Spoon-Balls
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Posts
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Posts posted by Spoon-Balls
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6 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:
We're all getting edged.
FIFY
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3 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:
Me!? You should talk to those who’ve worked under him. Or student athletes current or former. Weird that not ONE Chris May hire has taken a larger role at another university. Isn’t it?
I’ve said many times I thought May was up sh*t creek with Crews. Tough to sell not hiring the national coach of the year. But again, he has presided over 2 basketball coaches in a row who’ve flirted with historically bad seasons. His replacement for Anne Kordes demolished everything the program had built. I dislike Chris May, that’s no secret. But my posts aren’t just wild claims based in hatred.
May was always a colossal a**hole to the pep band during my time at SLU. Athletics department was always disorganized, chaotic, and when sh*t happened that put the band in a tough spot, it was never a culture of taking responsibility and simply saying "oh we're sorry, allow us to make amends." They'd blame the band for their own f ups. That is just the kind of person May is. I've worked with plenty of others over the years in my profession to know his type. He is a snake. If anything, Janet was always the one doing the heavy lifting around there and cleaning up the messes.
As others have said, all of his schtick would be forgivable if the basketball program wasn't in shambles and could have something to show over the past decade other than just a single NCAA appearance.
JMM28, billikenfan05, DeSmetBilliken and 1 other like this -
Great news all around, really hope alumni can return and provide support for Grant and the next era of the World's Greatest Pep Band. It will take time and effort to recruit new student musicians. It always felt like the number of actual students joining the band really fell off a cliff around 2014-2015, by 2019-2020 it was primarily alumni carrying the entire brass section (bones, tubas, trumpets)...
thatskablamo and thetorch like this -
He might not fully understand what he's getting himself into. I'm sure he was told all sorts of things by the AD to sell the position, but probably has no idea what kind of stuff transpired this past year that led to the position being open in the first place. Hopefully someone in the know can get him up to speed, otherwise I fear things could be somewhat ugly if he shows up to the first rehearsal in August and there's only like 10-20 undergrads present....
BrettJollyComedyHour likes this -
5 hours ago, thetorch said:
I saw this posted on twitter. I hope he is given the autonomy to put on a good show and can lure back our very talented alumni players. I will write him an email and request bringing back 25 or 6 to 4.
Hoping for the best in this regard, but the athletic department doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to micromanaging the band...
BrettJollyComedyHour likes this -
18 hours ago, WVBilliken said:
Nor was there an NCAA Tourney in 2020. And 2021 was a mess. 14 - 7 season with a month with no games. I am frustrated BUT have not yet given up on Coach Ford and the direction the program is moving. Sorry if this pisses off many on the Billiken Board.
The realistic side of me believes this is how Chris May and many of the boosters/donors feel about Ford....
... which is precisely why my desire to support this program will continue to wane. And I imagine many other casual fans throughout the St. Louis region and across the country. I suppose the status quo is the norm for Billiken basketball. Anyone who is fine with this shite can keep on living in their own world but the rest of us are fed up.
It's "Show Me" time for Chris May, and if he can't then, well, I can't continue to follow this program or recommend it to anyone else. If Chris doesn't even have a short/medium term plan for Ford's replacement, then maybe he isn't the best person to be leading Billiken Basketball to the promised land....
The Valley Sucks likes this -
If I were the good Doc I'd be making some phone calls, but I think he easily ends up at another Power school
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Ford has no game plan in these situations.
mrjoelabs likes this -
Perkins with zero control
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If Perkins returns to form like we know he can we win this game handily.
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19 hours ago, Clocktoweraccords2004 said:
Still 85 on net rankings. Fordham is must win
The NET can kiss the Billiken's big white arse. Just win baby.
MattyMo213 likes this -
1 hour ago, TaLBErt said:
Let's grab Chris Beard while his value is low and go to the final four.
“Higher purpose, greater good”
Billiken Rich and TaLBErt like this -
7 minutes ago, brianstl said:
There is still always an excuse for some. What we have seen, is what Travis has always been. It is a reason some of us weren't happy when he got hired. We got what history said we would get.
Almost seven years later and Jim Crews still has still won 3 times as many NCAA Tournament games has Travis Ford.
What’s interesting is that if you go back and read some of the articles about Oklahoma State circa 2014-2015, the situation was almost exactly identical to the one we have right now. Zero wins against top 25 teams, loaded roster that severely underperformed, missed tourneys, etc. And Ford was one of the highest paid coaches in college basketball during his tenure there.
Ford has always been a great recruiter but unfortunately I don’t think his coaching abilities have advanced a whole lot in the past decade.
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Ford has lost the locker room, that much is obvious.
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Perry would put on a masterclass for that solo.
