UMass
In addition to the $6,312,074 UMass FBS gamble is projected to cost this Fiscal Year (on top of the $5,644,099 it cost/lost last year) you can now add another cool $1 million to buy out the remaining three years of coach Molnar's contract and a couple other coaches who were pushed into falling upon their swords.
And yes, remember it also cost a cool $1 million to buy out the previous coach Kevin Morris and staff, when UMass brought in Molnar to make the BIG jump to FBS. A million here and a million there, pretty soon you're talking real money.
Maybe higher authorities in the food chain should start fearing the thud of an ax.
No coach, staff, or team worked harder to build a championship program than we did. Disappointed in the results but proud of the foundation!
— Charley Molnar (@CharleyMolnar) December 26, 2013
About time. Losing doesn't bring in the big bucks.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure he was the right coach, but this firing puts the football program back another year, maybe more. Any recruiting momentum is now gone, and they are unlikely to sign any good recruits without a good coach; and good luck doing that (quickly) considering the state of the program. You need PLAYERS to compete on this level. Get someone in here who can recruit.
ReplyDeleteIf the University is hell bent on making this work (and it sounds like they are); they need the staff and administration to fall in line and keep quiet otherwise. The program will not improve if people keep calling for its demise. Millions will be spent and nothing will be gained. Support the program, and maybe something good happens in the next 3, 5, 10 years.
You sound like the gambler who keeps feeding the slot machine because he invested too much to stop now.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's gonna pay off on the very next coin. Or the next. Or ...
Larry,
ReplyDeleteThey chose to make this bet. I just think you go all in or you get out, now.
This is how sports work. It's no big deal.
ReplyDeleteUnless you're a taxpayer.
ReplyDeleteNo Larry, the real costs of this go to the students -- all around. It is part of why I say that UM is dying (and along with it, it's symbiotic stepchild, the town).
ReplyDeleteEd undermines valid arguments by predicting the apocalypse every day, but I think we would be shocked how much of the taxpayer and tuition dollar at UMass is being spent on this folly. It's a little like the creative accounting that Larry claims is going on with Cherry Hill in Amherst, on a much grander and crazier scale.
ReplyDeleteLet's not underestimate how many political and educational leaders ignore the admonition, "when you're in a hole, stop digging."
My question is this: wouldn't it make more fiscal sense for UMass football to play a schedule of New England opponents, including Boston College and UConn, but also UMaine, UNH, URI, and a Patriot or Ivy League team or two? Those fan bases would be within driving distance of Gillette. Perhaps I'm missing something, but distant Akron and faraway Miami of Ohio hardly move the needle of fan interest.
Might we also be surprised and shocked at the extent (and creativity) of some of the "cost shifting" that is involved?
ReplyDeleteIt involved ObamaStimulusMoney and not Football, but I know some cost-shifting they did that was downright criminal -- as in "six month's imprisonment" criminal -- and if they can nonchalantly do that, I don't even want to imagine what else they may be doing.
That is why I say it really is the students who are paying for this fiasco because the legislature's money is essentially finite & fixed so every dollar not shifted over to this is a dollar that would have paid for something that the students now have to.
And it's not just me talking about the "Higher Education Bubble" -- and as to the demographics of 17-year-olds in this country, well I've even heard rumors of the draft being re-instituted because of the demographics alone.
And as to how much money parents don't have, as to the hit they took in their portfolios and the rest, well are you better off than you were a decade ago, or not? How about your neighbors?
There are clear objective things that anyone can see -- there are going to be a lot of colleges in trouble in the next decade and I don't see UM being exempt from that.
UMass cannot play an entire season of non-conference games like BC and UConn and FCS teams like Harvard and Maine. They have to play most of their games within their conference, which is the MAC and its teams in Ohio and Michigan.
ReplyDeleteWhy is UMass in the MAC? When it upgraded to FBS football, this is the only league that offered UMass a spot.
If the University is hell bent on making this work (and it sounds like they are); they need the staff and administration to fall in line and keep quiet otherwise.
ReplyDeleteUmmmm... You're leaving two groups out -- who happen to be the two groups that are PAYING FOR ALL OF THIS STUPIDITY -- students and taxpayers.
Students are customers -- and no other business treats its customers this way -- and remains in business for long. And a public university belongs to the public -- WE own it, not the people whom (in theory at least) WE have hired to run it FOR US.
Above and beyond that, do you not understand the truly fascist nature of the
'...fall in line and keep quiet otherwise..."
