I've known a couple of M-Club footballers over the years. Generally all are good guys and I don't think these particular guys give much of a hoot about who is getting the job, but there always seems to be a core group of M-Clubbers who throw themselves into these things and I would be curious to know if this happens in other college programs to the extent it happens here and if not, why not?
As I've often stated, I don't have as big a problem with Maturi as many in here. He inherited a mess when he took over and he's kept things moving forward, if not always keeping the car on the road. The Brewster hire was simply a bad decision. I don't think anyone realized that the Monson hire would be almost equally disastrous when Monson was first hired. Maturi has kept as many athletic opportunities as possible around for a broad range of student-athletes and, again, the decision to keep as many non-revenue sports as we have is probably determined more over at the Board of Regents than it is with either Bruininks or Maturi.
But there's no question the name "Maturi" and the term "bold leadership" aren't going to be found in the same sentence. Part of that is Maturi's style and part of it is it's probably just who he is. I would guess that at some of the powerful football schools, the Athletic Director is able to look at the football alumni and keep them in line and maybe that's the problem here. Giel was run over by that era M-Club and the Minneapolis Downtown Council (who urged the move to the Metrodome). It just seems that regardless of who inhabits the AD chair at the U, they get rushed by alumni with a heavy interest in the athletic department. I'm all for input, but it just seems so ridiculous here.
