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The case for retaining Ron Wellman.

IslandDeac said:
100% official. They've given out stickers with this design at football games and the stadium announcements have made reference to dignity, class, integrity before as well.
I took the picture from WF Sports' desktop wallpaper section.
http://www.wakeforestsports.com/ot/wallpaper.html
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I'm floored by this. Beyond all the Bz/Casstevens/Wellman stuff this to me is the clearest evidence of an institutional sickness in the AD at Wake Forest.

Who says this kind of thing? What sports organization in the world puts this stuff on their promotional materials?

Apart from the asinine pretension to being somehow morally superior to every other college sports department in the country (and the fact that it's not true makes it all the more embarrassing), this is the kind of self-talk characteristic of people that have deep-seated self-esteem issues and/or are coping with cycles of failure that they lack the ability to break.

This is really and truly sad. It is not the Wake I know and love.
 
inspectah said:
Is this a real piece of marketing produced by the AD? Please tell me it is not and you just photoshopped this. Because if this is real, it is revoltingly pathetic. Why does our AD trumpet "intergrity" like we among all schools in the country have the #$%ing market cornered on it? Is this really what we are reduced to? Praising our own "dignity"? What a joke.
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If you've ever dealt with them in any capacity, you would know out AD is run by self-righteous ass clowns, with ass clown in chief RW. This dignity, class, integrity better than thou bullshit is completely unsurprising to me coming from those folks.
 
I think the "aura" of Ron Wellman is predicated on the strength of the LOWF narrative. Otherwise, you have to compare him to everyone else out there that is qualified to be an athletic director. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I believe at least 80% of the qualified population would have been able to replicate Wellman's "success" at Wake. My two cents.
 
attitudedeac said:
If you've ever dealt with them in any capacity, you would know out AD is run by self-righteous ass clowns, with ass clown in chief RW. This dignity, class, integrity better than thou bullshit is completely unsurprising to me coming from those folks.
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+1
 
wvudeac said:
I think the "aura" of Ron Wellman is predicated on the strength of the LOWF narrative. Otherwise, you have to compare him to everyone else out there that is qualified to be an athletic director. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I believe at least 80% of the qualified population would have been able to replicate Wellman's "success" at Wake. My two cents.
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Truth!
 
wvudeac said:
I think the "aura" of Ron Wellman is predicated on the strength of the LOWF narrative. Otherwise, you have to compare him to everyone else out there that is qualified to be an athletic director. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I believe at least 80% of the qualified population would have been able to replicate Wellman's "success" at Wake. My two cents.
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Well said. Wellman has had a pretty unspectacular tenure at Wake when you consider that most of the biggest successes came from coaches hired by Hooks. You have to buy into the idea that Wake Forest is special place that doesn't do any of the evil things other programs do to win and has a natural place at the bottom in order to buy that Wellman is a great AD.
 
wvudeac said:
I think the "aura" of Ron Wellman is predicated on the strength of the LOWF narrative. Otherwise, you have to compare him to everyone else out there that is qualified to be an athletic director. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I believe at least 80% of the qualified population would have been able to replicate Wellman's "success" at Wake. My two cents.
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This is a good point. Also, Wellman was AD when college athletics moved into the "modern era" with the rise of ESPN, the tremendous influx of money and exposure, the constant attention of the internet and message boards, etc. Under Hooks, WF was LOWF. Under Wellman, that staus quo has been maintained. He has kept the WFU Ath Dept pretty much in the same place it has always been, nothing more.
 
Good post, Lilburn.
 
Wellman's greatest successes are in facility development. Yes, he's had a few solid coaching hires...Grobe, Skip...but he's obviously brought in some marginal ones, too. Hiring is not his forte.
 
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A long time ago, I exchanged emails with a former Wake AD employee about some of my criticisms of Wellman.

He said that something to watch out for with Wellman was AD debt due to facilities spending. This person told me that as AD at Illinois State, Wellman built a bunch of new facilities and stuck Illinois State with a bunch of debt after he left.

I'm not sure how true that is. Hearing these rumors about financial problems and lack of flexibility with coaching hires makes me wonder if the same things are happening at Wake as Wellman's career winds down.
 
and this was a result of his greatest strength: sucking up to a bunch of old, conservative, rich people who want to believe in his vision of (Baptist) Wake Forest virtue
 
teachndeac said:
and this was a result of his greatest strength: sucking up to a bunch of old, conservative, rich people who want to believe in his vision of (Baptist) Wake Forest virtue
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I doubt that Wellman has any real interest in Wake Forest virtue. He is interested in the money of the old, conservative, rich people who do. They are the ones with the vision of (Baptist) Wake Forest virtue. But the vision is actually a mirage and the sooner that WFU recognizes this, the better for athletics and the university as a whole.
 
wfumike02 said:
No more ads. We've reached the point where it's a given that Bz is gone and we will be looking for a new coach. Let's not do anything to negatively affect that.
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Are you kidding? It is definitely not a given. Should be but it is not.
 
Lilburn- i agree 100%. my post was poorly/quickly written. that was my very point
 
PhDeac said:
A long time ago, I exchanged emails with a former Wake AD employee about some of my criticisms of Wellman.

He said that something to watch out for with Wellman was AD debt due to facilities spending. This person told me that as AD at Illinois State, Wellman built a bunch of new facilities and stuck Illinois State with a bunch of debt after he left.

I'm not sure how true that is. Hearing these rumors about financial problems and lack of flexibility with coaching hires makes me wonder if the same things are happening at Wake as Wellman's career winds down.
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There are many valid critiques, but this isn't a plausible one. ESPN money pretty much guarantees that unless you're a genuine imbecile, you're going to make money in a business that doesn't pay taxes, doesn't pay its primary labor force, gets seven figure donations and revenue shares with the most successful teams in your league every year.
 
Given all that, if we can't afford to fire a coach that is costing the university money, our AD is run by imbeciles.
 
teachndeac said:
and this was a result of his greatest strength: sucking up to a bunch of old, conservative, rich people who want to believe in his vision of (Baptist) Wake Forest virtue
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I'm more right-wing and babtist than 99% of this board. Let's not group my fellow reactionairies in with the lowf crowd
 
The university as a whole seems to spend quite a bit more lately.
 
PhDeac said:
Given all that, if we can't afford to fire a coach that is costing the university money, our AD is run by imbeciles.
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Agreed. I'm allowing for that possibility, though.
 
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