pressurecooker wrote:

The departure of SMS has led to additional criticism of GA. I think he is being being misevaluated. I am not his biggest fan, but with respect to SMS, he made the right move in hiring her and offered her good money to stay. We know that we cannot compete with bigger schools financially. The Pitt job was unique for her in that she gets more money than she can make with us and not have to move her family. So the SMS era was one of GA's success stories.
In the long run, we will not measure GA by the success of the women's basketball program or all the other sports. The issue is whether he can develop and maintain a successful men's basketball program. Everything else pales by comparison. We are in transition now and time will tell.

 
Agree with that. There was really no way that SMS could turn Pitt down. Not anyone's fault. We will see what comes with the men's program but I do believe that Ferry & Co. will be successful in the longrun and take GA off the hook.

Here we go again El Duq with your main point being the RE issue and the leak to the media - just won't let it go!  You know where I stand on GA's decisions, including letting RE go, so I won't belabor the point.  But you will use anything that happens, as if Susie's decision is GA's fault, to bring it up again....and again, and again.  If you bring it up then I feel someone should feel free to defend the decisions.......again and again and again.  I wish we could just agree that his fate will rise or fall with Ferry, which even though I am a GA supporter, agree that is how it should be.  Maybe someone should just ask Charlie what he thinks about the job GA has done and get his response.  I suspect he approves and frankly he is the one with the true understanding of the assignment of responsibilities, duties and accountability - he is his boss after all and has the real inside scoop.

I believe that when reviewing his work as a whole, it would benefit the University to hire a new athletic director before a new women's basketball coach.   I saw another poster on the Yuku board frame my argument better and I am paraphrasing here.   He has absolutely lost control of any positive media relations or public relations good will.    The perception of the media and overwhelmingly the Pittsburgh market as a whole is that Duquesne is a bunch of incompetent losers. 

We are at the point where perception (even if it is false which I don't believe it is) becomes reality.

Duquesne's greatest point of success over his tenure should not be having one program reach a level of success to where a coach is raided by a rival.   And not achieving the ultimate goal in that period of success....an NCAA tournament appearance. 

Continuing with him is just delaying the inevitable, IMO. 

ElDuque wrote:

There are a lot of compelling arguments. I mentioned eliminating sports & the completely negative media perception. I didn't talk about the combined poor output of the so-called minor sports because the person who started this conversation said it shouldn't count (it really should). If Yale and Quinnipiac can get coverage on every major sports network because they can field good college hockey teams, then why should we be content with focusing on three sports that give us a total of one winning program but still no NCAA Tournament appearances?  
.

Spot on point here.   Why do we have to settle for one of the football, mens or womens bb to bring about success and some postive public relations?   The schools you mentioned are doing it in hockey.  RMU could be up there with them in hockey in the next couple of years.   Akron does it in men's soccer.    


Why should all other shortcomings be ignored and his tenure be defined only on whether Ferry is a good coach or not?   
 

Mr. Brightside, it has to be about something more than wishing, wishful thinking, and hope. As I once told Brian Colleary in a face to face conversation, "Hope is not a plan." That's why I am so concerned.

Those of us who follow Twitter and other social media as well as the news media are well aware the folks like Paul Zeise, who otherwise has been raved about by everyone, has just been destroying us since basketball season ended. Not in a vendetta sort of way, but pointing to the news of the day as yet another example that something is not right at Duquesne. You may not see it, but I have friends on Facebook who have never seen this message board who are livid over the bad publicity that they see. And they live in Pittsburgh.

So what will it take? I guess now Greg gets to ride on Ferry's coattails, assuming (hoping, but, oh nevermind!) he is successful. We'll have what, 10 new players on next year's roster if Winters is back? You may have to wait a while for that to happen. So based on hope, hope and more hope, I guess we should extend Greg's contract, bend over, assume the position, and watch the program continue to deteriorate.

And oh yes, send money!

 

MrBrightside wrote:

Duqkurt and El Duq i am going to surprise you both, if it were me I would take a more proactive approach regarding the media, but one has to be very careful playing the balancing act of when to respond to things and when not.  We as fans would like a response or rebuttal all the time, but I suspect our view would be a little different if we were in GA's shoes.  Now El D as to responding to the rest of your comment:
1.  If the University doesn't want to commit major $$ to sports that is not GA's fault;
2.  Cutting some of the other sports is not uncommon, many schools have done it, Pitt for one I think, and many of those schools have more $$ then we do.  The number of sports we were carrying was way too high in my view.
3.  This negative media view, hmmm, seems to me I didn't read anything negative regarding the Susie deal and most of the negative chatter was on talk radio - PLEASEEEEE - they need to talk about something or anything to try to stir the pot.  You don't see good "reporters" (Zeise) being critical of Greg for RE or Susie for that matter.  You can say that some people in the media were critical of GA for RE, but then don't tell me he took the easy road in firing him to protect himself!!! PLEASEEE.  Frankly most of the negative commentators on the RE deal hardly ever even came to see the Dukes play during RE's tenure!
4. The "Leak", black eye for the University, agreed, but putting this all on GA, c'mon!  Maybe, just maybe he was following orders to deliver a written summary to Charlie.  Hell, blame Charlie and the Board then too, but we've been down this road too many times already.
5.  One final time, GA will sink or swim based on how JF performs and I venture to say if he does well everyone will be saying it took "guts" to make the hire etc. etc. or those who just don't like him will say he doesn't deserve any credit.
Boys I am done with the GA exchanges, but I would caution you guys, be careful what you wish for. 
I am focusing on the Spring Signing Period from here on out.
 

You don't wish to debate this anymore I will respect this.  I just have some pointed responses.

1. It is not about money, it is about having competent people in place that can spend the money wisely.  Every other A10 school has been in the NCAA tournament in at least one sport during GA's tenure.  Every single one of them.  We spend more than most of them. 

2. Zeise has ripped us on Twitter.  He stopped for a while during reporting on the team this season.   You simply can't not ignore the effect that social media has now.  Zeise once said that Duquesne men were behind the Agnus Beranato's teams in relevance in the market.   It is just not crackpots like Dunlap or John Steigerwald driving this narrative.....it is the Pittsburgh media as a whole.  You said yourself you didn't pay attention to the twitter world when SMS left because you knew they would be blasting us.

3. Be careful of what we wish for?     The only thing worse would be the total elimination of all sports.....which might just be a blessing in disguise.   It was Dr. D. himself (when cutting the sports) that if you have no hope of doing something successfully, why continue to do it?   You mean they can replace the AD with someone worse.   Couldn't that be said of any person let go from their position.  



Next year is the last year's of GA's contract.  If he is extended this off season, I will be out for good.  I am serious on that front.   I will tolerate him for another year, but they better not extend until the results of next season.   If at all.    




 

Last edited by duqkurt (4/15/2013 6:10 pm)

El Duque - I agree with most of your points. EXCEPT - how was the basketball team going to continue their turn of the corner without an experienced point guard and Marhold holding down the fort at center? For the first time, Everhart's bigs had a coach who specializes in big men as a resource, and they were still a poor fit for a fast-paced system. The team was already coming off of a mediocre season, then they lost a STAR player and an impact player. I just don't see how Everhart would have earned an extension this year, because I believe that this season was going to be poor no matter what.

Nonetheless, while I think you and I disagree on the necessity of firing Everhart, I do agree that Amodio handled every aspect of the firing and the subsequent search in a terrible way from a PR standpoint.