LaxPower Back-Up Stick

WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 8:13 pm I don’t care what you, in particular, think. Period.

WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 6:40 pm

51percentcorn wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 1:03 pm

jhu7276 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:20 pm Extremely disappointing and Daniels has to take the hit as Pres...(rant now over).

Still don't understand what Daniels should have done that he didn't do or did that he should not have done.

Should he have recognized that Petro was going 50 cal guns blazing on early recruiting and put a stop to it? Boy that's asking alot - while life is not bad for RD out in Montecito - alot of things cross a University President's desk these days and lacrosse is probably legitimately on the back burner. I still get back to the following:
- He let Petro have his season in 2013 when he could have stopped it
- The facility that was badly needed to put some street cred into the program's resources was built under his watch
- I have not heard of one example where a lacrosse recruit was denied admission evidenced by the fact that the all too full Hopkins early recruiting classes often had 90-100% enrollment and if players were lost it was likely due to poaching or Petro gently orchestrating things behind the scenes
Again give me a specific example of where his leadership failed the program - I freely admit I don't know anything to the contrary but nobody has produced anything to the contrary except that opinions that he has chased good profs/drs and administrators away which has nothing to do with lacrosse. You have my attention.

Here are FIVE:

1) Daniels pushed AD Tom Calder OUT. No successful AD like Tom suddenly has a desire to go into fundraising for a university at that point of your career, when you have a much more fun job at being an AD, around sports, and around the student-athletes. Fundraising is like prostitution, asking a bunch of old farts for money. There is NO WAY that was voluntary. Tom has, in fact, told me that it was time to move on and voluntary, but there are things you have to say after the deed is done to keep what job you have. I respected what Tom told me, but I know damn well he couldn’t tell me the full truth. And he’s got far more PR skills and smarts to keep his job than PM is exhibiting lately.

Long term - this has severely damaged the “Hopkins Brand” on the sports-related side of that Brand, because look what’s transpired since Calder got moved out. The Hopkins Brand absolutely DOES tie into fundraising, maybe not as a huge percentage compared to what a few major Bloombergesque gifts from dying people can do to inflate fundraising totals, but I’ve told my friends in Development for years to keep touting the sports-related Brand to Alumni. Now look where we are.

2) Daniels was behind the hiring of Shanihan. Look how that turned out. Penn connections. I was convinced at the time that I was looking at a hired hitman to do one main job: get rid of Petro. The way they made that staff walk the plank to the very end of their contract was cheap, BS and demeaning. Hopkins was too damn cheap to even buy them out a year earlier and give them ways to plan ahead with their lives.

Instead, not only did they make them walk the plank, which I figured meant they had a job until around Jun 30th, 2020, but HOLY HELL - apparently Petro’s contract had a statement in it that the contract concluded 30 days after the end of the season (or something to that effect), and with the season ended in mid-March due to COVID - they lowered the boom in mid-April, thirty days TO THE DAY (IIRC) after the MSM OT win.

That was just stone cold. Yeah, it might have been time for a change, but how Hopkins went about this was pathetic. I will not donate one further red cent to Hopkins because of this. No, I’m not Bloomberg. But I could have continued to contribute modest sums and healthy sums at death, but NFW now. That ship sailed. I’m contributing to the USNA instead, an institution that I respect.

3) Shanihan hires Baker. That might be one or two levels removed from Daniels, but it still has his fingerprints on it. He had to allow Shanihan to move away from being the AD so soon and letting an even newer AD be hired. Talk about moving away from Technique and Tradition. The best part of hiring Baker? Shanihan didn’t have to be the triggerman in the hit job on Petro and staff. The old adage: hire someone else to do your dirty work.

I hear Baker is good at PowerPoint presentations, especially those delivered to the NYC-area lacrosse alumni. And when her presentation makes no sense and her two coaches try to help her out by offering explanations to the attendees, what does Baker do? She calls the two coaches into her office back in Baltimore first thing the next morning to ream them out. Tucker and Petro put up with that crap - around DEC 2019. Fact. Would have liked to have been a fly on the wall for that. Here’s an upstart AD, reaming out two legendary coaches who have devoted most of their professional lives to Hopkins and supporting the many kids - student-athletes - in guiding them to become better people, great athletes, graduating, and staying the hell out of national headlines like Duke and Virginia. They represent The Brand.

That’s the state of Hopkins’ current front office leadership.

I contend it’s a bunch of newbies who have a severe lack of respect and no knowledge of the history that’s gone on before them, and they are making great strides in tearing down that great history. It’s their way or the highway.

4) Baker hires Milliman - a connection of hers from Cornell. Again - this definitely is a level or two away from Daniels, perhaps by design, see above, but I severely doubt he didn’t have it run up his flagpole and approved it before the hiring was done and announced. And it directly traces back through events 1 through 3 described above. It’s how we got to where we are today.

5) Daniels closed PJ’s. He and he alone killed it. And that is directly from Jerry Smith (RIP) to me, at the last Hopkins Fall Alumni event that I attended.

If you don’t know the significance of that, well, trust me. There’s a reason why Petro very respectfully referred to Jerry as Coach Smith at events. Jerry was a huge presence in the Hopkins sports world, with a huge heart, a friend to everyone, and I will forever miss him and what he did for the program.

