Poll: Best Athletic Director Ever

[Jim_from_RU]

Bob Mulcahy put all his efforts into football while everything else rotted. He even gave a locker room pep talk to Villanova while we were playing them! As much as Pat Hobbs alienated people with the Greg fiasco, he got desperately needed facilities built and hired good coaches who are getting the job done (men’s hoops, crew, gymnastics, men’s soccer, baseball).

 

[RURahh]

Is OP Tim Pernetti's best man?

That's a lot of excuse making that doesn't change the bottom line.

haha...i can see how you would make that leap of faith. I have actually met Bob, Tim and Pat in person and all 3 are engaging but it was clear that Tim had the most passion for his school. Tim gets a bad rap for Flood and Rice but looking deeper under the hood both were pretty good hires given the constraints and resources and both did a descent job on the field and were sunk by off-field issues. I know this will be a hugely unpopular opinion, but I do think Flood was the best GAME DAY coach we have ever had at RU - hoping Greg 2.0 will change that.

 

[FastMJ]

Grunniger was the worst by far. I don't know of a single Middlesex or Union County high school coach that didn't viscerally hate him - football or basketball. All the way into the late 90s, when you wanted to make a joke about a complete "f--k up," you'd still use Grunniger as the punchline.

+1. Fred was easily the worst

 

[NickKnight 1]

I would like the names of the 5 people who actually selected Fred. They deserve to hear me for 15 minutes change their opinion as it was Fred G who Absolutely destroyed Rutgers basketball when It turned down the big East

If they don’t have a statue of Fred on the seton hall campus, they should....

It is now 4 people. Fred was probably the worst
In the country for years. But I was being sarcastic.

 

[Mr. Magoo1]

There needs to be a “None of the Above”....especially if Mulcahy is leading the poll. They were all terrible.

 

[MADHAT1]

I believe, right now, Bob should be considered the best .
Though he had his faults his efforts to make Rutgers football a winnng program got RU into the B1G picture.
Pat second ( but probably prove to be the best ) even after almost messing up Greg 2.0
Remember Schiao 1.0 might not have happened because he wasn't Bob's first choice.
But Mulcahy was wise enough to listen to Schiano and give Greg what he demanded because they both knew Rutgers football wouldn't get out of the muck without implementing those improvements Greg wanted
Tim copmes in 3rd and Fred deserves 0 votes , but because of the LOL Julie, though undeserving , received my vote .

 

[Racpack]

I do think Flood was the best GAME DAY coach we have ever had at RU -

Were you around when Frank Burns was the coach.? He had the best record of all Rutgers football coaches with hardly any resources.

 

[RURahh]

Were you around when Frank Burns was the coach.? He had the best record of all Rutgers football coaches with hardly any resources.

Yes I was ...watched many a draw play on 3rd and long. Mediocre coach at best playing against Ivy League competition but usually had a stout defense and ball control..Never adapted his style in all his years coaching and would still be running a Wing T if he was coaching today - lol

 

[wheezer]

The Big East became THE BIG EAST because of the rise of cable TV and ESPN. That was not predictable. So I respectfully disagree.

We were already in a basketball conference.. that gave us football games as well...

Rutgers
Villanova
Pittsburgh
Massachusetts
Duquesne
George Washington
Penn State
West Virginia

These 4 teams were independents and needed a conference to better schedule..

Providence
St. John's
Georgetown
Syracuse

so they invited...

Seton Hall
Connecticut
Holy Cross
Rutgers
Boston College

to form a conference..

I'm sorry.. but in 1979 is was not obvious to abandon the dream of an eastern all-sports conference to join those teams in a basketball conference. Rutgers, Nova, Pitt and WVU were every bit as good as the best joining the Big East conference.

The difference-maker was the ESPN TV contract and the exposure that provided selling their prime product. That landed the national name and the CBS TV contract for basketball.

I can only tell you my reaction at the time..... my thoughts were focused on the basketball part only..... I felt the big east would be big in our market area and believed at that time we should have been a start up member of the big east

We seemed to have a second opportunity several years later when there was a published article where several big east coaches said they would welcome us to join...... that caused a stir among RU fans but nothing came out of it

 

[RUB1GTime]

Amazing that Tim Pernetti got 14 votes. What were people thinking? He was terrible.

 

[DJ Spanky]

Well guess who's back!

 

[RUTGERS95]

only 86 people so far have a clue

 

[RUTGERS95]

People seem to forget the position that Tim was put in for both football and basketball

Football - Greg leaves with just days left before signing our best class ever. Tim makes himself a coach, talks to every recruit and MOST of the influential high school coaches and with a limited budget, tries to sign Mario Cristobal but his wife nixes the deal. With no time on the clock, he hires Flood (who NJ coaches overwhelmingly support) , who holds the class together, goes on to get us one of our best seasons ever, (including our best Bowl Win) and is on the verge of signing our Best class ever before the bottom drops out in the 2013 Season,. He then goes on to get us our what will be our best year in the Big 10 for a decade, highlighted by hiring Ralph Friedgen and Rutgers fans are openly talking about if Flood is an upgrade over Greg. Flood goes to a Counting Crows concert and its all downhill from there - lol

Basketball - Mike Rice checks the boxes of exactly what we are looking for, a young aggressive winning coach from a mid major who knows the area and is CHEAP. He quickly gets the team back to respectability after FHJ destroyed it. Players generally like him, are playing the hardest we have seen in years. Here comes the timeline of one of the great injustices in Rutgers sport history:

1. Extortionist Erik Murdok (fired after making 70k a year for 2 years, demands between $1MM-$2MM for his silence) brings the damaging video to Tim. Tim immediately goes to Barchi and says, you need to watch this, this is a fireable offense. Prior to all this, Tim had hired an outside firm to do a complete internal investigation after Murdok first verbally made the allegations the prior year

