tequila4kapp said:

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gardenstatebear said:

---

tequila4kapp said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

Econ141 said:

---

Golden One said:

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wifeisafurd said:

---

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your reporting on Christ and her involvement in saving football. Thank you.



Bottom line is the Chancellor is all in on football. Otherwise she is wasting way too much of her time dealing with conference realignment (which is about football) for no good reason. Calling a strategy that makes no practical sense a strategic discussion, still doesn't make the strategy have any logic behind it.

---

You have got to be kidding in saying that the Chancellor is all in on football. Seems to me that it would be hard to imagine a chancellor being more disinterested and disengaged from football than Chancellor Christ is. If she were truly "all in on football" she would not put up with the crap that Justin Wilcox and his staff are delivering on the field for 6 years with more years to come. If anything, she is leading the demise of the football program at Cal.

---

The optics from on field performance and GameDay experience seem to back up this view. It's like they are trying to prepare us for the end of Cal football.

---

You are assuming that she is okay with the football team's performance and especially the GameDay experience, Those would be very incorrect assumptions. I have personally heard her go off on the game experience in front of someone in the AD's office. She is not a sports expert, and the AD negotiated the contract with Wilcox. I think it has become clear that the AD has strong points, but managing revenue sports, football and basketball, is not one of them. You could do far, far worse as I look at the Pac Presidents and past Chancellors in terms of supporting football. She may be the reason there was a football season in 2020. We might still have Larry Scott as Pac commissioner if it wasn't for her. The guys on this board really have no appreciation all she is doing behind the scenes. That said, unless you have $25 million, Wilcox is staying the coach. Let's hope Wilcox can pull it together and turn around the team, because a lot is riding on him to do so. As for football being financially supported and in the best conference, she is personally involved and engaged, and personally reaching out to donors. Probably more engaged than she should be, but she chose her AD and has to live with that decision. I really can't understand why a chancellor has to be the one addressing basketball teams specifics with reporters, except her AD isn't up to the part of the job. Yes, the optics are bad, but what she said about other things also mattering beside wins (presumably quality of student athlete experience at school) sounds like something any school President would say, and seems to be taken to extremes by some posters. The guy making the decision on retaining basketball coaches at most school not named Duke or Kansas, is supposed to be the AD.

---

---

Wifeofafurd, I really appreciate your detailed response. I just wanted to comment on her quote about other things mattering beside winning and losing. This quote seems to outrage some here, but it shouldn't. As you say, any school president would say the same. In fact, everybody here would say the same. If the accusations against Teri McKeever prove true, then nobody would want to keep her despite her swimmers' successes. Hardly anyone here approved of the football recruiter (I forget his name) who brought in a bunch of athletes who didn't have the academic capability to succeed . (I've read that our football APR was 48% at one point!) No one would want a coach,no matter how many wins he or she had, who committed NCAA rule violations that got our team in trouble. (I am so old I remember that we were stripped of a track & field championship because of sanctions arising -- I think -- from the recruitment of Isaac Curtis.)

So there's nothing wrong with what she said. Nor have the decisions made during her chancellorship been as awful as some here depict. It was not unreasonable to extend Wilcox at a time when the team seemed on the upswing and he was being sought elsewhere. As terrible as the basketball team seems to be (I'm basing this on Jim Gillis's detailed report on the UC Davis game), keeping Fox was a defensible decision. Yes, Knowlton seems like an odd hire, but my understanding is that he has been a pretty good fund-raiser, and an AD needs to be an excellent fund-raiser.

So, as I suggested above, some posters are giving her a bad rap.That doesn't mean I'm happy with where things are. I wish our coaches were more effective. I believe all the posters who say the game experience has deteriorated.All these are areas in which progress has to be made -- soon! But laying our problems at Christ's feet is unfair.

---

Fully guaranteeing JW's contract and keeping Fox are indefensible.

