While I don't normally get involved in these types of back and forth discussions, for some reason I just can't help myself right now. All I'll say is "WOW! Just WOW!" I get the impression from many of the comments, responses, and rebuttals flying around in this thread that many of you have no understanding whatsoever of the concept of hierarchical management. DW sounds like a true believer in the concept and employs it as his way of running a very large corporation, which is exactly what the UT Athletic Department is. And just because he believes in the concept of following a chain of command in dealing with his subordinates on official matters, I don't think that precludes him from actually talking to any and all of the people under him. Does he? I don't know because I don't work for him or interact with him in that business environment. And unless one of you is a UTAD staff member lurking around among us, none of you are directly in that environment either, so you don't know as well. Some of you say it's a house of cards that's getting ready to fall down, but from the perspective that it seems to be one of the more successful ADs in the country right now with plenty of money for this and that, it seems to me he knows what he's doing. Sure, we as fans are getting screwed on higher prices for tickets and parking passes and whatnot, but I hate to tell all of you, we're not the only ones. I live in N. Alabama and have plenty of friends who are Auburn fans (and a few bamer fans, and other schools) and they gripe and complain just as much or more than me about rising prices in anything related to their respective schools. Unfortunately, it's the nature of the beast right now.
As for the press conference, I've watched it twice and heard a few snippets replayed on radio, and I still don't see the negativity many of you seem to find in it. I also don't pick up on any egotistical aspects to his responses or the things he said. Some want to say his statement relative to Coach Caldwell and the Lady Vols about the funding issues will be divisive, but I would counter that the fact that was even being addressed (because of the unsubstantiated, and inaccurate rumor) shows there is already division among the fanbase. I wonder if some of you actually listened to the entire press conference, rather than gleaning specific snippets here and there that supported the argument you already had in mind. You say he contradicted himself regarding the funding. That's entirely untrue; he explained it well enough that most people should have been able to understand it. Regarding the $20.5 mil funds for revenue sharing, he said they, like most schools, "pre-loaded" (i.e., they went ahead and allocated those funds) $2.5 mil among the various programs (with baseball receiving a fairly large share) prior to the revenue sharing agreement going into effect on July 1st. That then left $18 mil for dispersal under the percentages recommended by the US HoR agreement - i.e., 75% Football, 15% MBB, 5% WBB, and 5% all other sports. The $750K for the baseball program is a little more than 4% of the $18mil, meaning baseball got the bulk of the "other 5%."
The basic truth here is many of you are hurt that Tony is leaving us and you want to blame it on anything other than the fact it was a unique opportunity he simply could not pass up. You want to say DW didn't do anything, or didn't do enough, to keep Tony here, when the reality is greater there was really nothing DW could do to make that happen. Some of you are the ones contradicting yourselves when you say "Look at the IU AD and see what he did to keep his coach there when other schools tried to poach him." Let me think... hmmm... Was it not just 2 years ago we had other schools looking to poach Tony after the CWS win, and what did DW do? Oh, that's right - he renegotiated Tony's contract and made him (at that time) the highest paid coach in college baseball. Folks, this is an entirely different, and unprecedented, situation. You can keep banging your head against the brick wall, but that wall's not going to budge despite your best efforts. If, as many of you say, Tony had such a horrible working relationship with DW, would he not have immediately jumped at the SF MLB offer, rather than evaluating and thinking about it for almost two weeks before deciding to take the leap??? Seems to me he was really torn between staying at a place where he felt safe and supported as compared to jumping into a dream scenario fraught with risk and no guarantee of future success and stability.
. As I’m sure you can confirm but most consumers don’t realize….Dealership profit:
