Was firing Johnson the right decision by Coyle?

Was firing Johnson the right decision by Coyle?

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Coyle is on the selection committee. Flew back to join them at 5 am.

Doing it over the phone would've been lacking dignity and respect. Having a press conference to announce it would have been a shit show and rubbing Ben's face in it. Seems you have an axe to grind with Coyle.

This is, at the bottom line, a business.
 


caliGopher said:
No issue with cutting the cord. No issue with move one.

There is a way to do this with dignity and respect for everyone involved. The two things are NOT mutually exclusive.

Dignity and respect are two things that Mark Coyle has lacked in his entire tenure here - and is a big warning shot to whomever Coyle tries to bring in here that he will not take responsibility for his decisions and will treat you with disrespect to protect his ass (the flip side is he's a rube and even with mediocre success, he'll extend you and give you a raise so that might counter the fact that he's a spineless simp).

How would I have done it?

The easiest way would have been to tell Ben I want to meet with you in the morning, give him what he'd already know was about to happen—his termination, and then send out an invitation for the local press to a press conference at 10 AM, where the firing would be announced and questions answered (even though not much would be said).

But if it couldn't wait, after the conversation last night, send out a notice for a press conference at 8 AM to the local press, alerting Ben it was going out and letting him see it first so he had full visibility into what was happening. By all accounts that would have been before midnight.

It still would have been late, but there would have been enough time for the press to be on campus at 8AM for the formal announcement. Yes, everyone would have known EXACTLY what this morning's press conference was about. No, it wouldn't have been an obvious attempt to sidestep standing in front of the press and handling questions, which an AD should have done in this case.
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Did you miss the massive PR campaign that was being waged on Ben's behalf the past several weeks, especially after the wins at UCLA and USC? Some as recent as yesterday that were borderline playing the race card, if not outright doing it?

Here is my take: If that PR campaign isn't happening, the firing happens at what I would call more "traditional" hours. Somebody in Ben's camp, or Ben himself, got local AND national media in on the Save Ben Johnson Victim Tour. After reading the article by Marcus a day or two ago, I went from cool, calm and collected to seeing red. If I'm the guy making the decision, my timeline just moved up to immediate dismissal. I don't care what time of day it happens, that PR fire could not be allowed to have even more oxygen. Wage a public campaign, expect a public execution.

High profile, big money gigs are brutal and harsh. It comes with the territory. He wasn't let go from some $18 an hour job. He wasn't a volunteer coach. He made $8M over the last 4 years and got somewhere around $3M to leave. If my employer offered me $3M to take my services elsewhere, I could care less what time they told me to take a hike. I wake up this morning and I'm planning a vacation someplace for the next 2 weeks. I'm in no rush to find a new job.

99% of the country could only dream of having such flexibility following a job loss. He'll be just fine.
 

DarthGopher said:
Did you miss the massive PR campaign that was being waged on Ben's behalf the past several weeks, especially after the wins at UCLA and USC?
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I don't think there was any massive PR campaign. A few writers said that he did pretty good with what he had. Here's their logic if you don't understand this by now: the sports media views Minnesota as a perennial bottom feeder program so when the program does anything good enough for them to notice (like 7 Quad 1 wins and 5 road conference road wins), they write about it. That Seth Davis article was written before the Gophers completely took a dive at the end of the season. In the end, they finished just like the perennial bottom feeder that the media thinks they are.
 





I'm old enuf to recall the gophers making the dance. The excitement of Selection Sunday, scouring the bracket, and hoping we get favorable matchups. All the excitement of looking forward to and watching our team play.
Of course the final four season was incredible but don't hardly dare think of that level of success yet. Baby steps at this point.
I agree with posters here who say don't settle. High ceiling low floor is fine with me. If money becomes an issue then we deserve our fate.
 

ecoperson said:
Games outside of the conference occur in all collegiate sports and are part of the regular season. They are, in no way, similar to preseason games in the professional leagues which are about conditioning and grading potential players for the final squad.
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Of course, they're called regular season, so season ticket holders pay for the games. My season tickets for BB include 20 games. 10 b10 games and 10 pre-season games which are mostly horrible to watch and mean nothing. Everyone calls them pre-season, but they're included in the season record. Nobody cares what the pre-season record is. At the end of the year, and for historical purposes when the season record is discussed it's what was their b10 record. When Coyle looks at CBJ's won/loss record he's not looking at the pre-season. The b10 record is all that matters. Sure, small schools look at it the other way when they're playing P5 schools but for the UofM and other P5 schools it doesn't make sense. If the gophers played Duke, Notre Dame, NC, Kentucky ect..., those games could be included. But NOT Duluth, North Dakota, Norhtern IA, Alabama Huntsville ect...
 



