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Grading Ron Wellman

Deacsfan27

Deacsfan27

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One of our contributors at BSD (quzybuk) has taken a substantial amount of time to do the research necessary to judge Ron Wellman on a scale that is more than just randomly assigning a grade/number to his hires.

http://www.bloggersodear.com/2012/7/23/3178241/grading-ron-wellman

Methodology: Coaching hires are graded on the typical A-F scale converted to a traditional 4.0 number. I will use the +/- system for third of a grades (example: a B+ would be a 3.33 factored into the GPA). I've excluded all sports that do not feature definite win/loss numbers (golf, track and field, and cross country) as computing the results to evaluate the coaches would've been miserable. I've also decided that football and men's basketball hires will count double, since these are the most important sports financially and for exposure purposes.
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The conclusion:

Doing the maths (and factoring in the football and men's basketball decisions twice each), we find that Wellman has earned himself 2.189 GPA, roughly equating to something between a C and a C+, or approximately maintaining (but not necessarily improving) the Wake Forest athletics as a whole. He has done a good job of keeping good coaches (Buczek, Zinn, and Petersen are the B-range coaches got away, but he's kept A-range coaches Averill, Vidovich, da Luz, and Grobe for over ten years each). Furthermore, it seems there is some validity to the criticism of Wellman that he has not done a good job of hirings recently - his last hire who actually improved its program was Mike Petersen in 2004.

Lastly, I would like to say that this is a rough look at Wellman's time at Wake Forest. There are more ins and outs of the world of college athletics than most of us can fathom. Indeed, I mentioned in some of the notes that the statistics given do not necessarily accurately depict the program's arc under the coach. I have tried to point out the most egregious examples of this.
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Comments are obviously welcome, and I urge you to read the whole article because it breaks down every single coaching hire since Wellman took over in 1992. My only objection would be that it does not take into account the revenue brought into the program as a whole (Deacon Tower, Bridger improvements, field turf...etc.) and instead focuses solely on wins and losses, which are no doubt important, but not the end all be all for several reasons. It would also be interesting to factor in the academic successes and failures of the student-athletes over the same time frame and somehow account for that as well.

As is, it is a fantastic article that gives great insight into his tenure at Wake Forest.
 
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I feel like in '07 his "GPA" would be much higher. Pretty cool, nice job.
 
Pretty interesting read.

The things I noticed that seemed odd:

1) No deduction for running George Greer off?

2) No analysis of the Jerry Haas hire?
 
Ron Wellman is kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I have ever known in my life.
 
Grading any college AD purely on coaching hires is ridiculous. Yes, it's a major component of the job, but there are many others: fundraising, facilities improvement, and yes, for all you cynics who make fun of "culture change" in re Bzz, maintaining an ethical culture for athletics (by the way, if you don't think culture is important, see, e.g., "Penn State, NCAA Sanctions levied."

In terms of facilities improvement, fundraising, and maintaining an ethical athletic culture, Ron has done extremely well.

I do agree Ron has made some really poor coaching hires. I also agree his salary, north of $800,000, is obscene regardless of what he has accomplished. But assigning a grade based solely on coaching hires is, at best, incomplete.
 
FreeStateDeac said:
Grading any college AD purely on coaching hires is ridiculous. Yes, it's a major component of the job, but there are many others: fundraising, facilities improvement, and yes, for all you cynics who make fun of "culture change" in re Bzz, maintaining an ethical culture for athletics (by the way, if you don't think culture is important, see, e.g., "Penn State, NCAA Sanctions levied."

In terms of facilities improvement, fundraising, and maintaining an ethical athletic culture, Ron has done extremely well.

I do agree Ron has made some really poor coaching hires. I also agree his salary, north of $800,000, is obscene regardless of what he has accomplished. But assigning a grade based solely on coaching hires is, at best, incomplete.
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Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?
 
FreeStateDeac said:
Grading any college AD purely on coaching hires is ridiculous. Yes, it's a major component of the job, but there are many others: fundraising, facilities improvement, and yes, for all you cynics who make fun of "culture change" in re Bzz, maintaining an ethical culture for athletics (by the way, if you don't think culture is important, see, e.g., "Penn State, NCAA Sanctions levied."

In terms of facilities improvement, fundraising, and maintaining an ethical athletic culture, Ron has done extremely well.

