I understand. We have been through this before. There is a big difference between capital investments and the operating budget. I am specifically talking about the operating budget used to pay assistant coaches and to fund recruiting trips. Morgan did what he could. He had the capital funds but Cordova cut the operating budgets.
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- Thread starter hunkgolden
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I wasn't thinking it required a thesis, I was just curious about what you would have done differently. I didn't intend to make it difficult. I'm not disagreeing with you, by the way. Your comments sounded deeper than the typical MB posts we see here:
Post 1: "Morgan Burke SUCKED!"
Replies: "YEAH!"
More posts: "And he was a TIGHTWAD!"
Follow up posts: "YEAH!"
I can leave the topic alone, but our facilities made tremendous strides after getting quite stale over the years, and much of it started under Burke.
Either we're interested in the concept of the amateur student/athlete, or it's only about the money. I've seen people b*tch and moan about the money in college sports, but when improvements were made to "olympic" programs, people b*tch about that. Seems like a no-win situation, so I'm interested in what the priorities should have been.
IMO the argument itself it fairly simple. In order for those olympic programs to thrive, you have to have a healthy financial situation. When the cash cow programs (football and basketball) suffer, revenue drops, and all sports suffer. Putting the money first toward the needs of those two sports to at least remain at a competitive Big Ten level isn't being "only about the money". It isn't really even about putting those programs first. It's about maintaining a healthy and stable athletic department. The Big Ten money helps a lot and has covered up some mistakes, but prioritization also matters because everyone in the conference is getting that money, too.
I believe the big mistake was thinking that football was on good enough footing after Tiller's success, that bowl games would continue with existing facilities and pay structure, and moving on to other priorities too quickly. There was the investment in partially renovating Ross-Ade, but that was a big investment that really did nothing for the athletes/recruits or to improve the product on the field or even the gameday experience for most fans.
More investment in football when things were rolling (think what Tiller or even Hope could have done recruiting-wise with the new football performance center) probably would have avoided the 2012-2016 depths altogether, meaning a much bigger war chest for the entire AD over the past 10-15 years. And with those extra monies the other facilities could have easily been addressed right after the football upgrades.
Some of this was within Burke's control. Some was not. As the presiding AD he is the one who will own it.
I can flesh this out more if you would like, but in short, We should have done all of the football and basketball facilities first, to the point where they were in the top half of the big 10 before doing any of the Olympic sport facilities. (Every time I see that stupid tent in the south end zone, I think of the Morgue.)
Also should have brought football and basketball coaching pay up to the top half of the B1G, before addressing the nonrevenue sports.
In my opinion, he didn’t allocate the capital funds properly either. We’ve got world-class soccer, baseball, softball, tennis, swimming facilities etc. etc., but Ross-Ades not finished yet.
I won't disagree there. I would have done some different things with the capital funds. All that has little to do with the true impact of the operating budget cuts that forced all 3 major sports into the toilet. That result lies firmly at the feet of Cordova and not Burke.
Again, I completely disagree. If Ross-Ade, Mackey, and the football Performance Center would have been done sooner and/or better, our recruiting would’ve been a lot better for the last 10 to 15 years in both sports.
Facilities matter. A lot. It’s no coincidence that IU blew past us in football recruiting right after they blew passed us in football facilities.
I agree with this. Burke wasn’t great but he also had a completely different hand dealt him compared to the support MBob is getting. There wasn’t a pile of $60MM sitting around waiting to build a football complex when Burke was here.
That's a valid point, BB.
I'm still stunned at the sheer ignorance (lack of knowledge) so many have, as to how the university operates. An AD is only as good as his/her boss, which (technically) is the President. The AD has to go through the President to get to the BoT, and it's the BoT's responsibility to approve spending massive amounts of money (coaches contracts, new buildings/renovations, priorities, etc.).
He's certainly fair game for criticism, as just like everyone else Burke had his issues.
But, people who insist on using Burke as a punching bag are doing nothing but exposing said ignorance, and a lack of curiosity.
That doesn’t excuse the prioritizing of Olympic sport facilities over the basketball and football facilities.
