southernindianahoosier2

I had a conversation with someone who's job it is to solicit donations on behalf of IU, that person described the job at the time as sort of a toxic awkward environment because when they would have meetings scheduled or have big donations lined up, they'd have to actively hide it from McRobbie for fear his involvement would lose them the donation. I also believe McRobbies son/daughter worked in that department which led to the awkwardness. Not sure if true, but considering the fact he drained the IU emergency fund for the phallic bell tower, only to be hit with a real emergency immediately after (covid), and that in the height of the financial crisis gave a speech about how parents should sacrifice financially to send their kids to IU because the education was worth it then almost immediately announcing he's giving himself a $1M a year raise after, plus don't think he actually lived in B-town.... lead me to believe that his services weren't highly sought after. Same with Glass, he fired Crean and had a PR tour on how it's a total rebuild for Archie (explain how after being the AD for 9 years you've created a situation for a total rebuild?), then had to pay $10M to fire archie 4 years later does not exude competence. My opinion is that both were severely unqualified for their positions. Were they fired? technically No... Now obviously both individuals did a few things correctly, I just can't speak to what they did.

Wanted to add some more context since this is in the Coaching candidate thread: The university's strategic vision for years was to de-emphasize sports. That's seen through upgrading any facilities from the 70's until finally we built a practice facility in 2009, etc. Dysfunction continued up until 2021 when Glass and Mcrobbie were both let go. Although their goal wasn't explicitly to de-emphasize sports under that administration, winning didn't seem to be a priority for them, and instead the focus and vision seemed to be "to do things the right way". This is seen through the lack of accountability falling on the AD from the president, and lack of accountability on the coaches from the AD. Losing programs are okay with this attitude, winning programs are not. Have things changed in the administration? Gonso, Shoulders, McRobbie, and Glass are all gone. However, Dolson may have been hired by the old IU guard, and I'm not sure Dolson is the change agent needed for a dramatic turnaround. If any board insider feels different please share. I feel the frustration of the fans, I myself am frustrated. If we had to democratically select the next coach based purely on votes from members of this board we would have never hired Davis, Sampson, Crean, Archie, or Woodson, which is telling of the disconnect within the admin. An analogy is: We're blockbuster, a once great brand that was on top of the world, we had the opportunity to buy netflix multiple times, and now we're failing in a world dominated by streaming. If the fans are the employees in this scenario, we're worried about losing our jobs and desperately asking how our brand is going to get out of this and recover. And leadership is not publicly address any of the issues and providing a vision, they're disconnected from reality in their ivory towers with a holier than thou smugness making decisions based not on winning, but self preservation and what benefits them. Short term gains compiling over 30 years for the longest term losses. Until this changes IU will always be a losing program. For me, that is why I want a coach with some transparency on his strategic vision. I'm high on coach Cig just based on his transparency via tweeting on how he envisions the IUFB program. What I want in a coach is: 1. A change agent who's not afraid to tell the truth 2. Transparent in his strategic vision 3. Someone who wants to build a championship level program 4. Someone who embodies "How you do anything is how you do everything" 5. Someone who's willing to address every single aspect of the program. Meals, Game Day Experience, Uniforms, (not just X's and O's) 6. If all 5 of the above are present, I have no doubt that he's a winner.

Also, I said on this board that we should have hired beard if Stevens said no. But was told the admin wouldn’t touch him with a 10ft pole. That’s why I changed my avatar 3 years ago to Beard. Instead we hired woody. Reggie miller said he ran the best practice he’s ever seen. Remove his domestic dispute and he’s the one of if not the best coach in the NCAA, and he could be hired. If anyone can argue he’s not a top 5 coach in the ncaa, WITHOUT bringing up the domestic dispute I’m all ears. Please, I’d love to hear your reasoning. also side note. Do other schools have to have boosters pay half the coaches salary?

In the 80’s Harry Gonso led a blue ribbon committee that hired Tom Ehrlich as IU president, the relationship with the university and basketball program soured to the point of Bob knight threatening to leave…. The administration was humiliated and held meetings on how they could actively de emphasize the basketball program in favor of academics. It’s the revenge of the nerds Plotline for 15 years. And they’ve never changed in the other direction. As far as the Mike Davis years, I analyzed every coach that made it to a national title from “afterglow” Davis, Kevin Ollie, Tubbie Smith, Bruce Weber. On average those coaches stayed 6 years. So we aren’t out of the norm. The issue is the firing of Sampson, and thus power vacuum That was filled by another blue ribbon committee by Harry Gonso which hired the likes of Fred Glass and Tom Crean. McRobbie could have held things accountable but he was so bad that the people who solicit donations at IU actively had to hide big donations from McRobie out of fear he’d interject and lose them the donation. So the dysfunction goes back to the 80’s and infected all the way up to the BoTs

There’s 20,000 alcoholics in Bloomington he’d fit right in.

Haha true as he can go straight to the distillery, or just have a whiskey barrel rolled into his home. If May makes noise in the NCAA's this year, I'm all in for him, if he flames out, I'm all in for Beard. Maybe he can live in the apartments above the tap or at Upland.

