Actually, I had to hear for the past 12 years what a good coach he was, and how he was going to get it done at Iowa State, so I think that eight months of stating the opposite should be acceptable as well (we are only in month SIX :biggrin9gp: ).
Insert next "Mac good for X job here"
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Actually, I had to hear for the past 12 years what a good coach he was, and how he was going to get it done at Iowa State, so I think that eight months of stating the opposite should be acceptable as well (we are only in month SIX :biggrin9gp: ).
If he was such a great and motivational fund raiser why are we still in the bottom of the conference relative to athletic budgets? I have only seen a significant (and positive) change in fund raising since Pollard came on board. Once again, people are giving this guy credit where frankly none appears to be due.
ST8BRN - I love the Seinfeld link to McCarney...very creative!!
Yup... its the classic example of when an a$$hole dies. When he was alive everyone hated him, but once he's dead, you see the same detractors gushing about what a great man he was. Makes me sick.
How about Chief Cheerleader over in Iraq - they need somebody with an optimistic approach to life to give them hope. Maybe Hillary or Obama could hire them to help out in Iowa. TYom Osbourne went political and did okay. If he is popular he will win in politics.
Actually hiring Dan to be a fundraiser for JP for a year is not too bad an idea - he can go around and speak and greet people who have money. That would give Dan time to find a job for next year. Most of football positions are filled at this point.
Actually hiring Dan to be a fundraiser for JP for a year is not too bad an idea - he can go around and speak and greet people who have money. That would give Dan time to find a job for next year. Most of football positions are filled at this point.
Travman, to answer your question, yes. Especially if I had no other job offers. Private business has been known to move an ineffective managers to lesser positions while still maintaining their exisiting salary. You obviously have to swallow pride, but big buck salaries don't grow on trees. Maybe in Mac's case he doesn't need the money and his pride will keep him home watching TV.
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First of all, I am pretty sure that Mac will not be affiliated with Iowa State in any way shape or form. However, considering that Iowa State kept his *** employed for 9 years longer than they should have, and made him a millionaire, if JP says "hey you want a position fundraising?" He should get on his knees and thank him for the opportunity.
Of course, looking at the relative strength of the budget in relation to McCarney's fund raising efforts, I am thinking that we DON"T want him.
Cyclone 1-- anyone that can keep his job as long as he did, with the record he had, must of been a damn good salesman. He was able to do this because of strong ties to the community and university brass.
Even though I was never a fan of DM as a FB coach, I will give him credit. He was able to forge strong university ties.
JP is doing great things, but he is going to need help doing it-- someone with stong ties to the state and ISU.
I know that DM will not be coming back- but I will always believe he was a great salesman for ISU. It's just too bad he couldn't coach, too.
Even though I was never a fan of DM as a FB coach, I will give him credit. He was able to forge strong university ties.
JP is doing great things, but he is going to need help doing it-- someone with stong ties to the state and ISU.
I know that DM will not be coming back- but I will always believe he was a great salesman for ISU. It's just too bad he couldn't coach, too.
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If he was such a great salesman for ISU, how come he couldn't sell big donors (or small donors for that matter) on increasing donations to upgrade our budget situation? And how come he couldn't sell the fan base on packing Jack Trice on a regular basis?
I agree, he was a great salesman...but he was selling Dan McCarney and not ISU.
I really don't see what he did to improve the revenue flow of the chief revenue sport at our university. After 12 years he was still bemoaning our smallish athletic budget. Well, after 12 years, if the budget is still in the bottom of the conference he was certainly at least partly to blame since his sport is the primary revenue generator.
You know, I was thinking about this as well.
It seems that with the turn around job that Dan supposedly did at Iowa State, why was there no increase in donations???? If this guy was the ambassador for Iowa State, and had done such a great job of promoting the athletic department, and the university, where was the cashflow???Why, after all of this unprecedented success, you know the comment, "we did things that this program has never done before." was he unable to sell a large portion of his own fanbase??? Why did we have to have the national read non-Iowa) media telling us that this was as good as we could hope for???
The fact of the matter is, that this guy used every opportunity to protect HIS image not his program's image, in fact he threw that under the bus continually. After every CRUSHING defeat, where HIS decisions led to our defeat, he NEVER took responsibility. The man was completely image conscious, not for Iowa State, but for Dan McCarney.
Now we have a coach who seems to be secure enough in himself that he can ACTUALLY DO HIS JOB, without having to tell us how much he has accomplished (when in actuality it really wasn't much).
I understand that there are people on here that think that he did a great job, I have heard that if it weren't for Dan, we wouldn't have the expectations we do for Gene, WHAT A PILE OF ****!!!!! We have expectations because of JP!!! How come it is OK to have expectations as a result of this guy, when there were no expectations for him when he was our coach???
You guys might want to take a walk through that indoor facility. It's well known that Mac made that happen, and that he insisted that they not cut corners when money was tight at the end. That facility according to Chizik is one of the nicest in the nation.
Mac went out and found the money.
Contrary to popular BS, ISU's facilities are very nice in a large part because of Mac's efforts.
Now just finish the stadium.
PS I was ready for Mac to go as well, but let's not ignore that he did do some things right.
Mac went out and found the money.
Contrary to popular BS, ISU's facilities are very nice in a large part because of Mac's efforts.
Now just finish the stadium.
PS I was ready for Mac to go as well, but let's not ignore that he did do some things right.
What you just said contridicted itself.
He found money, one time??? And he complained about the facilities constantly, even this past year. Where was the money then??? If he had that ability to go find money, then why didn't he raise the money necessary to have more of an equal footing??? He managed to talk about the fact that we were so far behind in all of the interviews that he did, even this past season. Why not use his pulpit for his program instead of trying to promote Dan McCarney???
Regarding giving Dan credit, he basically had 1 1/2 times the budget that Jim Walden had, and had equivalent success. Yet, to deflect attention away from his shortcomings, he continually talked about how much better he had done that Walden had, while continuing to lower expectations. It is the philosophy of the mediocre, and that is why he couldn't get the important people to open up their checkbooks on a regular basis.
The second thing that I continually look at was his UNWILLINGNESS to take responsibility for HIS mistakes. It was fairly apparent that he is a pretty insecure guy, I don't think that in twelve years I EVER heard him say that he screwed up. Everytime he even approached it, he threw in a bunch of meaningless statistics to soften the impact. The buck finally stopped with him this past year, and you saw the product on the field.
I know that there are people on here, that think that Dan really got it done. He is the best coach that Iowa State ever had, and he made it possible to hire Gene. I find that argument humorous. Dan was good for Dan, and the program suffered because his insecurity compelled him to seek out media for spin purposes, rather than coach his team. All he ever had to do was win, he didn't do that, but always had excuses for coming up short. Can you do that with your job, I know I can't. I have to take responsibility for my actions, and there are people still don't see that this guy never had to.
This is the reason that a coach who led a BCS program for 12 years is still looking for work.
Darts180,
You're making some very interesting observations and comments. Upon retrospect, I can't remember McCarney "taking responsibility" for the losses either. Actually, I think you're right on that, (After the UNI game: That was possibly the best UNI team I have ever coached against...)
However, in regard to the fund-raising, shouldn't that have been more of the AD's job, as JP has been doing since he got here? Granted, the coaches need to put the product on the field, but shouldn't the AD have been pushing the product, and having the coaches coach? I guess I see the lackluster funds as more Vandevelde's fault than McCarney's.
You're making some very interesting observations and comments. Upon retrospect, I can't remember McCarney "taking responsibility" for the losses either. Actually, I think you're right on that, (After the UNI game: That was possibly the best UNI team I have ever coached against...)
However, in regard to the fund-raising, shouldn't that have been more of the AD's job, as JP has been doing since he got here? Granted, the coaches need to put the product on the field, but shouldn't the AD have been pushing the product, and having the coaches coach? I guess I see the lackluster funds as more Vandevelde's fault than McCarney's.
I am glad that you see the whole not taking responsibility part. But in terms of the fundraising aspect, it does start with the AD (and as I said in an earlier post, Gene Smith was looking for bigger and better opportunities so it wasn't a priority for him. Van De Velde was totally ineffectual, so he couldn't have done it if he wanted to.). However, it seemed that Dan the man was positioning himself as the face of the entire athletic department so it would seem to me that he had a larger role than the average coach.
Again it comes down to perception. 2000 gave him an opportunity, even though he lost to every good team that he played that year, people were still giddy after the bowl game. It was responsible for building that indoor facility that D Up spoke of in an earlier post. As a result Dan definitely put himself in the forefront, yet by continually underacheiving, he diminished any real impact that he could have had. The fact that our budget is what it is means that a lot of mistakes have been made by the powers that be, that is very apparent. The problem is that Dan had a lot to do with keeping the budget that low with on field performance (football is the main money maker for a BCS school), yet he was perfectly willing to use it as an excuse (along with everything else he could think of).
Finally, we had a demanding AD in place, and he wanted an active role in the football program. JP understands football's place in he plan for revamping the athletic department, and he wants to make sure that he can sell hope. What we saw last year sold no hope. Changes were in order, and JP made sure they were done. Plus I think that some of the big contributers, while maybe being close to Mac, gave the green light to force him out. Think about trying to sell tickets this year with Mac still here as the coach, he'd have to sell $49.00 tickets for good seats to get people in JTS.
I think it is kind of interesting to hear the emphasis on how DM was only selling himself, and not ISU. While I do not disagree, I just don't see this as being unique to DM. Unfortunately, it's part of the business at most schools with the personalities in these positions.
Come to think about it, what coach comes to mind when thinking about someone who sold ISU first? Johnny Majors, Earle Bruce, Donnie Duncan?
Come to think about it, what coach comes to mind when thinking about someone who sold ISU first? Johnny Majors, Earle Bruce, Donnie Duncan?
Great post.......+1 for you.
But to answer your question. The difference between what Dan McCarney did compared to most other coaches in D1 and the ones you mentioned here at Iowa State was that these guys didn't bury their own product to try to make excuses for their lack of success. It was never HIS fault that he turned a 10 win season into a 7 win season, it was the budget, facilities, etc.
The other thing was that he never seemed to learn from mistakes. Ever notice the pattern of how same situations continually happened, and you could predict the outcome (usually another loss). In spite of all of this, he never took the blame for what happened.