The scary thing is that I honestly believe that neither you nor any of the self-described "Liberals" of the "Progressive Valley" do.
If someone started waving a swastika, you'd all freak -- and rightly so. But when you see true fascism, which is what this is, it's just a ho-hum yawn.
"The program will not improve if people keep calling for its demise. Millions will be spent and nothing will be gained.
Seig Heil!
Support the program, and maybe something good happens in the next 3, 5, 10 years.
Be an obedient, mindless moron and think exactly what we tell you to think and maybe we won't wast all of your money, just most of it.
Who the hell appointed you dictator? And exactly what right do you have to tell the taxpayers what they must think?
I don't make references to Hitler and the National Socialists lightly, but the summer before last I met someone who had been a young girl when Hitler went into Austria. Her story is chilling.
And folks, this is how it happened. I will not be silenced -- all UMass managed to do was force me to reload, not retreat -- and I will stand for truth as I believe it to exist.
And isn't it the purpose of the university to profess truth? I seem to remember hearing that....
One other thing, who is the idiot who keeps writing these contracts that don't have "for cause" termination clauses in them -- resulting in these million-dollar buyouts of people who are being terminated for poor job performance.
ReplyDeleteBob Holub & Jean Kim are a different story, and because Ed has honor, he is not broadcasting that one to the world, although he does know it, and it isn't quite the public version, either.
But that's that and this is this -- in the real world, you are either fired outright or put into a dead-end job until you leave on your own. If the university has to pay these people, why isn't the university getting some work out of them -- give them all brooms and have them start sweeping, or have them do repeated inventories of the toilet paper supply.
UMass is a university so ruthless that it damn near killed me to avoid paying me $140 that it was willing to spend on me -- that's the whole thing that pisses me off the most, not that they didn't consider my very life to be worth $140 but that they were still spending it anyway -- they weren't even saving any money.
A good chunk of the administration should have gone to jail for what they did to me -- and that was just $140 (and some underlying criminal things they didn't want me exposing to disinfecting sunshine) -- and then they routinely toss away million dollar "buyouts" for no good reason I can think of.
Change the locks, send the coaching staff an email advising them of their new work assignments, and tell them they can leave if they aren't happy. Leave -- but no buyout.
For a university that is truly as fascist as it is, an institution that treats students and low-level staff as badly as it does (and Ed has stories of the latter!!!), this is inconsistent.
They were hired to win, they didn't, and that's poor job performance and grounds for termination.
There is no accountability at the University. If this venture fails it doesn't cost those responsible. The place is a money pit. In bad times they give early retirement in good times they hand out raises all in the name of higher education. Sounds stupid to me.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing -- why don't they just try to get rid of unwanted coaches the way UMass tried to deny me my doctorate?
ReplyDeleteJust have the campus police continually harassing, bullying and intimidating them.
Just fabricate all kinds of crap about them -- apparently it doesn't even matter if it passes the "straight face" test in the "Sentence Now, Verdict Later" type of an "Alice in Wonderland" world that Planet UMass has become.
I'm one of the few people who could have survived that kind of "scorched earth" fuselage -- and at this point, I'm not gonna be silenced until there is both a public apology and some scintilla of a good-faith attempt to make me whole -- and I'm not expecting either. And that means that I am not going away -- ever -- but I digress....
Football coaches are too vain and too insecure to survive what I did -- the child molester in the Penn State program shows just how easy people in that field -- who have the qualities to move up the ranks in it (which I never could) can be bullied and silenced.
So why waste all this money buying them out -- just drive them out. Sure it is unethical as hell, but if UMass is willing to routinely do such things -- and they are, they do it a lot (and I can document it), it wasn't just done to me -- then why not do it when it counts?
When there's real money involved.
If UMass is willing to kill me to save $140 -- if my death was considered preferable than honoring an obligation to spend that money, then isn't a million dollars a whole lot more money?
If we are putting prices on human life -- shouldn't more money be relevant in the decision-making process?
And to the few people who don't know exactly why I have the attitudes I do toward the quaint little purgatorial cesspool -- well, how would you feel about folks who not only didn't consider your life worth $140 -- were willing to do all kinds of quite-criminal things (as in "six months imprisonment" criminal)things to prevent you from complaining about this literal theft -- and who did everything humanly possible to destroy you.
You'd neither forgive nor forget, and I'm not. UMass Delinda Est -- the quaint symbiotic town of Amherst right along with it -- and people need to worry because they've already thrown everything they have at me -- and I'm still here.