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calumnus said:

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Golden One said:

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GivemTheAxe said:

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Golden One said:

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calumnus said:

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Golden One said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Econ141 said:

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l.

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Does the name Tom Holmoe ring a bell?

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Yes, indeed. And he has been re-incarnated with a new name--Justin Wilcox.

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Yet, Wilcox is better at being a head coach (poor) than Knowlton is at being an AD (horrible) and Christ is at picking an AD (horrible). The ridiculous and unprecedented raises and contract extensions prove that.

At least Wilcox "only" gave Baldwin and Musgrave 3 seasons each. Knowlton gave Wilcox 11 and Christ gave Knowlton 13.

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gardenstatebear said:

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Wifeofafurd, I really appreciate your detailed response. I just wanted to comment on her quote about other things mattering beside winning and losing. This quote seems to outrage some here, but it shouldn't. As you say, any school president would say the same. In fact, everybody here would say the same. If the accusations against Teri McKeever prove true, then nobody would want to keep her despite her swimmers' successes. Hardly anyone here approved of the football recruiter (I forget his name) who brought in a bunch of athletes who didn't have the academic capability to succeed . (I've read that our football APR was 48% at one point!) No one would want a coach,no matter how many wins he or she had, who committed NCAA rule violations that got our team in trouble. (I am so old I remember that we were stripped of a track & field championship because of sanctions arising -- I think -- from the recruitment of Isaac Curtis.)

So there's nothing wrong with what she said. Nor have the decisions made during her chancellorship been as awful as some here depict. It was not unreasonable to extend Wilcox at a time when the team seemed on the upswing and he was being sought elsewhere. As terrible as the basketball team seems to be (I'm basing this on Jim Gillis's detailed report on the UC Davis game), keeping Fox was a defensible decision. Yes, Knowlton seems like an odd hire, but my understanding is that he has been a pretty good fund-raiser, and an AD needs to be an excellent fund-raiser.

So, as I suggested above, some posters are giving her a bad rap.That doesn't mean I'm happy with where things are. I wish our coaches were more effective. I believe all the posters who say the game experience has deteriorated.All these are areas in which progress has to be made -- soon! But laying our problems at Christ's feet is unfair.

---

calumnus said:

---

philbert said:

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gardenstatebear said:

---

Wifeofafurd, I really appreciate your detailed response. I just wanted to comment on her quote about other things mattering beside winning and losing. This quote seems to outrage some here, but it shouldn't. As you say, any school president would say the same. In fact, everybody here would say the same. If the accusations against Teri McKeever prove true, then nobody would want to keep her despite her swimmers' successes. Hardly anyone here approved of the football recruiter (I forget his name) who brought in a bunch of athletes who didn't have the academic capability to succeed . (I've read that our football APR was 48% at one point!) No one would want a coach,no matter how many wins he or she had, who committed NCAA rule violations that got our team in trouble. (I am so old I remember that we were stripped of a track & field championship because of sanctions arising -- I think -- from the recruitment of Isaac Curtis.)

So there's nothing wrong with what she said. Nor have the decisions made during her chancellorship been as awful as some here depict. It was not unreasonable to extend Wilcox at a time when the team seemed on the upswing and he was being sought elsewhere. As terrible as the basketball team seems to be (I'm basing this on Jim Gillis's detailed report on the UC Davis game), keeping Fox was a defensible decision. Yes, Knowlton seems like an odd hire, but my understanding is that he has been a pretty good fund-raiser, and an AD needs to be an excellent fund-raiser.

So, as I suggested above, some posters are giving her a bad rap.That doesn't mean I'm happy with where things are. I wish our coaches were more effective. I believe all the posters who say the game experience has deteriorated.All these are areas in which progress has to be made -- soon! But laying our problems at Christ's feet is unfair.

---

You mean To$h and his (alleged) coffee cup? I'm pretty sure there is a fairly large contingent that would love to welcome him back

---

.

