Gene Smith (Former AD, ‘10 AD of the Year, '13 NAAC Organizational Leadership Award)

[sparcboxbuck]

Sometimes you promote people to get them out of them out of the way.

 

[LostLassie]

My working theory in situations like this: A briefcase full of naked pictures of somebody.

 

[BuckBackHome]

Every time this thread pops to New Posts I open it hoping it will read "ex-AD." I am disappointed once again!

 

[MaxBuck]

The harsh comments on this thread continue to demonstrate that fans' perceptions of an AD's performance are almost entirely unrelated to how he is viewed by his management, and that fan priorities and management priorities overlap just a little bit (wins and losses only).

Smith has presided over Ohio State's transition into megabucks major college sports very effectively. We graduate more student-athletes than ever before, and we have an impressive number of academic All-Americans. We have a positive cash flow. Our revenue sports teams continue to win big. These are the things that define success for an AD, and Smith has been very successful based on those metrics. Missing one bowl game because of a miscalculation means a lot to rabid fans but very little to Ohio State University administration in the grand scheme of things. Yet that single miscalculation obscures all the man's accomplishments in the eyes of the rabid fans.

I'm not saying that fans should see things differently; only saying that we should recognize the different perspective of university administration.

 

[AuTX Buckeye]

The harsh comments on this thread continue to demonstrate that fans' perceptions of an AD's performance are almost entirely unrelated to how he is viewed by his management, and that fan priorities and management priorities overlap just a little bit (wins and losses only).

Smith has presided over Ohio State's transition into megabucks major college sports very effectively. We graduate more student-athletes than ever before, and we have an impressive number of academic All-Americans. We have a positive cash flow. Our revenue sports teams continue to win big. These are the things that define success for an AD, and Smith has been very successful based on those metrics. Missing one bowl game because of a miscalculation means a lot to rabid fans but very little to Ohio State University administration in the grand scheme of things. Yet that single miscalculation obscures all the man's accomplishments in the eyes of the rabid fans.

I'm not saying that fans should see things differently; only saying that we should recognize the different perspective of university administration.

AD = GM if the GM doesn't make good hires the GM is fired in most cases. The fact that he was cut out of the UFM hire, canned a winning hockey coach, and I'm not sure whats happening with the Womens basketball team but that coaching search was bad. He leaves a lot of be desired at his most public part of his position.

Now on to the "miscalculation". The man served on the RULES INFRACTION COMMITTEE, he admitted he only went back so many years when looking at penalties, he ignored the firm HE hired to investigate what sanctions they should self impose. There's many other things I'm sure ORD will come in with, this is what I've got off the top of my head. The guy maybe great behind the scenes, but in public he looks like an idiot of an AD.

 

[MaxBuck]

AD = GM

This is at the crux of the fan perspective, I agree with you there. But the university has a much broader view that goes well beyond hiring and firing of coaches, though that's obviously part of it.

I also disagree with your suggestion that we should have kept John Markell on board, but that's a detail.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

The harsh comments on this thread continue to demonstrate that fans' perceptions of an AD's performance are almost entirely unrelated to how he is viewed by his management, and that fan priorities and management priorities overlap just a little bit (wins and losses only).

Smith has presided over Ohio State's transition into megabucks major college sports very effectively.

That movement was made by Geiger and--in the case of the BTN--Jim Delaney. All GS has done is reap the benefits of their investment and foresight.

We graduate more student-athletes than ever before, and we have an impressive number of academic All-Americans. We have a positive cash flow.

Things that we did long before GS ever showed up. The latter Cooper and early Tressel teams had shitty academic records, but I don't see how that turnaround can be attributed GS over Tressel (of whom you know I'm no fan in other regards).

Missing one bowl game because of a miscalculation means a lot to rabid fans but very little to Ohio State University administration in the grand scheme of things. Yet that single miscalculation obscures all the man's accomplishments in the eyes of the rabid fans.

Honestly, that is the least of my criticisms of him, and I'm even willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that we still would have had a bowl ban had we sat out the Gator Bowl.

He's hired exactly one successful coach (Oz in hockey), and he abruptly fired him on the spot for daring to point out how horribly hockey has been treated by the AD throwing the entire program back into turmoil just when it seemed to be improving.

He ran a completely inept compliance department.

That abortion of the press conference after the yahoo article. Anyone who had the slimmest idea about how our Board of Trustees thought should have god damned known that JT would never survive this. The first things out of GS's mouth at that press conference should have been, "as of this morning, Jim Tressel is no longer the head football coach at The Ohio State University." Instead we were given six weeks of lame duck status that turned into a media free for all against Ohio State. And I blame Gee for this too. GS might be too much of an imbecile to have figured it out, but Gee should have known better. Then again, I think we can all say that Gee 2.0 was not the same guy he was a decade earlier.

