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ESPN: Coaches at a crossroads

TheIshThatSaved WakeForest said:
Eh that was only for recruiting purposes. That was really nothing but a press release.
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Yep, that's why I didn't add it. Just a routine move designed to give him every chance to succeed while he was here. Insignificant amount of money tied up overall. Unlike many here, I'll never hold it against any AD to support a coach up until the day he fires them.

thedeacfan - not sure you understand the point of the list, you have a bunch of outcomes/results in there. I'm just listing decisions. Casstevens is the only arguable addition but I haven't heard of anything he's screwed up so I don't relate that decision to any of our current woes.
 
Caastevens is a decision that reflects poorly on the university even if there is no known negative outcome yet.

Again, why can't we hire people who were good at their previous job?
 
DCDeac said:
Yep, that's why I didn't add it. Just a routine move designed to give him every chance to succeed while he was here. Insignificant amount of money tied up overall. Unlike many here, I'll never hold it against any AD to support a coach up until the day he fires them.

thedeacfan - not sure you understand the point of the list, you have a bunch of outcomes/results in there. I'm just listing decisions. Casstevens is the only arguable addition but I haven't heard of anything he's screwed up so I don't relate that decision to any of our current woes.
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I did say that the items "either are, or are the direct result of, Ron Wellman's decisions." But based on your list, you said that you were not ready yet to fire Ron Wellman. My point was that your list did not include several things that should be considered in that decision making process. He has a made a handful of decent decisions. But he has made a lot more bad decisions that have resulted in an athletic department that FAILS at it's primary responsibilities. Specifically, under his poor leadership, Wake does not field competitive teams. Further, his lack of integrity is not acceptable from a Wake department head and sets a bad example for Wake students.
 
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I reached the final stage of grief regarding our basketball program some time ago. These threads don't even bother me anymore, though they should. I can't even find joy in the indefinite suspension of a tarhole. This is what Ron and Bzzz have done to me.
 
DCDeac said:
My scorecard on Wellman since I became a Deac:

1) Politely let Odom go. Good move, everyone was ready to move on.
2) Hired Prosser. Hell yes.
3) Fired Caldwell. Great guy, first black ACC head coach, but the wins weren't there. Good move.
4) Hired Jim Grobe. Hell yes. Awesome coach, great hire, perfect fit for Wake.
---- NCAA tournament appearances, Orange Bowl appearance, new football stadium, etc... -----
5) Prosser dies, retains Dino. Mistake in hindsight, but at the time hard/impossible to criticize.
6) Fires Dino. Premature or prescient? We'll never know. But Dino as a long-term leader of Wake basketball never passed the eye/smell/any test.
7) Hires [Redacted]. Panic? Indigestion mistaken for gut feeling? Buddy hire? Things were really bad enough we had to hire a zero personality NBA scout to rebuild the program? Fail.
8) Refuses to shake up the football coaching staff.
9) Refuses to fire [Redacted] after year 3 debacle.
10) Starts/continues treating fans like idiots. Extreme adherence to comical sunshine attitude.

In other words - I'd say he went from being really excellent to really fucking up lately, although in football a good year this year could fix things. In basketball, firing Jeff [Redacted] after this year and getting someone awesome *might* fix things. I'm sure there were ups and downs in lots of sports I don't give a shit about - they don't factor in. We beat OSU in soccer, that was cool. But whatever.

Still not to the "last straw" moment though. Too many good decisions to let just the [Redacted] thing take it all down completely. He's riding the horse to the cliff awfully fast though - either going to make the jump or die trying, apparently.
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Politely letting Odom go, arguably the most successful coach in our history, was not a good move. It was disloyal to the man that saved Wake Basketball from 4 years of complete ineptitude, and then led us back to the national spotlight. I hate that people shrug that decision off at a good idea. Yes I know that we stagnated post Duncan, I know the Butler game was embarrassing, and I know that Prosser was awesome, but the unceremonious discarding of a coach who had only one loosing season with the Deacs (his first) was a crappy decision. A crappy decision that led us to where we are today in my view.
 
This is wrong. My time at wake coincided with the end of the Odom era. We sucked. Skip was the damn man. I wish I was a student when Skip was there. His passing is what got us where we are.. That and the photos that [Redacted] has of Ron fucking a sheep.
 
