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2 more years

GoDeacsGo

GoDeacsGo

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There is no way I could have possibly read all of the Bzz / Wellman threads on this message board but from what I have been able to observe over the months is most people agree that Wellman’s main priority was to restore integrity back into the program first by hiring/recruiting the kind of people that would not provide any distractions in improving the program and then worry about the win column.
For a moment remove your “I Hate Bz, I Hate Wellman” hat and look at it from Ron’s perspective. You hire someone to transform your team by slowing getting rid of the trouble makers and people that don’t want to be there and are left basically with 2 above average players. Should you expect immediate results? For now forget Bz’s past record or if you think he is a good coach or not. Is 2 years (I’m not counting the clearing house year) really enough time to turn the program around? If you are Wellman and you are hiring someone to instill integrity into a program are you not flying in the face of integrity by not giving him a 100% benefit of doubt that he is not capable of being successful (although he has proven himself to most of us)?
I don’t think Bz is the right hire but I also can’t see him not getting 2 more years to prove to Wellman if he is the right person for the job or not.
Tag away
 
I'm just trying to be realistic and viewing it from Wellman's point of view. I'm not saying I agree so do trash me for it.
 
If a defeatist attitude helps you cope, then go for it. He's not going to make it two more years. Hopefully two more games.
 
All (or most) of these culture problems occurred after [Redacted] was hired though. He re-recruited the Travis & all class, which featured some bad seeds according to the AD. He kept the key recruiters as well. He kept Ty around the team for way too long even after he'd had multiple "culture" problems. One of his recruits this year "injured" himself in a freak pot smoking accident (the AD covered up a positive drug test suspension). He hasn't really changed much besides losing all the time.

*AD above is the athletic department as a whole, not AD Wellman explicitly
 
I think this is the fear many of us harbor. Ron seems to have cloistered himself from the more vocal elements of the fanbase, so it will take a mass uprising to force his hand in another direction. My concern is that the "landed gentry" aspect of Wake fans get their information directly from the AD's office and not the "lunatic fringe". Being a Wake fan has taught me to hope for the best, but expect the worst, and that's exactly what I've done with the [Redacted] Error.
 
The main problem with the culture argument has always been that the stated purpose for removing Dino was to improve our post season performance. It was only after it was clear that [Redacted] was unable to achieve this goal that the culture argument was brought out.

But this has been discussed ad nauseum on this board, at this point I think most of us aren't really interested in why [Redacted] was brought here, we just want to move forward in a positive direction. That begins with replacing the head coach and, if necessary to do that, replacing the athletic director.
 
Did we have a few bad apples perhaps, probably. Was it any more so than most other programs, I don't believe so. Did it warrant gutting the program to rebuild "culture" because is was so bad, there is no way I believe that it was. There had to be tons of coaches that had legitimate resumes that also were "cultured" enough for Wellman's purposes, instead he took a guy with a horrid resume and did under the pretenses that is was because of Dino's lack of post-season success. It was a bad hire from the start, it has only gotten worse and if Wellman doesn't end this crap now, it is criminal.
 
GoDeacsGo said:
There is no way I could have possibly read all of the Bzz / Wellman threads on this message board but from what I have been able to observe over the months is most people agree that Wellman’s main priority was to restore integrity back into the program first by hiring/recruiting the kind of people that would not provide any distractions in improving the program and then worry about the win column.
For a moment remove your “I Hate Bz, I Hate Wellman” hat and look at it from Ron’s perspective. You hire someone to transform your team by slowing getting rid of the trouble makers and people that don’t want to be there and are left basically with 2 above average players. Should you expect immediate results? For now forget Bz’s past record or if you think he is a good coach or not. Is 2 years (I’m not counting the clearing house year) really enough time to turn the program around? If you are Wellman and you are hiring someone to instill integrity into a program are you not flying in the face of integrity by not giving him a 100% benefit of doubt that he is not capable of being successful (although he has proven himself to most of us)?
I don’t think Bz is the right hire but I also can’t see him not getting 2 more years to prove to Wellman if he is the right person for the job or not.
Tag away
Click to expand...

The culture crap was pure BS. And you have not read very much on this board if you think that "most people agree" otherwise. We may have needed someone to paint the walls, but [Redacted] burnt the house down. The bigger problem is that Buzz has had NO successful experience as a house painter or house builder and should NOT have been hired in the first place. That's on the AD who was stupid enough to hire him and worse, allow him to continue wasting precious years of our players careers.