I mean what are his accomplishments? Riding Andy Geiger's coat tails, spending Jim Delaney's money and colossally fucking up the most important thing that occurred on his watch.

 

[Dee-Liem]

Honestly, the only thing I see is a university without a permanent president not wanting to make two major changes at high-level positions at the same time.

And fan perspective means a lot in some circumstances. These are perspective donors, buyers of product and tickets and perhaps future student-athletes.

They see Ohio State's AD getting booed at events, so much so that Archie Griffin has to make public speeches instead of the AD.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

I also disagree with your suggestion that we should have kept John Markell on board, but that's a detail.

Actually, I believe AuTX was talking about Oz. With regards to Markell, GS--through sheer neglect of the hockey program--let him stay around far too long. Then, when things got so bad that even our hockey hating AD couldn't ignore the problem, he does fire him and finds a pretty good replacement only to shitcan him abruptly after the best season that we had in years throwing the program back into turmoil once more.

 

[Jagdaddy]

That movement was made by Geiger and--in the case of the BTN--Jim Delaney. All GS has done is reap the benefits of their investment and foresight.



Things that we did long before GS ever showed up. The latter Cooper and early Tressel teams had [Mark May]ty academic records, but I don't see how that turnaround can be attributed GS over Tressel (of whom you know I'm no fan in other regards).



Honestly, that is the least of my criticisms of him, and I'm even willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that we still would have had a bowl ban had we sat out the Gator Bowl.

He's hired exactly one successful coach (Oz in hockey), and he abruptly fired him on the spot for daring to point out how horribly hockey has been treated by the AD throwing the entire program back into turmoil just when it seemed to be improving.

He ran a completely inept compliance department.

That abortion of the press conference after the yahoo article. Anyone who had the slimmest idea about how our Board of Trustees thought should have god damned known that JT would never survive this. The first things out of GS's mouth at that press conference should have been, "as of this morning, Jim Tressel is no longer the head football coach at The Ohio State University." Instead we were given six weeks of lame duck status that turned into a media free for all against Ohio State. And I blame Gee for this too. GS might be too much of an imbecile to have figured it out, but Gee should have known better. Then again, I think we can all say that Gee 2.0 was not the same guy he was a decade earlier.

I mean what are his accomplishments? Riding Andy Geiger's coat tails, spending Jim Delaney's money and colossally fucking up the most important thing that occurred on his watch.

ALL OF THIS.

 

[jlb1705]

That movement was made by Geiger and--in the case of the BTN--Jim Delaney. All GS has done is reap the benefits of their investment and foresight.



Things that we did long before GS ever showed up. The latter Cooper and early Tressel teams had [Mark May]ty academic records, but I don't see how that turnaround can be attributed GS over Tressel (of whom you know I'm no fan in other regards).



Honestly, that is the least of my criticisms of him, and I'm even willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that we still would have had a bowl ban had we sat out the Gator Bowl.

He's hired exactly one successful coach (Oz in hockey), and he abruptly fired him on the spot for daring to point out how horribly hockey has been treated by the AD throwing the entire program back into turmoil just when it seemed to be improving.

He ran a completely inept compliance department.

That abortion of the press conference after the yahoo article. Anyone who had the slimmest idea about how our Board of Trustees thought should have god damned known that JT would never survive this. The first things out of GS's mouth at that press conference should have been, "as of this morning, Jim Tressel is no longer the head football coach at The Ohio State University." Instead we were given six weeks of lame duck status that turned into a media free for all against Ohio State. And I blame Gee for this too. GS might be too much of an imbecile to have figured it out, but Gee should have known better. Then again, I think we can all say that Gee 2.0 was not the same guy he was a decade earlier.

I mean what are his accomplishments? Riding Andy Geiger's coat tails, spending Jim Delaney's money and colossally fucking up the most important thing that occurred on his watch.

If this kind of microscope had been on Andy Geiger for much of his tenure, would he fare better than Gene Smith?

• Geiger was hired in 1994. If the football team had a lousy academic record into even the early Tressel years, that means it took nearly a decade under his watch for it to turn around.
• Geiger's actions in terminating Jim O'Brien got Ohio State sued for breach of contract and cost the university $2.4 million in damages.
• Geiger got into a public pissing match with Maurice Clarett.

How are these things any better or worse than what has taken place under Gene Smith? Geiger did a lot of great things, but his faults have been largely whitewashed on this board.

