FB: Liberty League

[PBR...]

FYI -- SCFJLLPPFFL....****WEATHER UPDATE**** (PBR shouldnt be sharing this although most will hear soon enuf about it...)

A MAJOR SNOWSTORM A.K.A. BLIZZARD WILL ROAR UP THE EAST COAST SAT/SUN Model runs now put 20+ inches of snow on mid atlantic up thru england sunday night plus 40mph winds....should be interesting to say the least even if it tracks inland and dumps 2 inches of rain it will greatly affect players performances. Models show this storm being a hurricane cat 1-2 off bostons coast sunday afternoon and night! should at least make the games fun to watch rain or snow and of course pbr is sure the forecasters will blow this and it will be 45 and sunny sunday afternoon....Needless to say PBR is skiing fri afternoon and night and is ready to rock and roll on some powder!!

[Frank Rossi]

There is a new AD in Troy

http://cms.dailygazette.com/news/2007/dec/11/1211_rpi/

His most recent position makes me feel like this is an odd fit for an Athletic Director.  Anybody else agree?

[Rolevio]

FYI -- SCFJLLPPFFL....****WEATHER UPDATE**** (PBR shouldnt be sharing this although most will hear soon enuf about it...)

A MAJOR SNOWSTORM A.K.A. BLIZZARD WILL ROAR UP THE EAST COAST SAT/SUN Model runs now put 20+ inches of snow on mid atlantic up thru england sunday night plus 40mph winds....should be interesting to say the least even if it tracks inland and dumps 2 inches of rain it will greatly affect players performances. Models show this storm being a hurricane cat 1-2 off bostons coast sunday afternoon and night! should at least make the games fun to watch rain or snow and of course pbr is sure the forecasters will blow this and it will be 45 and sunny sunday afternoon....Needless to say PBR is skiing fri afternoon and night and is ready to rock and roll on some powder!!

If the weather prediction holds true, Rolevio just hopes the TV equipment and his cable stay working so he can watch.  Rolevio loves watching bad weather games.

[Rolevio]

There is a new AD in Troy

http://cms.dailygazette.com/news/2007/dec/11/1211_rpi/

His most recent position makes me feel like this is an odd fit for an Athletic Director.  Anybody else agree?

Found one article referring to his old job:


http://www.usma.edu/USMAPS/PAGES/academics/cep_home.htm

Rolevio doesn't know what to make of it, though it sounds as if this place could be relevant to running an athletic department.

[Frank Rossi]

There is a new AD in Troy

http://cms.dailygazette.com/news/2007/dec/11/1211_rpi/

His most recent position makes me feel like this is an odd fit for an Athletic Director.  Anybody else agree?

Found one article referring to his old job:


http://www.usma.edu/USMAPS/PAGES/academics/cep_home.htm

Rolevio doesn't know what to make of it, though it sounds as if this place could be relevant to running an athletic department.

Not sure I agree with that assessment - When I think of the duties of an Athletic Director, I generally categorize them as follows:

1) Hiring/Firing/Management of Coaches;
2) Scheduling;
3) Fundraising and Budgeting;
4) Oversight in the Maintaining of Academic Parameters/Graduation Rates for Student Athletes;
5) Coordination of the Athletics Department Staff; and
6) Networking with Main College Administration and Admissions Department.

So far, I'm not sure I see from the description and the link Rolevio provided a connection to more than a couple of these functions in his most recent position.  The leadership in the NCAA Hockey Rules Committee might have propelled him to the top of the list... which, if you know anything of Union's recent AD history, is an interesting proposition.

[Rolevio]

The leadership in the NCAA Hockey Rules Committee might have propelled him to the top of the list... which, if you know anything of Union's recent AD history, is an interesting proposition.

Rolevio is thinking over recent Union AD's and is drawing a blank as to what Frank means.

[Frank Rossi]

The leadership in the NCAA Hockey Rules Committee might have propelled him to the top of the list... which, if you know anything of Union's recent AD history, is an interesting proposition.

Rolevio is thinking over recent Union AD's and is drawing a blank as to what Frank means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Belmonte

I think the years for Union AD are somewhat questionable -- I don't think he had a 4- or 5-year stint for some reason (gonna have to check on that one).  However, things were very messy during his tenure based on his hockey-centric attitude at a school that was mainly Division III in athletics.  His fundraising seemed to be lacking, his budgeting was at times problematic inside the Department and he ruffled many feathers with his attitude.  I also take issue with the Wikipedia entry insofar as Dick Sakala, Belmonte's predecessor, was responsible for kicking off the majority of fundraising and planning for the renovations, especially the football field/seats and the initial enhancements to the Achilles Rink.

