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FUCK YOU, RON WELLMAN

It is darkly funny how Wellman lit his entire reputation and legacy on fire when he hired [Redacted]. During the Grobe/Prosser heyday, we thought he was one of the best ADs in the country. When Skip died, the prevailing sentiment was “Thank God we have Wellman to navigate us through this.” Then he hired [Redacted] and it all went to shit immediately. Impressive downfall. And all thanks for a head injury suffered in a bike accident.
 
Say Hey Deac said:
It is darkly funny how Wellman lit his entire reputation and legacy on fire when he hired [Redacted]. During the Grobe/Prosser heyday, we thought he was one of the best ADs in the country. When Skip died, the prevailing sentiment was “Thank God we have Wellman to navigate us through this.” Then he hired [Redacted] and it all went to shit immediately. Impressive downfall. And all thanks for a head injury suffered in a bike accident.
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"In Wellman I Trust" was a phrase tossed around without any sense of irony or sarcasm. Amazing.
 
Colonel Angus said:
Pure fiction. All that's missing is your tin foil hat.

Wellman owns the Bzd hire and deserves all of the shit he catches for it but Bzd was down the candidate list and all of the coaches ahead of him on the list either had to say no or throw out comp demands out of the ballpark Wake was playing in at the time. The fact he was even on the list to begin with was the biggest issue, imo.

But many Wake fans both on the message boards and in real life were clamoring for an "X's & O's" guy after Dino.
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I've heard some stories about how shocked other AD employees were when they heard the name [Redacted] was even on the list.

I felt really bad for the Deacon Club reps who were asked to start polishing that turd.
 
LilburnDeac said:
When we fired Dino, I was firmly convinced that we had someone like Stevens or Smart already lined up to be the replacement. It was the only thing that made sense.


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Precisely what I thought. I assumed we were really going to be impressed if he just fired a guy who went to the NCAAT but disappointed. Then Elmer Fudd comes trotting out! Still can't believe it.
 
DeacInVermont said:
"In Wellman I Trust" was a phrase tossed around without any sense of irony or sarcasm. Amazing.
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I mean, at the time, it wasn’t a crazy thing! Dude hired Grobe and Prosser, who both won conference championships (Prosser’s being regular season). Who’d a thunk a bike accident would cause so much permanent damage to the man’s brain?
 
Kent said:
I would really like to speak to someone who knows Wellman personally and well, to find out what kind of cat he really is. Maybe he's an OK guy who just didn't have a grasp on public and media relations. It's hard to image Wellman as a person is as bad as he came across in print and video.
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I'll put it this way to be as kind as possible. I've met Wellman and Currie on a number of occasions and have conversed with both at fundraising and related athletic events.

The difference between these two is NIGHT and DAY! One is a condescending asshole who basically wants the ring kissed and can be very socially awkward in smaller group settings **. The other is our current athletic director.




** I realize this is hard to believe but I often got this vibe. Now, he could bullshit with the best of them but when it came to a genuine, personal conversation? Dude was just pretty hollow I thought.
 
PaddyWF said:
Giving him the chance to hire a second coach, not picking the right guy again, and extending him with an $18M buyout was... something.

I will still never understand how the board and president just signed off on all of this for a decade? I mean, no one said "hey, this seems like a bad idea."
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The first was forgivable. The second two not so much.
 
TheAbster said:
I'll put it this way to be as kind as possible. I've met Wellman and Currie on a number of occasions and have conversed with both at fundraising and related athletic events.

The difference between these two is NIGHT and DAY! One is a condescending asshole who basically wants the ring kissed and can be very socially awkward in smaller group settings **. The other is our current athletic director.




** I realize this is hard to believe but I often got this vibe. Now, he could bullshit with the best of them but when it came to a genuine, personal conversation? Dude was just pretty hollow I thought.
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In my athletic experience at Wake, I had multiple interactions with Wellman. A better description cannot be written.
 
Wellman always seemed like a guy that connected better with rich folks than the average fan

I’m sure it helped in some ways but really made him insufferable when things were going poorly
 
Wellman showed what was in store for the basketball program when he selected Dino as head coach. There was absolutely nothing on Dino's resume to indicate he was capable of success as a head coach of an ACC basketball program. He would never have been considered for the position had he not been a career assistant to Prosser.
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
Wellman always seemed like a guy that connected better with rich folks than the average fan
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You might be surprised. I know a number of givers who you'd consider very "rich" who couldn't stand the assclown. In fairness, there were the oblivious boot lickers. He definitely had that following as well.
 
