QB. He might get hurt or maybe we will have someone better. Enjoy the season!
Click to expand...

By and large over many years there hasn't been much to be positive about. Sure you can find a feel good story every once in a while and get people to listen to it. However, you can't do this often and get readers to care when the team is still losing. The majority of the public just sees a program that has struggled mightily for many years and the media isn't the ones creating that perception, it is the product on the field. People complain about the lack of media coverage, but really they only want more coverage if it positive. The media and the fans here are really quite tame compared to many college markets where everything negative with the football team is front page news, not buried in the sports section. Unfortunately negativity is what this programs failures have produced over many years, those failures far out number the successes. Don't be surprised then to see more stories talking about the failures than the successes. Minimizing the failures and struggles and accentuating the positives is not the role of the media, that is the role of the U of M PR folks. Since the media doesn't work for the U of M, it is their right to write and report what they want as long as it isn't illegal. Just like it is your right to not listen to the local media. however, if that majority of citizens has problems with the media's takes and reporting, you can be assured that the media would change. They aren't being pressured to so so because most people either agree with their views or are apathetic to them.
 

And as much as I lament the things done under macturi's watch...

GopherGod said:
By and large over many years there hasn't been much to be positive about. Sure you can find a feel good story every once in a while and get people to listen to it. However, you can't do this often and get readers to care when the team is still losing. The majority of the public just sees a program that has struggled mightily for many years and the media isn't the ones creating that perception, it is the product on the field. People complain about the lack of media coverage, but really they only want more coverage if it positive. The media and the fans here are really quite tame compared to many college markets where everything negative with the football team is front page news, not buried in the sports section. Unfortunately negativity is what this programs failures have produced over many years, those failures far out number the successes. Don't be surprised then to see more stories talking about the failures than the successes. Minimizing the failures and struggles and accentuating the positives is not the role of the media, that is the role of the U of M PR folks. Since the media doesn't work for the U of M, it is their right to write and report what they want as long as it isn't illegal. Just like it is your right to not listen to the local media. however, if that majority of citizens has problems with the media's takes and reporting, you can be assured that the media would change. They aren't being pressured to so so because most people either agree with their views or are apathetic to them.
Click to expand...


I lament the fact that he was the former head guy's "bag man..." Why do people think the former ad was retained by our new head guy? Undoubtedly prexy b passed the former ad on to the new prexy. Was it "pay back" to macturi for all the hits he took for carrying out prexy b's orders with extensions, firings, buy outs? Maybe. Maybe not. At any rate, nothing was done without prexy b's permission OR without following prexy b's directives. Brewster, Tubby, Coach Kill, Pam borton's NEVER ENDING "reign of terror..." Paying a hoops coach more than twice as much as a football coach?

At any rate, reading the support some have for the former ad makes me realize that most likely we DESERVE exactly what we get around here. Not much is apt to change based upon some of the excuses made by some former ad supporters who just have to defend the memory of brewball and want to recall that brewball era in a "...kinder, more gentle..." and much more excused way than the chaotic and sad way that it all really went down. Yes, I guess we all deserve EXACTLY what we have gotten...what we have had...the way it has been.

Oh well...reading what some of the fans have to say makes it all too clear...Change is a VERY slow process...

; 0 )
 

dpodoll68 said:
I disagree. He had 21 years of coaching experience before getting the Minnesota job, including 14 years in college and 5 years in the NFL. People focus way too much on whether he had the appropriate amount of experience (he did) and whether he had the appropriate type/quality of experience (debatable, but probably no) and ignore the question of whether he was good enough (he wasn't). I can name tons of guys who were "underexperienced" and still did just fine - sometimes amazingly so. I can name tons of guys who had all of the experience in the world and still sucked. Tim Brewster was more than adequately experienced, he just is not competent at all of the skill sets required to be a head coach at the major collegiate level, and certainly was not as of 2007. I think you could give him 40 years of experience as a coordinator or low-level head coach and it wouldn't have made much of a difference. He is really, really good at recruiting and not much else. A ton of experience doesn't necessarily make someone better at something, and it pretty much never makes anyone good enough to be sufficient at something they just don't have the skill set for.
Click to expand...
I agree with this. However, I think what a lot of people really mean to say is not that Brewster didn't have experience as a coordinator, but that he would NEVER have experience as a coordinator because he simply wasn't very smart. 20+ years as a position coach and high school football coach without ever taking a coordinating position potentially indicates that you aren't that interested in the more intellectual aspects of coaching, only the recruiting/rah-rah end of things.

Some of the things that were wrong with Brewster probably can only be spotted in hindsight, but how you spend much time with the person and not realize he's a bit of a flake and an intellectual lightweight I don't know.
 

GopherGod said:
By and large over many years there hasn't been much to be positive about. Sure you can find a feel good story every once in a while and get people to listen to it. However, you can't do this often and get readers to care when the team is still losing. The majority of the public just sees a program that has struggled mightily for many years and the media isn't the ones creating that perception, it is the product on the field. People complain about the lack of media coverage, but really they only want more coverage if it positive. The media and the fans here are really quite tame compared to many college markets where everything negative with the football team is front page news, not buried in the sports section. Unfortunately negativity is what this programs failures have produced over many years, those failures far out number the successes. Don't be surprised then to see more stories talking about the failures than the successes. Minimizing the failures and struggles and accentuating the positives is not the role of the media, that is the role of the U of M PR folks. Since the media doesn't work for the U of M, it is their right to write and report what they want as long as it isn't illegal. Just like it is your right to not listen to the local media. however, if that majority of citizens has problems with the media's takes and reporting, you can be assured that the media would change. They aren't being pressured to so so because most people either agree with their views or are apathetic to them
Click to expand...
You'd think this would be obvious to anyone.....
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
True, but it is almost unheard of to hire someone at this level who hadn't been at least a coordinator. It happens (in the NFL Singletary and Tice that I can think of off the top of my head), but it is very uncommon. It may not make him incompetent in and of itself, but it is one in a series of questionable decisions that together paint a legitimate picture of his overall competence. I do agree that point probably does get hammered a little more than it deserves. And if Brew had worked out here, Maturi would be legendary. But you can say that about almost any of his decisions...