I do agree Ron has made some really poor coaching hires. I also agree his salary, north of $800,000, is obscene regardless of what he has accomplished. But assigning a grade based solely on coaching hires is, at best, incomplete.
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Totally agree. Article read like the work of a school boy with a lot of summer time on his hands. An AD's job includes hiring coaches but that is only part of what they do. I would say an AD's responsibilities are;

1a) compliance A
1b) facilities A
1c) hiring coaches B

Prosser was better than a B- hire. You have to put hires into context. The boy who wrote the article was likely not on campus during the Prosser era.
 
poop.jpg
 
jaybone said:
Totally agree. Article read like the work of a school boy with a lot of summer time on his hands. An AD's job includes hiring coaches but that is only part of what they do. I would say an AD's responsibilities are;

1a) compliance A
1b) facilities A
1c) hiring coaches B

Prosser was better than a B- hire. You have to put hires into context. The boy who wrote the article was likely not on campus during the Prosser era.
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To call the person who wrote this a "boy" is both rude and condescending. Regardless of agreeing with the post or not agreeing with the post, this is an immature response.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
To call the person who wrote this a "boy" is both rude and condescending. Regardless of agreeing with the post or not agreeing with the post, this is an immature response.
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Did a girl write it?
 
I think Le Bone has legitimate point. . .there is much more to that gig than just hiring coaches.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
To call the person who wrote this a "boy" is both rude and condescending. Regardless of agreeing with the post or not agreeing with the post, this is an immature response.
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Uh. I don't think people are responsible enough for what they write. Might seem ironic coming from me, but content on a message board gets pretty lost pretty quick. You post something on I assume a pretty well read blog for Wake alumns, and you are a fish swimming in the ocean. You don't want to see a shark? Swim in the fucking pond.
 
This guy could be 40, we have no idea. That's my point about calling him a "boy".

Plus he says this in the article:

"Lastly, I would like to say that this is a rough look at Wellman's time at Wake Forest. There are more ins and outs of the world of college athletics than most of us can fathom. Indeed, I mentioned in some of the notes that the statistics given do not necessarily accurately depict the program's arc under the coach. I have tried to point out the most egregious examples of this."

He doesn't claim to have THE answer about Ron Wellman's tenure at Wake. It's just a way to look at it.

I have no problem with criticizing content or research at all, but to take this article and then call him "a boy" is clearly an immature response. I said that your points have merit and you're entitled to your own opinion, but the usage of "boy" is condescending and you know that.
 
tsywake said:
This would make for a couple interesting follow-up pieces. The facilities shouldnt be that difficult to research IMO, but compliance might be a little more tricky.
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I think he gets a serious bump in his grade for the improvements to Groves, buying Ernie Shore, the new golf practice center, etc.

I also think his grade should be lowered significantly more for the [Redacted] hire. He absolutely crippled the flagship sport for at least half a decade with that move.
 
jaybone said:
Uh. I don't think people are responsible enough for what they write. Might seem ironic coming from me, but content on a message board gets pretty lost pretty quick. You post something on I assume a pretty well read blog for Wake alumns, and you are a fish swimming in the ocean. You don't want to see a shark? Swim in the fucking pond.
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Not sure why he isn't "responsible" for what he writes. People have been debating over here for a year to review the coaching hires by Ron Wellman, and this is exactly what he did, all the while compiling a way to look at it that is more than just randomly giving a C- or an A-.

ETA: This also includes a LOT of research, so it's not like he is trotting out irresponsible statements that are not facts.

I'm more than sure that the writer could respond to his piece if he wanted to over here and your fish swimming in the ocean analogy is so stupid that I don't know where to begin. You have a right to an opinion, and can certainly share it, but you are pretty far off on this one, especially calling into question his maturity for writing a piece that was prefaced and concluded with statements that he cannot even begin to understand the intricacies of what Ron Wellman has to do.
 
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Liquid Karma said:
I think he gets a serious bump in his grade for the improvements to Groves, buying Ernie Shore, the new golf practice center, etc.

I also think his grade should be lowered significantly more for the [Redacted] hire. He absolutely crippled the flagship sport for at least half a decade with that move.
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Agree with all of this...also think the [Redacted] hiring fiasco has and will hurt fundraising until a change is made and people are confident in the new choice...
 
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