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Politi With The Hot-Take On The New University President, and How Barchi Screwed Up Athletics

I don’t disagree with a great deal of what you wrote. I think one big flaw was not putting in a realistic plan to succeed athletically in the Big 10 when we accepted. We joined on his watch. It appears the plan was wait until we receive our full allotment of funding and that would take care of itself. Not close to being a plan built for success.
I agree 100% that he was an absentee landlord at best when it came to athletics, however, his legacy as president outside of the sports community is very solid, he will go down as one of the better presidents of the modern era.
 
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I can't believe here on the *football* board we are forgetting

Barchi didn't fire Flood on the spot after his Princeton escapade

Instead...after we ended up INEXPLICABLY paying Rice...we then paid Flood

I could almost understand how he botched Rice and that was more more on TP than him. But for a smart guy he did not learn from his mistake.

Maybe Barchi was good for the merger. I won't take that away nor the SAT increase. But the guy mishandled media and mishandled legal or at least delegated those tasks to people who were not capable.

Not just as a sports fan, just as an alum I'm angered how he allowed a negative media narrative to develop around both major sports that eventually engulfed the school entirely as we entered the B1G.
 
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Barchi clearly was not interested in Athletics but he has overseen significant improvements across the University. In addition to the Med School takeover, the campus looks so much better than when he took over. There has also been significant increases in SAT scores and GPA averages for incoming freshman - The school is much harder to get into today. He deserves some credit

I'm not quick to criticize him and I know the average SAT scores and GPAs have gone up, but I think that's mostly a result of getting into the Big Ten. Credit for that was mostly due to Schiano. Yes, I know that we had to get into the AAU first and I give credit to all the people responsible for doing that, but the football team's performance in the Schiano years needed to happen.
 
BARCHI COULD NOT BE BOTHERED TO WATCH THE TAPES


Okay.....And then what? You keep shouting this like it means something. So he didn't watch them. So what??? He is running a University.

From where I sit, it was smart of him to not watch them. Athletics at Rutgers is a lightning rod for political criticism, scandal, and negative press. Its very smart to let the AD handle athletics issues. If he had watched the tapes, he probably would have lost his job when Pernetti made the idiotic decision to backtrack and admit wrongdoing.
 
Well at least you narrowed it down to the right group.
So let's ignore Pernetti and Barchi, because either of them might spin the story to make themselves look good. So that leaves Wolf, Purcaro, and Hershorn who have first-hand knowledge of the events. And I know that at least one of them have indicated that Pernetti could have fired Rice but chose not to.
 
This is a football and sports board here. Most people posting are looking at Barchi through sports glasses and, accordingly, find much to fault him about.
What if there are faculty boards, development and infrastructure boards, student performance, and charitable-giving boards? Might see a somewhat different view of Barchi.
 
Okay.....And then what? You keep shouting this like it means something. So he didn't watch them. So what??? He is running a University.

From where I sit, it was smart of him to not watch them. Athletics at Rutgers is a lightning rod for political criticism, scandal, and negative press. Its very smart to let the AD handle athletics issues. If he had watched the tapes, he probably would have lost his job when Pernetti made the idiotic decision to backtrack and admit wrongdoing.


he is running a university and when alerted to a tape that had devastating consequences he didnt give a shit..fact
 
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I'll take my source over your "source" any day of the week.

You aren't paying attention. Which is weird, what with you being so smart and everyone else being so dumb.

Whatever your source is has no bearing on this. Upstream claimed that Pernetti was told he could fire Rice, but he could not fire him "for cause" and therefore, if he fired him, he would have to come up with the funds to fund the buyout and the new coach's salary.

You said that per your inside source, that was "BS."

So that means your inside source told you something different, which can only be (1) Pernetti was told he could fire Rice for cause, and he chose not to, or alternatively, (2) Pernetti was told he could not fire Rice at all, whether he had the money or not.