A few years back, Sidney Sheldon wrote a book that folks ought to read and then start wondering what someone who knows all your little dirty secrets might be able to do to you.
Legally do to you....
Larry, according to Masslive: According to McCutcheon, Molnar has three years and $836,000 left on his contract that will be bought out with "external funding."
ReplyDeleteMy guess would be booster funded.
Richard Marsh
Old private sector saying: a dollar is a dollar is a dollar.
ReplyDeleteLarry, While a dollar is a dollar is a dollar is simple. The fact is IF as reported that his remaining contact is being paid by outside, non-tax payer money then the blow is softened. Each year UMass hires bad professors and has to pay them off as well to get rid of them but that is never reported. The football program is a mess and no one would argue with it but sports are a huge part of revenue both on and off campus so they have more leeway.
ReplyDeleteWell I notice those "outside sources", have not volunteered to cover the $12 million in tax dollars lost over the past two years.
ReplyDeleteEven if this quite-unconscionable handout comes from booster funds, all that means is that those funds won't be available for the other football expenses including the new football stadium. Hence the handout to these folk will be coming out of the students in either higher charges (for something) or less of (and longer lines for) something they are paying for.
ReplyDeleteAnyone remember before the Mullins Center was built how the first plan was to expand the football stadium and put a dome on it -- and instead we got the Mullins? Now they are doing both, and that was supposed to be an "either/or."
And I kinda think it would have to as otherwise it would run afoul of the State Ethics Commission and rules on both no-show jobs and conflict of interest. In addition for getting three year's of pay for a job he doesn't have to show up for, I presume he'd be free to accept a coaching job elsewhere -- while still serving the remaining 3 years of his UM contract -- and that'd be a pretty clear conflict of interest.
And as to professors being bought out, I've never heard of it. There *have* been settlements of discrimination complaints, sometimes quite spirrious ones, and there have been faculty transferred to admin jobs -- but a no-show "buyout" would have been newsworthy on the line of Larry buying kegs for underaged UM students, and about as illegal.
Even in the Bailey Jackson mess, the woman still had to teach *something*, *somewhere -- and she did.
That may be but you are changing the subject,
ReplyDeleteI guess it's impossible to tell someone that's clearly insane that they are insane, because, well, they are insane. Merry Christmas, Ed.
ReplyDeleteWatch out, UMass!
ReplyDeleteEd is reloading, and he's going to unleash yet another fusillade of terrifying blog comments upon your sorry asses!
There is no escaping the misery he plans to inflict! Ah, revenge is sweet...
Dr. Ed,
ReplyDeleteI've seen less garbage spew from the South Hadley landfill.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteDespite your repeated predictions, the university is not withering away, the town is not withering away, and the state is not withering away. They are all doing just fine. Perhaps you should get out more?
I love the way the entire discussion revolves around dollars and not a word about concussions appears. Football injures players. On a scale greater than other sports. In some cases for a lifetime. How many dollars is this worth?
ReplyDeletethere is something deeply unsettling about a man his age, of his generation, who appears to heavily pomade his hair...
ReplyDeleteIt is time to ask Ed just what is the historical precedent for a university town in America, or anywhere else in the world, to simply go belly up. Where?
ReplyDeleteI understand your desire to be the Cassandra figure in town, but how does what you are predicting happen? What does it look like? I don't think you can describe it. You simply like the shock value of it.
It is time to ask Ed just what is the historical precedent for a university town in America, or anywhere else in the world, to simply go belly up. Where?
ReplyDeleteHave you ever heard of Detroit?
If some anonymous cowards posts something on the internet, does that make it true?
ReplyDeleteAmazing.
And if I deny something that said coward posted, does that make it more true?
More amazing.
Enough said?
"Have you ever heard of Detroit?"
ReplyDeleteSure but Detroit went bust because of years of mismanagement by politicians who stole all the money and did everything wrong to the town. It didn't "just go belly up". Years of corruption and borrowing money to pay debts caused Detroit's ultimate failure. Towns just don't go belly up. To say Amherst or the University is going to close is absurd.
Spend the football money on the STEM subjects.
ReplyDeleteOne other thing -- I'm not insane and can actually prove it, but if one believes I am, then isn't that an even better reason to pressure the relevant UMass Schmucks to (a) publicly apologize and (b) make a good-faith effort to make me whole again?
ReplyDeleteAnd one other thing -- "someone" is SINGULAR -- "their" is plural and you can not use both words in the same sentence!!!
Ed,
ReplyDeleteHow are the gazillion lawsuits you always claim to be filing coming along?
