Ha...this cracks me up. I'm not sure what people don't understand about your take as well. SMH

Attended my first Convo game in two years on Saturday, and clearly EVERYONE understands the inevitability of a coaching change coming in March/April. However, I see ZERO value in making the change prior to Saul's contract running out. The players that want to be at OHIO are going to make their long term decisions AFTER they have a chance to meet the new coach, not before. And let's be frank, there is simply no chance for a MAC tourney run for this team aside from perhaps a first or second round upset.

For an athletic department that has been asked to take reductions in its support from student fees by millions of dollars over the past ten years, a $600k buyout for the final season of a coach's contract when nearly everyone loves and respects Saul, his family and their support of Athens and the University community, and when most fans genuinely hoped the program would see marked improvement in 2018/19, allowing him to earn an extension, would have been absolutely irresponsible and reckless. And extending Saul prior to the start of the season, when there were significant job results questions from the prior four years of performance, would have also been fiscally irresponsible.

It's impossible for me to not respect wanting to give Saul an opportunity to show his mettle this season, and honoring his contract term, especially when you couple that with our fiscal realities. I'd rather that $600k go to supporting all the student athletes instead of paying two sets of coaches.

There hasn't been gross negligence on Saul's part, it was simply not a good fit or perhaps it was bad career timing for Saul and OHIO. I'll wish Saul well in his future endeavors, and thank him for his commitment to OHIO over the last five years.

And let's face it, OHIO hoops is not the Gonzaga of the MAC, having won the conference title for sixteen of the last 20 years. We're a top half historical performer, get hot once every five years (ish) for some occasional success, and then revert to the mean, despite the fact that we always invest in hoops at the highest levels of the conference.

It isn't the end of the world when the program struggles occasionally, and this run stings because we had such success from '10-'12. Would it be nice to be the Gonzaga of the MAC...sure. But in over 100 years of OHIO hoops, we have never been that, and I'm OK with that. I would rather our program be known as treating its coaches and players with respect and support, not panicking at the drop of a hat, and doing our best with the resources we have.

Nice song reference from a legend. Glad I'm not the only one anyway.

+1,000,000,000

This is it EXACTLY. Wow, D.A., thanks for posting, so nice to read something on BA that makes perfect sense to me.

As a grad student at the time I would love to show you what I wrote for that along with the sales and revenue I brought in to help other deficits.

if you would like send me your email and I will gladly show you my bank statement with the check to the Ohio bobcat club. And if I’m going to get that kind of attitude from down here especially when they want me to apply for the asst ad job well quite frankly I’d rather let you all pound sand

I looked at the pictures of the IPF on line.

Looks like they rounded the corners of the end zones to fit the practice track.

Saying they're not "full end zones" is kind of stretching a point,especially since we're not talking about a field you're gonna play a game on.

If practicing on a "full" end zone is important,you can temporally mark out end zone on the track.We do all it all the time when a track extends into an outfield for baseball or softball.

The track is not regulation. We can't host indoor meets.

The fact that we spent $10+ million and yet couldn't muster enough funds to put in a full track is absurd.

Heck, Logan High School is building a regulation indoor track! Marietta College and lots of D3 schools throughout Ohio have one too.

IMO, that was an incredibly shortsighted decision by the university.

While we've painfully learned that results do not always come with paying a high salary, generally speaking you get what you pay for. If you want to be in the top tier of the conference, you'd better be paying at or near the top. Nate Oats makes $600,000 before a large raft of incentives. Toledo's coach makes more than $450,000 before incentives. On the other end, NIU's coach makes $300,000 and has produced one 20-win season in eight years.

It's not a perfect predictor of performance (see: Phillips, Saul), but in general you get more if you pay more.

One can argue about the prudence of that kind of pay in times of austerity, but if you want to be a great program, you have to keep up with or surpass your league rivals in terms of resources. That starts with salary, but also includes facilities (we lack a key indoor practice court), assistant salaries and things like chartering a plane to Buffalo vs. a long snowy bus ride there and back.

Not building the basketball program a practice facility always seemed like we were being insanely cheap. I know of high school athletes who have a court built in their family's house or barn and we can't put up a simple equivalent to a high school gym for our DI basketball program to use?

An indoor track is 200 meter,banked oval.

In fact most new indoor tracks have the ability to hydraulically adjust banks.

They have a narrow infield,so,to the best of my knowledge,the track would actually be well inside a football field.

I've designed a number of athletic fields and running tracks.

I've only seen true (200 meter) indoor tracks in stand alone facilities.

In fact Mich. just built a beauty.

As I said before,O.U. stretched their donations and budget to the limit to
be able to get an IPF with a full size football field and practice running track.
Personally,I think O.U. did a pretty good job, and most people I've talked to
when I visit the campus are quite pleased with the IPF.

Forgive me in that I know nothing regarding true facts about the logistics of this decision. All I know is the "they stretched every dollar to make it happen." Secondly, don't give me the "you should've just given them the money to make it happen." But IMO you only build Walter FH once in a generation or maybe longer. You don't, don't, don't, don't build a 4 lane half butt practice track with tight corners. You've got runners at your university, the area has no such facility, you've got ONE chance to get it right---100% in my uneducated opinion you wait it out until you can do it right. By hunch is that football pushed it not giving a lick about if the track was 1 lane, 4 lanes, or regulation and they short armed it. Too bad for every one else other than those who need turf. I just registered my son for an indoor event at Marshall where I believe they cut the indoor track event off at the first 800 athletes (I think) and there was a rush to register because it sells out very quickly annually I was told.

The upside to firing him now is that the new coach can start focusing on locking up recruits for next year and building relationships with the current players moving forward.

Of course the downside is that most of the top candidates won't be looking for a new job in the middle of the season. Unless we have a candidate in mind who is just chilling at home right now there really isn't any reason to move on yet.

According to their web sites,the tracks at both Youngstown State and Marshall are both 300 meters.
O.U.'s is 316 meters.
So it must its "shape" that is an issue.

As far being "official",I don't what the rules are for hosting indoor track meets.
But as I've posted,an "official" indoor track is a 200 meter,banked oval.

Having a regulation track would have been great,but where does the money come from ?

O.U.'s intention was to build the IPF, solely with donations.
Based on the money they raised,the original design had a track that was pretty much a rectangle.

If I remember correctly,O.U. provided additional money to expand the building to put in a practice track.

Maybe if more people had been willing to donate they could have put in a regulation track.
But,obviously,Alums,fans etc. didn't consider donating to the project a priority.