NOVEMBER 30, 2015 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2015, 12:37 AM
BY TARA SULLIVAN
RECORD COLUMNIST |
THE RECORD
The first six words of Robert Barchi’s open letter to the Rutgers University community were probably the only ones we really needed to hear Sunday, revealing action that has not simply been a long time coming, but a long time needed.
“Today is a day of change,” Barchi wrote, the preamble to a seven-paragraph explanation of his decision to fire both Athletic Director Julie Hermann and football coach Kyle Flood. The Rutgers president also announced Pat Hobbs as the immediate replacement for Hermann, moving the former Seton Hall law school dean and short-term Pirates athletic director from an interim solution to a permanent one in the same day.
Barchi’s swift action comes in the wake of a losing season on the football field and an embarrassing one off it, and represents the first important step toward fixing an athletic department that has floundered as the stubborn president continued to back the ineffective reign of Hermann. By finally owning up to the mistake his search committee made two years ago, Barchi has a new opportunity to fill the leadership profile the athletic arm of the school so desperately needs.
“It was appropriate to start fresh, wipe the slate clean and move Rutgers forward,” Barchi said in an evening conference call with a small group of reporters.
What happens from this point forward will go a long way in determining whether Barchi can change the public perception of his disdain for athletics in general, a story he hopes will begin to change under Hobbs’ direction. That Hobbs comes to the job directly from the office of Governor Christie, where he served as ombudsman, sure makes this feel like a move with a Trenton stamp of approval.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/sullivan-clean-slate-gives-rutgers-chance-at-redemption-1.1464505
I wish the Village of Ridgewood would also start fresh and wipe the slate clean. Village Manager, her staff, engineer, Aronsohn, Hauck and Pucharelli must go!
For some reason people seem to think having a good football team at the state university is important.
Reminds me of the Recreation folks believing that they need to install turf and lights in everyone’s back yard….
Hire DJ Nymphius at River Dell or a similar younger coach in the state who understands how to win with fewer resources and smaller players. introduce a modern spread offense and become the next Utah or Boise State. Rutgers is never going to line up nose to nose with Ohio State or Nebraska and run the ball straight ahead. you are stuck in this Big 10 disaster. Now you have to think outside the box to compete.
Sports have become too powerful a force at colleges. Look at Mizou. They should focus on education not football.
Look at all the money wasted on those entitled children on the Rutgers team. Other schools are just as bad. Let them all go pro. Colleges need to focus on their mission.
Penn State begged and pleaded with the NCAA not to issue the death penalty to the football program in the wake of the Sandusky revelations. The NCAA didn’t even have the power to issue the death penalty to the football program, but such was the PSU Board of Directors fear of a year without six or seven home football games and maybe a bowl game that they readily agreed to 60 million dollars in fines to keep the football program going. Later, when the heat was off, the PSU Board of Directors welched on the deal and successfully sued the NCAA to get out from under the financial burden of the fine! The whole affair, the Sandusky scandal, and the PSU Board of Director’s utter desperation to avoid even one lost season of football games, shows that football was and is valued too highly at Penn State, a conclusion that old-time Penn State fans find a bitter pill to swallow, given how much respect they had for Joe Paterno. They really thought he had the right sense of proportion, and the right values and integrity. Paterno was in the position too long. His good qualities faded and institutional growth and momentum created a football leviathan that still looms too large on campus. A (predictable) shame.
Respect for Joe Paterno?
the program was a joke from the get go and they gave not one CRAP about anyone least of all the victims.
from the very begining…the scandal was buried and washed over by a bunch of phycopaths who only gave a shit about themselfs and a frickin football program. you think that mentality has changed? who in their right mine would send a student there??? who would go near the place? welcome to FREAKSVILLE.
Mizou is screwing up on multiple fronts right now…what the heck is up with these nitwit administrators these days. Penn State’s president was a real ideologically-driven waste of space it turns out but these big schools have strange criteria to apply when hiring presidents…
There is no such thing as a student athlete
DJ Nimphius is the best HS football coach in NJ….