RGTurner & MexMustang

[Stallion]

I'll put this is concise words:

The Board of Trustees is set up to prevent alumni that think like you from burning the university to the ground-again. Thank god-good riddance to all of them

[SoCal_Pony]

It is simply bad business, to have any CEO for over 12 years. Ours will exceed 30! Even if they do a great job. New blood is simply necessary to keep ideas fresh and quite frankly weed out those executives that are simply there because of their relationship with the CEO or decisions are pre-empted by the status quo.

When John Chambers announced he would step down from this post as Cisco's CEO earlier this week, he was one of the longest-serving execs in the country. His 20-year tenure is made all the more remarkable by the average for the rest of the Fortune 500 chiefs: a measly 6.9 years.

Since January 1995, when Chambers was 46 years old he assumed the role of CEO, the company grew from $70 million in annual revenues to a run-rate of approximately $40 billion in 2007. NOTICE THAT IS 12 YEARS. In November 2006, he was named chairman of the board, in addition to his CEO role. On July 27, 2015, Chuck Robbins replaced Chambers as CEO of Cisco Systems.

I owned Cisco stock, it was a great ride for awhile, but Chambers stayed on too long.

Oh, and RGT ain’t no John Chambers!!

[Pony_Law]

Rankings for colleges is a joke and serves little purpose and only has value for alumni bragging to other alumni. I also personally think the rankings have been a strong influence on sky rocketing tuition costs (which is a problem for us as a country). What you want in a school is either international/national recognition for excellence (think Ivy league, Stanford ect. because it can help open doors for the alumni), or Respect in the area that the school serves (so the alumni get their foot in the door for opportunities). You can't really displace the schools that have the international/national rep, but you can control how your local community thinks of you. SMU is thought of well in DFW and the state generally. I went to a top 25 undergraduate school, most people on the street here in Dallas or back where I'm from originally have never heard of it.

The president's job is to raise funds for the university and get along with the powers that be at any particular institution. By all accounts Turner Excels at this. Athletics is a useless measure as well and is only important to a president's job to the extent it helps the school raise funds/profile (advertising/alumni engagement)/pleases the powers that be (most often alumni engagement). How many National championships is U. Chicago competing for? how about Cal Tech or M.I.T.?

[mrydel]

I am not involved enough to enter this fray, but I will say if Mex was part of the Pye regime, he is part of the problem rather than one with solutions.

[mustangxc]

I am not involved enough to enter this fray, but I will say if Mex was part of the Pye regime, he is part of the problem rather than one with solutions.

I agree and said the same thing in the other thread on this topic. If someone is an insider yet all they can do is complain then they are part of the problem.

[redpony]

pony law- your examples are not very valid. IIRC- all of he schools you referred to are DIII schools and their athletic programs are on a totally different level.

[mustangxc]

pony law- your examples are not very valid. IIRC- all of he schools you referred to are DIII schools and their athletic programs are on a totally different level.

I think the point he is trying to make is that athletics only matter to the extent they get alumni to donate to the university. Those universities are thriving despite not having prominent DI athletic programs.

[SoCal_Pony]

Redpony is right, those are ridiculous comparisons. SMU never has and never will aspire to be Cal-Tech, MIT or UofChicago.

I remember reading an article over 20 years ago, most likely from the LA Times. It spoke of the 'crossroads' Stanford University was at regarding athletics. We are talking STANFORD, another school SMU will never become. Some at Stanford wanted to markedly reduce its athletic footprint. In the end, the decision was made to INCREASE its athletic comittment. The article was written after Stanford had some on-the-field success and noted how they had made the right decision. I also know plenty of USC grads here in SoCal. You know, the successful ones who live in nice houses and do well in business and contribute back to their school. USC is a great university with many similarities to SMU. Tell those grads their sports programs don't matter; they would consider you ill-informed at best, an idiot at worse.

On the personal note, I can tell you that I could have been accepted to any school within 500 miles of Dallas. I narrowed it to two, UT and SMU. Athletics was not the driving factor, but it absolutely played a role in deciding which school I wanted to attend (I watched plenty of SMU FB and BB games as a child).

That is the reality of 20th and most likely 21st century America. Sports, for better or worse, matter.

And for those criticizing Mex for his Pye association, I don't get it. He is stating that no President should serve more than ~12 years. I agree. I suspect most would as well. Even if you don't, anyone here think its healthy to have the same President for 20 years?, 30 years?

[Stallion]

Stanford has also endowed every scholarship in its football program and gets about 50-60 Million a year more than SMU in Conference Bowl and Television revenue. Not very similar either. Stanford got the program the football program that their alumni, family and friends were willing to pay for--thanks for the perfect example-the school ain't funding scholarships or facilities out of operating expenses or endowment:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-odd-ec ... 1383796720

(shoot its behind a paywall the 2nd time you look at it-but its true)

[mtrout]

If money is all that matters...well we’ve had the highest paid coach in g5 for nearly 10 years now and have not been ranked 1 week.

Return to june-quit, do not pass Go, pony up, hammer down, sonny d the good stuff kids go for

[Stallion]

As far as facilities we've come a long way as an athletic program since 2000 especially for a private G5 --that's really not what is holding us back. In fact, we've done much better than every other private G5 in the country except for BYU which is a different deal really. Once we get the IPF we got a better basic athletic complex than could possibly be hoped for to anybody that was around here before the turn of the Century. I really don't understand why some can't give Turner at least some credit. He has built our entire athletic complex when SMU had done LITERRALLY NOTHING to improve its athletic facilities in 50 prior years when Moody was built

Ford
Coaching Complex
Moody
Crum
IPF
Aquatics
Tennis Facility
Golf Facility

This is all a part of the long range plan to hopefully move up when transition begins. Comparing Turner to Pye is just petty and grossly unfair. In fact, comparisons prior to 2008-- when our academic model was reformed to be competitive with our natural and traditional rivals-- are ridiculous-and I suggest if you really think that is fair then you absolutely don't undestand much of anything about where this program was in 2000.

[mtrout]

Maybe we should all send sonny d birthday and holiday cards.

Since they all seem to hate it here, do our football coaches get any positive feedback or is it all drunk frat boys yelling at hicks and donors expecting the pony express 2 to walk through the door?

[tristatecoog]

SoCal, you turned down Rice? Impressive.

The Scoop says Sonny is putting together a very good staff. Maybe the momentum will continue.

[Puckhead48E]

I am not involved enough to enter this fray, but I will say if Mex was part of the Pye regime, he is part of the problem rather than one with solutions.

Part of Pye and friends on Baylor board during their rapid decent into a rape infused ethical hell screams "we should listen to this guy...he's good!"


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[redpony]

Stanford has also endowed every scholarship in its football program

IIRC a couple of years ago there was a brief discussion about SMU creating an 'athletic endowment program' but it never got any traction.
I suspect there are a number of people that would contribute to it before they would contribute to a 'general' endowment. Just an idea.