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Is Wellman Losing Control of the Program?

Wellman is the head of the NCAA basketball selection committee and was the head of the NCAA baseball selection committee. You do not get those positions if unless you have the respect of fellow ADs and conference commissioners.

Personally, I could care less about whether Wellman is respected or not by other ADs (except to the extent it helps hiring the next coach at WF, or otherwise benefits WF). I only care that WF's athletic department is properly administered. Wellman has accomplished some good things at WF, and he also has one massively disastrous mistake: hiring Jeff [Redacted] and failing to promptly address that mistake by allowing him to continue at WF for 4 years. Over the next month, Wellman has the chance to begin to remedy the damage done, by making the right hire to replace [Redacted].
 
FWIW, Remember that this SOB has taken FOUR YEARS of everyone's life to make a point that he is the one who dictates the direction of the athletic programs...I for one will never forgive him for this. Four years with the correct Coach would have saved many posts and unnecessary expenditures for billboards, newspaper ads etc. Cannot believe that Wellman is not the laughing stock of the AD fraternity...
 
Pilchard said:
Wellman is the head of the NCAA basketball selection committee and was the head of the NCAA baseball selection committee. You do not get those positions if unless you have the respect of fellow ADs and conference commissioners.

Personally, I could care less about whether Wellman is respected or not by other ADs (except to the extent it helps hiring the next coach at WF, or otherwise benefits WF). I only care that WF's athletic department is properly administered. Wellman has accomplished some good things at WF, and he also has one massively disastrous mistake: hiring Jeff [Redacted] and failing to promptly address that mistake by allowing him to continue at WF for 4 years. Over the next month, Wellman has the chance to begin to remedy the damage done, by making the right hire to replace [Redacted].
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But could you care less?
 
i would be willing to bet that other AD's think wellman made a big mistake with the bzz hire. however, i suspect they also would say that they know how difficult being an AD is and the pressure involved (especially after a bad decision). i would further guess that many/most of those ADs would say they respect wellman even more for sticking with his decision and giving his choice enough of an opportunity to succeed or fail on his own merit. in a strange way i can understand an AD making the case that they respect him more now than ever. then again, i would put large amounts of money that many of those same ADs would never have hired bzz in the first place.

lucky for us that wake took the biggest hit from the bzz sh!t show. he kept tricking people on his way up the ladder and now there is no longer anywhere for bzz to hide "but i coached in the nba... don't look at my results." "look at what i did at AF (but don't look at who recruited them and what i left behind) "look at colorado. i laid the foundation there"

you really f*cked us ron.
 
If he gets Gregg Marshall or a proven big winner (Smart, Howland, etc.), he could earn forgiveness. But at the same time, he could have hired a number of good coaches four years ago for a lot less, and without exposing us all to the Bzaster. Just horrible judgment.

Also, didn't he take a pretty big hit in coaches' circles for dumping Dino like he did? I don't know how other ADs felt about the move, but I recall several big-name coaches making their thoughts fairly well-known about that.
 
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I for one appreciate the tough spot Ronnie was put in. Skip dying was terrible on a number of levels. I seem to recall there were a fairly strong SkipOut sentiment in the year or two before his death. If he hadn't died, my guess is that he may not have been at Wake much longer. But he did die and hiring Dino at the time was really the only move that Ronnie could make, especially once Battle declined to be considered. So Ronnie was stuck with someone he probably didn't want in the first place, but that was the situation he was handed.
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Very accurate assessment so far.

But then he completely botched the firing of Dino and hiring of Bzzzz, though the degree to which it is his fault I'm not completely sure of. Did he actually talk to any of the top tier coaches we were all clammoring for? I don't know. Maybe he did and they told him to fuck off.
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We've gone over this multiple times - where ya been ? Again, RW went after Brad Stevens....he shocked RW by declining. RW then reached out to Bo Ryan who also declined. Pickins suddenly got real thin and well....you know the ending.

Maybe Ronnie was scared off because he reads the Boards and saw how much fun we were all having at the expense of State a few years ago with their searchparty disaster. I don't know, and the CIA-esque secrecy with which the WFU administration and athletic department operate on for any matters certainly doesn't clear anything up. So maybe it's just some bad fucking luck that we are in the shitstorm we are in, or maybe it is really mostly RonRon's fault because he went and hired Bzzzz without considering other alternatives. I don't know, but it's all very frustrating and will likely be so for the next few years, at best.
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Seriously....relax. As we are seeing with Dave Clawson, a turnaround/rebuild/new blood will happen quickly....quicker in hoops than in football ( see SMU under Larry Brown ).
 
HONDO2 said:
We've gone over this multiple times - where ya been ? Again, RW went after Brad Stevens....he shocked RW by declining. RW then reached out to Bo Ryan who also declined. Pickins suddenly got real thin and well....you know the ending.
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Who is we? Who has confirmed this? Are you saying we talked to both guys and hired Buzz in a week? Never mind that there are literally hundreds of better choices between Ryan and Buzz. Stop trying to justify Wellman's screw-up. We have had it confirmed that Buzz was on his short list. That alone is a fireable offense. There are far better choices that could have been hired.
 
