“Has a coach ever been more important to a school than Greg Schiano is to Rutgers?”
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
Good article. I think that most here would probably agree with the basic points. It goes back to the start of "bigger time" sports at RU in the early 1970s, though its focus is on football. He mentions each coach along the way, starting with Frank Burns, and described the hiring of Terry Shea and Chris Ash as the disasters they were at RU. Gruninger was not specifically mentioned, IIRC (I read this several hours earlier).
Thanks for posting.
Thanks for posting.
Fred Gruninger—how many tens of millions of dollars did he cost us with horrible decision after horrible decision. I don’t know who he knew to steal a paycheck for that many decades and do the horrific job he did. No other major university athletic department would have tolerated his performance here. It was sickening to see him sitting in The RAC decade after decade.
sure schiano is up there
Osborne
Snyder
Schnellenberger
Bowden
Schembechler
Woody
Paterno (the cult is alive and well).
Dabo
Osborne
Snyder
Schnellenberger
Bowden
Schembechler
Woody
Paterno (the cult is alive and well).
Dabo
I've heard this crap before. Heaven should go back to finding deals on Rutgers clothing. He knew more about that. I'm guessing some kind of scam here as he hasn't posted in awhile. Plus Heaven knows Fred wasn't in the the RAC for decades. Fred spent more time at the Barn.
Historically at RU there has always been institutional hesitancy about taking a deep dive into big time athletics. When I was there in the late 1970s, there was official talk about going “big time” but the required funding to do so never followed. When the football schedule was to be upgraded from smaller, eastern schools to national programs, HC Frank Burns who had a very successful record wanted the weight room modernized and he couldn’t get the investment. He eventually resigned. We never had the sports infrastructure to compete at a high level. That began to change with Mulcahy and Schiano. It’s now a whole different world in the B1G.
More likely they give millions to me for these great posts
Lol!!! Do we dare open up a poll on whether you would make the Messaage Board HOF? The fans can and will speak.....
At one time GS and Jim Leavitt were often seen in the same bin.
Leavitt was first coach at D1-AA USF (1997) and worked out of a trailer.
Bama, Kansas and other teams offered him but he stayed at Bulls
He had a good # of top ten teams in short order.
Of course the Bulls started out with a pro stadium
en.wikipedia.org
Leavitt was first coach at D1-AA USF (1997) and worked out of a trailer.
Bama, Kansas and other teams offered him but he stayed at Bulls
He had a good # of top ten teams in short order.
Of course the Bulls started out with a pro stadium
Jim Leavitt - Wikipedia
As much as Greg has meant to RU (twice now), Barry Alvarez has knocked it out of the park with Wisconsin.
Regarding coaches, what would Notre Dame be without Knute Rockne?
A May 8, 1969 Targum article interviewed Rutgers athletes about the attitude of taking football and sports up to a higher level, “… our whole athletic department is full of men who are contented with second class and keeping Rutgers at the level with small private schools like Lehigh, Lafayette and Colgate,” chimed in one of the frustrated athletes. “It’s good for some of the young coaches like Jim Valvano to get out on their own, and it will only be time before we lose other good coaches like (swimming coach Frank) Elm, basketball coach Bill Foster and Frank Burns of the football team because of our stuffy policies.”
Interesting question. The title doesn’t specify football but the article does. There are obvious coaches who are or were more important. Coach K, Wooden, Carril, Ray Meyer, John Thompson in basketball for sure because they turned their programs around and actually won something significant and for much longer.
No matter what the Schiano 2.0 lovers believe, even though he’s better than his predecessors, 6-6/3-6 reg season peak and going to 1 of about 40 bowls isn’t overly special, even at RU
I greatly dislike this sort of adulation.
GS has been doing a good job so far in his second stint here. He deserves appreciation for his work. But he hasn’t won anything yet but some games.
And even if he takes the team to repeated national championships, it’s still just a coach doing a great job. He’s not the only person who can do it. Many other coaches have won championships at many other schools.
None of them, nor GS, should be hero-worshipped. It’s tacky and undignified. It’s always undignified to worship another human being. That’s what cults are made of and cults suck.