TwistingMyMelon said:
I don't think there was any massive PR campaign. A few writers said that he did pretty good with what he had. Here's their logic if you don't understand this by now: the sports media views Minnesota as a perennial bottom feeder program so when the program does anything good enough for them to notice (like 7 Quad 1 wins and 5 road conference road wins), they write about it. That Seth Davis article was written before the Gophers completely took a dive at the end of the season. In the end, they finished just like the perennial bottom feeder that the media thinks they are.
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Seth Davis doubled down on his BS today......
 

caliGopher said:
No issue with cutting the cord. No issue with move one.

There is a way to do this with dignity and respect for everyone involved. The two things are NOT mutually exclusive.

Dignity and respect are two things that Mark Coyle has lacked in his entire tenure here - and is a big warning shot to whomever Coyle tries to bring in here that he will not take responsibility for his decisions and will treat you with disrespect to protect his ass (the flip side is he's a rube and even with mediocre success, he'll extend you and give you a raise so that might counter the fact that he's a spineless simp).

How would I have done it?

The easiest way would have been to tell Ben I want to meet with you in the morning, give him what he'd already know was about to happen—his termination, and then send out an invitation for the local press to a press conference at 10 AM, where the firing would be announced and questions answered (even though not much would be said).

But if it couldn't wait, after the conversation last night, send out a notice for a press conference at 8 AM to the local press, alerting Ben it was going out and letting him see it first so he had full visibility into what was happening. By all accounts that would have been before midnight.

It still would have been late, but there would have been enough time for the press to be on campus at 8AM for the formal announcement. Yes, everyone would have known EXACTLY what this morning's press conference was about. No, it wouldn't have been an obvious attempt to sidestep standing in front of the press and handling questions, which an AD should have done in this case.
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Holy fuck this is a bad take.

At least get your facts straight.

Coyle flew back to Indy early this morning, you dolt.
 





caliGopher said:
Yes, he fired him to his face when they landed—then sent the note at one in the morning. That was incredibly disrespectful to Ben Johnson, even though the firing was deserved, and stupid. Who wants to work for a guy who treats his employees that way? It IS consistent with how Coyle has handled almost everything since we got stuck with him.

Coyle has been incompetent since the day he got here, but at least he isn't sexually assaulting his staff, is a pretty low bar for a B1G AD, just sayin.

Fire Coyle.

It won't happen because mindless simps who don't know the difference between good and bad and right and wrong are hard to come by, but it needs to happen.
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B.S.
 


TwistingMyMelon said:
So, he's sticking with his opinion. That doesn't mean there was a "massive PR campaign."
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I didn't mean it that way.....I'm just saying Seth Davis is an idiot. He made an idiotic original post about CBJ being "elite"....faced a lot of blowback and has continued to double and triple down on his moronic first take. Just my 2 cents.
 

Firing was a bad idea because there will be no big hire, no influx of NIL money and we will still play in a fan unfriendly, outdated venue. Gopher basketball is a lost cause. There is substantial talent in this state and very few consider Minnesota, the home school. Fix that.
 

1983 said:
Firing was a bad idea because there will be no big hire, no influx of NIL money and we will still play in a fan unfriendly, outdated venue. Gopher basketball is a lost cause. There is substantial talent in this state and very few consider Minnesota, the home school. Fix that.
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I'm curious......can ANYONE cite a player who ever said that the Barn was a factor in not coming to Minnesota??? OTOH....I've seen many players commit and comment on playing at "The Barn".....
 

1983 said:
Firing was a bad idea because there will be no big hire, no influx of NIL money and we will still play in a fan unfriendly, outdated venue. Gopher basketball is a lost cause. There is substantial talent in this state and very few consider Minnesota, the home school. Fix that.
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2022 talking points
 

caliGopher said:
No issue with cutting the cord. No issue with move one.

There is a way to do this with dignity and respect for everyone involved. The two things are NOT mutually exclusive.

Dignity and respect are two things that Mark Coyle has lacked in his entire tenure here - and is a big warning shot to whomever Coyle tries to bring in here that he will not take responsibility for his decisions and will treat you with disrespect to protect his ass (the flip side is he's a rube and even with mediocre success, he'll extend you and give you a raise so that might counter the fact that he's a spineless simp).

How would I have done it?

The easiest way would have been to tell Ben I want to meet with you in the morning, give him what he'd already know was about to happen—his termination, and then send out an invitation for the local press to a press conference at 10 AM, where the firing would be announced and questions answered (even though not much would be said).

