Assessing the Impact of GT Presidents on GT Athletics

[forensicbuzz]

And we are still cashing those dividends today. Alumni want to take pride in their school and they do that through their wallet. The 90s were a golden age for Tech sports.

Unfortunately, the hire of B*** L**** was the big miss by Homer Rice that killed the momentum. If only George O'Leary or Ralph Freigen had stayed and been promoted.

 

[RonJohn]

What did he do that made it easier to be a S/A than a regular student is the appropriate question.

Seem to be going in circles. Claims are made the Peterson was bad for athletics and that he actively disliked athletics. When @forensicbuzz made a statement that he acted appropriately toward athletics for a university president, a statement was made that the: "Least he can do is not make it harder to be a student athlete than a regular student". When I ask about that statement what Peterson did to make is harder to be a student athlete, you respond that that question is not appropriate, we should ask what he did to make it easier.

If you have specific allegations about what Peterson failed to do for athletics, that is a normal activity for university presidents I am all ears. So far it is all ambiguous statements that he hated athletics. I haven't seen any actual action items that he should have acted on. With MBob, it is easy to list failures as an athletic director: He avoided fans, He avoided large donors, He avoided GTAA staff, He turned down donations with specific purposes, etc: If you have actual items for Peterson similar to those for MBob, please list them instead of continuing with non-specific emotional based statements.

 

[Vespidae]

Unfortunately, the hire of B*** L**** was the big miss by Homer Rice that killed the momentum. If only George O'Leary or Ralph Freigen had stayed and been promoted.

Totally agree with that. But B*** was an up and comer and on paper, seemed like a fit. Prepare for all possibilities is my motto.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Totally agree with that. But B*** was an up and comer and on paper, seemed like a fit. Prepare for all possibilities is my motto.

Unfortunately, for B*** L****, it was all about his offensive coordinator. If not for beating NC State in the Peach Bowl, he would have never been on our radar. I remember the comment was don't hire BL, hire his offensive coordinator. We're pulling from long ago memories now. I may be misremembering.

 

[Vespidae]

asier.

If you have specific allegations about what Peterson failed to do for athletics, that is a normal activity for university presidents I am all ears

My two cents. Peterson was brilliant at setting development reps in every school to raise money, work the alumni, host parties, etc. He also insisted on long term strategic plans for each school ... which is why Tech has so many schools rated Top 5+.

When it came to athletics, he didn’t insist on the same effort. No development. reps other than what was already in place, no harmonization of donor rolls, no similar commitment to what he was doing academically.

I get it. Athletics is only a few hundred students. But if he wasn’t going to manage it, he should have stepped aside.

 

[Vespidae]

Unfortunately, for B*** L****, it was all about his offensive coordinator. If not for beating NC State in the Peach Bowl, he would have never been on our radar. I remember the comment was don't hire BL, hire his offensive coordinator. We're pulling from long ago memories now. I may be misremembering.

I recall that he lost the team. Out. GOL in ... which was a great thing.

 

[forensicbuzz]

My two cents. Peterson was brilliant at setting development reps in every school to raise money, work the alumni, host parties, etc. He also insisted on long term strategic plans for each school ... which is why Tech has so many schools rated Top 5+.

When it came to athletics, he didn’t insist on the same effort. No development. reps other than what was already in place, no harmonization of donor rolls, no similar commitment to what he was doing academically.

I get it. Athletics is only a few hundred students. But if he wasn’t going to manage it, he should have stepped aside.

I agree that if you're going to hire someone to do a job, let them do their job and support them 100% until they show they're not capable, and then replace them with someone who can. I think that's what he did.

(the caveat being, he should not have been President of the GTAA)

 

[forensicbuzz]

Steve Logan was the OC if I remember correctly. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[LibertyTurns]

What exactly did Peterson do that made it more difficult to be a student athlete than a regular student?

Let’s see here’s a few:
A. We got volleyball players, starting QBs, etc missing practice to attend classes because we don’t demand alternative time slots
B. Athletes attending prestigious grad schools elsewhere because of GT fails to adequately consider participation in intercollegiate athletics in the same light it would for academic endeavors
C. We’ve got botched contract negotiations, multiple sports over multiple years
D. How many coaches has GT fired for misconduct & nothing in the way of oversight from Mr Ethics himself?
E. Geez, how did we end up with some of the worst facilities and a massive debt load in GTAA?
F. Did he ever see Sasquatch? If so, did he ever ask him what he was doing or even care?
No doubt he did many good things promoting research & academics. Other areas Peterson ranged from below average to completely inept. Unfortunately as President he’s responsible for everything- campus safety, to employee relations, to fiscal governance, to athletics, to research, to academics, etc. He sucked when it came to GT athletics and it’s apparent to damn near everybody.