No one cares about the paper cup. It was his intensionally destroying our top recruiting class on our dime, not just to benefit his new boss at Washington (Justin Wilcox) but UCLA and the rest of the conference and the both of them doing damage to Tedford, the guy who gave them their big breaks and for Tosh, his alma mater.

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Oski87 said:

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PtownBear1 said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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gardenstatebear said:

---

tequila4kapp said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

Econ141 said:

---

Golden One said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your reporting on Christ and her involvement in saving football. Thank you.



Bottom line is the Chancellor is all in on football. Otherwise she is wasting way too much of her time dealing with conference realignment (which is about football) for no good reason. Calling a strategy that makes no practical sense a strategic discussion, still doesn't make the strategy have any logic behind it.

---

You have got to be kidding in saying that the Chancellor is all in on football. Seems to me that it would be hard to imagine a chancellor being more disinterested and disengaged from football than Chancellor Christ is. If she were truly "all in on football" she would not put up with the crap that Justin Wilcox and his staff are delivering on the field for 6 years with more years to come. If anything, she is leading the demise of the football program at Cal.

---

The optics from on field performance and GameDay experience seem to back up this view. It's like they are trying to prepare us for the end of Cal football.

---

You are assuming that she is okay with the football team's performance and especially the GameDay experience, Those would be very incorrect assumptions. I have personally heard her go off on the game experience in front of someone in the AD's office. She is not a sports expert, and the AD negotiated the contract with Wilcox. I think it has become clear that the AD has strong points, but managing revenue sports, football and basketball, is not one of them. You could do far, far worse as I look at the Pac Presidents and past Chancellors in terms of supporting football. She may be the reason there was a football season in 2020. We might still have Larry Scott as Pac commissioner if it wasn't for her. The guys on this board really have no appreciation all she is doing behind the scenes. That said, unless you have $25 million, Wilcox is staying the coach. Let's hope Wilcox can pull it together and turn around the team, because a lot is riding on him to do so. As for football being financially supported and in the best conference, she is personally involved and engaged, and personally reaching out to donors. Probably more engaged than she should be, but she chose her AD and has to live with that decision. I really can't understand why a chancellor has to be the one addressing basketball teams specifics with reporters, except her AD isn't up to the part of the job. Yes, the optics are bad, but what she said about other things also mattering beside wins (presumably quality of student athlete experience at school) sounds like something any school President would say, and seems to be taken to extremes by some posters. The guy making the decision on retaining basketball coaches at most school not named Duke or Kansas, is supposed to be the AD.

---

---

Wifeofafurd, I really appreciate your detailed response. I just wanted to comment on her quote about other things mattering beside winning and losing. This quote seems to outrage some here, but it shouldn't. As you say, any school president would say the same. In fact, everybody here would say the same. If the accusations against Teri McKeever prove true, then nobody would want to keep her despite her swimmers' successes. Hardly anyone here approved of the football recruiter (I forget his name) who brought in a bunch of athletes who didn't have the academic capability to succeed . (I've read that our football APR was 48% at one point!) No one would want a coach,no matter how many wins he or she had, who committed NCAA rule violations that got our team in trouble. (I am so old I remember that we were stripped of a track & field championship because of sanctions arising -- I think -- from the recruitment of Isaac Curtis.)

So there's nothing wrong with what she said. Nor have the decisions made during her chancellorship been as awful as some here depict. It was not unreasonable to extend Wilcox at a time when the team seemed on the upswing and he was being sought elsewhere. As terrible as the basketball team seems to be (I'm basing this on Jim Gillis's detailed report on the UC Davis game), keeping Fox was a defensible decision. Yes, Knowlton seems like an odd hire, but my understanding is that he has been a pretty good fund-raiser, and an AD needs to be an excellent fund-raiser.

So, as I suggested above, some posters are giving her a bad rap.That doesn't mean I'm happy with where things are. I wish our coaches were more effective. I believe all the posters who say the game experience has deteriorated.All these are areas in which progress has to be made -- soon! But laying our problems at Christ's feet is unfair.