GS has been doing a good job so far in his second stint here. He deserves appreciation for his work. But he hasn’t won anything yet but some games.
And even if he takes the team to repeated national championships, it’s still just a coach doing a great job. He’s not the only person who can do it. Many other coaches have won championships at many other schools.
None of them, nor GS, should be hero-worshipped. It’s tacky and undignified. It’s always undignified to worship another human being. That’s what cults are made of and cults suck.
Agree, but Schiano comes off as cocky, boastful and desirous of the adoration so fans fawning over him are feeding the beast, so to speak. And as you say, he ain’t won sh*t.
True enough.
I think part of the difference with GS he has that "Jersey guy" thing as part of his gestalt.
"Young man dreams of taking funky Rutgers to the Big Ten" and then gets it done.
I think he also does care about people more than many coaches.
He was going to see EL in hospital every day after practice for quite awhile.
I think one of the reasons he left for NFL was that he was worn out playing Father Gregory
He seems to be a good person. And for sure his experience here in the past has helped him this second time around. I’m not taking anything away from him.
Just saying, about anybody not just GS, that adulation, hero-worship, putting people on pedestals… that stuff is always a very bad idea. Appreciation, admiration, respect, even some fondness are all great. Much more than that and it starts getting really weird in a bad way.
Just wow. At some point have to own up that the onslught of negative GS over the last 5 years was fla tout wrong.
Because of circusmtances, and the just almost hard to replicate bad Flood/Ash hires, the first GS build didnt put RU on path to stability. (the tamping downThis time feels like RU will be fine after he goes.
When Ash-was in charge I was speaking to some higher ups with Nebraska and they were basically feeling sorry for me about the shape of RU football . I told them back then if we get Schiano back this program will turn around. This was before the move to bring Greg back . They looked at me like I was dreaming and wished me luck. Well here we are .
I always felt badly for Frank Burns. I think he was a great coach who essentially was able to have good teams in spite of the administration.
Read Mr. Mulcahy's book over the summer and I HIGHLY suggest it as required reading for everyone on this board:
An Athletic Director’s Story and the Future of College Sports in America
An Athletic Director’s Story and the Future of College Sports in America
Agreed that nobody should be hero worshipped. But "he's not the only person that can do it." Right, but how many of them would come to Rutgers?
Struck a nerve, did I? Sorry, not sorry. 😉
One need only look at your signature to know why you object to someone saying cultish behavior is always bad.
For the money back in his first stint? Probably not many.
But times and budgets have changed. Assuming the new AD and new president, whomever they wind up being, are as supportive as the old ones, paying competitive HC and assistant salaries is no longer the problem it once was. So, taking nothing away from the good work GS is doing so far in his second stint, I think plenty of capable and experienced coaches would consider the job.
And if RU can put together some consecutive winning seasons with bowl games? It’ll just get easier to find willing coaches to come in and continue the work starting with a good foundation.
But again, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. RUFB is better now than the Flood and Ash eras. But that’s an incredibly low bar. We’re all super excited to be 4 - 0 right now. But this season needs to be played out before we start thinking about coronating anybody.
I’m patient and would be okay even if we go 6 - 6. ‘Cause I understand the challenge. But I think most people would be pissed off about that result and all the “GS is great” emotions will quickly turn into GS hatred emotions. Our fanbase (perhaps like all fanbases) is extremely fickle.
Knute Tokne was very important when he told tha athletic board,who wanted to drop F B and replace it with field hockey.Rokme. Said what! You actually want to put sticks in the hands of Irishmen?They kept FB
The question is whether Rutgers will become a program with a winning infrastructure where any good coach can be successful, or become a cult of personality program where success revolves around the presence of one person. Achieving the former is much more difficult than the latter.
Yes, it's more difficult but the long term results justify the extra effort required.
Hopefully GS can elevate the program enough, and build out the infrastructure enough, and over a long enough period, that the job's that much easier for the next coach. Being in the Big Ten helps, financially and perception-wise, I think.
