Help us Obiwan Albin, you’re our only hope
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We are into Year 7 with Mike Hill. Do you agree that to date the hiring of Mike Hill should be considered a failure; that Hill was the wrong choice for the job?
I mean,
if you can’t hire quality coaches that can win at your house,
if you pass on hiring quality coaches and settle on incompetent coaches that can’t win,
If you can’t adequately raise funds and donations that facilitate winning,
if you can f up a student tailgating construction,
if you are already years behind on the first expansion of the Rich,
THEN,
WTF good to Charlotte is Mike Hill as it’s athletic director?
This bullet point is the root cause of your and everyone’s bitches about Hill. Everything else is driven off this. If you don’t have the money to attract a proven/accomplished coach then you take risks, give extensions, take a swing for the fences etc.. in hopes that blackjack comes up one time. Also, the woulda coulda shoulda game everyone likes to play here about passing or missing on quality coaches is BS. The hindsight that comes with the green tinted goggles is undefeated. As for the expansion, Me, I wouldn’t be building shit in this economy and this college athletic landscape until some clarity is given. In business, sales cures all problems and in this instance $$ does.
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As I said WAYYYYYY up in this thread:
IMO
An AD has to first and foremost stay out of scandals, Second is to read the overall college athletics landscape and AD strategy third to maintain fiscal responsibility and facilities and fourth to be successful with revenue sports and finally success of overall AD. Here is my ratings on a 5 point scale.
We have not had any scandals to speak if, but I think Biff was one waiting to happen. I honestly think if he stays he could have gotten Mike fired. 5
Overall landscape and our strategy has been OK. We have been working on bringing NIL in house for awhile now, we were prepared when the AAC opening came around. The new logo is significantly improved. Marketing is better, not where it should be, but better. We do events all over town now. We are on regular TV or easy to access streaming. Overall I think we are fine there, but room for improvement. 4
Fiscal stability and facilities is where IMO things start getting wonky. Yes we are are fine and havent had to pull ECU like maneuvers to stay solvent but its an over reliance on student fees and the same donors, and now with even more need in NIL, the failure of the administration to find new sources of funds is a glaring issues and this is a continued issue from previous admin. We arent close to even an average AAC budget. Hard to expect to win consistently with less than our conference peers. I know people say winning helps with money. The truth though is that is far from a guarantee. Winning SHOULD help, but this fanbase has never shown up that way. In addition, most folks that are in an AD will tell you first you have to find a way to raise money in a losing environment, then you win and then additional money helps you sustain it. I can tell you what got Judy ushered out was strategy and funds not the coaches she hired or fired or their records. The stadium expansion while going slow has been impacted by lack of funding and covid pause in fund raising as ordered by the chancellor. Individual donors stepped up for the Hayes and the Sue. I do give Mike credit for getting Smokey to make his first ever large donation to athletics. David Ravins support for NIL is a new source of funds and likely would have gone to either facilities or operating budget, but he was a huge supporter of NIL. 1
Revenue sports winning is next - it’s what the fans see mostly, but its a byproduct of the second and third things. That isn’t to say you can’t win with less money, but it is way easier to win when you have it. From the winter of 2020 to now is a total 180. Ron had his best team playing best ball going into the canceled CUSA tournament and Will was coming off a bowl game. Part was bad luck, part was NC state rules around covid, part was we had leaders in those sports that didnt handle covid the right way, part was we had an AD that was prioritizing every little rule vs the SEC ignoring them. We faltered and it snowballed to where we are now. Theoretically the good seasons should have increased revenue and witha normal recruiting window better talent AND more tickets and excitement. Instead, Ron’s extension was ridiculous and Will gets fired and then Biff’s hire even more insane than Ron’s extension. Albin is the exact hire we needed to make last cycle. He might flop, but it won’t be because we tried to do something stupid. The only reason this isnt a 1 is Albin potential, if he wins this goes up. 2
All the other sports: soccer and baseball I know are seen as sports that COULD become revenue neutral. With new scholarship limits and NIL impacting them as well we shall see. Softball certainly took a huge step up. Womens basketball is on fire as a product, but I think Mike hired a poor coach to replace Cara. 3
So overall he grades out to a 3. Not a failure, but not a success either.
I got to meet the AD candidates that the search firm identified when the job was open. I walked away from the meetings not blown away by any of them, but felt Mike could do the job.
I think Mike has excelled at administering the program. He has failed at being able to sell a vision and get people to fiscally buy in.
This program has always been one to hire someone that is compliant and
doesn’t rock the boat. Alpha male AD wouldn’t work here.
Couple of comments:
Don’t understand the extension for Hill at this time.
Don’t have a problem with the Biff hire. Hill rolled the dice and it didn’t work out.
Not a popular opinion, but I would slow-roll the stadium expansion and just focus on coaches and players at this point. Ride the next 2 years out and see where we are in the
new college landscape. We all know things are going to drastically change.
I can honestly say, I would not want his job. So many schools around us with “way more”
resources and support.
Growing up in Charlotte, UNCC was always an after thought to most people. The final four experience got a lot of people excited but that didn’t last long. The Melvin Watkins/Bobby Lutz years in cUSA1 success generated much excitement. Having to move to A10 and firing Lutz popped our balloon and we have never recovered trying all kinds of things to bring us back. Not having football hurt us and now we have it but still paying the price for it and trying to find success which has hurt the basketball program.
It’s been a while since we seemed to bring in local talent. I don’t think that’s the fault of the AD other than poor hires which we have had many.
