Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Smaller story but one of particular interest to me personally.

When a university decides to go "Big Time" in college athletics it makes the decision to have its major sports teams, the tackle football team, preeminently, become the face and reputation of the entire university nationally.

Why would a university ever do that? "The Flutie Effect." If you capture magic in a bottle student applications to your university increase, you can become more "selective" in whom you admit, the SAT profile of your university increases; or not: you can admit more students and get more tuition revenue, you can charge more to attend your university; you get more revenue from TV contracts. It can be a Golden Circle. The converse is also in play: Big Time college athletics can disfigure the face and tarnish the reputation of your university.

Scott Barnes, the athletic director at the University of Pittsburgh, left to assume the same position at Oregon State University on December 22. Barnes had been on the job at Pitt for twenty months, I think it was. It was a lateral move at best. Oregon State University vs the University of Pittsburgh. The PAC 12 Conference vs the ACC. Oregon State "Beavers" vs Pitt "Panthers." Corvallis, Oregon vs Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Barnes' move did not beautify the face of Pitt nor enhance its reputation nationally. It did the converse. And with me, personally.

The only reasons given for the move were, "personal and familial." One Pittsburgh pencil wrote that the only problem Barnes had with Pitt was that it was not located in Oregon. Before coming to Pittsburgh, Barnes worked for seven years in Logan, Utah for Utah State University. No, relocating Pitt to Oregon was not an option. It is not sufficient explanation, either. Barnes knew Pitt was not located in Oregon before relocating from Logan. He knew Logan was not in Utah.

I am going to draw a red line here, I am going to draw it in pencil equipped with an eraser, but I am going to draw it. If the only explanation we ever get, and Pittsburgh pencils do not dig deeply, is "personal and familiar" and Pittsburgh is not in Oregon, then this is the penultimate red line. If Barnes' move is made more specifically personal and familial, like an aged, dying parent, then I will erase the red line. But if it is not, and I do not expect it to be, then one more disfiguration, say if head football coach Pat Narduzzi makes a "lateral move" and I am done supporting Pitt sports.

If, for example, this is, as it appears very much to be, about Scott Barnes--or his wife--not digging the city of Pittsburgh, as it was for football coach Todd Graham who left after one year, then the fault lies, as it did then, with those who hired Barnes. Graham said his mistake was coming to Pitt in the first place--from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Anybody who prefers Tulsa to Pittsburgh or Logan to Pittsburgh or Corvallis to Pittsburgh should never, ever, be considered for the job. Right? Does that not seem a fair question to pop in the job interview, "Sir, all other things being approximately equal, compensation, conference, authority, resources, potential for success, would you rather live and work in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or in Logan, Utah, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Corvallis, Oregon, or some other pustule on the anus of America? Don't be afraid to hurt our feelings."

The face behind the face and reputation of the University of Pittsburgh is now Chancellor Patrick Gallagher. That was a beautiful face behind when he first came to Pitt. When football coach Paul Chryst left for Madison, Wisconsin for personal and familial reasons, Chancellor Gallagher summarily executed athletic director Steve Pederson (a long overdue execution, that). Gallagher personally led the search for a "Big Name" replacement for Chryst. He didn't get a Big Name, he elevated a coordinator from another school, but he got a Big Time coach in Narduzzi.

Gallagher then chose, but was not as personally involved (Pitt hired a "search firm" as aid (same as they did with Graham and Michael Haywood (the latter lasting 31 days))), Scott Barnes as permanent AD. That was a lateral (you want to get laterals, not give laterals (especially in football)). I thought it was a good hire. Barnes did a great job from what I could tell at Utah State, albeit with all the attractions of Logan, Utah. It was even remarked that Barnes and Gallagher seemed almost like brothers, family, at the news conference.

Barnes did a pretty good job at Pitt, as much as he could do in twenty months, twenty months is not time enough to implement one's "vision," it is more like a "blink," but he seemed to do well with fund-raising and he increased tickets sold to bowl games. Couple blinks.

Couple others: After one year, Pitt football lost its offensive coordinator to Georgia in another dreaded "give" lateral. I don't even remember the guy's name so it wasn't too dreadful. Then in year two they lost the replacement for the offensive coordinator. That was a guy who had been fired from his previous job as OC so it wasn't even a get lateral, it was a labor pool hire. But that guy turned out to be Matt Canada and Oh my God. But one year, 44 points per game (and 800,000 more francs) after selling pencils out of a cup on a street corner, Canada was off to speak French on the bayou, eh?

One other blink was forcing out, or holding the door open for, men's basketball coach Jamie Dixon to go "home" to Fort Worth, Texas and Texas Christian University. I was comme ci comme sa on Dixon's exit, as a lot of Pitt lovers were. Barnes chose (I think with the "aid" of one of those loathsome search firms, too) Kevin Stallings of Vanderbilt as Dixon's replacement. That went over like a lead balloon with most Pitt-ies (I do wish Stallings hadn't been caught on an open mic threatening to kill one of his Vandy charges, but I am otherwise willing to give him a chance) and attendance at Pitt basketball games has suffered noticeably this, Stallings first, year, but we'll see how he does.

Good blinks and bad blinks, Barnes' attenuated "tenure" at Pitt is a bad look on Chancellor Gallagher's face.

I hope we get a chance to see how Stallings does. There is a, it's like a Tourette's Syndrome, with new athletic directors: "out with the old, in with the new," they can't help it, it's a tic they all have. Imo, the new AD, whoever he, or she, is, should be prescribed medication to control those tics; in my view if he or she comes in and immediately axes Stallings or especially if (s)he holds the door open or does any such thing with Narduzzi then he or she should be (figuratively) strung up from the top floor of the Cathedral of Learning and left to dangle. And if that tic tocks then I am done with Pitt sports.