UConn donor demands return of $3M donation, then allows them to keep it

[Oh8ch]

I'd be disturbed if donors felt they could bully and bribe our AD.

I have little doubt that they do. It is the public part which is troublesome.

 

[jlb1705]

It's the first time that AD Hathaway had to make an important hire, and he screwed up by not kissing the ass of his biggest donor.

Auriemma and Calhoun were hired in '85 and '86 respectively, and the basketball programs have each won multiple national titles. Edsall was hired by Lew Perkins in '99, and led the program from I-AA to a BCS bowl game. So UConn hasn't had to make an important hire in 12 years.

I think that Mili's right in that the guy shouldn't get his money back unless there were conditions attached to it, but it's a major screwup to piss him off. They'll need money from him in the future, and aren't likely to get it. It's not that hard to keep somebody informed during the hiring process, and let him think he's involved with the decision, even if he's not going to make the actual decision.

But if the guy's got enough ego to be whining publicly afterwards, he should have let Hathaway know as soon as Edsall left that he wanted to be included in what was going on. And at least one of them is a jerk and/or an idiot for this to have been the result.

It also makes UConn football look small-time, which can hurt them with recruits and other coaching hires (even for assistants) in the future.

Look small time?



link

UConn football is small-time. The conditions of the Big East and the support of a handful of donors have helped them masquerade as big-time.

It seems to me there have been a lot of programs that have been making the leap from I-AA to I-A in the last couple decades. The perception seems to be that if you elevate your football team, before long your athletic department will be printing money. I think UConn is finding out that is not true, and that they are relying way too heavily on individual donors. Their growth as a program has been sudden and rapid, but it has also been inorganic in that sense. The do not have the fanbase to support ticket sales, mechandise sales, or a wider base of small-to-middle range donors. The population of that area would seem to indicate potential to change that, but I think people are too quick to dismiss the apathy toward college football in many pro sports cities.

In other words, I think UConn has been chasing the purple dragon with their football program, despite their brief (and somewhat dubious) on-field success.

 

[scooter1369]

Making a donation does not make you an assistant Athletic Director. I'd tell him to just fuck off.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

It's not the what they did.. it's the how they did it...

"The University of Connecticut football team now enjoys the finest on-campus football facilities in the country - thanks in large part to the building of The Burton Family Football Complex."

You don't bite the hand that feeds you

I have to disagree. It's a cumulative donation of $7MM. That's shouldn't be the lifeblood of a BCS program, and if it is, they should seriously reconsider their priorities. Looking at UCONN from the perspective of a university that raised $300MM last year and is ramping up for a $2.5B campaign, might skew my view a bit Ill admit. Still, no university should be compromising its governance for seven million dollars.

Secondly, biting that particular hand may have been exactly the right thing to do. He's a non-alumnus, jock sniffer who has donated overwhelmingly to athletics. We're not talking about Les Wexner or John Ong here. Get too far into bed with a character like that and let him--despite no formal role on the board--start influencing policy decisions and hiring, and it's a slippery path to becoming Auburn and Bobby Lowder. Just a hunch, but I wouldn't be surprised if the UCONN President and AD are relieved to have washed their hands of this clown. Sometimes, money comes at too high a price. This looks like one of those instances.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

I have little doubt that they do. It is the public part which is troublesome.

Not really. The biggest donors don't focus on athletics and are on either the board of trustees or the foundation board of trustees. Those are the people to whom Gee listens.

A mid-level, athletics only donor can make his voice heard. How far it goes is another matter. There were plenty of them constantly calling for Cooper's head through the years and Gee and Kirwan both ignored them.

 

[Oh8ch]

One of the primary roles of the AD at any major program is fund raising. These programs burn cash and kissing ass is part of what you do to get it.

At every OSU home game there will be a moment between quarters where Smith is publicly accepting a check from some donor. They wine them, dine them and put lots of other folks on hold to take their calls.

While the AD may not let them help manage the program part of the AD's job is to make them believe they are doing precisely that.

Either this UCONN donor is a real prima donna or the AD screwed up.

 

[Tlangs]

As for his other "demands," I'd tell him to go fuck himself with a big bag of Mark May's dicks while using every bit of p.r. firepower at my disposal to make him a national joke.

This post isn't complete...it is missing something.....



UCONN should tell him to go get his shine box!

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

One of the primary roles of the AD at any major program is fund raising. These programs burn cash and kissing ass is part of what you do to get it.

At every OSU home game there will be a moment between quarters where Smith is publicly accepting a check from some donor. They wine them, dine them and put lots of other folks on hold to take their calls.

While the AD may not let them help manage the program part of the AD's job is to make them believe they are doing precisely that.

Either this UCONN donor is a real prima donna or the AD screwed up.

I agree that fundraising is important as is massaging the egos of the donors. That being said, at least at Ohio State, it's not 'Nam. There are rules. The AD might let someone like this guy puff his chest up all he wants, but at a certain point, a line in the sand will be drawn.

Athletic fundraising at Ohio State is a tiny part of the equation. $20MM last year out of $300MM total, and that's not even figuring in another $720MM in external research funding. No Ohio State president or ad is going to let a clown like Burton or Lowder jeopardize that by letting him run the place.

 

[Jaxbuck]

We have absolutely no way of knowing if this donor was getting out of control or the AD completely mismanaged the situation. From being on the board of a small university's athletic booster club I find it hard to believe a major donor wasn't given reason to believe, at least implicitly, he was going to be consulted on things like coaching hires.