---

Fully guaranteeing JW's contract and keeping Fox are indefensible.

---

I wasn't taking issue with any of that, and you can infer what I think about those two actions from my comments. I was trying to address the claims about her not supporting football.

---

I'm sorry to pile on, but it just simply doesn't reconcile to me that someone can care about the well-being of Cal's revenue sports, yet also employ and support someone like Knowlton.

---

This focus on Fox, Knowlton and Wilcox and the contracts seems to be an issue that some can't get around. That is just an issue of money. People get fired all the time. An additonal year or two of crappy revenue sports will not matter in the long run.

The big thing for the Chancellor - right now - is to get the University and Athletics right - organizationally. She is frankly not going to be hiring and firing coaches. She is raising funds, looking strategically at conferences, how that impacts her University from a global perspective, and building on campus facilities which will enable all of that to come to fruition, and building the right funding mechanisms to make that a long term success.

Fox and Wilcox will be gone in three years - or else coaching much differently. New coaches and ADs will be there. But we will also be building a new facility for basketball, have the Title 9 sports courts completed, have new housing for students, have a quarter billion dollar (and growing) athletics endowment helping to fund more effectively the Olympic sports, and perhaps be in an new conference, or else making more money form the PAC 12 than we have been making. Read the master plan and the Light the way stuff to see what she is focused on.

If you want to be pissed about her comments on winning and losing...well, I guess you have not been a Cal fan for long. But if you want to tear down the only chancellor in my lifetime who is actually doing ANYTHING about athletics, I think you are ridiculous (although not you specifically, but the broader anti-Chryst cabal).

---

CaliforniaEternal said:

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I think we all agree that leadership needs to focus on righting the ship organizationally. I just don't see that focus happening on the one thing that matters to the overall health of the organization - the football program. Specifically, the things that UC can control - the admin and coaching staff, gameday experience, and help with recruiting better athletes by offering more academic support and more flexible accommodations for working around the football schedule.

The conference realignment issue is critical and it's essential to have a good landing spot to keep athletics afloat but that on its own isn't going to change the trajectory of how the dept. is run.

The capital projects for softball and beach volleyball are lovely for compliance but they offer no ROI. The basketball practice court plan also contain a gymnastics gym taking up a good part of the space. Basketball alone barely moves the needle. Nine figure investments and there won't be much to show for it. Meanwhile for football, nothing.

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dimitrig said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Oski87 said:

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PtownBear1 said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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tequila4kapp said:

---

gardenstatebear said:

---

tequila4kapp said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

Econ141 said:

---

Golden One said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your reporting on Christ and her involvement in saving football. Thank you.



Bottom line is the Chancellor is all in on football. Otherwise she is wasting way too much of her time dealing with conference realignment (which is about football) for no good reason. Calling a strategy that makes no practical sense a strategic discussion, still doesn't make the strategy have any logic behind it.

---

You have got to be kidding in saying that the Chancellor is all in on football. Seems to me that it would be hard to imagine a chancellor being more disinterested and disengaged from football than Chancellor Christ is. If she were truly "all in on football" she would not put up with the crap that Justin Wilcox and his staff are delivering on the field for 6 years with more years to come. If anything, she is leading the demise of the football program at Cal.

---

The optics from on field performance and GameDay experience seem to back up this view. It's like they are trying to prepare us for the end of Cal football.