I for one appreciate the tough spot Ronnie was put in. Skip dying was terrible on a number of levels. I seem to recall there were a fairly strong SkipOut sentiment in the year or two before his death. If he hadn't died, my guess is that he may not have been at Wake much longer. But he did die and hiring Dino at the time was really the only move that Ronnie could make, especially once Battle declined to be considered. So Ronnie was stuck with someone he probably didn't want in the first place, but that was the situation he was handed.
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Hard spot or not, Wellman did not handle things well after Skip's death. He signed Dino to a long term deal, and then extended him. It was definitely not the only move he could make.
 
Turd Ferguson said:
Hard spot or not, Wellman did not handle things well after Skip's death. He signed Dino to a long term deal, and then extended him. It was definitely not the only move he could make.
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I always laugh when I see this. What would you suggest he should have done? If he makes Dino an interim coach, Dino would have earned the job after overachieving his first year. He probably had little to no options as far as hiring an outside coach when Skip passed in late July.

Now, as far as extending Dino's contract, you're absolutely right. Don't extend the guy and talk about success on the court and all the great things he does off the court and then fire him a few months later while claiming the opposite. That one absolutely was a head scratcher.
 
Bo Ryan? WTF. The stories on the last job search keep morphing over the years.
 
wfumike02 said:
I always laugh when I see this. What would you suggest he should have done? If he makes Dino an interim coach, Dino would have earned the job after overachieving his first year. He probably had little to no options as far as hiring an outside coach when Skip passed in late July.

Now, as far as extending Dino's contract, you're absolutely right. Don't extend the guy and talk about success on the court and all the great things he does off the court and then fire him a few months later while claiming the opposite. That one absolutely was a head scratcher.
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Make Dino interim and hire a better coach after the season. Should have been a pretty attractive job at that point. Overachieve or not, interim is interim. It was a very bad idea to promote an assistant coach to a long term deal. Maybe would have been tough, but not nearly as tough as the past four years.
 
Truth is that firing Dino when Wellman did was likely not received very well in the coaching community, but firing him after his interim year, when the team did overachieve despite emotional circumstances, would have been even more poorly received. I don't think Wellman had any option but to give Dino 4 years. It was, in my opinion, a miscalculation to pull the plug when he did. The only reason he did is because he felt confident that one of his top choices would come to Wake regardless of how he treated Dino (pretty poorly). Sadly, he was right because, like it or not, [Redacted] was clearly one of his top choices.
 
I think Wellman was hoping for [Redacted] to bear out a career here like that one season he had at Air Force when they were 25-7 or something. Like, "It's the ACC- we have talent, recruiting, recognition; surely Jeff can flourish here."

Swing and a miss, Ronnie.
 
Brownell was hired after [Redacted]. He was still available. There was no chance he would have picked Clemson over Wake, if given the choice, especially at the time. The narrative that there was somehow a shortage of candidates better than [Redacted] and we were forced to pick him is absurd.
 
Racer -

Who is we?
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This board.

Who has confirmed this?
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Me.

Are you saying we talked to both guys and hired Buzz in a week?
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No

Never mind that there are literally hundreds of better choices between Ryan and Buzz.
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In retrospect, I'll say 4 realistically.

Stop trying to justify Wellman's screw-up.
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I'm not.

We have had it confirmed that Buzz was on his short list.
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If short list was defined as 5-6 guys back then, that is correct.

That alone is a fireable offense. There are far better choices that could have been hired.
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Probably. But my take is you're assuming we had dozens of qualified guys to choose from ready and willing to take the job....we didn't. And we won't this time either. As an aside, how many qualified guys were on our short list to replace Grobe....maybe 4 or 5 ? Wellman - once he established mutual interest - quickly narrowed the list down to 2 to talk specifics. Regretably, the mutual interest hoped for with Stevens and/or Ryan didn't happen. Let's hope the elephant hunt goes much better this go round.
 
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Tin Cup said:
I don't think any of our candidates are going to be in the position of tail wagging the dog like a K or Roy. So I think Ron's reputation as a boss as well as an incompetent AD is a very important factor in who we hire. I know you guys want to get rid of him but it's not happening, so you might as well get over it. Instead, you need to hope he has the skills to pull of the best hire possible.
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FIFY - Some people think the bold above is the reason we ended up with the Bzaster in the first place. If that's true, it may also be the reason RW has been refusing to fire Buzz and start another search for a basketball coach. If you know that none of the best coaches are willing to work for you, then there is no reason to fire Buzz. I am not optimistic that our arrogant AD will be able to land a top tier candidate to coach basketball at MSD. I fear that he has poisoned the well...
 
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