The SMU Football Blog Speaks!
Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 5:42 pmSo I ran into the SMU Football Blog over the weekend at a bar on a riverboat in Shreveport. In between Appletini's followed by Jaeger shots and clove cigarettes, he muttered the following after throwing up on the bartender intentionally for refusing to let him dance on the bar like Coyote Ugly. What follows is a rough transcript I scribbled on a c0cktail napkin using a golf pencil with John 3:16 etched on it, which he had stolen from Legendary Golf on Hilton Head Island.
******
There are two things we know about Turner. We know them both very well. Those that follow SMU as a whole (not just athletics) see it every day.
First, Turner is a good-to-great fundraiser. He is not certifiably great. Until the Centennial Campaign, his fundraising campaigns have historically benefitted from very favorable economic times. The Capital Campaign benefited from the tech-boom and outraised even the boldest projections. The Centennial Campaign is not so lucky; we will have to wait and see what the end result is. That being said, he knows how to do it and better than most, and certainly better than his predecessor.
Second, Turner, in an apparent contradiction to the first trait, is administratively reactive rather than proactive. That is the nice way of putting it. The less-than-nice way of saying it is that Turner is lazy. He isn’t “lazy†lazy; he is administratively lazy. He doesn’t do things until he is pressed to. Once pressed, he does fine. Until then, however, he tends to avoid rocking the boat. There are about 1,000 examples of this over the years. A lot of Turner as President is about keeping up appearances, which relates back to the first point. It isn’t that he disagrees or has a different position, it is that he hasn’t been forced to act. Maybe, he has been too focused on fundraising, Bush Library cr@p and land acquisitions, or maybe it really is laziness. However, reading some kind of malevolence or animosity towards athletics into what he has done or not done is a mistake. And that is where some people here have erred.
With those two thoughts in mind, it is easy to follow the history of SMU athletics over the last many years. Pye wrecked athletics and (we tend to forget) wrecked a lot of other things, too. Pye strangely wanted to create a small Northeastern liberal arts college located in North Texas. Turner was hired to fix a number of things that were broken. He repaired a lot of relationships, but a lot of administrative things went undone. The changes to athletics, whether administrative or facility-wise, were the result of pushes and pulls, but not driving-Turner reacted to the complaints of those that matter (not us) after each incremental change failed to yield results (I think this one sentence sums up 1995-2005 quite well).
So we come to the dawn of the “Orsini†era. No better name for it, because it predates June Jones, though I am not thrilled with giving Orsini this much credit, but I digress. Turner has a number of problems, including, but not limited to: (i) he has a Centennial Campaign about to be kicked off; (ii) he has a dwindling and aging population of donors, with a overall donor population as a percentage far below SMU’s peer institutions; (iii) the preceding relatively small percentage of donors relative to alumni base was negatively affecting SMU’s ranking in US News and World Report; (iv) he is actively campaigning to build the Presidential Library of a very unpopular president, which while popular with key alumni was causing some friction with the community, faculty and a portion of the alumni base and generating negative press.
Turner realized there were few things that were going to address all issues and create positive momentum for SMU. One of those things is athletics. Frankly, I am not sure anything else would work.
And with this, SMU has its wake up moment. TCU likes to say it had its moment when the SWC broke up, but wasn’t as straight forward as that. Let’s not forget TCU’s football between 94 and 97: 7 wins (SWC); 6 wins (SWC); 4 wins (WAC); 1 win (WAC). TCU in 1997 fired its AD and fired its head coach. TCU hired the AD from Miami (Ohio) and hired Franchione away from fellow WAC institution New Mexico. There was more to it, than that, of course. The difference between SMU and TCU is only that there is more to do and farther to go.
SMU hires Orsini away from fellow CUSA institution Central Florida and hires June Jones to a monumental contract. Do not look at these hires as outcomes, but rather as evidence. Evidence that SMU (and Turner) finally does, in fact, “get it.â€
So, then, how did we wind up with the morass of the past few weeks? Re-read the third and fourth paragraphs. There is still, unfortunately, more to do. Those that thought there was a fix it all “switch†were mistaken, regardless of who is President. For the same reason, the transfer hours change took years to fix. For the same reason, there is no sports management or kinesiology degree today.