 

[RonJohn]

Let’s see here’s a few:
A. We got volleyball players, starting QBs, etc missing practice to attend classes because we don’t demand alternative time slots
B. Athletes attending prestigious grad schools elsewhere because of GT fails to adequately consider participation in intercollegiate athletics in the same light it would for academic endeavors
C. We’ve got botched contract negotiations, multiple sports over multiple years
D. How many coaches has GT fired for misconduct & nothing in the way of oversight from Mr Ethics himself?
E. Geez, how did we end up with some of the worst facilities and a massive debt load in GTAA?
F. Did he ever see Sasquatch? If so, did he ever ask him what he was doing or even care?
No doubt he did many good things promoting research & academics. Other areas Peterson ranged from below average to completely inept. Unfortunately as President he’s responsible for everything- campus safety, to employee relations, to fiscal governance, to athletics, to research, to academics, etc. He sucked when it came to GT athletics and it’s apparent to damn near everybody.

A. Scheduling classes is difficult for one off type classes. You also have single parent students, students who work to pay for school, students who live at home and take care of disabled parents who have issues with some small, once a year, classes required for their course of study that create issues. This is an issue, but I don't see it as an athletic issue. In fact, I would be against changing the schedule for such a class to make it easier for a volleyball player IF such a change created further issues for a single parent student. However, most of those class times are set because the person required to teach it has other commitments that only allow a narrow window to teach the class, so it would be incredibly difficult to adjust for any student needs.
B. I'm not sure which players/grad schools you are referencing in particular. I do recall a lineman that considered transferring because he didn't know if he would get into management grad school because the school only accepted 5% of students with no work experience. If that is the one you are referencing, he did end up staying at GT.
C. Responsibility of the AD, and I think most of the botched contracts were even before Peterson was at GT.
D. Once again responsibility of the AD. Peterson did have issues with ethics oversight in general, but that is a larger administrative issue than an athletics issue.
E. DRad had started that train before Peterson was at GT.
F. MBob was a big failure. Not recognizing the dysfunction that he brought upon the athletic department sooner is something you can blame Peterson for. I'm still not entirely sure if MBob leaving was entirely MBob's decision or if he was pushed.

I am not a huge defender of him. I just think your remarks like "He sucked when it came to GT athletics and it’s apparent to damn near everybody.", make it appear that you believe he should have been actively acting as the AD. I don't know what his office hours were, but assume it was 40 hours per week. That would probably only allow him 1 to 2 hours to get reports and provide direction toward athletics. He would probably need to spend the other 38 hours getting reports and providing direction to the other $2 billion university activities(academics, research, safety, infrastructure, etc).

He did attend games to mingle and shake hands, which some see as an undeserved "benefit". However, he also attended theater shows, after hours academic meetings, after hours outings with research clients, etc to mingle and shake hands.

 

[Oakland]

Steve Logan was the OC if I remember correctly. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

You're right. I guess he is retired now.

 

[LibertyTurns]

@RonJohn Leaders establish the culture under them. Maybe Peterson’s position wasn’t negative, but it wasn’t overtly supportive or positive. He’d get athletics questions at alumni events and was extremely uncomfortable answering them. He was all-in academics & research with an over $2B budget of which $90M is athletics. He & his AD should have been consulting weekly, like a real executive exercising oversight of a key part of his business.

Your comments about Peterson’s working hours is comical. If he worked less than 70 hrs/week I’d be amazed. He’s not a fry cook at McDonald’s, he runs a multi-billion dollar operation 24/7/365 in millennial terminology. You don’t do that punching a time clock and a lot of work is not “sitting in his office”. GT should be outstanding in every endeavor, not have major elements of the operation fending for themselves or worse yet out-competing a subordinate for fundraising resources.

 

[RonJohn]

@RonJohn Leaders establish the culture under them. Maybe Peterson’s position wasn’t negative, but it wasn’t overtly supportive or positive. He’d get athletics questions at alumni events and was extremely uncomfortable answering them. He was all-in academics & research with an over $2B budget of which $90M is athletics. He & his AD should have been consulting weekly, like a real executive exercising oversight of a key part of his business.

Your comments about Peterson’s working hours is comical. If he worked less than 70 hrs/week I’d be amazed. He’s not a fry cook at McDonald’s, he runs a multi-billion dollar operation 24/7/365 in millennial terminology. You don’t do that punching a time clock and a lot of work is not “sitting in his office”. GT should be outstanding in every endeavor, not have major elements of the operation fending for themselves or worse yet out-competing a subordinate for fundraising resources.

If someone asked him detailed questions about nuclear engineering would/should he have been comfortable answering them?