---

You are assuming that she is okay with the football team's performance and especially the GameDay experience, Those would be very incorrect assumptions. I have personally heard her go off on the game experience in front of someone in the AD's office. She is not a sports expert, and the AD negotiated the contract with Wilcox. I think it has become clear that the AD has strong points, but managing revenue sports, football and basketball, is not one of them. You could do far, far worse as I look at the Pac Presidents and past Chancellors in terms of supporting football. She may be the reason there was a football season in 2020. We might still have Larry Scott as Pac commissioner if it wasn't for her. The guys on this board really have no appreciation all she is doing behind the scenes. That said, unless you have $25 million, Wilcox is staying the coach. Let's hope Wilcox can pull it together and turn around the team, because a lot is riding on him to do so. As for football being financially supported and in the best conference, she is personally involved and engaged, and personally reaching out to donors. Probably more engaged than she should be, but she chose her AD and has to live with that decision. I really can't understand why a chancellor has to be the one addressing basketball teams specifics with reporters, except her AD isn't up to the part of the job. Yes, the optics are bad, but what she said about other things also mattering beside wins (presumably quality of student athlete experience at school) sounds like something any school President would say, and seems to be taken to extremes by some posters. The guy making the decision on retaining basketball coaches at most school not named Duke or Kansas, is supposed to be the AD.

---

---

Wifeofafurd, I really appreciate your detailed response. I just wanted to comment on her quote about other things mattering beside winning and losing. This quote seems to outrage some here, but it shouldn't. As you say, any school president would say the same. In fact, everybody here would say the same. If the accusations against Teri McKeever prove true, then nobody would want to keep her despite her swimmers' successes. Hardly anyone here approved of the football recruiter (I forget his name) who brought in a bunch of athletes who didn't have the academic capability to succeed . (I've read that our football APR was 48% at one point!) No one would want a coach,no matter how many wins he or she had, who committed NCAA rule violations that got our team in trouble. (I am so old I remember that we were stripped of a track & field championship because of sanctions arising -- I think -- from the recruitment of Isaac Curtis.)

So there's nothing wrong with what she said. Nor have the decisions made during her chancellorship been as awful as some here depict. It was not unreasonable to extend Wilcox at a time when the team seemed on the upswing and he was being sought elsewhere. As terrible as the basketball team seems to be (I'm basing this on Jim Gillis's detailed report on the UC Davis game), keeping Fox was a defensible decision. Yes, Knowlton seems like an odd hire, but my understanding is that he has been a pretty good fund-raiser, and an AD needs to be an excellent fund-raiser.

So, as I suggested above, some posters are giving her a bad rap.That doesn't mean I'm happy with where things are. I wish our coaches were more effective. I believe all the posters who say the game experience has deteriorated.All these are areas in which progress has to be made -- soon! But laying our problems at Christ's feet is unfair.

---

Fully guaranteeing JW's contract and keeping Fox are indefensible.

---

I wasn't taking issue with any of that, and you can infer what I think about those two actions from my comments. I was trying to address the claims about her not supporting football.

---

I'm sorry to pile on, but it just simply doesn't reconcile to me that someone can care about the well-being of Cal's revenue sports, yet also employ and support someone like Knowlton.

---

This focus on Fox, Knowlton and Wilcox and the contracts seems to be an issue that some can't get around. That is just an issue of money. People get fired all the time. An additonal year or two of crappy revenue sports will not matter in the long run.

The big thing for the Chancellor - right now - is to get the University and Athletics right - organizationally. She is frankly not going to be hiring and firing coaches. She is raising funds, looking strategically at conferences, how that impacts her University from a global perspective, and building on campus facilities which will enable all of that to come to fruition, and building the right funding mechanisms to make that a long term success.

Fox and Wilcox will be gone in three years - or else coaching much differently. New coaches and ADs will be there. But we will also be building a new facility for basketball, have the Title 9 sports courts completed, have new housing for students, have a quarter billion dollar (and growing) athletics endowment helping to fund more effectively the Olympic sports, and perhaps be in an new conference, or else making more money form the PAC 12 than we have been making. Read the master plan and the Light the way stuff to see what she is focused on.

If you want to be pissed about her comments on winning and losing...well, I guess you have not been a Cal fan for long. But if you want to tear down the only chancellor in my lifetime who is actually doing ANYTHING about athletics, I think you are ridiculous (although not you specifically, but the broader anti-Chryst cabal).