IslandDeac said:
All (or most) of these culture problems occurred after [Redacted] was hired though. He re-recruited the Travis & all class, which featured some bad seeds according to the AD. He kept the key recruiters as well. He kept Ty around the team for way too long even after he'd had multiple "culture" problems. One of his recruits this year "injured" himself in a freak pot smoking accident (the AD covered up a positive drug test suspension). He hasn't really changed much besides losing all the time.

*AD above is the athletic department as a whole, not AD Wellman explicitly
Click to expand...

Exactly...
 
GoDeacsGo said:
There is no way I could have possibly read all of the Bzz / Wellman threads on this message board but from what I have been able to observe over the months is most people agree that Wellman’s main priority was to restore integrity back into the program first by hiring/recruiting the kind of people that would not provide any distractions in improving the program and then worry about the win column.
For a moment remove your “I Hate Bz, I Hate Wellman” hat and look at it from Ron’s perspective. You hire someone to transform your team by slowing getting rid of the trouble makers and people that don’t want to be there and are left basically with 2 above average players. Should you expect immediate results? For now forget Bz’s past record or if you think he is a good coach or not. Is 2 years (I’m not counting the clearing house year) really enough time to turn the program around? If you are Wellman and you are hiring someone to instill integrity into a program are you not flying in the face of integrity by not giving him a 100% benefit of doubt that he is not capable of being successful (although he has proven himself to most of us)?
I don’t think Bz is the right hire but I also can’t see him not getting 2 more years to prove to Wellman if he is the right person for the job or not.
Tag away
Click to expand...

From Wellman's point of view, you are correct. Could his point of view be skewed? I would argue that it is. The overwhelming point of view(NON-WELLMAN) is that it was the wrong hire for the wrong reasons. The Wake Forest community gave him the first year with no problems, but expected to see some results the second year. When there was none(LAST PLACE AGAIN), the Wake forest community begrudgingly gave him this third year. Coach Buzz predicted post-season playoffs for his third year. When this season started so miserably, enough was enough, hence the Great Crescendo to the buzz out movement including this website. As we approach our last game, we are headed for last or tied for second to last. No signs of improvement whether we win this last game or not. Next year does not look any better. Recruiting has not been good in the Buzz era and the future looks ominous except for SM. No recruits for 2015 at this time. So, from the NON-WELLMAN point of view, two more years looks like the last two years. I can understand the grief which has now turned to outrage. Yes, I am one who thinks HIS viewpoint is skewed,but not your post.
 
GoDeacsGo said:
There is no way I could have possibly read all of the Bzz / Wellman threads on this message board but from what I have been able to observe over the months is most people agree that Wellman’s main priority was to restore integrity back into the program first by hiring/recruiting the kind of people that would not provide any distractions in improving the program and then worry about the win column.
For a moment remove your “I Hate Bz, I Hate Wellman” hat and look at it from Ron’s perspective. You hire someone to transform your team by slowing getting rid of the trouble makers and people that don’t want to be there and are left basically with 2 above average players. Should you expect immediate results? For now forget Bz’s past record or if you think he is a good coach or not. Is 2 years (I’m not counting the clearing house year) really enough time to turn the program around? If you are Wellman and you are hiring someone to instill integrity into a program are you not flying in the face of integrity by not giving him a 100% benefit of doubt that he is not capable of being successful (although he has proven himself to most of us)?
I don’t think Bz is the right hire but I also can’t see him not getting 2 more years to prove to Wellman if he is the right person for the job or not.
Tag away
Click to expand...

One of my favorite board concepts is when posters post a shitty take and immediately play the martyr card with a line like "tag away."
 
Do not confuse athletic department spin with relevant information.

I believe culture change was more about Dino than the players. There were concerns about how Dino was suddenly getting top talent.

If part of the issues leading to the firing of Dino were his "culture," then Wellman is not at liberty to discuss the facts. This is why Wellman's culture argument and his winning later in the year argument make no sense. It is poorly constructed spin.

It would not make sense to hire Buzz unless the termination of Dino was somewhat sudden or unexpected. This is why we were unprepared to bring in top coaching talent and acted quickly with the emergency plan. We should have waited and found the best candidate, but Wellman's ego and impatience got in the way.

Firing Buzz means admitting a mistake, which is not Wellman's best thing.

Wellman will fire Buzz when is is necessary, not when it is prudent. Maybe the increased pressure will affect this. Carry on.....
 
Not even worth a neg rep, but the OP just did a horrific job. I feel like we need to import braces, do we can get some halfway decent delusion, and perhaps a paragraph or two. I guess BuzzApologia doesn't know what tl;dr means...
 