If IU pulled a UCLA, we'd offer every coach who was looking for a raise, hiring our 7th choice lol. My 7th choice would be the Muss Buss, which would make for an interesting few years haha. @Chris007 do you think we'd ask B*** S****** again, or would we go straight to May?

Let me Edit...*Fred Glass extended Crean by 2 years inclusive of a $10M buyout, boxing us out from making any moves on Stevens or anyone else, outbidding no-one (literally only ourselves) in the process, only to fire him, and Crean not being employed by any of the 360+ D1 programs within 5 years of his firing. Then hiring a second coach to never make an NCAA tournament, then having to pay $10M to fire him. He also forced out his football coach who went to b2b bowl games only to hire a coach that we had to pay roughly $15M to fire. In all, after accounting for final numbers, the university and boosters paid roughly ~$24.5M to have his coaches no longer work for the university.... Under his watch IU missed 8 of 12 NCAA tournaments and never won a bowl game, and paid $24.5M to make his hires go away... He then wrote a book titled "HOW I REBUILT INDIANA ATHLETICS"..... How is that not what serious programs do?

True true. I get worked up some times because the product has been bad for so many years that I'm trying to make sense on how this even happened in the first place and continues to happen. I searching for a glimmer of hope that things will be better.

How are we not serious? We signed Tom Crean to a $10M buyout when Brad Stevens was available. Then after paying a cumulative $24.5M to fire both his football and basketball hires, our AD wrote a book titled "How I rebuilt Indiana Athletics" Imagine reading this statement as someone who's not an IU fan.

Jesus - So you're telling me that Tom Crean won 8 BT games in 3 years at IU. Then IU didn't make the move on Stevens because of the Zeller recruitment, based purely on one recruit, and then gave him a $10M buyout the following year for making it to a S16? Was there anyone else that was saying Creans S16 years were more of a false positive and ceiling of his potential and that this was a bad idea?

If we had fired Crean before the 2011-2012 season would we have been able to get Stevens?

If we’re gonna get dirty, let’s get DIRTY. Few isn’t enough of a villain

Time to get muddy

IU candidates were Thad, Woody, and Fife… and we did hire all 3.. not sure what having only those 3 as candidates says about the program

I’ve been saying this for years, but IU seems to do everything Michigan does just a few years later.

A couple of quick questions for you…. what is the opportunity cost of waiting? Missing out on beard and May? What is May goes to Louisville, or UNC? Do you want to win a championship or not? All of the greatest winners are overcompensating for some sort of trauma. If everything is a trade off, what are you willing to trade for a championship?

Chris Beard would turn the program around in one season, and he has the personality to be a great fit for a large fan base (former knight assist, plus if anyone has watched his fireside chats would go crazy for that at IU)… however he comes with baggage. It would require IU to swing big and be ready when the inevitable scandal arrives in B town. Michigan is no stranger to this with this season. Supposedly sabotage from a disgruntled professor leaking info to the press etc. now what Michigan did was get the support of the president and AD to fight back against the allegations, and they won a national championship. if Beard isn’t your man, it would be for personal reasons and not for his coaching, but if he’s not your guy then Dusty May is another one that could fix 90+% of IUs problems. And if you listen to any of his interviews you’ll understand that his FF run was not a fluke, and very different circumstances than Creans at Marquette. if we can’t get either, then in about 5 years another coach will come out of no where a la Brad Stevens or Beard or May that we should absolutely go for, IU’s problem in the past, at least with Crean was we weren’t willing to cut bait with Crean after the 2010-2011 season because he had zeller coming in, now imagine had we pulled the trigger then and hired Stevens away? Based on Dolsons ability to pull the trigger and let a coach go, i hope we make a move on Beard or May, but I’m not sure we do that to one of our former players Remember, Glass, McRobbie, Gonso and Shoulders are gone from the administration that plagued us for so many years, so it’s possible!

There was a conversation a while back where a poster said Disneyworld didn’t become Disneyworld by simply saying “eh good enough”. Big businesses would call this cultural rot. Interesting to read show dog or watch the “Air” movie about Nike and their “10 principles” out of those that IU has never read lmao: #1. Our business is change #4. This is as much about battle as about business #5 stretch the possible #6 dangers: Burracracy, knowing our weaknesses

Lol - sorry for bringing the negativity. But I feel it is important dialogue for setting expectations. “How you do anything is how you do everything”… I absolutely love the Cignetti hire btw, love the Woodson hire too.

Yes, but you have to then take the sweetheart deal, which I’m not sure we’d do lmao.

IU - where we supposedly have a top10 business school yet don’t understand the definition of what a short term gain for a long term loss means. SMH…. why would they stick with Adidas?

Praying this happens at least RFP it out!

Interesting I didn’t see the word adidas anywhere… could this mean we’re switching up our sponsorship?

Who is making all the uniform decisions. I never want anyone to lose their job, but that person should be swapped for someone stylish who is willing to take risks