---

Well said. My own two cents is that when you see posters say moronic things like a university President should be publicly blasting the head football coach (and people up thumb that post), you understand why there is insider board and people on that site generally don't come on this site, or want to share Information over here.

---

I am not so sure that surrounding oneself with like-minded individuals is the best way to gauge how the fan base (and thus donors and supporters to Cal) feels about what is going on with Cal athletics.

In the world of the Insiders things are always going swimmingly and there is always reason for optimism, but one doesn't need to be an Insider to see how things are actually going on the field/court/pool.

---

calumnus said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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It is a battle (Knowlton and JW contracts) vs the war (B1G invite / P12 viability) thing for me with Christ. The former indicated potential indifference about the latter. I really appreciate WIAF's reporting on Christ being DEEPLY involved in the latter. We can be as pissed as we want about the contracts. If Christ can't deliver on the conference stuff those contracts won't matter because we won't have sports programs. I for one find it VERY encouraging that she is all in on that.

---

I am heartened that we have our best Victorian literature professor/academic leader on the job working hard given the person she hired to run the athletic department.

I am also glad that they see the main solution is "organizational changes" ie everyone below them and not the two people at the top making the $million salaries who put us in this situation with their hiring and ridiculous contract extensions.

I am further gladdened that they learned from the football situation that spending half a $billion on sports buildings for sports that they may have to discontinue within the next decade due to their mishandling coaching decisions in the revenue sports is a great investment and will save all our programs, rather than participating in a big way with NIL. I am sure the next chancellor will appreciate having to maintain the empty facilities.

I am also glad they have surrounded themselves with Cal alums that support their thinking.

---

Some details on UC Board of Regents plans for the UCLA action item on Thursday pic.twitter.com/Aqnx1IWz4W

— Jon Wilner (@wilnerhotline) November 15, 2022

PtownBear1 said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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It is a battle (Knowlton and JW contracts) vs the war (B1G invite / P12 viability) thing for me with Christ. The former indicated potential indifference about the latter. I really appreciate WIAF's reporting on Christ being DEEPLY involved in the latter. We can be as pissed as we want about the contracts. If Christ can't deliver on the conference stuff those contracts won't matter because we won't have sports programs. I for one find it VERY encouraging that she is all in on that.

---

But if she had hired someone competent to run the athletics department, would it really be such a battle now to try to join the B1G? With the Bay Area media market and Cal's academic profile, I can't imagine it would have been if we had respectable football and basketball teams.

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6956bear said:

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Oski87 said:

---

PtownBear1 said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

tequila4kapp said:

---

gardenstatebear said:

---

tequila4kapp said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

Econ141 said:

---

Golden One said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your reporting on Christ and her involvement in saving football. Thank you.



Bottom line is the Chancellor is all in on football. Otherwise she is wasting way too much of her time dealing with conference realignment (which is about football) for no good reason. Calling a strategy that makes no practical sense a strategic discussion, still doesn't make the strategy have any logic behind it.

---

You have got to be kidding in saying that the Chancellor is all in on football. Seems to me that it would be hard to imagine a chancellor being more disinterested and disengaged from football than Chancellor Christ is. If she were truly "all in on football" she would not put up with the crap that Justin Wilcox and his staff are delivering on the field for 6 years with more years to come. If anything, she is leading the demise of the football program at Cal.

---

The optics from on field performance and GameDay experience seem to back up this view. It's like they are trying to prepare us for the end of Cal football.

