Thoughts on Vic S as AD

[BigDog72.sixpack]

Had a discussion with my friend last night and we were discussing MSU sports in the same vein with running a business. We both agreed that MSU is swimming with big fish and we're a very small fish. He and I both own companies and with mine, I had to deal with similar adversity of going up against the big boys day in and day out. Bottom line is my company grew while my competitors, who were MUCH larger, closed plants, laid off employees, and many merged together. So we got to talking about why we, as MSU, can't do the same with our athletic programs. Take football, we're never going to be monetarily as strong as anyone in the west, including O.M., but we've shown that we CAN, at times, play some competitive football.

So why do we end up where we are now, or back when Croom was here, or during the Emery late days and pretty much all of Felker's days???

That's when the two of us started comparing it to running a business in a highly competitive environment. Without going into a lot of details, we both kept coming back to you as a company must learn to adapt and adapt quickly to change. If your competitor does it in 2 weeks, you do it in one. Everything you do is proactive and you have to work super hard to beat the behemoths at their game (Alabama). You're not going to have the capital as your larger competitors(Alabama) so you have to work smarter, not harder.

So then we got on the subject of Vic. Here's a guy that was hired in to run the worst basketball program in the SEC. Please correct me if you disagree, but he took over a program that literally hadn't done anything.
So what did he do??

Well, he sold the program to anyone who listen. He worked his butt off to sign the best player to come out of Mississippi in a long time-Vivian. She could have gone anywhere, but he got her to come to MSU. Then he started adding from there. Consistently working.

And then what did he do? He taught those girls to go at 110% thru the entire game, at practice, at every aspect of their responsibility to that basketball program. And now look where he got us.

So with all of this said, curious to know what peoples thoughts are about the possibility of having him one day become A.D. I for one think he would demand coaches to "coach as he does" or he wouldn't hire them. Vic gets those girls to run thru a wall for him and as tough as he is, they love and respect the guy, as we do as fans.

Just posting something that probably is very apparent, but knowing MSU, we love to put people in charge that are close to the university, either as former players(Cohen) or they're moved into rolls from other departments from within the university(Templeton) and have zero SEC athletic department/conference experience. We were damn lucky to get Byrne, and even Loafers(who I can't stand) knew more than this crew we have now.

I just feel we've got a helluva guy with Vic and that dude needs to be moved a lot higher up the MSU Corporate ladder!!!

 

[Go Budaw]

I’m fine with where Vic is now. Last thing we need to do is reassign the most successful coach we’ve ever had in any sport in school history. Need to make sure he does what he’s doing now for as long as he is upright.

 

[patdog]

Great idea. Let take arguably the best women’s basketball coach in the country right now & move him out of that job & into one he has zero experience or background for. What could go wrong? **

 

[Cooterpoot]

Never hire from within for your AD. Especially not a freaking coach.

 

[Mafiadawg]

I have a novel idea. How about we hire ADs as ADs and coaches as coaches. Crazy right?

 

[Wizard.sixpack]

I know that would be absolutely insane to do that....

 

[Wizard.sixpack]

buuutttttt we poor ole mittippi tate..we have to think outside the box and take on experiments to have any chance at accomplishing anything

 

[Lachien]

I understand what you are saying but isn't that exactly what we have in Cohen? Look what he did for Kentucky baseball. I think the AD position requires a special skill set that does share general success factors with coaching success, but coaching success even in the midst of adverse conditions doesn't mean success at the AD level.

 

[WrapItDog]

So in your opinion the 2 best ADs at State were guys that had zero coaching experience and spent their whole career in College Athletic Dept Administration. You recommend we hire someone that is opposite of what was working the best?

 

[BigDog72.sixpack]

They were both good, Byrne being much better than Strickland, but where are they now? Not with MSU. Vic could easily test the men's basketball "waters" and make some real money. My only thing is that if I ran my business the way we run our current athletic department, I don't know how long I'd be in business. Case in point-T-shirts sent out to Bulldog club members. That's was an INCREDIBLE FIASCO. I've not seen something that bad since the Templeton days. And every BC member I spoke with agreed. Cohen signed off on that!! Anyone in their right mind would have shot that down at the meeting where it was introduced, but we did it anyway. I already gave some of the asst. A.D's my sentiment on that debacle. They just said it was an idea that "somehow" got thru the system and looking back, wasn't probably the best idea. But we still did it anyway!!!