I sit here and think quite possibly the AD just did a piss poor job managing the relationship because, as someone posted earlier, how hard is it to make the guy feel like he's involved and still make your own decisions? Again from limited experience, just asking the guys opinion on candidates would probably be enough of an ego stroke to keep this from being an issue.

Now if that wasn't enough and the guy felt entitled to actually help make decisions then its best to just part ways no matter how messy but if he's like most and would have been happy with a simple "we really would like your input on these candidates" kind of thing then the AD if a fucking moron.

At the end of the day I find it hard to believe a little bit of time and some minor dog and pony show action wouldn't have kept everyone happy but then again, it is such a simple solution maybe the donor was getting out of hand? Who knows.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

We have absolutely no way of knowing if this donor was getting out of control or the AD completely mismanaged the situation. From being on the board of a small university's athletic booster club I find it hard to believe a major donor wasn't given reason to believe, at least implicitly, he was going to be consulted on things like coaching hires.

I sit here and think quite possibly the AD just did a [censored] poor job managing the relationship because, as someone posted earlier, how hard is it to make the guy feel like he's involved and still make your own decisions? Again from limited experience, just asking the guys opinion on candidates would probably be enough of an ego stroke to keep this from being an issue.

Now if that wasn't enough and the guy felt entitled to actually help make decisions then its best to just part ways no matter how messy but if he's like most and would have been happy with a simple "we really would like your input on these candidates" kind of thing then the AD if a [censored]ing moron.

At the end of the day I find it hard to believe a little bit of time and some minor dog and pony show action wouldn't have kept everyone happy but then again, it is such a simple solution maybe the donor was getting out of hand? Who knows.

Perhaps, but this guy's reaction is pretty telling as to his character and priorities. Certainly if the AD was messing things up, this guy would have had access to the President and some BOT members. Did he just fly off the handle and make this public without first going over the ad's head? On the other hand, if he did go to the President/BOT and was rebuffed, that would tell me that the powers that be at UCONN were pretty unanimous in distancing themselves from this guy.

I guess what I'm getting at is if this guy really cared about UCONN, we'd never be hearing about this. That we are--either because he jumped the gun and took his tantrum public or because the people above the AD were in full support of the AD--speaks pretty loudly.

If this clown were an Ohio State donor causing this public embarrassment, LW would probably have the Mossad deal with him.

 

[FCollinsBuckeye]

FWIW, based on what I read, the donor didn't 'go public'. Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the University released the letter on which the donor had put 'personal and confidential'...

At least, that's what I saw on one article...

Connecticut donor Robert Burton's scathing letter to school athletic director Jeff Hathaway was not meant to be made public. But due to a Freedom of Information request, the correspondence was revealed this week.

 

[NJ-Buckeye]

Highlight of THE letter

"After our call on January 3rd, I did not hear from you until you attempted to reach me on January 13 to inform me who you had selected as the next head coach, I should note that I had already heard from several other sources about the pending hire, but I did not hear it from the UConn Athletic Department.
​

"To be crystal clear, I was not looking for veto power over the next hire; I just wanted to be kept in the loop and add value and comments on any prospective candidates. This is the same process that Lew Perkins had with me when Randy Edsall was hired in December of 1998."


"I believe that you are not qualified to be a Division 1 AD and I would have fired you a long time ago. You do not have the skills to manage and cultivate new donors or the ability to work with coaches. It is our intent to let the correct people know that you did not listen to your number one football donor and you led a flawed process in the search for UConn's football coach. The primary reason Randy took another job was because he could not work with you."​

 

[buckeyesin07]

Highlight of THE letter

"After our call on January 3rd, I did not hear from you until you attempted to reach me on January 13 to inform me who you had selected as the next head coach, I should note that I had already heard from several other sources about the pending hire, but I did not hear it from the UConn Athletic Department.
​

"To be crystal clear, I was not looking for veto power over the next hire; I just wanted to be kept in the loop and add value and comments on any prospective candidates. This is the same process that Lew Perkins had with me when Randy Edsall was hired in December of 1998."

​

This letter is very interesting. These first two paragraphs seem reasonable enough. Admittedly, the words are a bit brash (Joe Average doesn't get "kept in the loop" to "add value and comments on any prospective candidates"), but he did donate a lot of money and was consulted before, apparently.

"I believe that you are not qualified to be a Division 1 AD and I would have fired you a long time ago. You do not have the skills to manage and cultivate new donors or the ability to work with coaches. It is our intent to let the correct people know that you did not listen to your number one football donor and you led a flawed process in the search for UConn's football coach. The primary reason Randy took another job was because he could not work with you."

This last paragraph is where he goes way too far, IMO. What are this guy's qualifications to determine who is qualified to be a Div I AD? He thinks he's qualified because he played football at some NAIA school? And the comments about the AD not having skills to manage donors and work with coaches are insulting opinions that he passes off as facts.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

UCONN should tell him to go get his shine box!

Does the AD wear velcro sneakers?

 

[Dryden]

This last paragraph is where he goes way too far, IMO. What are this guy's qualifications to determine who is qualified to be a Div I AD?

The AD hired Paul Pasqualoni.

Did you watch Pasq run Syracuse into the ground? Did you watch the Dallas Cowboys defense last year?

Every team that has hired Paul Pasqualoni for anything over the past 30 years has rotted from the inside out.

If I were this donor, I'd be pissed too. I'm not saying I expect veto power, but then I also have enough faith that my AD and President are competent enough not to hand the keys to a guy that already totalled three or four sweet rides.