One of my biggest problems with Maturi (and to an even greater extent, Bruininks) is that Maturi was very public that the job had passed him by, and he was almost proud of still being an AD who wasn't doing the job as it existed today. And yet, even knowing he wasn't doing the job he accepted at least one extension and wanted an addtional one that Kaler did not give him after publicly saying he wasn't qualified for the job.

Who says they aren't qualified for the job, then keeps saying they want it anyway? And who keeps paying someone who openly says they aren't doing the job that they need to do?
Click to expand...

Exactly. If you want to cherry pick the Brewster decision and say that you can't judge him on that one simply because there are other football coaches have made it without being head coaches, then you're not grasping the bigger picture of what went on while he was here. And as it happened, that wasn't the only truly boneheaded thing that Maturi did while he was leading the department. In fact, boneheaded decisions became the norm, especially as it pertained to the major sports. The football call was simply another in a series of stupid decisions.

Do I honestly think Maturi is a bad guy? No. But he wasn't a good AD. And he deserves every bit of the criticism has/will receive.
 

3399 said:
I would argue that Northwestern and Minnesota have it the easiest in the Big Ten in regards to the media. Think about the amount of the coverage the Vikings get as opposed to the Gophers. It is at least 2 or 3 to 1. But, that is what the other schools face in scrutiny. The college is the Vikings of their area.
Click to expand...

Yes, nearly all successful programs are in markets without competition from the NFL for media coverage. You see UM's (and NW's) competition for attention as advantages. I never thought of it that way -- interesting. I've always seen it as a recruiting disadvantaging since I believe that top recruits want to be the stars in their towns, not with the fourth or fifth or sixth-most covered program in the market. When top recruits won't sign with your program, you lose. When you lose, you lose media attention and more top recruits ignore you. A spiral that I think we've been in since the Vikes arrived. Anyway, if you're right and by being a secondary or tertiary program in town the media don't scrutinize you as much, we ought to be recruiting kids who prefer to play for the fun of the game rather than for the bright lights.
 

3399 said:
I would argue that Northwestern and Minnesota have it the easiest in the Big Ten in regards to the media. Think about the amount of the coverage the Vikings get as opposed to the Gophers. It is at least 2 or 3 to 1. But, that is what the other schools face in scrutiny. The college is the Vikings of their area.
Click to expand...

Yes, nearly all successful programs are in markets without competition from the NFL for media coverage. You see UM's (and NW's) competition for attention as advantages. I never thought of it that way -- interesting. I've always seen it as a recruiting disadvantaging since I believe that top recruits want to be the stars in their towns, not with the fourth or fifth or sixth-most covered program in the market. When top recruits won't sign with your program, you lose. When you lose, you lose media attention and more top recruits ignore you. A spiral that I think we've been in since the Vikes arrived. Anyway, if you're right and by being a secondary or tertiary program in town the media don't scrutinize you as much, we ought to be recruiting kids who prefer to play for the fun of the game rather than for the bright lights.
 

FanSinceTheFifties said:
Yes, nearly all successful programs are in markets without competition from the NFL for media coverage.
Click to expand...

Nearly all programs, period, are in markets without competition from the NFL for media coverage. Most major college football programs aren't in NFL markets. So your point above doesn't really mean what you think it means.
 

MRJ said:
Exactly. If you want to cherry pick the Brewster decision and say that you can't judge him on that one simply because there are other football coaches have made it without being head coaches, then you're not grasping the bigger picture of what went on while he was here. And as it happened, that wasn't the only truly boneheaded thing that Maturi did while he was leading the department. In fact, boneheaded decisions became the norm, especially as it pertained to the major sports. The football call was simply another in a series of stupid decisions.

Do I honestly think Maturi is a bad guy? No. But he wasn't a good AD. And he deserves every bit of the criticism has/will receive.
Click to expand...

It doesn't change the fact that Maturi is the best Gophers AD since the 1960's. No other AD since that time even approaches Maturi's accomplishments both on and off the field. The best thing Maturi did was put together the design team and design process for the new Gophers football stadium. Many things could have gone wrong with the design of the stadium and almost nothing did. Considering the limited funds that Maturi had available to him it was almost a perfect project that will be his legacy long after Tim Brewster becomes a minor footnote in Gopher history.

Did Maturi leave Gophers athletics in a better position than when he started? Yes, without question. Maturi left Teague a far better and more stable athletics department then he inherited. Gophers athletics was in absolutely terrible shape when Maturi took over in 2002. Maturi did what he was immediately hired to do: merge athletic departments, meet Title IX standards, and fix the budget crisis. And Maturi was the person in charge when football came back to campus. Many of the decisions Maturi gets criticized for actually were made by Bob Bruininks who has a hands-on, contol freak where the athletics department was concerned.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom