January 21st, 2013 at 1:11 PM ^
More reason why, although he may make questionable fashion decisions regarding uniforms, I can't get too upset at our athletic director.
January 21st, 2013 at 1:18 PM ^
For you, my friend.
January 21st, 2013 at 1:20 PM ^
you have to give credit to Bill Martin for finding the right people and paved ways for the athletic facilities. He, not Dave Brandon, started the uptick of the prominence Michigan athletics. Yes, he has his share of weaknesses, but he did what he was supposed to do when he was hired which is to turn around the money deficit and strengthen the atheltic department.
January 21st, 2013 at 1:29 PM ^
Yeah, for the most part Martin did a solid job. I believe he did not even take a salary at first, when the AD was running a deficit. He was definitely hit-or-miss when it came to personnel decisions though.
January 21st, 2013 at 2:11 PM ^
Hey Bill, nice strong headwind on lake Michigan for sailing today, huh?
I keed, I keed. BM is vastly underrated as an AD, in my opinion. It's hard to fault him too much for the football coaching situaiton; any AD in their right mind would have taken RR when we did--impossible to predict that it would turn out as it did.
January 21st, 2013 at 1:24 PM ^
Say all you want about the way he comes off at times, but there is no denying that he completely changed the culture in the Athletic Department for the better.
I do agree, though, that, across the country, the bottom is going to drop out soon with respect to people opting to stay home and not pay inflating ticket prices. I hope he has a plan for being ahead of the competition when that happens.
January 21st, 2013 at 1:33 PM ^
January 21st, 2013 at 8:16 PM ^
While the appetite has grown, that doens't necessarily mean people will be willing to pay $100 for a ticket. With PSLs going up, ticket increases, experience downgrades (can't bring in water, etc) there is a breaking point. I used to go to 3-4 games per year. Now I'll pay to go to at most one, hoping to score freebies to go to others. Scheduling big games that people want to see is step one towards staving off said bottom.
January 21st, 2013 at 1:58 PM ^
just a reminder that both gymnastics head coaches predate him: Kurt Golder is in his 19th year as men's coach (and was himself a member of Michigan's 1975 Big Ten Championship team), and women's coach Bev Plocki is in her 24th season.
Great tradition in both, and this year promises to be a special one. Injuries are always an issue, but it's nice to know that the women are healthier and the men just won their first competition, The Windy City Invitational, beating teams that were all in the pre-season top 15 (No. 1 Illinois, No. 7 Minnesota, No. 8 Ohio State, No. 10 Iowa, No. 15 UIC), without their Olympic veteran Sam Mikulak. As we football fans know, depth is good.
January 21st, 2013 at 7:39 PM ^
January 21st, 2013 at 1:16 PM ^
Go Blue!!! I like this continuing trend of getting better or staying a contender, depending on the sport.
January 21st, 2013 at 1:18 PM ^
Michigan is #3 in the Coaches Poll behind Duke and Kansas
January 21st, 2013 at 1:25 PM ^
January 21st, 2013 at 1:37 PM ^
And people still hating on David Brandon? Great job Dave
January 21st, 2013 at 2:34 PM ^
January 21st, 2013 at 4:16 PM ^
He gives them the resources they need to be successful.
January 21st, 2013 at 4:47 PM ^
By doing what? Like was mentioned above, Bill Martin was the one who turned around the finances of the Department, and got the rennovations started.
Of the 4 teams ranked 1 or 2, Brandon hired 0 of those coaches. Of the others, Brandon only hired Barnes-Arico. (technically he hired the WSwimming coach, but he had been with the school for 4 years before he was hired as headh coach)
January 21st, 2013 at 5:11 PM ^
First, praising Brandon does not imply criticism of Martin. I think Martin, on the whole, did a solid job.
There is more to his job than just hiring head coaches. He has to make sure they have what they need to be successful. He spent far more than we ever had before to allow Hoke to hire Mattison. He gave Beilein the money to land a totally new set of assistants in the summer 2010 (an underrated aspect of the program's turnaround). He's making sure that no M program will be lacking in the facilities department. (IIRC, Martin planned the Player Development Center but was not involved in the planning of the Crisler renovations themselves.) There is every reason to believe going forward that we will keep pace will our competitors in terms of facilities and compensation. I don't know that we could have ever said that before. For years, we were notoriously cheap.
January 21st, 2013 at 5:17 PM ^
January 21st, 2013 at 5:33 PM ^
I'm not trying to say that you're criticising Martin, I just think you're giving Brandon too much credit for things he has very little control over. I'll give you the pay-raise thing, but with Football, if he didn't do it, he would have been an idiot, if there's one thing we learned from the Rich Rod years, it's that a lot of success depends on your assistants.
He may have shown that we're not going to be outspent by anybody in the future, but that hardly has any bearing on right now.
January 21st, 2013 at 4:28 PM ^
January 21st, 2013 at 5:14 PM ^
I'm pretty sure we are the only major program in the country to have no advertising in our football stadium.
January 21st, 2013 at 1:39 PM ^
Hockey should be there too but...
*wipes away tear*
January 21st, 2013 at 2:04 PM ^
that M played more than 3 varsity sports.
January 21st, 2013 at 5:23 PM ^
...buddy.
January 21st, 2013 at 2:55 PM ^
Great...now let's get the football team there because that is the most important.
January 21st, 2013 at 11:17 PM ^
January 21st, 2013 at 11:19 PM ^