 

[RB07OSU]

I just still find it incredible that JT and Gee have gone on to fall on their own respective swords, all the while the clearly most incompetent of the big three not only manages to keep his job, but gets a raise and promotion. Do the trustees just put on headphones every time Smith gets booed at public events, or do they just not care? If this is contagious, I'm going to try to commit malpractice at my firm and see if they promote me to partner and give me a raise.

And honestly, I am not comparing him to Geiger because I was too young to really know the system then aside from the teams. I am comparing Gene Smith to other ADs and what common sense would dictate a decent AD to be.

 

[jlb1705]

I just still find it incredible that JT and Gee have gone on to fall on their own respective swords, all the while the clearly most incompetent of the big three not only manages to keep his job, but gets a raise and promotion. Do the trustees just put on headphones every time Smith gets booed at public events, or do they just not care? If this is contagious, I'm going to try to commit malpractice at my firm and see if they promote me to partner and give me a raise.

And honestly, I am not comparing him to Geiger because I was too young to really know the system then aside from the teams. I am comparing Gene Smith to other ADs and what common sense would dictate a decent AD to be.

I take exception with the phrase "fell on their swords". To me that implies that they took punishment that wasn't warranted for the sake of protecting somebody else. The people you identified as doing such were documented to have lied to the NCAA and made pubilc off-color remarks, respectively. Please let us not compare the three because the two men who resigned did so over improprieties, not over incompetencies. Even if one concedes that Smith has been incompetent, that is a whole other level of distinction from what cost Tressel and Gee their jobs.

Also, does anybody here want the trustees basing their decisions on whether or not somebody gets booed at a game? That would be a terrible way to oversee this sort of enterprise.

 

[jlb1705]

If this kind of microscope had been on Andy Geiger for much of his tenure, would he fare better than Gene Smith?

• Geiger was hired in 1994. If the football team had a lousy academic record into even the early Tressel years, that means it took nearly a decade under his watch for it to turn around.
• Geiger's actions in terminating Jim O'Brien got Ohio State sued for breach of contract and cost the university $2.4 million in damages.
• Geiger got into a public pissing match with Maurice Clarett.

How are these things any better or worse than what has taken place under Gene Smith? Geiger did a lot of great things, but his faults have been largely whitewashed on this board.

Excuse me for quoting myself, but I was on my way out the door when I wrote the earlier post and didn't get a chance to add these points:

• Jim Tressel's lame duck status was a direct legacy of Geiger's missteps with the Jim O'Brien situation. The university had to do its due dilligence before letting go of Tressel, lest they find themselves on the losing end of another lawsuit because of a hasty decision.
• If we're comparing Gene Smith's accomplishments to Geiger's, in light of the positive things that Geiger did what would one have hoped for Smith to have built or taken to the next level? At the end of the day, Geiger's legacy is going to be the arena, the stadium expansion, the new band room, hiring Jim Tressel and hiring Thad Matta. The facilities projects are once-in-a-generation undertakings. It was great that Geiger's athletic department was able to accomplish all of those things, but setting that as a standard for every AD that follows is ridiculous. Not every AD who doesn't build an arena is riding the coattails of those who do.
• I would argue that if Gene Smith was out of the loop in the hire of Coach Meyer, it was at least in part because the stature of Urban Meyer. We have no way of knowing by I have no reason to believe that the hire would have been done much differently regardless of who the AD may have been at the time.

 

[kujirakira]

I take exception with the phrase "fell on their swords". To me that implies that they took punishment that wasn't warranted for the sake of protecting somebody else. The people you identified as doing such were documented to have lied to the NCAA and made pubilc off-color remarks, respectively. Please let us not compare the three because the two men who resigned did so over improprieties, not over incompetencies. Even if one concedes that Smith has been incompetent, that is a whole other level of distinction from what cost Tressel and Gee their jobs.

Also, does anybody here want the trustees basing their decisions on whether or not somebody gets booed at a game? That would be a terrible way to oversee this sort of enterprise.

To this day, I do not understand what the issue with Gee's remarks was.
ESPiN -- and the entire college football community -- makes the same comments about "little sisters of the poor".
His comments about ND were also obviously in jest; not serious. I never got the impression he actually had a dislike of Catholics from either of those quotes.
Also not sure if a closed-door B10 meeting counts as "public"? I mean, the whole point of that speech was to talk a little trash about some other schools and build camaraderie among member institutions. He's pretty much dead on anyway. ND isn't a fit b/c they're a private religious institution... whereas the raison d'etre for the Big/CIC, from an academic standpoint, is Research. ND would neither benefit nor contribute much in that regard.