Probably poor wording on my part, but I was not referring in any way to Young-Means, but Young-Smith.
But, one could argue that since it was plainly obvious that Young was the target of the NCAA and it was already a given that Moore had clearly violated a NCAA rule by attempting to cover up the Young-Smith episode it was not a wise move to promote Moore in the middle of the all-out war the NCAA was conducting against UA. Arrogance or stupidity - or worse both.
There are two thoughts on this Tim.
One, according to what you've posted (and I admit I don't recall those details exactly but what you have posted seems to fit with what I recall) about the Smith - Young meeting I've got to pose a question.
When was it this meeting was supposed to have occurred? The Smith's were linked to Ray Keller, IIRC. The original allegation about that family was looked at by the NCAA, then dismissed, and that was in the mid 90's early on in Smith career.
Secondly, you've used the terms "arrogance or stupidity" in promoting Moore because of an "all out war between UA and the NCAA."
Yes, there was an investigation going on. But, war implies two parties being involved and that isn't the case. No one at UA had any idea that the NCAA was on their private witch hunt when Moore was promoted.
This conversation has focused so much on the actual role Moore has played in NCAA issues to determine if he should be terminated that it ignores a more mundane and routine examination.
Look at the vast, vast financial resources made available to Moore and then compare the extremely paltry record of W-L and championships produced across the board. I am very confident you can count on one hand the total number of SEC Championships won by ALL the sports in Moore's ten-year tenure. Everyone wants to say "but only football really matters,' but that is an even more negative mark on his record. Look at the constant disarray the football program was in for the first eight years of his term, and even on this very day even with the presence of Saban the football program has had to forfeit 21 wins and sits on very thin ice.
I understand what you are driving at, but I think you are letting emotions get the best of you.
I've got four SEC titles just thinking about baseball and softball and I didn't get into thinking about the number of NCAA appearances by either team.
You bring up the "state of the athletic department" as a whole here and that's a great subject to discuss. But, I feel the subject matter is far to detailed to get into in this thread. It was be a team by team breakdown...and it sounds very, very worthy of discussion. (I see blog material for someone there...cough, cough. )
Yes, yes, yes; I know. Moore inherited a lot of problems. But, an effective CEO can at worst minimize the consequences of problems existing when he takes over an organization and create a culture where after ten years the same damn type problems do not keep recurring.
This falls back into something I mentioned earlier. Perspective.
I'm not saying you don't have a solid perspective on the situation, but it does differ from mine.
We've dealt with individuals in the Ath. Dept. that needed to move on for a long time. We are seeing these people move on one by one. Slowly, yes. But surely as well.
Scroll back to my comments comparing the Ath. Dept. to a bureaucracy and I firmly believe you'll agree on my viewpoint, but we are just voicing it differently.
An argument has been made that Moore would not have been hired as THE AD by any other school in America - you disputed that claim. I would add that if Paul Bryant, Jr. and Moore were not friends dating all the way back to their days as undergrads at Alabama that Moore would not even have been hired as THE AD at Alabama.
He did, and still does, have the support of PB Jr. There is no denying that.
But, the reason he was hired over the other candidates (and there was an exhaustive search) was due to the plans he laid out during his interview. Those started with his vision to improve the academic center for UA and concluded with his goal of improvements across the board in our facilities.
Combine that, with his connections within the UA family, and it was a solid hire at that time.
I am still waiting for ANYONE to explain to me why Alabama viewed Moore less qualified to be the Head Coach at Alabama despite over 30-years working on the sidelines - passing over him roughly six times, but thought him most qualified to lead a $50MM-plus business despite never having run a profit-center in his entire adult life.
Perkins, yes. Curry and Stallings, no. DuBose? I'm not sure if he was in the running since he was already a part of the Ath. Dept.
Passed over six times? One.
Getting back to the original point of this thread and my comments...
Who are the responsible parties...
I see a laundry list of things people use to say "he screwed up here." But, with just about every one of them there's another side to the story.
