Gopher Players Boycott Over Suspension of 10 Teammmates

[SoldierGriz]

No disrespect, but my guess is you weren't a high ranking officer. You were a fighter a soldier. There is a reason for that and I'm sure you served your role and country well. Thank you for that. But I guarantee in any of your actual combat or training you never had your General on the front lines of the fight. Agree to disagree, but you soldier don't know the difference between leading vs "leading".

i don't agree much with soldiergriz, but i'm guessing that like me and lots of others he'll read your presumptuous and condescending post and think 'what a jackass'.

 

[iaafan]

If they'd asked themselves that I would think they would then decide to say something like, "I'm not ready to comment on the situation right now.

What are you claiming that Jim O'Day said publicly that should have gotten him fired?

Sorry for the confusion. The "they" I'm talking about is Claeys and Pflugrad, but I see the posts I quoted were referring to O'Day and Pflugrad. I apologize for not picking up on that.

I also see I stated that they "would've saved them"selves if they would've worded their comments better. I have no way of knowing that for sure. They could've ended up getting fired even if they didn't make those comments.

So I guess I'm guilty of needing to put more thought into what I'm saying.

 

[IdaGriz01]

Bottom line - New AD wanted his own guy, as of recent reports - looks like PJ Fleck is the pick. Boycott played into the opportunity to make the change he wanted to make before it occurred. Not sure why anyone would be surprised by any of this.

Bingo!
http://www.espn.com/college-footbal...en-gophers-hire-pj-fleck-replace-tracy-claeys

... Fleck and former LSU coach Les Miles both interviewed for Minnesota's vacant coaching job in the past few days, sources told McMurphy.
...

Yep. Two days after firing Claeys they hire the new guy. And in those two days they interviewed two guys and came to a deal? Have to agree with b-dog and call BS. The AD had to have had feelers out, probably even before the bowl game, and would have come out with the usual "new direction" speech anyway. The threatened boycott and other craziness just gave him an excuse (or forced his hand, depending upon your point of view).

 

[zengriz]

...royce and this guy...
...charter a college...
...bsu..back stab u...

... ...

 

[br fan]

That is exactly right. As a leader there are often many competing interests and often what is said privately can't and even shouldn't be said publicly. Do the those same coaches come out and tell the exact game plan publicly? No, there is a tactical reason for that. Wonder if Pflugrad was wrong about JJ? Again, it is not a matter of support, it is a matter of how you support. One can spout all they want about whether Pflugrad or O'Day were right or wrong, but in making their stance it cost them their job, future and the ability to lead others. Maybe courageous, but at a great cost to them and their families.

Look, I'm not going to prolong this debate about leadership. I don't claim to be an expert, but have some experience. I do believe that Selfless Service is the cornerstone to effective leadership. I also believe most of us do not fully understand it, and most cannot do it well.

I believe in this case Pflu did. I also believe he was going to get fired regardless of what he said or didn't say. The situation was simply and unfairly toxic for him. Just my opinion.

You are confusing courage with leadership. In military terms: do you really want the General of your army running into the fire fight to pull some guy to safety? No, the General leads by sending a soldier/soldiers to save the individual. The leader needs to make decisions that protect the whole unit and sometimes have to make tough decisions in spite of the individual. In this case Pflugrad acted like a courageous soldier rather than a well thought leader.

Courage and selfless service are pieces of leadership, and I have confused nothing. The answer about the General is YES. There are dozens ready to replace him/her. If present, the General would lead by displaying courage and selfless service.

I've served among these types of leaders for nearly 30 years. But, thanks for putting it in "military terms" for me.

Now I am done...we have different opinions. It's OK. If I were ever in a position to hire Pflu, I would do so immediatey - that's the bottom line for me.

I'll probably regret it but I'm going to throw in my 2 cents. The military motto of "Mission First, People Always" is the balancing act for all leaders, whether military or civilian. Studies by the Army War College reflect that those leaders who are results oriented but are not people oriented are seldom considered to be great leaders. Likewise, those same studies show that while blind loyalty to your troops or team may endear you to them, those same people seldom consider you to be a great leader if you fail to accomplish the "mission." The great leaders are those who are consistently able to balance and blend those two sometimes competing goals.