---

You are assuming that she is okay with the football team's performance and especially the GameDay experience, Those would be very incorrect assumptions. I have personally heard her go off on the game experience in front of someone in the AD's office. She is not a sports expert, and the AD negotiated the contract with Wilcox. I think it has become clear that the AD has strong points, but managing revenue sports, football and basketball, is not one of them. You could do far, far worse as I look at the Pac Presidents and past Chancellors in terms of supporting football. She may be the reason there was a football season in 2020. We might still have Larry Scott as Pac commissioner if it wasn't for her. The guys on this board really have no appreciation all she is doing behind the scenes. That said, unless you have $25 million, Wilcox is staying the coach. Let's hope Wilcox can pull it together and turn around the team, because a lot is riding on him to do so. As for football being financially supported and in the best conference, she is personally involved and engaged, and personally reaching out to donors. Probably more engaged than she should be, but she chose her AD and has to live with that decision. I really can't understand why a chancellor has to be the one addressing basketball teams specifics with reporters, except her AD isn't up to the part of the job. Yes, the optics are bad, but what she said about other things also mattering beside wins (presumably quality of student athlete experience at school) sounds like something any school President would say, and seems to be taken to extremes by some posters. The guy making the decision on retaining basketball coaches at most school not named Duke or Kansas, is supposed to be the AD.

---

---

Wifeofafurd, I really appreciate your detailed response. I just wanted to comment on her quote about other things mattering beside winning and losing. This quote seems to outrage some here, but it shouldn't. As you say, any school president would say the same. In fact, everybody here would say the same. If the accusations against Teri McKeever prove true, then nobody would want to keep her despite her swimmers' successes. Hardly anyone here approved of the football recruiter (I forget his name) who brought in a bunch of athletes who didn't have the academic capability to succeed . (I've read that our football APR was 48% at one point!) No one would want a coach,no matter how many wins he or she had, who committed NCAA rule violations that got our team in trouble. (I am so old I remember that we were stripped of a track & field championship because of sanctions arising -- I think -- from the recruitment of Isaac Curtis.)

So there's nothing wrong with what she said. Nor have the decisions made during her chancellorship been as awful as some here depict. It was not unreasonable to extend Wilcox at a time when the team seemed on the upswing and he was being sought elsewhere. As terrible as the basketball team seems to be (I'm basing this on Jim Gillis's detailed report on the UC Davis game), keeping Fox was a defensible decision. Yes, Knowlton seems like an odd hire, but my understanding is that he has been a pretty good fund-raiser, and an AD needs to be an excellent fund-raiser.

So, as I suggested above, some posters are giving her a bad rap.That doesn't mean I'm happy with where things are. I wish our coaches were more effective. I believe all the posters who say the game experience has deteriorated.All these are areas in which progress has to be made -- soon! But laying our problems at Christ's feet is unfair.

---

Fully guaranteeing JW's contract and keeping Fox are indefensible.

---

I wasn't taking issue with any of that, and you can infer what I think about those two actions from my comments. I was trying to address the claims about her not supporting football.

---

I'm sorry to pile on, but it just simply doesn't reconcile to me that someone can care about the well-being of Cal's revenue sports, yet also employ and support someone like Knowlton.

---

This focus on Fox, Knowlton and Wilcox and the contracts seems to be an issue that some can't get around. That is just an issue of money. People get fired all the time. An additonal year or two of crappy revenue sports will not matter in the long run.

The big thing for the Chancellor - right now - is to get the University and Athletics right - organizationally. She is frankly not going to be hiring and firing coaches. She is raising funds, looking strategically at conferences, how that impacts her University from a global perspective, and building on campus facilities which will enable all of that to come to fruition, and building the right funding mechanisms to make that a long term success.

Fox and Wilcox will be gone in three years - or else coaching much differently. New coaches and ADs will be there. But we will also be building a new facility for basketball, have the Title 9 sports courts completed, have new housing for students, have a quarter billion dollar (and growing) athletics endowment helping to fund more effectively the Olympic sports, and perhaps be in an new conference, or else making more money form the PAC 12 than we have been making. Read the master plan and the Light the way stuff to see what she is focused on.

If you want to be pissed about her comments on winning and losing...well, I guess you have not been a Cal fan for long. But if you want to tear down the only chancellor in my lifetime who is actually doing ANYTHING about athletics, I think you are ridiculous (although not you specifically, but the broader anti-Chryst cabal).

