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The Manning Buyout

Regarding his fundraising ability, I heard from a number of folks who felt Wellman left a lot on the table and wasn't exactly hustling to score up new sources for funds. He did eventually get a small core group to pony up a decent amount of cash, but I never got the impression it was his thing, or even something he was particularly good at.

But also heard from a number of folks who interacted with him regularly that he thought -- and very much gave off the impression -- that he was by far the smartest person in the room and didn't really have time to hear others' opinions/ideas.

Also nearly blew it with two of our all-time coaches -- Averill and Vidovich -- both of whom predated him at Wake, and one whose lifestyle he was very uncomfortable with. I don't think either had particularly great working relationships with him.
 
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wakegrrl said:
To me this is an example of how two things can be true. YES Ron did amazing things for Wake Forest sports overall. And YES Ron is pretty much responsible for the cratering of men’s basketball. I don’t think one outweighs the other, though.
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Respectfully disagree to the bolded. Wellman fucked Wake hoops like Hatch fucked Shaka!
 
Wakelaw2006 said:
I generally agree, but I think the damage done with basketball (and particularly the Manning extension, now that we know the extent of it) cancels out most, if not all, of the good Wellman did.
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This is fair, particularly in hindsight. But I will posit, for the sake of argument if nothing else, that Wellman laid the early foundations for much of the success that Wake sports are currently having. MBB is of course the glaring exception, and it’s impossible to excuse that from the overall discussion.
 
OldGouldandBlack said:
Regarding his fundraising ability, I heard from a number of folks who felt Wellman left a lot on the table and wasn't exactly hustling to score up new sources for funds. He did eventually get a small core group to pony up a decent amount of cash, but I never got the impression it was his thing, or even something he was particularly good at.

But also heard from a number of folks who interacted with him regularly that he thought -- and very much gave off the impression -- that he was by far the smartest person in the room and didn't really have time to hear others' opinions/ideas.

Also nearly blew it with two of our all-time coaches -- Averill and Vidovich -- both of whom preceded him, and one whose lifestyle he was very uncomfortable with. I don't think either had particularly great working relationships with him.
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You would be 100% correct with both of these statements.
 
OldGouldandBlack said:
Regarding his fundraising ability, I heard from a number of folks who felt Wellman left a lot on the table and wasn't exactly hustling to score up new sources for funds. He did eventually get a small core group to pony up a decent amount of cash, but I never got the impression it was his thing, or even something he was particularly good at.

But also heard from a number of folks who interacted with him regularly that he thought -- and very much gave off the impression -- that he was by far the smartest person in the room and didn't really have time to hear others' opinions/ideas.

Also nearly blew it with two of our all-time coaches -- Averill and Vidovich -- both of whom preceded him, and one whose lifestyle he was very uncomfortable with. I don't think either had particularly great working relationships with him.
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100% to all of this.
 
I think Barbara Walker saved our asses on the men's soccer/field hockey front for a while.
 
To me the argument about Wellman’s legacy is like WAR. Is there another AD who could have done all the good that he did in building up our programs? Of course.

Could that person have also managed to do so without obliterating our by far most important sport in the meantime? Also yes.

Therefore Wellman is found wanting. You can’t just say the good outweighs the bad. Because we needed someone who was 100% awesome. Someone who would build up all our programs, and destroy none of them, particularly the one belonging to Tim Duncan and Chris Paul. Once you’ve done that, nothing else you did matters.
 
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