Neither of those makes any sense. And ultimately, the problem you have either way is that Pernetti wasn't fired for firing or not firing Rice. He was fired for saying he handled it improperly. If Pernetti stuck to his guns on the suspension, he wouldn't have been fired at all.
 
he is running a university and when alerted to a tape that had devastating consequences he didnt give a shit..fact

Well, you characterize it as not giving a shit. I characterize it as delegating. But let's play this out, because is that your only issue? That Barchi delegated something he should not have?

If Barchi had viewed the tape, what do you think would have happened differently?
 
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maybe alot. Barchi would have taken responsibility and ordered the firing of Rice and RU would never have been smeared and maybe Pernetti would still be AD and we have save ourselves embarrassment and ridicule
 
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Perhaps we are blaming Barchi too much … any chance that they didn't have helmets when he played football at Georgetown? :WideSmile:
 
maybe alot. Barchi would have taken responsibility and ordered the firing of Rice and RU would never have been smeared and maybe Pernetti would still be AD and we have save ourselves embarrassment and ridicule

So you think Barchi would have recognized that Pernetti was making a mistake in suspending Rice, and not firing him. In your eyes, Barchi's error was not protecting the school from Pernetti's incompetent decision-making.

Of course that might not be what would have happened. Barchi may have agreed with Pernetti that a suspension was fine. If that had happened, they probably both would have lost their jobs.

As I have said many many times, I don't think it mattered whether we suspended or fired Rice. THe reason is blew up into a scandal, and the reason Pernetti lost his job, was because of the utter failure to deal with the media after the story. Keep in mind...this was a recycled scandal. It was old news when it broke.
 
So let's ignore Pernetti and Barchi, because either of them might spin the story to make themselves look good. So that leaves Wolf, Purcaro, and Hershorn who have first-hand knowledge of the events. And I know that at least one of them have indicated that Pernetti could have fired Rice but chose not to.
Again I'll say my source is closer than 3rd party source. I will also say the spin after that disaster was complete nonsense. It saved Barchi's job.
 
You aren't paying attention. Which is weird, what with you being so smart and everyone else being so dumb.

Whatever your source is has no bearing on this. Upstream claimed that Pernetti was told he could fire Rice, but he could not fire him "for cause" and therefore, if he fired him, he would have to come up with the funds to fund the buyout and the new coach's salary.

You said that per your inside source, that was "BS."

So that means your inside source told you something different, which can only be (1) Pernetti was told he could fire Rice for cause, and he chose not to, or alternatively, (2) Pernetti was told he could not fire Rice at all, whether he had the money or not.

Neither of those makes any sense. And ultimately, the problem you have either way is that Pernetti wasn't fired for firing or not firing Rice. He was fired for saying he handled it improperly. If Pernetti stuck to his guns on the suspension, he wouldn't have been fired at all.
Believe what you want. I'll stick with the facts. You can continue with your theories. You have zero clue about the corporate world if you really think Pernetti had the ability to fire someone. It doesn't work that way. Small business of course. A University. Yeah not a chance. Flood and Herman were fired by who?? Not Barchi.
 
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he is running a university and when alerted to a tape that had devastating consequences he didnt give a shit..fact
Oh, poof, you and your silly facts. How dare you denigrate the name of our hallowed Saint Bobbi! Without him Henry Rutgers would never have donated that bell which signifies the greatness of our University.
 
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So you think Barchi would have recognized that Pernetti was making a mistake in suspending Rice, and not firing him. In your eyes, Barchi's error was not protecting the school from Pernetti's incompetent decision-making.

Of course that might not be what would have happened. Barchi may have agreed with Pernetti that a suspension was fine. If that had happened, they probably both would have lost their jobs.