The saddest thing of this whole debacle is that all the fun elements of being a fan are gone. All the years of office rivalries between schools before and after the games are missing. The stupid and silly bets against fans from other teams are gone. When Maryland beat us this year, not one of my Maryland friends even tried to rub it in. They ignored the win completely. There are no more obnoxious fans than Maryland fans and they didn't even care so much as to stop by and rub in the victory??!! Being a Wake fan is about as fun as a lukewarm bowl of Mayonnaise at this point.
 
If the AD wants to stick with his guy and let him prove he is worthy of the position, I get it.

The problem I have with the OP's narrative is that Bz didn't chase anyone away. He actively tried to get them to all stay with Tabb perhaps being the exception. And he made the decision easy.

I could have a modicum of respect for Bz if he actually cleaned house, but I don't think that's what happened.
 
RiskyBusiness said:
Do not confuse athletic department spin with relevant information.

I believe culture change was more about Dino than the players. There were concerns about how Dino was suddenly getting top talent.

If part of the issues leading to the firing of Dino were his "culture," then Wellman is not at liberty to discuss the facts. This is why Wellman's culture argument and his winning later in the year argument make no sense. It is poorly constructed spin.

It would not make sense to hire Buzz unless the termination of Dino was somewhat sudden or unexpected. This is why we were unprepared to bring in top coaching talent and acted quickly with the emergency plan. We should have waited and found the best candidate, but Wellman's ego and impatience got in the way.

Firing Buzz means admitting a mistake, which is not Wellman's best thing.

Wellman will fire Buzz when is is necessary, not when it is prudent. Maybe the increased pressure will affect this. Carry on.....
Click to expand...

Was there any evidence that he was doing anything wrong to get this top talent?
 
Sadly oldeacs it is a lot like being a Wake fan in the late 60-early 70 period as well as mid 80- to early 90 period that some of the younger fans did not experience, it is tiresome and we deserve better.
 
GoDeacsGo said:
There is no way I could have possibly read all of the Bzz / Wellman threads on this message board but from what I have been able to observe over the months is most people agree that Wellman’s main priority was to restore integrity back into the program first by hiring/recruiting the kind of people that would not provide any distractions in improving the program and then worry about the win column.
For a moment remove your “I Hate Bz, I Hate Wellman” hat and look at it from Ron’s perspective. You hire someone to transform your team by slowing getting rid of the trouble makers and people that don’t want to be there and are left basically with 2 above average players. Should you expect immediate results? For now forget Bz’s past record or if you think he is a good coach or not. Is 2 years (I’m not counting the clearing house year) really enough time to turn the program around? If you are Wellman and you are hiring someone to instill integrity into a program are you not flying in the face of integrity by not giving him a 100% benefit of doubt that he is not capable of being successful (although he has proven himself to most of us)?
I don’t think Bz is the right hire but I also can’t see him not getting 2 more years to prove to Wellman if he is the right person for the job or not.
Tag away
Click to expand...

There are lots of problems with the culture argument, including the fact that trhis new culture has not been properly and clearly defined. You can't get away from the problems even when you use the term integrity, even though that has a much more precise meaning than culture.

Let me offer this debilitating problem: the people making the culture argument are not offering a good example themselves. The way Buzz was hired and the way the hire has been defended has been saturated with arrogance. It's almost like that scene from the Wizzard of Oz: "Silence whippersnapper! Oz the great and powerful knows why you have come!" Buzz, for his part, has been arrogant as well with his "I know all these cool guys in the NBA and so I know a lot more basketball than you," attitude, when he had an actual won and loss record that no one - not even Les Robinson - could envy. So, is arrogance supposed to be a part of this new culture? It sure seemed to be a part of the culture of the people mouthing it. Arrogance certainly should not be an essential part of integrity, if you prefer that concept.

Then, of course, the losing that inevitably came with the new culture and was a direct consequence of the arrogance. Is losing supposed to be a part of the new culture? From what most fans could see losing seems to be central to it, indeed a defining element up to this point. The same goes for integrity. What does losing have to do with integrity? What is this gibberish? Sounds like something out of Thrasymachus.

Finally, the most inept and often apparently dishonest communications on the planet. Kim Jung-un could have done better. Wellman has been awful with his "lack of post season wins," "Heavens yes" and "it's all part of the plan." Buzz's inability to communicate has now reached legendary proportions. Is poor and dishonest communication all a part of the new culture. How is dishonesty part of integrity?

When the leadership sets such a poor example, what can one expect but very serious doubts about any new culture, or certainly one that is worthy of being implemented.
 
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