[Frank Rossi]

As I look at a story from the RPI website (http://www.rpi.edu), I see:

"From 2003 to 2006 Knowlton served as both deputy and interim director for the athletics department at West Point, where he led a staff of more than 200 people and supervised 25 intercollegiate athletic programs with more than 1,000 student-athletes. During his tenure, West Point set the stage to earn its first NCAA National Championship in more than 50 years."

That would make me more confident concerning Knowlton's credentials.

[Rolevio]

The leadership in the NCAA Hockey Rules Committee might have propelled him to the top of the list... which, if you know anything of Union's recent AD history, is an interesting proposition.

Rolevio is thinking over recent Union AD's and is drawing a blank as to what Frank means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Belmonte

I think the years for Union AD are somewhat questionable -- I don't think he had a 4- or 5-year stint for some reason (gonna have to check on that one).  However, things were very messy during his tenure based on his hockey-centric attitude at a school that was mainly Division III in athletics.  His fundraising seemed to be lacking, his budgeting was at times problematic inside the Department and he ruffled many feathers with his attitude.  I also take issue with the Wikipedia entry insofar as Dick Sakala, Belmonte's predecessor, was responsible for kicking off the majority of fundraising and planning for the renovations, especially the football field/seats and the initial enhancements to the Achilles Rink.

Alright, Rolevio was trying to think of a Union AD with some position within the NCAA and wasn't considering Belmonte as he came from USA Hockey.  But yeah Rolevio remembers a few different ideas for a new rink or renovated rink that all collapsed as a result of almost no fundraising.  Though Rolevio also remembers hearing several things that point to Hull being a major problem with Athletic department fundraising as well.

[Frank Rossi]

The leadership in the NCAA Hockey Rules Committee might have propelled him to the top of the list... which, if you know anything of Union's recent AD history, is an interesting proposition.

Rolevio is thinking over recent Union AD's and is drawing a blank as to what Frank means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Belmonte

I think the years for Union AD are somewhat questionable -- I don't think he had a 4- or 5-year stint for some reason (gonna have to check on that one).  However, things were very messy during his tenure based on his hockey-centric attitude at a school that was mainly Division III in athletics.  His fundraising seemed to be lacking, his budgeting was at times problematic inside the Department and he ruffled many feathers with his attitude.  I also take issue with the Wikipedia entry insofar as Dick Sakala, Belmonte's predecessor, was responsible for kicking off the majority of fundraising and planning for the renovations, especially the football field/seats and the initial enhancements to the Achilles Rink.

Alright, Rolevio was trying to think of a Union AD with some position within the NCAA and wasn't considering Belmonte as he came from USA Hockey.  But yeah Rolevio remembers a few different ideas for a new rink or renovated rink that all collapsed as a result of almost no fundraising.  Though Rolevio also remembers hearing several things that point to Hull being a major problem with Athletic department fundraising as well.

Roger was a pretty good friend overall of Athletics, although he reportedly made some cuts to the new stadium seating idea when those changes were being prepared.  The entire school took a budgeting hit when the Seward Place and beyond buy-out was occurring -- it knocked the budgeting and potentially the endowment into a problematic position for many observing the situation while existing infrastructure, including some of the athletics facilities, sat somewhat idle.  So, Roger's biggest problem was spreading things thin on the campus -- he wasn't discriminating against Athletics during the late portion of his tenure.

[Rolevio]

The leadership in the NCAA Hockey Rules Committee might have propelled him to the top of the list... which, if you know anything of Union's recent AD history, is an interesting proposition.

Rolevio is thinking over recent Union AD's and is drawing a blank as to what Frank means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Belmonte

I think the years for Union AD are somewhat questionable -- I don't think he had a 4- or 5-year stint for some reason (gonna have to check on that one).  However, things were very messy during his tenure based on his hockey-centric attitude at a school that was mainly Division III in athletics.  His fundraising seemed to be lacking, his budgeting was at times problematic inside the Department and he ruffled many feathers with his attitude.  I also take issue with the Wikipedia entry insofar as Dick Sakala, Belmonte's predecessor, was responsible for kicking off the majority of fundraising and planning for the renovations, especially the football field/seats and the initial enhancements to the Achilles Rink.

Alright, Rolevio was trying to think of a Union AD with some position within the NCAA and wasn't considering Belmonte as he came from USA Hockey.  But yeah Rolevio remembers a few different ideas for a new rink or renovated rink that all collapsed as a result of almost no fundraising.  Though Rolevio also remembers hearing several things that point to Hull being a major problem with Athletic department fundraising as well.

