Columbia President Lee Bollinger sent out an email at 1pm today confirming Pete Mangurian's resignation as head football coach.
I am relieved for many reasons, but mostly because I can now cease criticizing Mangurian and my favorite football team.
I have already weighed in on my favorite choices for a new head coach with this list.
But I remain committed to allowing Rick Taylor to complete his review of the football program and hopefully give us some strong suggestions for a new head coach.
Most importantly, now that Columbia is officially without an Athletic Director and a football head coach I believe the chances are much greater that Bollinger will actually listen to and enact Taylor's suggestions. And the chances that Columbia will again conduct a fraudulent and unfair search process for Mangurian's replacement are now much lower.
This is a good day for the players, the program and the university.
43 comments:
Thank you Jake!
Justice has prevailed! (Or is that overstating the situation just a bit too much?)
Anyway, many thanks to you Jake for the tireless and continuous effort you've put in to making sure our Alma Mater has a fighting chance on the field going forward. The writing's been on the wall with PM for far too long, so it's about time something's finally being done to right the ship. All of those young men deserve so much better than the maniac they've been forced to deal with the past few years.
Roar, lion roar, indeed.
btw, for the record, I'll throw my hat in the ring for Coach Keith Clark to be the next HC. I played O-line for him during the Ray T. years and he's a stand-up guy, let alone one heck of a motivator.
Jake, you deserve all the thanks your getting and more for standing up to the Admin's power elite and to their apologists here and elsewhere.
Bollinger is showing remarkable resolve considering the ineptitude, apathy and hubris of the Admin he has led for 12 years plus. If he really had any round ones, he would retire Murphy today since she resigned four months ago but postdated it to grab another year's salary. If he feels he must have some kind of AD around, he should re-title her as ACTING AD till he makes the hire he says he's been working on vigorously for some time.
Equally or more important than replacing PM and
DM, Pres. Bollinger must retain his resolve by
requiring Rick Taylor to complete full analysis and recommendations for repairing all the underlying problems that must be addressed, along with hiring the best people available for the top jobs.
Improving financial aid may be tops on the agenda. I don't believe for a moment the
propaganda from the apologists that Columbia
doesn't have the money to assist superior student-athletes. That,s hogwash. Do the very simple math.
So take a well-earned rest if you want to, Jake, but we need you back soon to make sur this tremendous opportunity isn't fumbled away with foolish half-measures.
Thank god!!!
So, are we ready to take back whatever negative things we've said about PrezBo for the past year concerning his handling of the football program??
Very good announcement by AD and Bollinger, short and sweet...
http://www.gocolumbialions.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=9600&ATCLID=209796340
Allie
What exactly happened with that letter? It sounds like the players did not actually have anything to do with it.
Wall Street Journal Article
Call me a conspiracy theorist but is it possible the appearance of the fake player on this blog, the ongoing strangeness of Danny and his incessant wanting to be part of the football program, the momentum towards kicking Pete out.... are these related components? Is there more to this?
You don't just hand over a declaration of abuse and retract it. Columbia kids are smarter than that. They have to be. Once the cat is out of the bag...
Maybe it was retracted because it was revealed to be a hoax.
Can't argue with the outcome but still... something smells funny.
I believe, Nick, that the reason our President moved on this was primarily due to the incessant pressure brought to bear by so many concerned alums and fans over the past 18 months. And the final bullet of course was the players' letter.
Al, my theory is that the letter went out, enough dirt came up to force a brokered resignation, and then the letter was "withdrawn". So, no buy-out, no lawsuit, no embarrassment for PM or CU.
I wish I was on the search committee. I would give this man a serious vetting and put him into play. Jeff Tedford just became available:
Jeff Tedford.
Apparently he is recovered from some serious health issues. His career has been an upward trajectory. He developed a reputation as a QB coaching guru with Oregon. Then hired by Cal as head coach where he did very well (though some say that was because he had Aaron Rodgers). After sputtering a bit at Cal he landed on his feet in the NFL until health issues sidelined him.
I want to know if he is healthy. This is a guy who flew all the way to Australia just to meet the parents of a recruit - a punter! He didn't even stay overnight, just flew back. he is a tireless worker and has great experience, great attitude, great approach to teaching. He will win games for some team somewhere.