As I have said many many times, I don't think it mattered whether we suspended or fired Rice. THe reason is blew up into a scandal, and the reason Pernetti lost his job, was because of the utter failure to deal with the media after the story. Keep in mind...this was a recycled scandal. It was old news when it broke.


well I agreed, Pernetti handled that terribly, he knew it would come out and had no plan. He either should have paid Murdock off or released the tape himself
 
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People castigate Barchi, but I believe his hands were tied by the Fat Man, who didn’t want Rutgers blowing the budget on Athletics. President McCormick gave Schiano a huge contract in 2007, and yet in 2012, we couldn’t pay the same salary for a legitimate replacement? We started Kyle Flood at 750K, which was simply embarrassing. Could have had Cristobal for $2M.

Following, we made another cheapskate hire in Chris Ash, who had never been a head coach, and got $2M per. The one constant, the Fat Man. I don’t think it was a coincidence that the purse strings loosened once Phil Murphy got involved in the Rutgers Football Coaching search, and Schiano got his $32M deal.
 
Believe what you want. I'll stick with the facts. You can continue with your theories. You have zero clue about the corporate world if you really think Pernetti had the ability to fire someone. It doesn't work that way. Small business of course. A University. Yeah not a chance. Flood and Herman were fired by who?? Not Barchi.

You are so friggin dense its comical. You have an inability to follow the conversation.

To cut to the chase, you are choosing option 2 from my post above.... you're telling me Pernetti did not have the authority to fire Rice at all, even if he had the money to do so. Heck, you are taking it a step further and saying not even Barchi had that authority. Right?

Okay. So then what did Barchi do wrong? That is where this started...you blame Barchi for it, but now you are admitting that not even Barchi could have fired Rice unilaterally. So what, exactly, do you blame Barchi for? Did Barchi tell Pernetti to give an idiotic interview and blame himself for mishandling it? Of course he didn't. TIm did that all on his own, and got himself fired for it.

This really is not rocket science. This is why I keep saying your "source" is irrelevant. TP was not fired for letting Mike Rice off with a suspension. He was fired for doing a 180 in a tough interview, and throwing himself under the bus. He was no politician. Thank goodness Barchi was smarter than Tim.
 
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well I agreed, Pernetti handled that terribly, he knew it would come out and had no plan. He either should have paid Murdock off or released the tape himself

Its really just this simple. Pernetti was a dummy, who was well out of his depth. He didn't know how to play the politics associated with it, and caved under the pressure. Barchi kept his nose clean of a toxic situation and survived it. You can blame him for that, you can say he should have gotten in the trenches and handled it - maybe even saved Tim's ass....perhaps. I get it. He didn't do that, but he did live to fight another day. He did a lot of good for the school after that.
 
You're preaching to the choir.

I have always said that, if I were Tim Pernetti, the only thing I get fired for is firing Mike Rice against the wishes of anyone who, theoretically, may have instructed otherwise. That's a hill you die on.

Still a mystery how such a media genius as we were told he was was not calling everyone in the state to watch the video and force a move. He seemed to not grasp how bad it would be.
 
I may be remembering this wrong but didn't Pernetti go to counsel and ask to fire Rice but was told he couldn't? Didn't Pernetti then suspend Rice and put in a plan where a moderator would watch practices to make sure Rice was under control? Isn't it the responsibility of the president of Rutgers to address a situation he was told about by an administrator and yet he didn't do anything about it? We all know Pernetti completely mishandled the release of the video tape, but I think he did what he was supposed to prior to the video going to the press.
 
I may be remembering this wrong but didn't Pernetti go to counsel and ask to fire Rice but was told he couldn't? Didn't Pernetti then suspend Rice and put in a plan where a moderator would watch practices to make sure Rice was under control? Isn't it the responsibility of the president of Rutgers to address a situation he was told about by an administrator and yet he didn't do anything about it? We all know Pernetti completely mishandled the release of the video tape, but I think he did what he was supposed to prior to the video going to the press.

Where I think he could have done better is make clear to Barchi what was on the tape. I find it hard to believe Barchi would have not taken action upon hearing the MBB coach was throwing bballs at heads and saying "Lithuanian f*****." If he did it was time for Pernetti to call Christie or someone else and get their attention. It seems like it was just watch this video and Barchi couldn't get the video to work and no action was taken to really describe it.
 
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