Mike Hill and the Future

Yes, he should’ve been fired. I’m not saying that he would be the #1 choice but we’re in no position to thumb our nose to any power conference coach. Especially one that’s won in the AAC.

Threads like this make my head hurt, people forget so quickly what Judy, Brad, and Mark were like. Awful branding, no students, zero hope. Mike Hill may have wiffed on Healy, but we all liked the guy and had tons of hope. Sanchez should be better than he is. Both will probably be gone soon. Without Hill there would be no AAC, no Masterplan, no Rebrand, and we would be looking forward to a future with Sam Houston State and the rest of the CUSA lefterovers.

Mike still has my faith and has done lots of good for the AD. COVID may have been his only mistep so far and there no way guage what damage if any that actually did. Judy was awful and you all know it.

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We may find out Healy was given a secret extension that no one was aware of. :flushed:

clt says Judy left us in a great financial position. she should get credit

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Speculative.

So far the master plan is just vaporware anyway. I’ll believe in it when shovels hit dirt.

The secret extensions are really the only thing Hill has done that have bothered me from a logical standpoint. I never saw them as being warranted.

The other negatives are just disappointment. I can’t fault the Sanchez hire at the time, and Healy was a reach, but we knew it then. I was more disappointed that he didn’t close the deal with Mike Houston, but there is only so much you can do.

Mike was in a position previously where he was probably trying to create as much stability as he could in our athletics programs while he chased the AAC / master plan goals.

However, after 2 whiff hires in the revenue sports, he has a lot of pressure to fix them to cement his position here long term. I agree with all the good things he did for us, and thank you @d_whitley for the reminder of the nightmare stuck in a rut in CUSA scenario if Judy had stuck around - that is some serious clarity.

But again, Mike HAS to fix revenue sports. The truth is, if one was gang busters, he could probably let the other slide a bit - Healy or Sanchez or whomever holds those slots could each do the other a tremendous favor. I see it this way: going into the AAC, he has to get at least one of the programs (and the truth is, it would be better if it was Football, sorry to my fellow hoops fans), to a winning / conference championship level caliber, and the other needs to be respectable at minimum.

I say that because if we keep failing so hard at the two sports that matter the most, nothing else he has done is going to matter. Even a stadium expansion isn’t going to long appease 2-10 football seasons.

His next moves / hires quite frankly need to be the most competent moves he has yet made. And I suspect he knows that.

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If Healy has a “secret extension” with 3 years remaining on the current contract, then Mike Hill needs to have a very large man strangle him to passing out, repeatedly.

Some of Ya’ll kill me. First no way we get into AAC. Then we get there and it’s no big deal. Next Master Plan is a pipe dream. It gets released and now it’s well doesn’t matter until shovels drop. Once shovels drop I am sure there will be something else.

Football and basketball blow. Neither coach is working out. That sucks and has to be fixed. But to let those two things completely ruin your view of what is happening really sucks. There are things to feel good about, but not if you convince yourself that the accomplishments we are seeing are no big deal.

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This board isn’t a positivity “safe place”. We come here to bitch! Board would be dead otherwise. Let the moaners have their space place to practice the Niner Religion of Negatively. LOL!

I mean moan and bitch all ya want. That’s fine, there are things to bitch about. Just the constant drum beat of everything being bad is tiresome when clearly that isn’t the case.

Not winning and having losing programs typically spoils the mood of 90% of fans and supporters

It says something that we have been terrible in both revenue sports and we are still raising more money than we ever have.

If we get the right football coach in here, this place will explode.

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No I get that. And it should. Losing in basketball and football should make us angry. Given the money we invest in each it’s ridiculous to be so bad. It has to get fixed. IMO Mike has one more shot at both. If he can’t get it right then we have some bigger issues. With him not being Gaber’s hire it will be easier to move of need be.

My point is just that we have made some huge strides in things that should make getting the coaching hire rights easier and winning easier. The donor base has grown, the master plan is out with huge significant amount already raised, our branding is better, the conference move up with better tv coverage and better level of comp will help. Everything has trended up so if we can just F’n win the table is set. If you can’t see that as light years ahead of where we were then I dunno what to tell ya.

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Just because the guys in place now are more likable doesn’t mean things are better, just sayin’

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It isn’t if they are likable.

AAC > CUSA
Donor base is bigger and growing
Facilities plan out w/ expansion of football and reno of Halton imminent
Capital fund raising success
New branding better than old

These are hard points that are significantly better than where we were.

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90% of people don’t care much about the inner workings of the programs behind the scenes and I’m one of them.

Bottom line is we have a football team that could damn well get bageled this year and if hoops wasn’t playing the weakest schedule in 40+ years we probably wouldn’t win ten games. That’s what sports fans care about.

I’ll always give credit where due and I think Woodard was a HR, at least it looks like it so far. Golf appears in good shape and so does soccer.

BUT, a lot of that was true before. Halton Happened, hell I remember us playing on Independence. Played for a soccer title and finished #3 in the nation in Golf one year. Oh yeah and had some pretty good hoops, bend that how you feel.

Started football and got in D1 before we snapped the ball and got into CUSA. Not a small feat to me.

Not defending the previous regime but I’m sorry it doesn’t seem better to me

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Sexy Jenna Fischer GIF

clt agrees with mr bojangles. We have a lot of momentum considering the stink of fb and mbb.

we cannot enter the AAC with this performance.

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Thats the thing though - we can’t get to the levels you want without the other stuff. Playing basketball off campus sucked. Leaving CUSA 1.0 sucked. Not having a bigger stadium for football sucks. Not having a decent soccer stadium in the 90s sucked.

There is a correlation between the heights that many of us want to get to and the investment in the others things it takes to get there. It isn’t as fun to think about - but if we want better coaches and better players these other things matter. No doubt Ws and Ls are important, but it’s chicken or egg stuff. One takes the other. We lost Atkins not because we sucked at anything, but because we couldn’t pay the man. Pay staff more money and we have better coaches. That means growing that donor base.

The biggest thing for me is support. I believe now in where we can go than I ever have. I absolutely hated Judy. I still donated. I still bought tickets and I still went to games. I sure as hell am not stopping that now when we have so many things trending the right way if we can get the Ws falling in place. If Mike can’t get it done with these next two hires, we will have a new AD in here that can pick up on the business success he’s had and hopefully right the Ws side of things.