Not saying that's what crazy people do but Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is often characterized by an overinflated sense of self-importance.
Thank you, Walter, for pointing out the difference in kind between Detroit and Amherst.
ReplyDeleteThe claim that Amherst and the University of Massachusetts are going to come to some bad end is ludicrous.
Could Amherst be a better community?
Could UMass be a better educational institution? Sure. But just because some policy decisions don't go your way does not mean the apocalypse is coming.
Yes Ed you are insane. You cannot prove you are not. You can only prove otherwise by being tested by a trained professional. Seriously, eventually you will become a danger to yourself and others and by then it will be too late. Only you can keep the voices from taking over your life. Just remember, They're coming to take you away, ha-ha. They're coming to take you away ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-ha.
ReplyDeleteIs it a good idea to taunt a person like this?
ReplyDeleteI doubt it.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I find most of his (Ed's) comments to be extremely distracting to the topic at hand. I understand that there might be a backstory to Ed's posts but it has singlehandedly destroyed any discussion on the actual topic.
I wouldn't worry too much about "taunting" or otherwise engaging him. This blog seems to be the primary outlet for his frustrations -- a safety value, as it were, that may actually help. (I know, famous last words.)
ReplyDeleteSomething eerie about people who spend a good portion of their lives getting high degrees in education only to blame and condemn the folks who educated them all while fantasizing about the end of the world, the end of the University, and the end of the town. Does anyone see the red flags flying. Sounds very similar to the backgrounds of someone that goes and shoots up an institution after years of self deprecating hatred and pent-up anger directed at those that in their mind failed them and prevented them from being "what they deserve".
ReplyDeleteI think from now on if we're going to taunt Ed we should at least tell him who we are, like Walter does.
ReplyDeleteOh yes we see those red flags Walter, and so do others. There are plenty of Dr. Ed files out there. He is his own worst enemy.
ReplyDelete"Yes Ed you are insane. You cannot prove you are not. You can only prove otherwise by being tested by a trained professional. Seriously, eventually you will become a danger to yourself and others and by then it will be too late."
ReplyDeleteI don't suppose anyone's ever heard of circulus in probando (Circular Logic) or Argumentum ab auctoritate (Argument from Authority) -- or for that matter, the concept of a logical fallacy.
Above and beyond that, the APA itself makes a big issue of "cultural competence" and how persons must be evaluated by the standards and values of their own culture, and not that of the psychologist.
Nationally, some 94% of Voodoo Scientists self-identify as being on the FAR left on social issues -- and we all know that the "progressive" valley is a few points to the left of everywhere else, on - well - everything.
And I doubt it is much of a secret that I am quite conservative, not to mention from a culture so different from your own that you can't even begin to understand what is normal within the context of that culture, let alone what is not.
Your own profession says that you are not qualified to evaluate me and the terms of your licenses (those of you who remember to renew them)require you to observe these ethical guidelines.
QED, above and beyond the circular reasoning and the rest, whatever you may say about me is moot because (presuming you're actually licensed), you aren't qualified to say *anything* about me.
"Only you can keep the voices from taking over your life."
There are two things which I accept as the reality of others -- but which I simply can not comprehend -- homosexuality and "hearing voices." I simply don't consider guys cute (i.e. sexually attractive), and I can neither comprehend the concept of "hearing voices" nor of the voices having the ability to compel one to do something against one's will.
Bluntly, if a voice was attempting to force me to do something that I did not want to do, I'd tell the voice to "go f*** itself." I routinely do this to real live humans -- whatever these voices are, how could it be more coercive than real people?
"Just remember, They're coming to take you away, ha-ha. They're coming to take you away ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-ha:"
I don't think so, I don't think any of them are that stupid, hopefully not even you. It would be "Mutual Assured Destruction" and I think that's known. I think it's also known what I'm capable of in extremis -- *I* wouldn't come after me....
Walter -- exactly what makes you think that I consider those A-Holes & C-Heads worth dying for?
ReplyDeleteI don't.
Now as to humiliating them, that's another story.
And I'll go back to what I initially said -- UMass wasted a million dollars.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why they just didn't destroy his reputation and otherwise make his life so miserable that he'd want to leave on his own.
They are very good at doing this sort of thing, they do it a lot, and I'm wondering why they didn't do it here....
Should have been fired for making his players put on boxing gloves and fight each other in the snow. What was that, Fight Club?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukysib0A8RQ
they are not putting a dome on the stadium, Ed. wrong again
ReplyDelete