Obviously, there was a massive miscommunication between June Jones and the Administration/Admissions. I have seen several offer letters (but I concede not SMU’s) and I have seen a form letter of intent. I know that every offer, every signed NLI (SMU or otherwise) is contingent on admission to the institution. What I don’t know is how that was communicated to Jones and his Assistants and how they communicated that message to recruits. Presumably, Jones was told as a condition to coming here, he could recruit who he wanted. That, obviously, was not quite accurate. Without knowing (and knowing would require a breach of privacy in violation of federal law), my gut says the two reported were missing a passing grade for a class that is required for admission to SMU, such as foreign language. However, even the foreign language requirement appears to be flexible.
In case you were wondering:
NCAA/SMU
4 years English/4 years English
3 years Math (at least one year of algebra)/ 3 years Math (algebra I, II, geometry)
2 years Social Science/3 years Social Science
2 years Physical Science (1 year must be a lab course)/ 3 years Physical Science (2 years must be a lab course)
1 year Additional year of English, math, or physical science/See Above
4 years Additional Academic Year (any above area or foreign language, philosophy, or non doctrinal religion)/2 Year foreign language (of the same language).
SMU says it is “flexible†and there is no absolute requirement, but you see the differences. You can see where a kid can meet the NCAA standards and just not have the classes. This is different than “the grades†or “the test scores.†If there was/is confusion, I suspect it lies there. The general rule, from what I am told, is that if you don’t have the above SMU requirements, you need to have them by the end of the first year. My guess is admissions looked at these two kids’ transcripts and determined there was no way these kids would be able to go to practice and “fill out the requirements†for admission.
I do know that once the decision was made to decline admission to two recruits, that decision was irreversible. Indeed, I assume SMU was more concerned most with facing NCAA questions in the event it reversed its decision. For that reason, a reversal was never going to happen. It was foolish to believe otherwise.
Once the decision was made and got out, it was handled poorly. For some reason, SMU just doesn’t handle crisis management well. It tends to wait too late; wait for Katie KGB to ask the question and issue a statement, as if those on this board, the internets and social media really don’t have an impact (there is a reason that some fortune 500 companies pay people to surf the web and MySpace and Facebook all day looking for customer complaints). Again, it is very reactive. But, hey, that is second guessing and the fact is that very few institutions handle it well. If it were me, I would have gone scorched earth on the kids saying they knew the NLI was contingent on admission and they knew the requirements for admission and didn’t fulfill them, but I am a nut like that. Of course, I don’t know what these kids were actually told, but I will get to that.
I will note this is the second administration policy that bit June Jones in the tail. Recall, Jones booted a number of kids after the 2008 season. He said he had his reasons and went by the NCAA rules-scholarships are year to year. But SMU has an appeals process for loss of financial aid and Jones had to keep some kids on scholarship at the expense of others kids that Jones felt deserved them more.
And now we have a Committee!!!! I love committees. Committees make recommendations, but lack accountability for the implementation of its recommendations. Those that accept and implement recommendations get to behind the advice of a committee to avoid culpability. That being said, SMU couldn’t come out and say it was standing by its decision in this case, but was going to just let anybody in that can run a sub-4.4 forty from this day forward.
The committee can only reach two possible conclusions. First, SMU can realize that it has paid employees representing the university with apparent authority offering scholarships to kids that are not yet admitted to the school. These paid employees are called “assistant coaches.†Accordingly, the school has to accept the fact that these coaches represent the school and have the ability to make SMU look good or bad and force itself to trust these coaches’ judgment. Then, you hold those head coaches responsible for those kids’ performance, while providing the coaches and the kids with every possible tool available to help the kid get through SMU on SMU’s terms. And if the kids don’t perform, you flunk them and admonish the coach for a poor graduation rate. That is the way it is supposed to work. The second possible conclusion is “anything else.†I am going with #1. I am also betting we may never hear about it, even if the change is made.