---

I think you can be supportive of the Chancellor overall and be specifically angry over the length of the Knowlton extension and the buyout terms in the Wilcox extension. I am supportive of lots of folks in the business and political worlds but angry over specific decisions.

One of the big concerns many have with the losing in the revenue sports is the supposed indifference from the leadership. I have very little doubt that Christ is not happy with the losing,but her words did not display that in the referenced interview.

So IMO it is very possible to be angry over the specific contract details yet overall be pleased with her leadership in other areas.

But this is a sports fan board. Specifically football. I like many of the previous posters in this thread are stunned at the buyout in Justins contract. It is very poor business. And unnecessary. Football is the revenue engine of the athletic department. They need football to be healthy to pay the freight. Football on the field is sick.

Fans read her comments in concert with the contract decisions on Knowlton and Wilcox and hear indifference. Indifference is a killer to revenue sports. We see it in full flower with mens hoops. Football is losing some support. Losing takes a toll, but losing with indifference is the absolute kiss of death.

She may not truly be indifferent to the revenue sports but those contracts now weigh heavy on the programs. I understand the anger directed her direction. Much can be done still with Wilcox. He is not indifferent to losing, but he is a loyal and stubborn sort.

So I am supportive of the Chancellor overall. Doing a lot of fine work. She by all accounts is working hard to get Cal invited to the Big 10 and making the point to the regents regarding the UCLA decision and its impact. But the contract stuff is a misfire. A big one. It is true the University will continue to operate and be world class regardless of football and basketball performance. But comments like hers when regarding performance do continue a long standing belief that the leadership simply is indifferent in regards to athletic performance. Particularly in the revenue sports. Words matter. What you say matters. Combined with the contract extensions and buyout languge it is easy to assume it is business as usual. Bad business in the revenue sports.

Personal opinion here. She is not happy with the losing. But not distressed by it either. If she were Knowltons extension would have been far less years. And there is no chance a full buyout for a failing coach would have been included in an extension he was not worthy of to begin with.

Just once it would be nice to hear that winning is a priority from those at the top

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Bobodeluxe said:

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So, does that make it PAC-7 or 8?

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wifeisafurd said:

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From what appears to be a reliable source: SMU is in negotiations to join the Pac.

You wold think that another Texas school would be involved for travel and other reasons. If so, hopefully that school is not Rice.

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calumnus said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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From what appears to be a reliable source: SMU is in negotiations to join the Pac.

You wold think that another Texas school would be involved for travel and other reasons. If so, hopefully that school is not Rice.

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Houston?

IF(!) we are going after Texas teams, I'd think going after B12 teams would make more sense.

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wifeisafurd said:

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From what appears to be a reliable source: SMU is in negotiations to join the Pac.

You wold think that another Texas school would be involved for travel and other reasons. If so, hopefully that school is not Rice.

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wifeisafurd said:

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calumnus said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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From what appears to be a reliable source: SMU is in negotiations to join the Pac.

You wold think that another Texas school would be involved for travel and other reasons. If so, hopefully that school is not Rice.

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Houston?

IF(!) we are going after Texas teams, I'd think going after B12 teams would make more sense.

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yes, makes way more financial sense. Obviously from an academic prestige standpoint....

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MrGPAC said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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From what appears to be a reliable source: SMU is in negotiations to join the Pac.

You wold think that another Texas school would be involved for travel and other reasons. If so, hopefully that school is not Rice.

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Any idea how far along those negotiations are? Is it:

"Amazon says they'll give us X more dollars if we can deliver on the Texas market too, lets discuss what it would take to get some Texas schools to join?"

Or is it

"We want you to join us regardless of the media deal, we are desperate for some new members."

The first option is what I would expect (and frankly would be surprised it took this long to start discussions). If its the latter then that's depressing...

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