 

[L4Dawg]

We need a real trained AD, not another coach.

 

[ChinaDogSunflower]

For the love of god, this!!!!

 

[MSUDC11]

I don’t hate Cohen like some our fans do, but once it’s time to replace him, it needs to be someone who’s trained and qualified to do this.

 

[FQDawg]

Case in point-T-shirts sent out to Bulldog club members. That's was an INCREDIBLE FIASCO. I've not seen something that bad since the Templeton days. And every BC member I spoke with agreed.

I somehow missed whatever this is/was. What happened?

 

[BigDog72.sixpack]

How do you expect to pay this high end AD??? Where did Strickland go? And he's "family"?? I guess Wizard, you're correct. We are poor mittittippi tate

 

[BigDog72.sixpack]

I somehow missed whatever this is/was. What happened?

T-shirts were sent out that said "Raise/Ring/Repeat". They only sent out either large or XL. I, thank god, am an XXL so I won't have to wear that god awful shirt. They'll most likely end up on a Sally Struthers Children's Foundation commercial from somewhere overseas.

In the words of my favorite cartoon character "Wiley Coyote-Super Genius!".

 

[SheltonChoked]

Had a discussion with my friend last night and we were discussing MSU sports in the same vein with running a business. We both agreed that MSU is swimming with big fish and we're a very small fish. He and I both own companies and with mine, I had to deal with similar adversity of going up against the big boys day in and day out. Bottom line is my company grew while my competitors, who were MUCH larger, closed plants, laid off employees, and many merged together. So we got to talking about why we, as MSU, can't do the same with our athletic programs. Take football, we're never going to be monetarily as strong as anyone in the west, including O.M., but we've shown that we CAN, at times, play some competitive football.

So why do we end up where we are now, or back when Croom was here, or during the Emery late days and pretty much all of Felker's days???

That's when the two of us started comparing it to running a business in a highly competitive environment. Without going into a lot of details, we both kept coming back to you as a company must learn to adapt and adapt quickly to change. If your competitor does it in 2 weeks, you do it in one. Everything you do is proactive and you have to work super hard to beat the behemoths at their game (Alabama). You're not going to have the capital as your larger competitors(Alabama) so you have to work smarter, not harder.

So then we got on the subject of Vic. Here's a guy that was hired in to run the worst basketball program in the SEC. Please correct me if you disagree, but he took over a program that literally hadn't done anything.
So what did he do??

Well, he sold the program to anyone who listen. He worked his butt off to sign the best player to come out of Mississippi in a long time-Vivian. She could have gone anywhere, but he got her to come to MSU. Then he started adding from there. Consistently working.

And then what did he do? He taught those girls to go at 110% thru the entire game, at practice, at every aspect of their responsibility to that basketball program. And now look where he got us.

So with all of this said, curious to know what peoples thoughts are about the possibility of having him one day become A.D. I for one think he would demand coaches to "coach as he does" or he wouldn't hire them. Vic gets those girls to run thru a wall for him and as tough as he is, they love and respect the guy, as we do as fans.

Just posting something that probably is very apparent, but knowing MSU, we love to put people in charge that are close to the university, either as former players(Cohen) or they're moved into rolls from other departments from within the university(Templeton) and have zero SEC athletic department/conference experience. We were damn lucky to get Byrne, and even Loafers(who I can't stand) knew more than this crew we have now.

I just feel we've got a helluva guy with Vic and that dude needs to be moved a lot higher up the MSU Corporate ladder!!!

This is the dumbest idea, ever.

Lets take our best coach, ever, and have him do something completely different...

How about we find a young assistant AD, or AD from a small school, that has Vic's work ethic?

 

[SheltonChoked]

They were both good, Byrne being much better than Strickland, but where are they now? Not with MSU. Vic could easily test the men's basketball "waters" and make some real money. My only thing is that if I ran my business the way we run our current athletic department, I don't know how long I'd be in business. Case in point-T-shirts sent out to Bulldog club members. That's was an INCREDIBLE FIASCO. I've not seen something that bad since the Templeton days. And every BC member I spoke with agreed. Cohen signed off on that!! Anyone in their right mind would have shot that down at the meeting where it was introduced, but we did it anyway. I already gave some of the asst. A.D's my sentiment on that debacle. They just said it was an idea that "somehow" got thru the system and looking back, wasn't probably the best idea. But we still did it anyway!!!

