Thank you.

If Groce leaves, he's pretty much dead to me.  I wish him well but I won't root for him or Illinois; he could have stayed here.

Okay.  Now you all can continue being overly emotional.

Well said.  I feel the same way.  Don't wish ill on him but don't really care what happens either. 

My feelings are similar, Monroe.  Maybe not as intense, but similar.  The way this went down has left a bad taste in my mouth.  Perhaps as more facts come out, I'll mellow out a little, but all that baloney about how special Athens was and how loyal he was to his players seems like empty rhetoric now.  It's kind of like I thought I knew what made him tick and now it's like "who was this guy anyway?"  I very much enjoyed the ride this season, and I'll always cherish those two great NCAA victories -- especially the one over Michigone.  For that, I'm thankful he WAS our coach.  I guess I just thought he was giving us signals that he might be another Shaka or Stevens and that was not the case.  Someone posted on here recently that a close relative of JG's had told him that JG wanted to stay and make us the Duke of MAC, or words to that affect.   These kinds of statements coupled with his own words and words of his players about their loyalty to him and that they perceived that loyalty as a "two-way street" made it reasonable to think he wasn't going after the first Big Six offer to come his way and might be Snyder II, as another poster put it yesterday.  This is not like Nee leaving for Nebraska, when it was clear Nee was after a bigger, better job from day one.  This is why I answered Alan's question in another thread the way I did.  This one hurts a lot more than Nee's departure.  Again, it's not that he left that bothers me as much as the way it all went down, with all of the misdirection involved.

I'm with you.  He's gone now, so we need to move on.  I won't be following him either.  No ill will wished, hope he has a happy life!  Good luck!  Now, onto our new coach!

Totally disagree with all of you.  Groce never said he was making a long term committment to Ohio University.  Some of you are living in the past when things were different re:  coaching and money.  It's not the 60s. 

Couldn't agree more.

In only 4 years he allowed everyone who cheers for the Bobcats (from coast to coast) to stick out their chests a little bit more and make countless posts in here that reflected the soaring pride that would actually make your day to day life "seem" better even if it actually wasn't.


Our selfish wants and desires don't shackle him to us anymore than the selfish wants and desires of Illini fans will to their campus.


He was great, the last 4 years just happened and I for one couldn't be any more thankful that they did.


He did nothing wrong to me or the school as far as I'm concerned.

I'm sorry but you were hearing what you wanted to hear.

http://thepost.ohiou.edu/content/groce-meets-team-departure-be-announced-afternoon

I'm remembering the comments when John came aboard -- that we needed to enjoy and appreciate "the ride" while it lasted. That's the perspective we need to put today in: that we got both what we hoped for (a program elevator) and what we expected (a young coach who'd turn our rise into his own.

In these situations I often wonder how much say the coach's wife has on the matter. It was said that Coach Danny Nee's wife never cared for Athens (how true that is I have no idea.)  It was even said that Urban Meyer's wife was the main reason he said no to Notre Dame (because South Bend was considered an old industrial twon in the Indiana Snow belt) and went to sunny Gainesville instead. There are more stories where that came from. How true they are, I just don't know. Champaign-Urbana is hardly a metropolis but it is not as isolated as Athens. I loved my experience in Athens because I am from a small Ohio town. I live in the Columbus area now, but it never ceases to amaze me that when some people find out where I grew up they say, "Sorry to hear that." Again, who knows what it means in this case. My guess is for the Groce family at all came down to prestige and $$$$$. I am not faulting them, but it is what it is.

I do hope we get Coach Boals and the assemblage of Bobcats from that general era. If we do and it turns out as we hope; it will probably be like a cold night where we can say; "Thanks Coach Groce for warming up the car the new crew can take it from here."

A Norris:  I am close enough to the city to do things, but far enough away to have some peace and quiet, see deer in my back yard, jump on 270 to 33 and head to Athens for games!

Haha just giving you a hard time, turning the tables if you will.  I don't mind Columbus outside of the sheep gatherings on High.  Sister lived in Grandview Heights for years, and I actually stayed in that area (near King and Northwest) during my internship at WBNS.

I don't think it's a matter of "he's dead to me". At least not for me personally. It's just that, as of this afternoon, what happens with Illinois and John Groce mean little to me. It's now the equivalent of "New Mexico State hires Coach X". I'm not really going to care one way or the other about it...and 99% of the time won't even hear/know about it.

I'm a fan of OU, not a fan of John Groce. I enjoyed him while he was a part of Bobcat Nation. I don't fault him one bit for taking this opportunity and have zero hard feelings toward him. But at the same time, the minute he was no longer a part of Bobcat Nation....I just don't care anymore.

Now all I care about is who IS going to be a part of Bobcat Nation (and that includes which assistants we'll retain or which will follow Groce).