Yahoo article
Coaches like Tedford make well over 7 figures- Had a 6 million buy-out at Cal- guys like this do not look at non- scholarships situations.
Exactly Coach, he doesn't need the money. He is vastly wealthy thanks to Cal. He's not looking to use CU as a stepping stone as an eager beaver. He's a coming off a heart condition.
This would be an opportunity for him and his family to have stability and have all the challenge he can handle. He may take an NFL job if offered but not for the money. He's a lifer football guy that needs to feed his work ethic.
I'd like to see what he has to say regardless but unlikely he will be available by the time the vetting process gets underway.
I think you all are forgetting the mistakes of the last 50 years. Forget the coordinators, WR coaches, ex-pro guys etc. this sick program needs a proven head coach who has turned a program around. Not someone like PM who,had a little success with soneone else's players. Not like the others that have been mentiond. This is not for a unproven coach or a mediocre one. A real exhausting search must be done. Let's take the time to get this right once and for all
the letter was real and was retracted because some players decided they were just not going to play for pete and others saw that pete was going to have legal issues and did not want to go down that path.
many of the kids, but not all, were surprised that he wasn't fired at year end. many just waned the whole thing to end.
I agree we should hire the AD first. And there is really no problem here because Columbia does not need to rush to hire the new coach. Late January or even February would be fine for us if we get the right guy.
With Taylor on campus now doing his review and Murphy leaving we finally have a chance to make these two crucial hires without the usual cronyism and defensiveness that has plagued us for decades. The processes that brought us both Murphy and Mangurian were so faulty that our failures in football and most of the last 10 years in basketball are no surprise. Now we have an adult in the room with no cronies to please.
Jake- I respectfully disagree with you. The AD should have been in place already- we are about to lose a whole recruiting season which we can ill-afford to lose. As any football coach will tell you it takes two years to make up one bad class. Make Rick Taylor the interim coach right now and let him hire a coach by the end of the year and we can save a recruiting class.
Forget the exhaustive search. Just get the big check ready because that is what it will take .
Correction- Make Rick the interim
AD, not football coach.
My concern is that nothing will get done without Campbell calling the shots. If Ted Gregory is the new AD then Campbell will still be in charge.
I don't think Campbell calls the shots. But he does give final approval for delusions made by others who are often incompetent or don't have football's best interests as a primary concern. Now I understand he and Rick Taylor are close, but that's good because I believe it's been Campbell's "friends" and hangers on who have done the most damage to football but now we have a very capable guy in the right place at the right time. I highly doubt Taylor will sign off on making Gregory the new AD.
Jake, do you think that Taylor will recommend that we take a one year moratorium so as to allow for the program to be rebuilt from scratch? Or that we ask for a dispensation from the league to bring in a few transfers or below band applicants on a temporary basis?
No one the year off. Possible yes on the dispensation.
Another concern is that Bollinger seemed to give kudos to Murphy in his statement. She bears a large measure of responsibilty for creating this mess and has not yet left campus. Time to invoke Cromwell's famous speech dissolving the Long Parliament.
Personally, I don't think it would be necessary for the program to take a year off. If a new attitude emerged with an new AD, Murphy is booted immediately and a new coaching staff installed it is not uncommon at all to turn it around in short order, despite a shorted recruiting season. I have been following college football since the 70's and this is not at all uncommon (other than Columbia's futility, teams with internal chaos is nothing new).
The only advantage to taking a year off would be if NCAA rules are relaxed and the team would get more practice time. Certainly, having extended time for recruiting and practice (and any JV action) would help but it is not critical to a turnaround.
If you ever had any question about the difference that good coaching can make, take a look at men's basketball. We are 5 and 2 and a total of three points from being 7 and 0. Smith has done this without the following five players, who would probably be an upper tier Ivy team: Rosenberg, Petrasek, Mullins, Lyles and CJ Davis. Three are out with injuries, one dropped the sport, and another decided to do a PG year. Yet Smith adopted a strategy of playing great defense, fighting for every rebound, and taking care of the ball. So no excuses. That is what we want in an AD and a head football coach.