You have no clue aboput coaching and Athletic departments.

Men's basketball is different from Women's basketball.

Do you pay people $200,000 a year to "learn on the job" for your company? Or do you expect a high level employees to know what the 17 they are doing?

 

[BigDog72.sixpack]

This is the dumbest idea, ever.

Lets take our best coach, ever, and have him do something completely different...

How about we find a young assistant AD, or AD from a small school, that has Vic's work ethic?

Dumbest idea ever? Hmmm. Hiring a former baseball player/coach with ZERO AD experience to run an SEC program. Oh wait, he got to sit in on some meetings with Barnhart and Byrne so he's qualified!! From what I'm hearing, off the record, Cohen makes a LOT of phone calls to Gainesville for advice.

 

[G-Dawg]

I have to disagree with part of what you said. You said Vic took over the worst program in the SEC and that we hadn't done anything. Sharon Fanning-Otis got us to a Sweet 16 and had two of the best players who've ever played for the women's team in LaToya Thomas and Tan White. We weren't in the stratosphere we're in now, but we almost beat Tennessee a few times when Pat was still roaming the sidelines.

 

[Len2003]

Being an elite coach is a different skill set than being an AD.

 

[MrKotter]

Dumbest idea ever? Hmmm. Hiring a former baseball player/coach with ZERO AD experience to run an SEC program. Oh wait, he got to sit in on some meetings with Barnhart and Byrne so he's qualified!! From what I'm hearing, off the record, Cohen makes a LOT of phone calls to Gainesville for advice.

You want to take a coach who competes for championships and move him to something else. You don’t find this the least bit retarded?

 

[Dawgzilla]

Okay, bad T-shirts, I guess, but how was that an "INCREDIBLE FIASCO"? If they were Adidas shirts, they were probably free.

And I'm not trying to defend anyone on this, I'm just curious why that is such a big issue for you.

 

[GamwynSwingersClub]

I sometimes wonder if the people on this message board are a representative sample size of the fan base. Posts like this make me realize that idiot keyboard cowboys are but yet a tiny fraction of the otherwise level headed fans. Wow.

 

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

If we are going to hire a coach as the AD, let's at least hire one that coaches a real sport

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

Never hire from within for your AD. Especially not a freaking coach.

I C ? U did ^^^^

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

Financial Wizards make the best AD’s. They are used to getting people to turn over their money and making it work for the Athletics Department.

 

[Dawgg]

I’m fine with where Vic is now. Last thing we need to do is reassign the most successful coach we’ve ever had in any sport in school history. Need to make sure he does what he’s doing now for as long as he is upright.

Right. Let’s all remember, that at the time of his hiring as AD, no Mississippi State coach had ever gotten closer to a National Championship than Cohen. He was hired as AD before the victory over UConn in the Final Four.

This is basically saying “let’s immediately repeat the same mistake”.

 

[SheltonChoked]

Dumbest idea ever? Hmmm. Hiring a former baseball player/coach with ZERO AD experience to run an SEC program. Oh wait, he got to sit in on some meetings with Barnhart and Byrne so he's qualified!! From what I'm hearing, off the record, Cohen makes a LOT of phone calls to Gainesville for advice.

And your solution is to double down and do it again....

But with the added bonus of it being our best ever coach.

So yeah, dumbest. idea. ever.

 

[SheltonChoked]

How do you expect to pay this high end AD??? Where did Strickland go? And he's "family"?? I guess Wizard, you're correct. We are poor mittittippi tate

Gee where will we ever get the money...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...distribution-after-record-revenue/2743885002/

[FONT=&quot]The SEC had just under $660 million in revenue during its 2018 fiscal year, according to a federal tax return that the conference provided Friday.
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]That resulted in an average of $43.7 million being distributed to the 13 member schools that received full shares. [/FONT]

Byrne was the highest paid SEC AD at $1.22 million. Poor MSU only could afford $800,000 for Cohen... Scott is getting a cool Million from Florida.

I think we have the money.

 

[dawgstudent]

I doubt he wants his pay reduced by over a million dollars.