Fuck Wellman and all but the Dino thing was kinda unavoidable, IMO. Skip died in late July so doing a coaching search at that point wasn't feasible.

Then Dino did a good job holding a team together that first season without their 'real' coach. I can understand the argument against removing the interim tag from Dino's name but all the momentum of that year was pushing that happening.

The first sign of trouble was the Dino extension and then firing like 6 months later after making the NCAAT. It just didn't make sense unless a home run hire happened. Instead our hire had a foul tip that smacked our balls but we stepped out of the batter's box so were called out for interference. For 10 years.
 
I think that defining moment for Wellman's tenure was Prosser's death. Up to the point, Wellman had done some really nice things and had pretty much universal support from Wake Fans. When Skip died, Wellman immediately started a down a course of incredibly stupid decisions starting with hiring Dino as an interim coach and ending with two of the worst coaches in ACC history.
 
SC DEAC said:
I think that defining moment for Wellman's tenure was Prosser's death. Up to the point, Wellman had done some really nice things and had pretty much universal support from Wake Fans. When Skip died, Wellman immediately started a down a course of incredibly stupid decisions starting with hiring Dino as an interim coach and ending with two of the worst coaches in ACC history.
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The Dino decision was questionable and I get both sides of that argument. I didn't agree with it and thought we could have done better BUT the time of year in which it happened made this VERY, VERY difficult if not impossible. I was in favor of the interim tag while a permanent search ensued. That didn't happen. He went full Thelma and Louise.

Then, the hiring of Elmer Fudd and the Mannequin were beyond comprehension. Had he admitted his mistakes, I think he could have salvaged some respectability. Instead? He doubled down and basically told everyone to go fuck themselves.
 
BlackjackMc said:
Wellman showed what was in store for the basketball program when he selected Dino as head coach. There was absolutely nothing on Dino's resume to indicate he was capable of success as a head coach of an ACC basketball program. He would never have been considered for the position had he not been a career assistant to Prosser.
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yeah i hear you, but this is way down the list of Ron's crimes. he's like a bad gambler that kept doubling down on the initial bad decision because he couldn't square the thought that he might actually have been wrong. it still baffles me that a shitty MAC baseball coach ended up in the position to somehow talk down to an entire fanbase at a top 20-(ish!?) school.
 
deacvision7 said:
Fuck Wellman and all but the Dino thing was kinda unavoidable, IMO. Skip died in late July so doing a coaching search at that point wasn't feasible.

Then Dino did a good job holding a team together that first season without their 'real' coach. I can understand the argument against removing the interim tag from Dino's name but all the momentum of that year was pushing that happening.

The first sign of trouble was the Dino extension and then firing like 6 months later after making the NCAAT. It just didn't make sense unless a home run hire happened. Instead our hire had a foul tip that smacked our balls but we stepped out of the batter's box so were called out for interference. For 10 years.
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i mean in hindsight Dino was Reed Auerbach compared to the basket of deplorables that followed. and i know it ended horribly, but the 08-09 team might have been top to bottom the most talented team we ever had. i was there for the complete demolition of Indiana ("worse than Elon, clap-clap, clapclapclap") and i just had never seen anything like it even during the RoRo/Chill/Duncan years.
 
I sometimes, much more in past years, but it still happens sporadically...have these two quotes pop into my mind and I can't make sense of them coming from the same person just six months apart about one of their employees. It is crazy and I can't believe anybody in the media never took these two quotes and directly asked Ron Wellman to explain what happened between the extension and the firing to cause such a dramatic shift in his opinion.

October 14, 2009: (link: https://godeacs.com/news/2009/10/14/gaudio_receives_contract_extension)
"Dino has continued to move our basketball program forward, much as was anticipated when he was hired two years ago," said Wellman. "We are pleased with the progress of the student-athletes, both on and off the court, and Dino is responsible for that progress."

April 7, 2010: (link: https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/news/story?id=5064441)
"This was not a snap decision. It was not a snap judgment," said Wellman, who served on the NCAA Division I men's basketball committee this season and was in Indianapolis earlier this week for the Final Four.
"This was not a decision based upon a one-year performance," he added. "We can put up with a disappointment. We have disappointments all the time. But there is a pattern here that needed to be addressed, a 3-year pattern that needed to be addressed."


MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.

Duration/Day
175 days
October 14, 2009 – April 7, 2010
 
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