Roger was a pretty good friend overall of Athletics, although he reportedly made some cuts to the new stadium seating idea when those changes were being prepared.  The entire school took a budgeting hit when the Seward Place and beyond buy-out was occurring -- it knocked the budgeting and potentially the endowment into a problematic position for many observing the situation while existing infrastructure, including some of the athletics facilities, sat somewhat idle.  So, Roger's biggest problem was spreading things thin on the campus -- he wasn't discriminating against Athletics during the late portion of his tenure.

Rolevio was more referring to hearing Hull turned alot of money away several times for various reasons, such as not wanting advertising, not wanting a company sponsoring only the hockey and football teams, not wanting to allocate the money for what it was going to be donated for.

Rolevio remembers the abysmal growth of the endowment around the time of the Seward place renovations.

[PBR...]

ATTN: Passengers this is the captain speaking....that noise you hear is the planes engines accelerating as we nose over into a dive after the fed only dropped 25 pts....we are going to continue to accelerate our nose dive for the forseeable future...and thank you for flying w/ u.s. economy airlines today and who knows when we will  hit bottom and crash...that is all...

[Frank Rossi]

The leadership in the NCAA Hockey Rules Committee might have propelled him to the top of the list... which, if you know anything of Union's recent AD history, is an interesting proposition.

Rolevio is thinking over recent Union AD's and is drawing a blank as to what Frank means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Belmonte

I think the years for Union AD are somewhat questionable -- I don't think he had a 4- or 5-year stint for some reason (gonna have to check on that one).  However, things were very messy during his tenure based on his hockey-centric attitude at a school that was mainly Division III in athletics.  His fundraising seemed to be lacking, his budgeting was at times problematic inside the Department and he ruffled many feathers with his attitude.  I also take issue with the Wikipedia entry insofar as Dick Sakala, Belmonte's predecessor, was responsible for kicking off the majority of fundraising and planning for the renovations, especially the football field/seats and the initial enhancements to the Achilles Rink.

Alright, Rolevio was trying to think of a Union AD with some position within the NCAA and wasn't considering Belmonte as he came from USA Hockey.  But yeah Rolevio remembers a few different ideas for a new rink or renovated rink that all collapsed as a result of almost no fundraising.  Though Rolevio also remembers hearing several things that point to Hull being a major problem with Athletic department fundraising as well.

Roger was a pretty good friend overall of Athletics, although he reportedly made some cuts to the new stadium seating idea when those changes were being prepared.  The entire school took a budgeting hit when the Seward Place and beyond buy-out was occurring -- it knocked the budgeting and potentially the endowment into a problematic position for many observing the situation while existing infrastructure, including some of the athletics facilities, sat somewhat idle.  So, Roger's biggest problem was spreading things thin on the campus -- he wasn't discriminating against Athletics during the late portion of his tenure.

Rolevio was more referring to hearing Hull turned alot of money away several times for various reasons, such as not wanting advertising, not wanting a company sponsoring only the hockey and football teams, not wanting to allocate the money for what it was going to be donated for.

Rolevio remembers the abysmal growth of the endowment around the time of the Seward place renovations.

I can't dispute those points -- although, he eased up on the advertising prohibition toward the end of his tenure.  History will look at Hull as a very successful president of Union College once people can take a more distant look back at the changes he helped make possible during his tenure (the Nott Memorial, the Library, the new football field, the College Park area).  They were costly changes, but they'll eventually prove extremely crucial to the future of Union.

I had the good fortune, as I think I mentioned earlier, of calling the Union/RPI game next to President and Mrs. Ainlay -- President Ainlay had made the trip to Hobart in 2006 for the de facto Liberty League Champtionship Game and has shown a definite interest in Union Athletics.  Thus, there is a good chance for growth in that respect over the next five years if...and only if...the current Athletics Department appropriately seizes that opportunity -- such as paving great relationships with Admissions and the general Administration and by creating a decent five-year plan for renovations and projects that the Athletics Department needs.  From what I've seen, such relationships and plans are presently lacking.  

The pathway to growth is not just about pandering to the Administration -- leadership and foresight are crucial in the AD position.  We'll see whether this point is truly heeded over the next couple years as the Union Athletics Department and programs are in a position to improve...if things are done right.

[Pat Coleman]

save yourself some headache and use firefox instead of internet explorer... most of gro's vista issues were browser related.

Sign that gro spends entirely too much time on D3.com
Just had a thought of the main Gurus doing an apple commercial parody

Keith: Hello I'm K-Mack
Pat: And I'm PC

(hilarity ensues)

Crap -- we should've been using that on the podcast.

[Pat Coleman]

What's even funnier is that Keith uses a Mac and I use Windows.

Definitely recommend XP. I had a laptop that needed replacement ahead of schedule this fall and had to scrounge to find one with XP. (Ended up with a Lenovo, which has a keyboard layout I hate but is otherwise fine. And I can't let my kids eat it, because it's made in China.)