A glimmer of hope is hearing Albin intentionally reaching out to the local community/high school coaches and teams to build relationships and with high profile people on the area that can help publicize and bring attention to the university like Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I do believe Charlotte really wants successful football and basketball programs and if the university can ever get its act together there will be incredible success.
I don’t know much about Coach Albin but it appears he “gets it”. Would not be surprised if we make a bowl game next year and the NIL picks up and basketball starts moving in the right direction.
Hopefully, relief is on the way.
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I dont necessarily disagree, except that we know the tower is needed no matter where we land. As long as we sponsor football that part of the facility needs to be there - the seat expansion though I think is what we don’t really need. Since that tower represents the majority of the cost I don’t think there is much value in waiting though. Now if we were going to 45k or something then yes I would agree no reason for that.
Those are some reasonable ratings mixed with some generous ones. I am not giving any bonuses for a football coach that hasn’t yet coached a game under Mike Hill. We have went down that dead end street at least one too many times. There, that last sentence is the extent of my benevolence towards Mike Hill’s performance.
Interesting old article on buyout vs severance. Clearly, Mike Hill is in the severance camp. Will Wade probably sets the bar for the current situation, where an AD sets up his program for success and a cash pay day buyout. How about High Point? Are they in the same mode? Is High Point better than Charlotte? Right now, it sure looks like it is.
High Point hired a damn good coach. How many wining coaches does Winthrop need to hire before you realize it isn’t always about the money, honey? If Mike Hill was a good judge of Coaching Talent that will win, Mike Hill would have already been hired away from Charlotte. Instead, Mike Hill got an extension for…Tell me Velvet Elvis on the Barroom Wall, next to Velvet Jesus. Tell me King and Lord. Why was Hill extended?
As far as hill being extended.. unjustifiable. We act like we have no money and can’t afford a good coach. We have good nil and coaches like winthrop hire good coaches. Coaches know this job and we can hire a quality, sitting HC but hill hill has fumbled. I like fearne but i don’t see him working out. Need to hit a homerun on this bext hire
Extending Ron Sanchez was unjustifiable. Extending Will was no less than incompetent. Extending Hill was a betrayal
Yes. No disagreement there. On psper, albin is a sign that hill is learning but we will see over the next year with how the fearne situation is handled
Extending Ron made absolutely zero sense. Next to hiring Biff is the worst thing Mike has done.
Extending Will was a tactical move that went south. His profile was high after the bowl game. The idea was extend and increase the buyout.
Extending Mike isn’t something I was thrilled with, but I doubt Gaber has any desire to replace an AD in the middle of the stadium expansion. I’m also fairly certain he was nowhere close to aac average.
As for hiring I judge a hire not as much by the Ws and Ls as much as did the hire make sense in the first place and what was our process. If it does and didn’t work out that happens.
Alan Major made no sense
Mark Price made less sense
Brad Lamberts process made no sense
Ron Sanchez made sense - extension did not
Will Healy - made little sense
Biff - Made NO sense
Fearne - some sense based on performance but process was poor
Albin - the best hire in a revenue sport we have made since Bobby. It may not work out but he exhibits every thing we would want. He might not work out but it won’t be because we did something stupid. Money still an issue though as we aren’t close to aac average for football HC.
A good chunk of these is due to lack of funds. More money cleans up the hiring some and certainly makes extensions and firings easier.
It’s also tougher to lay everything on coaches now with portal and NIL. It used to be if you can’t win and recruit then you aren’t the person for the job. Now though big question is where are financial resources for the roster compared to conference peers. If you aren’t in the top half of the league with that does the coach really matter?
We had the opportunity in hoops to hire several quality sitting HCs. Money was not the reason we hired fearne. I like fearne but that entire situation was botched
Lambert made NOOOOO sense, we should have hired a verteran FBS coach with recruiting ties to the region, we needed verteran leadership in the early days of our program, we are still paying for that poor decision
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I just couldn’t get over the resume on the kitchen floor and meeting him at outback.
Judy was so far in over her head.
I agree though def needed someone with HC experience and a pedigree that they knew what they were doing. It’s kinda insane that Albin is our first football hire that makes sense.
If Mike Houston hadn’t been a snake we would have gotten the hiring profile right though.
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The lack of funds excuse for our hires in basketball is BS. I could list 20+ mid major schools in our area that have figured it out. Pure insanity we followed Bobby with Major, Price, Ron, and Fearne…. I understand football might have to take a coordinator route ever so often. But you can hire a proven low major to low mid major HC 10 out of 10 times for our basketball program.
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We never pay market value for the league we are in. We still aren’t. That absolutely impacts who is willing to talk to us. Albin is way low. We got super lucky. If you arent going to pay market for the league you are in why would a lower level coach come up to a program like ours vs a mid major or lower major program that is paying market.
Now why we don’t pay at market? I have no idea. I dunno if that is by design, which seems stupid, or by necessity which highlights fund raising issues.
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Every time we go on a coaching search, Mike Hill says we’ve got tons of interest but it sure seems like we end up with someone further down the list.
Most of the hires look good on the outside but when you read deeper in the book there is not much there.
This is why i absolutely put a big part of our issues on compensation. I actually don’t think Mike is lying. We seem to be a great gig. Growing city, growing school, bar for what people see as success is low, nice facilities, good league…
But then when we make the hire it always seems to be someone we go huh? IMO I think we get lots of interest but then when we start talking compensation many drop out. Now I think coaches also start asking about NIL resources too.
Ron and Albin being the only ones we can go yeah I can see it.
For reference:
Albins contract is 900k a year
AAC average is 1.8M
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