DrJackRyan {l Wrote}:Questions for Rooney
A.) Was Stan Heath a good hire as an assistant or a bad hire? If a good hire, why would a good coach work for (indirectly) Fr. Leahy?
B.) Is this year's incoming recruiting basketball class a relatively good one or a poor one? If poor, why. How does this class compare to Al Skinner's last three recruiting classes?
C.) In retrospect, do you still think it was a bad idea to fire Coach Spaziani? [Sorry, wrong board. Please answer anyway]
D.) Considering that you blame all of Coach Spaziani's problems with the football program on Fr. Leah why has Coach Addazzio had much better results even if Fr. Leahy is still in charge? [Sorry, wrong board. Please answer anyway]
E.) If Fr. Leahy is so terrible and alumni giving is a sign of that, why is Boston College's endowment 50% bigger than Georgetown, 300% time bigger than Holy Cross, 500% bigger than Villanova, 1000% times bigger than Providence College?
F.) Is coaching turnover at Boston College typical of most other schools? Or is Boston College an outlier? In the past you have tried to argue that Boston College is unique in the amount of coaching turnover, including firings. Do you still believe that?
D.) Do you still think that going to the ACC was a bad move for Boston College?
F.) Do you believe that if Notre Dame had joined the Big East for football that the Big East probably would still exist?
G.) Are you planning to travelling to Ireland for BC's football game in Ireland? Do you think this is something good for the Boston College football/athletic programs?
H.) Why are players leaving the Boston College basketball program proof that the program is in free fall, but players leaving Providence College is not proof of trouble with the program?
I believe that these are substantive questions, the type of which you claim folks here don't engage in.
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Nice effort at substance, Dr. Jack,
My replies:
A. Who knows what impact a twice-failed coach will have? The folks here seem to hail him as the second coming of Coach Wooden. Why?
Reality: the guy is here because he needed a job. Period.
B. Too early to assess the class until the first ball is tossed upward by the ref. But I'm tired of reading 5 years of hyperbole about players who did little, if anything, to keep us out of the bottom of the ACC. Al had a disappointing last year, BUT his THIRTEEN year record was excellent - and likely far better than the current lackluster staff will produce until they, too, are axed.
C & D. This is a basketball board.
E. I don't know if your comparative figures are correct. Assuming they are, the answer is easy. ALL this administration cares about is money. Have you noticed the size of the Development staff? The turnover there if quotas are not met? When is the last time this regime did anything FOR alums? Of all the letters from the school, what percentage address donations? About 100%, I'd estimate.
F. I know of no other place of comparable size which has cashiered or otherwise lost the total # of HCs in football and hoops (both sexes) that alma mater has since the current regime took over. Do you? I also know of no place which for years paid so much money to fired coaches to NOT coach. Do you?
Your second D: If cash is your God (as is true with this CE0), the move made sense. But if being competitive - or honorably leaving the BE - or any concern that deception by the top should not happen at a nominally Catholic school - or if you want fans to not take out a second mortgage to travel to an away game - are factors, then the move was regrettable. Aside from revenue, what good does it do the school to have the nation see all those empty seats at Conte, see the vise grip we have on the bottom sphere of standings, see more people jumping ship than any of the world's navies has experienced?
Your second F: Nonsense question because ND was never joining the BE for football.
G. Where I go is my business, not yours. To paraphrase the most recently impeached POTUS, the answer to your second question depends on that the meaning of "good" is.
H. Why this fetish with Providence? Who knows what goes on there?
We do know, however, that we lost 2 rising co-captains, another starter to Davidson, a supposed recruiting wonder asst. HC to Creighton after just one year, all for an outflow composite that is striking.
From what I read about Providence though, they lost fewer folks than we have over the last 5 years. They also won a conference title in that time. They also went to the last 2 NCAAs, and damn near beat UNC in the first one. They draw sellout crowds at home. To say nothing about the quality of their HC vs our last 2.
By contrast, we have failed by comparison in each of those criteria.
And PC is not alone in leaving BC in the dust. Look at Nova, ND, G'town, Gonzaga and several others - all of them make us look like Catholic Memorial. And it should not be long before Marquette, St. John's and Creighton do the same.
BC once attracted stars like Abrams, Adams, Agbai, Austin, Bagley, Barros, Bell, Curley, Driscoll, Dudley, Eisley, Evans, Huckaby, Jackson, McCready, Murphy, O'Brien, Rice, Smith, Williams, et al.
Those days are gone.
And who is responsible for that?