The transition from Odom to Skip was a good one. Both were excellent coaches who understood Wake and won a lot of basketball games. Odom had the better record, Skip generated more excitement. The timing made sense. Neither move had anything to do with the abomination of a hire made by Wellman in 2010, which has resulted in complete failure since.
 
In my opinion, Wellman would rather have "yes men" than to win big. Odom's case is a prime example of that. Ron wants people that he can claim credit for, but also who he knows will not challenge his authority.

Unfortunately, that mentality seems to exist with the BOT and Hatch as well who have seemingly questioned nothing during this absolutely abysmal period of Wake basketball and athletics.
 
I'm not saying reasonable fans can't disagree with my assessment of Wellman's decision points. It's absolutely fair to argue for Odom (although I'd strongly disagree). It's fine if Casstevens bothers you just knowing he's there (doesn't bother me). If you love golf or baseball or some other sport I don't care about then great.

The question keeps being raised about how a "rational" fan could not want Wellman tarred and feathered this second. I'm just offering what I think is a reasonable list of his choices and how taken together I'm not out for his blood. Close, but not there yet.
 
Alright fine, Prosser was great for the school, definitely and his death is what really led us to where we are. But that doesn't change the fact that Odom was a great coach, and was great for Wake and letting him go in the first place was a bad move. What if we let Odom go and didn't get Prosser? How good would the decision been then. I still don't understand why Odom was let go, and I definitely don't see it as a "good move" even with the following, excellent hire; I wouldn't give back the Prosser years, those were great times to be a Deac. The quality of a decision can't really be judged on all the lucky stuff that happens afterward, just like firing Dino can't be justified by all the bad things his players did after he was fired. I just think it was disloyal to let Odom go the way we did, and its especially shitty to call it a good decision later. It was a disloyal and potentially very risky decision that panned out well for a few years.
 
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DCDeac said:
I'm not saying reasonable fans can't disagree with my assessment of Wellman's decision points. It's absolutely fair to argue for Odom (although I'd strongly disagree). It's fine if Casstevens bothers you just knowing he's there (doesn't bother me). If you love golf or baseball or some other sport I don't care about then great.

The question keeps being raised about how a "rational" fan could not want Wellman tarred and feathered this second. I'm just offering what I think is a reasonable list of his choices and how taken together I'm not out for his blood. Close, but not there yet.
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CEOs don't last based upon last year's results. They just don't. Wellman is the CEO of the athletic department and his "company" would now be listed as a damn penny stock.
 
birdman said:
Alright fine, Prosser was great for the school, definitely and his death is what really led us to where we are. But that doesn't change the fact that Odom was a great coach, and was great for Wake and letting him go in the first place was a bad move. What if we let Odom go and didn't get Prosser? How good would the decision been then. I still don't understand why Odom was let go, and I definitely don't see it as a "good move" even with the following, excellent hire; I wouldn't give back the Prosser years, those were great times to be a Deac. The quality of a decision can't really be judged on all the lucky stuff that happens afterward, just like firing Dino can't be justified by all the bad things his players did after he was fired. I just think it was disloyal to let Odom go the way we did, and its especially shitty to call it a good decision later. It was a disloyal and potentially very risky decision that panned out well for a few years.
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Odom was offered a contact extension after the NIT title year. He gambled that he could get a better deal and the then the team the next year fell apart at the end of the year. Loyalty is a two-way street. Wake did nothing wrong there.

when you have a mature program, and have made the 1st round once in 4 years, your seat should be getting hot.
 
I shouldn't have read this thread. Now I'm fucking livid at Wellman all over again, when I'd spent most of the summer just ignoring Wake sports in general.
 
DeacLaw05 said:
I shouldn't have read this thread. Now I'm fucking livid at Wellman all over again, when I'd spent most of the summer just ignoring Wake sports in general.
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+1. I'm just baffled at people who support Wellman/Bz. How on earth can you support this clown crew? There's literally no justifiable reason to do so. None.

I work for a non-profit in Raleigh and Madison Jones' dad runs the pick-up league there in the afternoons. I asked him about Bz earlier this summer and he said he supports the guy. The pessimist in me thinks that he's just saying hat b/c he doesn't want to squander/shit on his son's opportunity to play D1 ACC bball. I guess some people actually believe the lies from the WFU athletic dept
 
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