As for Jones, I bet he is PO'd. Jones does that. I think very little of it. He might finagle his outrage and his unsigned extension into a commitment to a policy change or a commitment to build a practice facility with a poison pill like Doherty had, and if so, I support it. But I for one have no fear that Jones is going to leave anytime soon. Nor do I believe Turner is trying to sabotage this thing.
******
There are two things we know about Turner. We know them both very well. Those that follow SMU as a whole (not just athletics) see it every day.
First, Turner is a good-to-great fundraiser. He is not certifiably great. Until the Centennial Campaign, his fundraising campaigns have historically benefitted from very favorable economic times. The Capital Campaign benefited from the tech-boom and outraised even the boldest projections. The Centennial Campaign is not so lucky; we will have to wait and see what the end result is. That being said, he knows how to do it and better than most, and certainly better than his predecessor.
Second, Turner, in an apparent contradiction to the first trait, is administratively reactive rather than proactive. That is the nice way of putting it. The less-than-nice way of saying it is that Turner is lazy. He isn’t “lazy†lazy; he is administratively lazy. He doesn’t do things until he is pressed to. Once pressed, he does fine. Until then, however, he tends to avoid rocking the boat. There are about 1,000 examples of this over the years. A lot of Turner as President is about keeping up appearances, which relates back to the first point. It isn’t that he disagrees or has a different position, it is that he hasn’t been forced to act. Maybe, he has been too focused on fundraising, Bush Library cr@p and land acquisitions, or maybe it really is laziness. However, reading some kind of malevolence or animosity towards athletics into what he has done or not done is a mistake. And that is where some people here have erred.
With those two thoughts in mind, it is easy to follow the history of SMU athletics over the last many years. Pye wrecked athletics and (we tend to forget) wrecked a lot of other things, too. Pye strangely wanted to create a small Northeastern liberal arts college located in North Texas. Turner was hired to fix a number of things that were broken. He repaired a lot of relationships, but a lot of administrative things went undone. The changes to athletics, whether administrative or facility-wise, were the result of pushes and pulls, but not driving-Turner reacted to the complaints of those that matter (not us) after each incremental change failed to yield results (I think this one sentence sums up 1995-2005 quite well).
So we come to the dawn of the “Orsini†era. No better name for it, because it predates June Jones, though I am not thrilled with giving Orsini this much credit, but I digress. Turner has a number of problems, including, but not limited to: (i) he has a Centennial Campaign about to be kicked off; (ii) he has a dwindling and aging population of donors, with a overall donor population as a percentage far below SMU’s peer institutions; (iii) the preceding relatively small percentage of donors relative to alumni base was negatively affecting SMU’s ranking in US News and World Report; (iv) he is actively campaigning to build the Presidential Library of a very unpopular president, which while popular with key alumni was causing some friction with the community, faculty and a portion of the alumni base and generating negative press.
Turner realized there were few things that were going to address all issues and create positive momentum for SMU. One of those things is athletics. Frankly, I am not sure anything else would work.
And with this, SMU has its wake up moment. TCU likes to say it had its moment when the SWC broke up, but wasn’t as straight forward as that. Let’s not forget TCU’s football between 94 and 97: 7 wins (SWC); 6 wins (SWC); 4 wins (WAC); 1 win (WAC). TCU in 1997 fired its AD and fired its head coach. TCU hired the AD from Miami (Ohio) and hired Franchione away from fellow WAC institution New Mexico. There was more to it, than that, of course. The difference between SMU and TCU is only that there is more to do and farther to go.
SMU hires Orsini away from fellow CUSA institution Central Florida and hires June Jones to a monumental contract. Do not look at these hires as outcomes, but rather as evidence. Evidence that SMU (and Turner) finally does, in fact, “get it.â€
So, then, how did we wind up with the morass of the past few weeks? Re-read the third and fourth paragraphs. There is still, unfortunately, more to do. Those that thought there was a fix it all “switch†were mistaken, regardless of who is President. For the same reason, the transfer hours change took years to fix. For the same reason, there is no sports management or kinesiology degree today.