I'm not going to argue whether or not Pflu or O'Day were great leaders, but I will argue that what I set forth above is the test.

 

[PlayerRep]

My view is that military leadership and leading an athletic department are different, in many respects. The military has many more layers and is based on an almost absolute requirement to follow orders. Not the same for an athletic department. Not the same for a college football coach. Leading an athletic department is different from leading a team.

I will take O'Day's and Pflu's, who were loyal to their people and players, and are willing to risk their own jobs--over those who wouldn't do that. I have no use for people like Engstrom, or at least how he was in this situation. I want people, whether leaders, followers, players or employees, who can be depended on.

 

[IdaGriz01]

Somebody had to say it, but ... Wow!

http://www.startribune.com/tracy-cl...e-title-ix-mandated-investigations/409811485/

Excerpts:

Tracy Claeys questions Title IX-mandated investigations
Tracy Claeys in an interview with ESPN's Outside the Lines Thursday questioned the fairness of Title IX-mandated investigations that universities use. …
“The university had the right to get rid of me and that’s their choice,” Claeys said. …

“Any type of sexual assault or sexual misconduct is serious and needs to be looked at, and you have it looked at and investigated by law enforcement and people trained to investigate that, and they come back with one decision. And it comes back another way in a [Title IX] process that our kids didn’t feel fair. I don’t know how that trumps an all-out police investigation.”
…
“My own belief is that shouldn’t be handled on campus when you’ve got a chance of ruining a kid’s life.”
…
“That whole [Title IX] process just needs to be looked at to getting fairness in the system for every student that chooses a university.” 

Good thing Claeys has a half-million $$$ buyout coming -- unless U-Minn decides to welch on that via some technicality. The guy said something that absolutely needed to be said (good luck with anything happening), but it probably makes him "radioactive" as far as getting another head coaching job. He will likely catch on somewhere as an assistant, but even that is likely to take awhile -- until the furor dies down.

 

[UMGriz75]

Well, just as with UM, a precipitous firing for pretextual reasons of a popular coach brings national attention, and not of a good kind. There is all sorts of natural bad publicity that comes from college age people, ether they are involved in sports or not, and it takes a tight ship to keep the public relations positive in all facets of it. A "program" can't control everything, but it has to try and do the best that it can with what it can control. A stupid firing is just that: complete failure to control the message, instead sending the wrong message, with dynamite attached. That was Engstrom's failure, it's the Gopher's failure. It's stupid at the outset.

UM is still trying to recover from that singularity, well, duplicity.

 

[PlayerRep]

Looks like Minn. has hired a hot and up and comer coach. Paying him $3.5 million in the first year, up from his $820,000 at West. Michigan. Getting a 5 year contract, with huge buyout amounts in the early years. "Fleck’s buyout without just cause will be $3.5 million in the first and second years, falling to $2.5 million in year three and $1.5 million in years four and five".

Fired coach was lowest paid coach in Big 10, at $1.4 million. Only a $500,000 buyout, plus $4.5 million to the assistant coaches.

Huge amount of money for new coach salary, large amounts expected for new assistants, and large buyout amount for fired coaches. With the huge amount of debt Minn. has for new facilities, with more facilities being built now, is Minn. made of money? I see that a regent is already surprised the salary of the new coach.

Fired coach had best season record since 2003. Only second time Minn. has won 9 games since 1925.

When season ticket prices were increased for last season to help pay for new facilities, season tiks declined by 6,000, or $2 million.

New coach is bringing a bunch of his West. Mich. recruits with him. At least, a half dozen so far.

The new coach had this problem last fall at West. Mich. Had not been aware of a recruit's past problems.

"He was accused in 2013 of raping a 15-year-old girl at gunpoint behind a Catholic church in his hometown of Mason, Ohio, accused in 2013 of gang raping a 14-year-old girl at an underage drinking party, and accused in 2011 and 2012 of forcing two separate girls to perform oral sex on him, according to a TV station in Michigan.

He wasn’t charged in three of the accusations and a clerical error in another led to the dismissal of the case.

In 2016, White was arrested on charges of driving under the influence of marijuana.

Once on campus at Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, Mich., he and a football teammate, Ronald George, were accused of breaking into a woman’s apartment and robbing her while armed.

That led to their dismissal from the team."