2. Barchi and/or the BOG asks our law firm to see if this is a clear violation of contract and if we can fire him without paying off his contract - they are told NO, you will have to pay him out

3. Barchi tells Tim to discipline Mike Rice, and Tim fines and suspends him and sends him to anger management class. IMPORTANTLY, Tim speaks to EVERY member of the team, who by and large support the coach and when Rice returns the team is playing its best basketball ever, beating a ranked Pitt team, beating Seton Hall twice, and being competitive in almost every game on the schedule. The team is clearly turning the corner and the players are playing harder than ever (for a coach they LIKE)

4. The video is leaked to ESPN AFTER the season is over, and immediately people call for Mike Rice to be fired. Barchi pleads ignorance and says he never saw the video. After getting Rice's scalp, the media still needs someone higher up, so Tim is next on the chopping block, despite Tim sayng that he initally called for Rice to be fired but DID NOT have the support of the board. Tim is scape-goated and falls on his sword for the school that he loves


That is how Tim's 2 major hires went down, one coach compiling 2 of our best football seasons in the past 30 years and the other legitimately turning around a hoops team that had not been to the Dance in 25 years. Add to that his tireless work on branding, fundraising, relationships both in and out of the University and the fact that he was always going to be hamstrung by $$ in all of his hires, and I would say Tim did a pretty miraculous job and there is no way we are in the Big 10 without him, and for that alone, he needs to be in deep consideration

wrong, not even close and I mean not even in the same state close

 

[RUTGERS95]

I believe, right now, Bob should be considered the best .
Though he had his faults his efforts to make Rutgers football a winnng program got RU into the B1G picture.
Pat second ( but probably prove to be the best ) even after almost messing up Greg 2.0
Remember Schiao 1.0 might not have happened because he wasn't Bob's first choice.
But Mulcahy was wise enough to listen to Schiano and give Greg what he demanded because they both knew Rutgers football wouldn't get out of the muck without implementing those improvements Greg wanted
Tim copmes in 3rd and Fred deserves 0 votes , but because of the LOL Julie, though undeserving , received my vote .

because football drives the boat and he understood that

 

[Plum Street]

Bob Mulcahy put all his efforts into football while everything else rotted. He even gave a locker room pep talk to Villanova while we were playing them! As much as Pat Hobbs alienated people with the Greg fiasco, he got desperately needed facilities built and hired good coaches who are getting the job done (men’s hoops, crew, gymnastics, men’s soccer, baseball).

And because of bob we are in the big ten

 

[knight82]

Tim hired Rice and Flood. Hobbs hired Ash and had to be publicly flogged before he would hire Schiano. Uncle Bob hurt men's hoops but he still wins because he was most instrumental in getting us into the Big Ten and was fired because of a smear campaign by Josh Margolin and Ted Sherman

 

[bac2therac]

its Bob Mulcahy and this shouldnt even be a discussion and I despise the guy for killing hoops for 20 years.

 

[Source]

George Little is the best athletic director Rutgers ever had,

Rutgers’ George Little, athletic director from 1932-53, died on February 23, 1957. The next day’s Targum recalled that because of his “athletics for all” philosophy, “… the University’s intramural program was expanded to the point where more than half the student body participated.” He coached at Michigan, Cincinnati and Miami of Ohio from 1914-26 that earned him a spot in the National Football Hall of Fame in 1955 where he also served as executive secretary starting in 1952. He was AD at Wisconsin for eight years prior to coming to RU.

He was the single greatest force behind the construction of Rutgers Stadium in the late 1930s and within weeks of his passing, a movement began to rename Rutgers Stadium, “George E. Little Memorial Stadium.” Instead, he was honored at the 1957 Hall of Fame Game versus Delaware on November 2 with a commemorative bronze plaque unveiled at Rutgers Stadium.

On November 30, 2015 Pat Hobbs was announced as Rutgers’ eighth Athletic Director. The others were: Julie Hermann (2013-15); Tim Pernetti (2009-13); Robert Mulcahy (1997-2008); Fred Gruninger (1973-97); Albert Twitchell (1960-73); Harry Rockafeller (1953-60) and George Little (1932-53). Three of the eight were Rutgers football letter winners. They were: Tim Pernetti (1990-93); Albert Twitchell, (1932-34); and Harry Rockafeller (1912-15).

 

[RURahh]

Just to close the loop on this when I ran the same poll 2 years ago (after the Ash extension) it looked like this

Hobbs 55%
Mulcahy 31%
Tim. 7%
Fred 4%
Julie. 3%

I wonder if a decade from now, if Hobbs will get the credit (for better or worse) for hiring Schiano 2.0

 

[Knights 1212]

I would never vote for Mulcahy. He never did one thing to help our basketball team. He set it way back by spending everything on football.

 

[RUTGERS95]

I would never vote for Mulcahy. He never did one thing to help our basketball team. He set it way back by spending everything on football.

you know that trees make up the forest right? lol

I get being upset at that and you are right, every other sport was an after thought but bball doesn't bring in money, doesn't bring in applications, doesn't bring in donor money and doesn't garner the eyeballs that football does all things being relative.

 

[RUScrew85]

Julie!

GRRRRRRRRL POWER!!!!

(with a side order of protected class)

 

[RUScrew85]

Grunniger was the worst by far. I don't know of a single Middlesex or Union County high school coach that didn't viscerally hate him - football or basketball. All the way into the late 90s, when you wanted to make a joke about a complete "f--k up," you'd still use Grunniger as the punchline.

Remember to piss on Gruninger's Rock on the 11th Tee at RU GC. ; )