But if it couldn't wait, after the conversation last night, send out a notice for a press conference at 8 AM to the local press, alerting Ben it was going out and letting him see it first so he had full visibility into what was happening. By all accounts that would have been before midnight.

It still would have been late, but there would have been enough time for the press to be on campus at 8AM for the formal announcement. Yes, everyone would have known EXACTLY what this morning's press conference was about. No, it wouldn't have been an obvious attempt to sidestep standing in front of the press and handling questions, which an AD should have done in this case.
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This is exactly why you're not in charge of anything.

Every minute wasted is a minute lost when you're competing against other schools for the same coaching candidates and same recruits.
 

tjgopher said:
The NCAA Selection Committee does.
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Possibly NCAA cares or at least they say it impacts their decisions for the NCAA tourney. Fans and certainly Coyle and other Athletic Directors don't care about the non-conference games, except for the high-profile games, ie Dukes of the world. So, what was the gophers record last year?
B10: 9-11...who cares or remembers their record for pre-season games.
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:

Seth Davis doubled down on his BS today......
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Yep, MN is a difficult place to coach and a lot of coaches have struggled here. It's just that out of all of that failure, Ben Johnson was unique in his ability to be awful. He's the worst of the bad coaches we've had, that's saying something.
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:
I didn't mean it that way.....I'm just saying Seth Davis is an idiot. He made an idiotic original post about CBJ being "elite"....faced a lot of blowback and has continued to double and triple down on his moronic first take. Just my 2 cents.
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I agree that calling him "elite" was foolish. I doubt this guy was closely following the Gophers throughout the season and I seriously doubt he watched much of them. If he did, he would know that they folded like a cheap suit at the end of the year. I realize that the "massive PR campaign" phrase wasn't yours.
 

1983 said:
Firing was a bad idea because there will be no big hire, no influx of NIL money and we will still play in a fan unfriendly, outdated venue. Gopher basketball is a lost cause. There is substantial talent in this state and very few consider Minnesota, the home school. Fix that.
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So keep the failing coach??
 

dbmn said:
Possibly NCAA cares or at least they say it impacts their decisions for the NCAA tourney. Fans and certainly Coyle and other Athletic Directors don't care about the non-conference games, except for the high-profile games, ie Dukes of the world. So, what was the gophers record last year?
B10: 9-11...who cares or remembers their record for pre-season games.
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They aren't preseason games. They are non-conference games.

And the record placed next to the team's name and the coach's record will forever be 19-15 for last year.
 


cheeseheadgophfan said:
Coyle is on the selection committee. Flew back to join them at 5 am.

Doing it over the phone would've been lacking dignity and respect. Having a press conference to announce it would have been a shit show and rubbing Ben's face in it. Seems you have an axe to grind with Coyle.

This is, at the bottom line, a business.
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No.
 

caliGopher said:
No issue with cutting the cord. No issue with move one.

There is a way to do this with dignity and respect for everyone involved. The two things are NOT mutually exclusive.

Dignity and respect are two things that Mark Coyle has lacked in his entire tenure here - and is a big warning shot to whomever Coyle tries to bring in here that he will not take responsibility for his decisions and will treat you with disrespect to protect his ass (the flip side is he's a rube and even with mediocre success, he'll extend you and give you a raise so that might counter the fact that he's a spineless simp).

How would I have done it?

The easiest way would have been to tell Ben I want to meet with you in the morning, give him what he'd already know was about to happen—his termination, and then send out an invitation for the local press to a press conference at 10 AM, where the firing would be announced and questions answered (even though not much would be said).

But if it couldn't wait, after the conversation last night, send out a notice for a press conference at 8 AM to the local press, alerting Ben it was going out and letting him see it first so he had full visibility into what was happening. By all accounts that would have been before midnight.

It still would have been late, but there would have been enough time for the press to be on campus at 8AM for the formal announcement. Yes, everyone would have known EXACTLY what this morning's press conference was about. No, it wouldn't have been an obvious attempt to sidestep standing in front of the press and handling questions, which an AD should have done in this case.
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The part you are missing in all this is that Coyle is part of the NCAA selection process and is in meetings out of the state all week leading up to selection Sunday. He made a trip back specifically to tell Ben in person before getting on another early morning flight back.

Disrespectful would have been not doing it face to face or letting it leak out before Ben knew about it.
 


1983 said:
Firing was a bad idea because there will be no big hire, no influx of NIL money and we will still play in a fan unfriendly, outdated venue. Gopher basketball is a lost cause. There is substantial talent in this state and very few consider Minnesota, the home school. Fix that.
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High probability there will be an influx of revenue sharing money, that could be a difference maker or at least an equilizer. Now is the time for a change and the chance improve the outlook.
 

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