Skipping a year is a terrible idea.under a new, hopefully quality regime, will we really need two years to prepare for each season?
I dont think Tayor would want to be a fill in AD. He lives in NC now and likes it there. Doubt he woudl want to be in NY for 6 momths or whatever.
I see no reason why we can't identify the AD hire and bring them in while Dianne sticks around until next Summer to help with the transition.
We need to hire an AD with a football pedigree first, then the new AD will be the major player involved with identifying and securing the new coach...
With PM's departure, Taylor doing his study, and the search for a new AD, the timing is great to get this thing right as long as Lee really wants this (boy I hope so).
Necxt year might be another year of growing pains but if we have to sacrifice one more year after 50+ in order to build a solid and stable progrram I can accept that.
My fingers are crossed and those of you who know me are laughing and saying to yourself that they have always been crossed, or at least they have always been crooked...
Right now the football program looks crippled so they need to act quickly to restore credibility. It's not going to be a good team in '15 but that doesn't mean they can't restore morale and a sense of purpose with a new staff in place.
Who is going to run the off-season program starting in January? Certainly, not the coaches who are still
there now- there is no sense of urgency with this football program!
We have not won a game in 2 years,and the chances of signing any decent players dissolve by the day.
Every Ivy team is out there hustling and what are we saying? "Oh, Columbia will have a coach in 2 months or so." Then we will hire some assistants and start recruiting.
I would like to suggests some caution. Even if we hire someone who everyone feels will be a great head coach, it doesn't mean that he will succeed as soon as we like or even succeed at all. It will also take a number of intangibles, including some good old-fashioned luck, to overcome our horrendous history. Of course most crucial is recruiting...we already have a fair amount of talent, now we need some real stars. I believe the last 1st Team All-Ivy running back we had was Jonathan (?) over a decade ago (so long ago that I forgot his last name, sorry).
Allie
Johnathan Reese, a Ray Tellier recruit. And then his cousin transferred from UVA and made first team all Ivy as a FN and then as a LB.
Marcorus Garrett, first team all-ivy RB in 2012. Wake up, Allie.
Oh, sorry, you're right, maybe it was Garrett's unfortunate fade out as a senior that caused me to forget him.
Allie, your notion that we already have a fair amount of talent is based on what and compared to whom?
We require a huge talent upgrade, too...
Want to know what the other Ivy League Coaches are now telling kids that might be interested in Columbia?
"You are interested in Columbia? Are you serious ? They have no coach, no AD, and have not won a game in 2
years. What? Columbia ? I thought you were a serious football player."
Coach:
Sad to say, no one has needed any help finding things to bad mouth Columbia about for decades.
I stand by the fact that we can get a new coach and AD and we needn't rush.
Also have to hope when they do get around to hiring a head coach that person does not retain the current staff, or at least changes coordinators.
As I have previously stated, make Rick Taylor the interim AD, even for a short period, and let him hire a coach ASAP. I would roll the dice with Rick-
Do you think Rick would do that? He likes it in NC...
If we rushed a hire for either a coach or an AD the other schools would use that against us. We have nowhere to go but up so let's use the time wisely and do it right once and for all...
WOF, regarding you inquiry about talent we have now, I would start with our three All-Ivy picks. Though two are 2nd team and one HM, I think that any or all of them could move up next season with a better team around them. To that I would add the QB Hill as a possible future star, and a couple of the WRs including Nellie if he returns and frosh Briscoe and Dansby. I think there are two or more all-league candidates on the O-line which should see improvement based on experience and better coaching. On D I feel there are 3-4 potential all-leaguers including linebackers Holme and Keefe, D-backs Reim, Kenyon, Bell, and Roane, along with the aforementioned Akinleye and Padilla on the D-line. Does that help? Your comments are welcome...Allie
All you folks think that we can take our time hiring a coach- that is a huge mistake - we have not won a game in 2 years and are looking at our worst recruiting class in history about to come up unless a new staff gets on the road ASAP- I guarantee Rick Taylor knows this.
Molina could be the best three down back in the league, or a great slot receiver.
It does not sound like we will have a football coach in place before February 1st. Probably take one month after the AD is hired.
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