Thomas Giel: Don’t blame Paul Giel for end of the brickhouse

[minimax]

Mini - You have every right to dislike Paul Giel. No Rose Bowls, No Nat'l Champs in BB, (You're not giving him any credit for hockey program, so I won't mention). The non revs were kept alive because of him, however. And that does matter to the hundreds of student athletes who go through the program.

He may have called on the "swells" but who would you have called on for donations...? The people Giel got involved in the program donate to this day (Dick Ames, Rod Wallace, Lee Sundet, etc...) No telethons, just personal contact , a thousand banquets and speeches, and asking for help. To call him lazy is absolute bs.

I agree that the FB record under his tenured sucked. But, that's as far as I'll go with you on your assertions. And, fyi Giel's salary was public record back then... not high 6 to 7 figure, believe me.

Cas,

Darn, now you’ve got me all Kumbayah-ed up here. I do maintain the Paul Giel was a very bad AD. Well, actually I think he was a disaster. However, your point on the survival (prospering) of non-rev sports is well made and well taken. That does mean a lot to a lot of people. And he may well have been the only living thing between the women’s soccer program and the abyss. If he was, then good on him. That’s not nothing . . . .really.

But in full, that is not how we take the measure of the modern day D1 AD is it? Especially one that had the job for as long as he did. Mr. Giel had the credibility and tenure to help the regents pull together a marquee athletics program in spite of themselves. It just didn’t happen. I don’t think he was dumb, so lazy is all that I have left for an explanation.

It doesn’t mean that he had to go out and get Rose Bowls and Final Fours, but somewhere though his term, the trend lines should have started to at least be directionally suggestive that those goals were realistic . . . .someday. They never were.

Anyway, it’s been fun and those are my last word on the subject.