Eh ?
Grobe wasn't a 'coach' of anything at Wake. Did he 'coach' something at Ohio ?
I'm sorry but Grobe is making himself sound like a whiner here. The school installed a $1 MILLION FieldTurf practice field, installed it ( $1 MILLION ) at Grove's, built $43 MILLION Deacon Tower , erected maybe the best $3 MILLION Video Board in the country, added a $180,000 ribbon scoreboard on Bridger plus upgraded all the salaries for his assistants. Some of these improvements were done DESPITE the school losing millions in it's endowment during the worst recession this country has experienced in over 75 years.
This article has given my respect for Jim Grobe a severe blow.
Wake cannot fit all of it's living alumni in the stadium.
Listen to the interviews with Duke football players now. There is a reason they are winning more- they are getting more academic exceptions . I can t recall hearing a WFU football player sound dumb in years - maybe ever. I can't say that for basketball , but WFU has always been willing to let in a few dubious students in basketball .
You couldn't be more wrong.Listen to the interviews with Duke football players now. There is a reason they are winning more- they are getting more academic exceptions . I can t recall hearing a WFU football player sound dumb in years - maybe ever. I can't say that for basketball , but WFU has always been willing to let in a few dubious students in basketball .
Wake gave Grobe unprecedented levels of support. $25M. Now if we promised him facility upgrades when he signed that contract that's one thing, but otherwise, a smart man would have understood that he was choosing a high salary over facility upgrades. Remember, this was before the mega contracts. Think Wake was getting sub $10M (TOTAL) in television revenue at that point.
This absolutely nails it. Jim Grobe bargained for an unprecedented salary from the smallest school in a BCS league, and one with quite obviously limited financial resources. He knew full well that an extra $15 million allocated to his own salary over 10 years would mean $15 million would not be available for other needs, like facilities upgrades. It is hypocritical in the extreme for Grobe to now argue that Wake failed to spend enough money to support his program when Grobe's own salary was one of the big reasons Wake did not have the money (not to mention Ron Wellman's own million-dollar comp package, but that's another outrage).
This illustrates something else though: Wake should never try to compete with football-factory schools on coaching salaries. Wake will always need to find the up-and-coming mid-major coaches like Clawson, and pay them above mid-major salaries but below the SEC levels. We cannot match SEC-level salaries and should not try. Instead, Wake should be prioritizing putting ACC revenues into facilities and recruiting support, and if a coach like Clawson has a big season and a Tennessee or LSU come calling waving around multiple millions in salary, let him go and then go find the next Clawson. They are out there.
Find out what Stanford is doing and do that.