Some of you can praise Daniels forever. I’m waiting for him to go away and rot in Montecito.

steel_hop wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:05 am
The sooner he is gone the better it will be. I bet he's still wondering why one of the Ivy's haven't come calling for him. And to think Hopkins was picking between him and the Dean of Engineering (who is an awesome guy) and they went with the wrong option.

Sagittarius A* wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 8:33 am The Milliman hire has always looked suspect. First, they hire a search firm. Then they interview 10 people. He gets the job but then they don't mention that they knew each other at Cornell at the Press conference. No one bothers to ask about it. Secretive.
I was expecting either Marr or Nads to get hired. Definitely shocked me. Sadly, a year later, the whole thing is looking more questionable by the minute.

Sagittarius A* wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 8:33 am The Milliman hire has always looked suspect. First, they hire a search firm. Then they interview 10 people. He gets the job but then they don't mention that they knew each other at Cornell at the Press conference. No one bothers to ask about it. Secretive.
I was expecting either Marr or Nads to get hired. Definitely shocked me. Sadly, a year later, the whole thing is looking more questionable by the minute.

51percentcorn wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:39 am To be clear - I am not arguing whether Daniels is a DB or not - never met the man and I am not close at all to any of the inner workings of the university to opine. My point is - DB or not - the men's lacrosse program has been largely left alone - unless you wanted Petro to stay. The mess that is the men's lacrosse program is largely not Ron Daniels fault it is Dave Pietramala's. Tell me that scholarship funding was reduced or great lacrosse players were not admitted and they went somewhere else and then you'll have a point.

Never heard the story about Jerry and PJ's before - like many I knew him - drank a bunch of beer there and admired his dedication and love for the school. He was a great man.

There's also the legitimate point of view that if you rely too much on history and legacy things will pass you by - I think you need to strike the right balance. Think about it - kids showing up in the fall of this year were likely 2-3 years old when Harry last played for Hopkins - 5 years old when Rabil last played - most of them just don't care.

51percentcorn wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:24 am

Sagittarius A* wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 8:33 am The Milliman hire has always looked suspect. First, they hire a search firm. Then they interview 10 people. He gets the job but then they don't mention that they knew each other at Cornell at the Press conference. No one bothers to ask about it. Secretive.
I was expecting either Marr or Nads to get hired. Definitely shocked me. Sadly, a year later, the whole thing is looking more questionable by the minute.

OMG - they hired a lacrosse coach - they weren't putting the head of Blackwater as the NSA or anything - a coach who at the time was 5-0 at Cornell and ranked something like #2 in the country - boy that's really stepping out on a limb - they didn't mention a prior connection between the coach and the AD on a ZOOM call? Time to hire a special prosecutor

If Nadalen or Marr were the coach - the record would be virtually the same or worse. Would you care to review for the class Nads record at Towson in '20 after all his good players graduated? Oh - players and talent have something to do with the team's performance not just coaching? They're 5-6 this year with a couple good wins but Loyola is really struggling - there's no doubt the man can coach some defense but Towson is avergaing 9.5 goals per game and allowing over 11 - Hopkins is pretty much 10.5 and 12. Towson has also had the opportunity to play 3 more games and OOC games. The 2 times they played the big boys - they got dusted.

Marr? He was NEVER EVER going to replace his best friend after said friend got fired. He's had controversies at Albany and decisons questioned as well.

jhu7276 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 9:52 am My point was if you ask 100 peeps on the street about university traditions you will get these answers from most of them: Notre Dame=football, Duke= basketball
“John Hopkins”=medicine, lacrosse (isn’t that the Native American game played with sticks?).
These are the global perceptions still of these institutions...
As the buck stops at 3400 N. Charles Street in the City of Charms, the “San Francisco of the East” whether you are a fan or not of the President of the University, responsibility for the “image” is certainly a major part of the president and his or her administration’s job.

51percentcorn wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 11:03 am And again, I have nothing against Scott Marr - zero issues with him if he had been the new Hopkins coach but I can't say it any more - the roster is fundamentally broken and beyond a quick repair - the car is totalled - and while the offense might have pumped in a couple more if you subscribe to that line of thinking - the defense would be gasping and the margins of defeat would likely have been worse, much worse.

Sagittarius A* wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 11:15 am The players wanted Marr. I think he would have been a good fit here and could have done something positive with the program. Dino never won an NC at Hofstra, but he's been racking up the titles since he got to Duke.

51percentcorn wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 11:03 am I was told something different by someone who I thought would have known - at least knew way more than me. Maybe I should have been less definitive in my statement but that doesn't really matter or change things. BTW - there are published news stories on April 20th that Marr informed Albany he would NOT pursue the Hopkins job - 5 days after the Petro announcement. Maybe he had heard by then Ventura was not going to arrange an interview. Oh well.

Sagittarius A* wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 11:15 am you never ever call out a player publicly. That's a nonrecoverable error that will have long term repercussions for the program. There's no way to sugar coat this.

ABV 8.3% wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 1:10 pm Way I look at it, a good coach is this, at their core:

HOW... do I make this player great ?

instead we focus, nay cherish, the coaches that ask, " what can this player do, to make me great"

Don't know how Paul C. can, with a straight face, claim Coach Dave P. as the "best ever". What does he say when he sees Pat McCabe, at "Cuse events

You drafting , if PLL existed in that time, Petro over McCabe? geezz. Unless that was Pat's older brother, McSweeney McCabe, who played in the 89 'ship