Obviously, there was a massive miscommunication between June Jones and the Administration/Admissions. I have seen several offer letters (but I concede not SMU’s) and I have seen a form letter of intent. I know that every offer, every signed NLI (SMU or otherwise) is contingent on admission to the institution. What I don’t know is how that was communicated to Jones and his Assistants and how they communicated that message to recruits. Presumably, Jones was told as a condition to coming here, he could recruit who he wanted. That, obviously, was not quite accurate. Without knowing (and knowing would require a breach of privacy in violation of federal law), my gut says the two reported were missing a passing grade for a class that is required for admission to SMU, such as foreign language. However, even the foreign language requirement appears to be flexible.
In case you were wondering:
NCAA/SMU
4 years English/4 years English
3 years Math (at least one year of algebra)/ 3 years Math (algebra I, II, geometry)
2 years Social Science/3 years Social Science
2 years Physical Science (1 year must be a lab course)/ 3 years Physical Science (2 years must be a lab course)
1 year Additional year of English, math, or physical science/See Above
4 years Additional Academic Year (any above area or foreign language, philosophy, or non doctrinal religion)/2 Year foreign language (of the same language).
SMU says it is “flexible†and there is no absolute requirement, but you see the differences. You can see where a kid can meet the NCAA standards and just not have the classes. This is different than “the grades†or “the test scores.†If there was/is confusion, I suspect it lies there. The general rule, from what I am told, is that if you don’t have the above SMU requirements, you need to have them by the end of the first year. My guess is admissions looked at these two kids’ transcripts and determined there was no way these kids would be able to go to practice and “fill out the requirements†for admission.
I do know that once the decision was made to decline admission to two recruits, that decision was irreversible. Indeed, I assume SMU was more concerned most with facing NCAA questions in the event it reversed its decision. For that reason, a reversal was never going to happen. It was foolish to believe otherwise.
Once the decision was made and got out, it was handled poorly. For some reason, SMU just doesn’t handle crisis management well. It tends to wait too late; wait for Katie KGB to ask the question and issue a statement, as if those on this board, the internets and social media really don’t have an impact (there is a reason that some fortune 500 companies pay people to surf the web and MySpace and Facebook all day looking for customer complaints). Again, it is very reactive. But, hey, that is second guessing and the fact is that very few institutions handle it well. If it were me, I would have gone scorched earth on the kids saying they knew the NLI was contingent on admission and they knew the requirements for admission and didn’t fulfill them, but I am a nut like that. Of course, I don’t know what these kids were actually told, but I will get to that.
I will note this is the second administration policy that bit June Jones in the tail. Recall, Jones booted a number of kids after the 2008 season. He said he had his reasons and went by the NCAA rules-scholarships are year to year. But SMU has an appeals process for loss of financial aid and Jones had to keep some kids on scholarship at the expense of others kids that Jones felt deserved them more.
And now we have a Committee!!!! I love committees. Committees make recommendations, but lack accountability for the implementation of its recommendations. Those that accept and implement recommendations get to behind the advice of a committee to avoid culpability. That being said, SMU couldn’t come out and say it was standing by its decision in this case, but was going to just let anybody in that can run a sub-4.4 forty from this day forward.
The committee can only reach two possible conclusions. First, SMU can realize that it has paid employees representing the university with apparent authority offering scholarships to kids that are not yet admitted to the school. These paid employees are called “assistant coaches.†Accordingly, the school has to accept the fact that these coaches represent the school and have the ability to make SMU look good or bad and force itself to trust these coaches’ judgment. Then, you hold those head coaches responsible for those kids’ performance, while providing the coaches and the kids with every possible tool available to help the kid get through SMU on SMU’s terms. And if the kids don’t perform, you flunk them and admonish the coach for a poor graduation rate. That is the way it is supposed to work. The second possible conclusion is “anything else.†I am going with #1. I am also betting we may never hear about it, even if the change is made.
As for Jones, I bet he is PO'd. Jones does that. I think very little of it. He might finagle his outrage and his unsigned extension into a commitment to a policy change or a commitment to build a practice facility with a poison pill like Doherty had, and if so, I support it. But I for one have no fear that Jones is going to leave anytime soon. Nor do I believe Turner is trying to sabotage this thing.
