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The Manning Buyout

The word "Hatch" occurs in this thread three times so far...but not in the right context. ;)
 
WindyCityDeac said:
but we didn't ever go to 7 straight exhibition bowl games during his tenure. don't forget that
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You're right. We did go to 10 out of the 17 bowls in our history though. We had been to 4 in the 90 or so years of football before he took over.
 
... there is still a camp, in the highest echelons of WF athletics donors, that believes Ron Wellman was unfairly pushed into retirement.

They still hope/believe that R.W. is pulling strings behind the scenes & they get quite excited to see him still around the program.




My only point in posting this: John Currie deserves immense praise for ushering in a golden era of WF athletics. John Currie's bust should be installed on the shoulders of whatever statue aloof wealthy people try to erect for his predecessor (...Or, maybe we hold off on statues until WF-MB makes a NCAAT again)

#fireronwellman
 
Deacfreak07 said:
You're right. We did go to 10 out of the 17 bowls in our history though. We had been to 4 in the 90 or so years of football before he took over.
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Probably helped that the number of bowls exploded during his time as AD, don't you think?

Comparing 2000s football to 1950s and 1960s football is quite disingenuous, IMO
 
Kent said:
I would really like to know how the rational insiders at WFU felt and currently feel about Wellman. I know I've said it before, but if I were in charge, I'd scrape his name from the records and buildings, and ban him from campus.

I get why this can't and won't happen. But every time I see some neutral to positive communication from WFU about Wellman, I cringe. I have to believe there are some WFU insiders who feel the same way.
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I am sure there are plenty that feel that way. But, there are probably plenty that feel that large buyouts are just the cost of doing business in big-time college sports.
 
vtwhat etc said:
... there is still a camp, in the highest echelons of WF athletics donors, that believes Ron Wellman was unfairly pushed into retirement.

They still hope/believe that R.W. is pulling strings behind the scenes & they get quite excited to see him still around the program.
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I bet the Venn Diagram of that group of people, and the acolytes of a certain political candidate, is a circle.
 
vtwhat etc said:
... there is still a camp, in the highest echelons of WF athletics donors, that believes Ron Wellman was unfairly pushed into retirement.

They still hope/believe that R.W. is pulling strings behind the scenes & they get quite excited to see him still around the program.
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These are the SAME people who yell "down in front" at Wake games. I'm not joking. Identical group.
 
deacvision7 said:
Probably helped that the number of bowls exploded during his time as AD, don't you think?

Comparing 2000s football to 1950s and 1960s football is quite disingenuous, IMO
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That's a fair criticism. He was here from 1992-2019, here's the growth of bowl games by decade:

1901: 1
1930: 1
1940: 5
1950: 8
1960: 8
1970: 11
1980: 15
1990: 19
2000: 25
2010: 35
2019: 41
 
The 1970 Wake ACC Champion did not get invited to one of the bowl games available in 1970.
 
If you're capable of rationally evaluating his tenure, he was at worst an above average AD in the history of WF athletics. He absolutely nailed some things like more hires than not (Skip, Lewellen, Bresky, Grobe, Clawson are certainly the high water marks), and firing Grobe when he did was likely something that doesn't happen in your WAR model in more than half the simulations.

All that said, it is impossible to imagine a worse path for MBB following Skip's death until Forbes was hired. Just absolutely screwed up in major ways on more than one occasion. At a school where that's the most important sport to most fans, I understand that's pretty unforgivable.

From what I understand about the contrasts in workplace culture, Wellman was much easier to work for which is frankly part of the problem. Currie has much higher standards, and staff retention generally bears that out. It's certainly what was needed for Wake right now and in the foreseeable future. Both had bigger visions for Wake athletics than most fans could see when they were hired, and that's a great thing.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
If you're capable of rationally evaluating his tenure, he was at worst an above average AD in the history of WF athletics. He absolutely nailed some things like more hires than not (Skip, Lewellen, Bresky, Grobe, Clawson are certainly the high water marks), and firing Grobe when he did was likely something that doesn't happen in your WAR model in more than half the simulations.

All that said, it is impossible to imagine a worse path for MBB following Skip's death until Forbes was hired. Just absolutely screwed up in major ways on more than one occasion. At a school where that's the most important sport to most fans, I understand that's pretty unforgivable.

From what I understand about the contrasts in workplace culture, Wellman was much easier to work for which is frankly part of the problem. Currie has much higher standards, and staff retention generally bears that out. It's certainly what was needed for Wake right now and in the foreseeable future. Both had bigger visions for Wake athletics than most fans could see when they were hired, and that's a great thing.
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Great post.
 
MichDeac25 said:
What's also interesting is that it was still owed despite the fact that Manning took a job with Maryland in 2021. So it's likely that Manning was owed $18M in 2020, it went down a bit in 2021 based upon another year reducing it down. Wake likely tried to argue "for cause" but it was just such a bad contract with a massive buyout and one that didn't get reduced based on taking another job. Wellman certainly takes the L on this one but there had to have been a number of people on Wake's side involved in negotiating and drafting that contract.
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We really don't know whether it was reduced (unless anyone has found the source document from the article, and even then, I doubt it would indicate anything on this front - ProPublica has Wake's 990 for FY20/21, but that only includes compensation paid in 2020, so it doesn't have the buyout paid in 2021) - for all we know, the $14.7 million could have been reduced from closer to $15 million for the $250k he got from Maryland.
 
So i am sure i am missing something since i was on my board hiatus during all this. Isn't it normal for there to be a buyout for a coach with remaining time on his contract? Or is the issue that it was just a stupid contract?
 
It's also probably a hot take, but Jim Caldwell's career arc indicates that he was a good hire in a bad situation.

I give Wellman credit for hiring the first black FB and WBB head coaches in the history of the ACC at a school that's more conservative than most in the league too.
 
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