 

[Dawgg]

If we are going to hire a coach as the AD, let's at least hire one that coaches a real sport

17. You.

 

[thekimmer]

Sorry for piling on but I will at least spare you the 'internet bad-***' tongue lashing. This is not a good idea. Coaches turning into AD is a very outdated concept. Sure Vic has the drive and work ethic but that does not guarantee success anymore than if we made him the football coach! Managing a college athletics program has become too complex and hard business skills driven to turn it over to an amateur. It requires a professional who has spent years honing his skills in that craft not a person who has spent those years honing his skills doing something else. By that same logic I think hiring Cohen was a mistake. Is there overlap? Sure there is but I would start any coach who wants to get into AD management as an associate for a few years before I gave him or her the reins. That is like starting out as the CEO of a fortune 500 right out of business school.

 

[FQDawg]

Okay, bad T-shirts, I guess, but how was that an "INCREDIBLE FIASCO"? If they were Adidas shirts, they were probably free.

And I'm not trying to defend anyone on this, I'm just curious why that is such a big issue for you.

I agree with this. If not getting a free t-shirt in the size you want is an "incredible fiasco," then your standards about life, and certainly about MSU athletics, might be just a little too high.

 

[Go Budaw]

How do you expect to pay this high end AD??? Where did Strickland go? And he's "family"?? I guess Wizard, you're correct. We are poor mittittippi tate

You are pretty damn out of touch with the entirety of our AD situation. Stricklin’s reasons for leaving had absolutely nothing to do with money. He has ambitions of being commissioner one day of the SEC, and is doing some resume padding.

 

[GhostOfJackie]

I didn't read your post because it was too long and I'm a millennial, but taking the best coach on campus and putting him into a position where he is unproven seems like the worst idea of the century.

The purpose here is to keep good coaches at positions where they can be good coaches, and leave the AD position for people who can be good AD's.

 

[jdbulldog]

Had a discussion with my friend last night and we were discussing MSU sports in the same vein with running a business. We both agreed that MSU is swimming with big fish and we're a very small fish. He and I both own companies and with mine, I had to deal with similar adversity of going up against the big boys day in and day out. Bottom line is my company grew while my competitors, who were MUCH larger, closed plants, laid off employees, and many merged together. So we got to talking about why we, as MSU, can't do the same with our athletic programs. Take football, we're never going to be monetarily as strong as anyone in the west, including O.M., but we've shown that we CAN, at times, play some competitive football.

So why do we end up where we are now, or back when Croom was here, or during the Emery late days and pretty much all of Felker's days???

That's when the two of us started comparing it to running a business in a highly competitive environment. Without going into a lot of details, we both kept coming back to you as a company must learn to adapt and adapt quickly to change. If your competitor does it in 2 weeks, you do it in one. Everything you do is proactive and you have to work super hard to beat the behemoths at their game (Alabama). You're not going to have the capital as your larger competitors(Alabama) so you have to work smarter, not harder.

So then we got on the subject of Vic. Here's a guy that was hired in to run the worst basketball program in the SEC. Please correct me if you disagree, but he took over a program that literally hadn't done anything.
So what did he do??

Well, he sold the program to anyone who listen. He worked his butt off to sign the best player to come out of Mississippi in a long time-Vivian. She could have gone anywhere, but he got her to come to MSU. Then he started adding from there. Consistently working.

And then what did he do? He taught those girls to go at 110% thru the entire game, at practice, at every aspect of their responsibility to that basketball program. And now look where he got us.

So with all of this said, curious to know what peoples thoughts are about the possibility of having him one day become A.D. I for one think he would demand coaches to "coach as he does" or he wouldn't hire them. Vic gets those girls to run thru a wall for him and as tough as he is, they love and respect the guy, as we do as fans.

Just posting something that probably is very apparent, but knowing MSU, we love to put people in charge that are close to the university, either as former players(Cohen) or they're moved into rolls from other departments from within the university(Templeton) and have zero SEC athletic department/conference experience. We were damn lucky to get Byrne, and even Loafers(who I can't stand) knew more than this crew we have now.

I just feel we've got a helluva guy with Vic and that dude needs to be moved a lot higher up the MSU Corporate ladder!!![/QUOTE

Congrats on the success of your company. We will just outsmart AL.....hmmm. Installing Vic at the AD slot is not exactly getting off to a fast start ”outsmarting” them other boys.