I do realize that he most likely worked much more than 40 hours per week. Assuming a 40 hour week “sitting in his office”, he still had meetings/receptions/events probably most evenings. 8 hours in the office plus 3-4 hours in other events turns into an 11 to 12 hour day. Also, a university president has responsibilities on the weekend. It isn't Monday to Friday. You seem to be attempting to dissect what I say into some interpretation that proves I'm an idiot. I assure you I am not an idiot. My statement in no was intended to say that a university president is equivalent to a fry cook. The athletic budget is a little less than 5% of the overall budget. That would translate to about 2 hours of “sitting in his office” time. I don't know actual figures, but I believe that if you include the time that he attended athletic events and mingled to drum up support from athletic boosters, he spent well more than 5% of his time monitoring and supporting athletics.

I do not think he was perfect, far from it. There were ethics issues of very high level people in the academic and research areas. I don't recall any ethics allegations against Peterson himself, but he is responsible for having a culture of ethics compliance and ensuring that checks are in place to prevent and/or catch violations. If someone at a low level falsifies expense reports for a while and is caught, you can't really blame the president. However, these were people one or two levels below Peterson who acted improperly for quite a while with little oversight. With respect to MBob, I do agree that it should have been apparent much earlier that there were issues. It was apparent to me as a fan. I understand that the GTAA had unprecedented turnover during MBob's tenure. That should have thrown up red flags to the administration.

My issue is with general unspecific statements like: "He sucked when it came to GT athletics and it’s apparent to damn near everybody.". I still haven't seen evidence of that.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Let’s see here’s a few:
A. We got volleyball players, starting QBs, etc missing practice to attend classes because we don’t demand alternative time slots
B. Athletes attending prestigious grad schools elsewhere because of GT fails to adequately consider participation in intercollegiate athletics in the same light it would for academic endeavors
C. We’ve got botched contract negotiations, multiple sports over multiple years
D. How many coaches has GT fired for misconduct & nothing in the way of oversight from Mr Ethics himself?
E. Geez, how did we end up with some of the worst facilities and a massive debt load in GTAA?
F. Did he ever see Sasquatch? If so, did he ever ask him what he was doing or even care?
No doubt he did many good things promoting research & academics. Other areas Peterson ranged from below average to completely inept. Unfortunately as President he’s responsible for everything- campus safety, to employee relations, to fiscal governance, to athletics, to research, to academics, etc. He sucked when it came to GT athletics and it’s apparent to damn near everybody.

These are all outside-looking-in comments. I get where you're coming from, but you have no idea what was actually happening (or not happening) inside the Tower.

 

[forensicbuzz]

It's the President's job to come in and set the culture, absolutely. They need to establish their vision and then put the people in place to execute that vision. At Georgia Tech, I don't believe it's the President's job to ensure that the athletic programs are successful. It's his/her job to put the right people in place to make that happen. I believe Peterson did just that in recognizing his mistake with Bobinski and shuffling him off to Purdue in 3 years. A 3 year stint as an AD at a P5 school is a sign of failure. He was a bad fit and I believe Peterson recognized that and moved him along.

 

[Vespidae]

It's the President's job to come in and set the culture, absolutely. They need to establish their vision and then put the people in place to execute that vision.

I agree about setting the culture, but the President is also in charge of accountability. A monthly meeting over breakfast would suffice … What's the performance? Trend? Compared to our peers? How is revenue? ACCN? STH renewals? Merchandising? What's happening on costs? Debt? Infrastructure? Fundraising? Key priorities? Plans for next year? Next 5 years? Morale?

Finally, "What can I do to help you?"

It's not that hard. He could provide the right attitude of objectives, milestones and momentum that provides juice to the program.

 

[GoldZ]

BL's QB had a lot to do as well with BL's flash in the pan success.

 

[forensicbuzz]

BL's QB had a lot to do as well with BL's flash in the pan success.

Jeff Blake. Yep.

 

[forensicbuzz]

I agree about setting the culture, but the President is also in charge of accountability. A monthly meeting over breakfast would suffice … What's the performance? Trend? Compared to our peers? How is revenue? ACCN? STH renewals? Merchandising? What's happening on costs? Debt? Infrastructure? Fundraising? Key priorities? Plans for next year? Next 5 years? Morale?

Finally, "What can I do to help you?"

It's not that hard. He could provide the right attitude of objectives, milestones and momentum that provides juice to the program.

I agree. But we don't know that he didn't do this. People assume he didn't from the outside, but we don't know. I think he moved Bobinski out pretty quickly when it became obvious it wasn't working.

 

[GoldZ]

Does anyone believe for a nano second that ugag's, Bama's, ND's, PSU's, OSU's, UF's, etc. etc. Presidents, would survive beyond just a few years of football decline? Not to say that they are to be a positive standard of any kind, but the "what can I do to help you" quote attributed to Crecine is pure gold.

If any one of our engineering programs were to be rated as a bottom dweller, there would be changes galore to improve it, and yes the President would be accountable for it. Why have something as important to society as athletics (see Olympics per the founders of modern society), be treated any differently? Competitiveness IS doable, however selling one's academic soul to be dominant (not to be confused with competitiveness), is not in the cards for The Institute. Well, imo, it shouldn't be and it doesn't have to be.