Although I’ll bet even if Austin wanted to play that song at tip it would get shut down by the AD. Sounds like there wasn’t much autonomy anymore in choosing which music they could actually play at various points in the game
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5 hours ago, Deutschkind said:
Wow. I didn't realize how much had changed since I left. So often we started pregame with 25 or 6 to 4. Runaway Baby as super fun to play as a Tenor Sax.
I’m also shocked at how many of the Band traditions have been dismantled.
It sounds like they were forced to discard all the good music and the classics in favor of these “cheers” that are supposed to create “new traditions” and “do it AD’s way.” I don’t fault any of the band for leaving having to put up with that shite. One of the best parts of band was coming up with new music every year and getting to innovate the way we wanted to, not the way AD wanted us to.
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I keep coming back to this article and wondering if you could rewrite it verbatim about the current state of SLU basketball? It seems like Ford is in exactly the same place as he was nearly a decade ago. I just think it’s interesting, and we’ll see if he has the same outcome that he had before…
https://www.cowboysrideforfree.com/platform/amp/2014/4/3/5546118/travis-ford-fired
Lots of fascinating quotes but this one caught my eye:“Some fear that without Travis the [Billikens] won't attract the same level of talent, but what's it matter if the talent is constantly squandered?”
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Sigh.
There were many points over the years where I thought Austin would finally hang up the coat and call it a day, few SLU basketball fans have put their heart and soul into every single game the way Austin has over the last ~10 years since taking over for Mike Beskala. Beskala retired from the job early, for a variety of reasons, but probably was glad to be leaving when he did. Austin was the primary reason the band was able to maintain its enthusiasm and soul for the past decade, despite continual challenges from the people that should have been supporting him. Every year something was being taken away, like playing time, space, funding for new instruments, etc. And yet, Austin was there, every single game. His passion was to make SLU basketball games a fun atmosphere for everyone. He also had a full time job and this was more akin to a volunteer position with a stipend. As mentioned above, he often paid for things out of his own pocket, but it was because of his love for the band and SLU basketball.
I like to think Austin could just set aside the lack of appropriate compensation or respect from AD because he loved what he did, but every year seemed to be a new series of issues. There were a few points back in 2017-2019 where they threatened to fire him because he was causing too many "problems" for them by pushing back on various BS (like threatening to have scholarships removed, reducing funding, taking playing time during games away, micromanaging from AD staff who were non musicians, telling us what songs we should play and ones we weren't "allowed" to, etc.). Like I said, I am very surprised he stuck around for this long, not many would have. He always had the band's back, and we had his. I doubt really anyone will show up now without Austin at the helm. He was the heart and soul of the World's Greatest Pep Band.
2 hours ago, cgeldmacher said:I don't really know what opinion to have about this, because I don't have information that others might have. I have always wondered why other schools' bands seem to be made up of students, while our seems to be at least half or more non-students. Knowing why this is and and having other facts would inform my opinions. So....
1. Why is our band have so many older folks when other bands seem to be just students?
2. Do other schools pay their band members? I have to think that the members of large marching bands at big football schools don't get paid, otherwise, that would be a monumental expense. If they put in all that time just for the love of being in a band and playing for their school, why should our band members get paid? If other bands are paid, then our folks should be paid too.
3. Do other schools give more class credit to their students than our band members get? When I was at SLU, I was on the Mock Trial team. There was a class that you took that you received credit for if you were a member of the Mock Trial team. I think you received 2 to 3 credits per semester. This created incentive to participate on the team. If SLU is not giving kids who play instruments proper incentive to participate in the band, then it needs to.
4. What sort of budgets to other schools assign to their bands? If SLU's band is not being financially supported in the same way that the bands are at other schools, that needs to be fixed.
5. What requirements are expected of bands at basketball centric schools like ours? If other bands are expected to be at every basketball game and a few events for other sports, then ours should also. If not, then we should back off and let the just do the basketball games.
1. Around 2011-2012, there were a ton of students signing up to play in the band. At our largest, we were about 120 band members strong in 2013. Since around 2016 the number of students signing up for the band gradually dwindled. But many alumni, even grad students, would stay on as volunteers to help fill much needed brass sections. Hard to say the exact reasons for fewer students getting involved in band. It just seemed like there was less enthusiasm among new undergrads for any extracurriculars that weren't viewed as significant "resume boosters."
2. Yes, but often in the form of a scholarship and was often highly variable from school to school. I appreciated the small extra scholarship money, but it was never really as important as just being part of a really fun and special group of people. It wasn't really make or break for most students, and certainly not the main reason most people joined the band.
3. We received a half credit per semester. Not bad when you added it up over 4 years.
4. Only a few schools have much more substantial budgets. Places like G Mason and VCU fund their bands fairly well and pay the directors full time salaries. I think VCU band actually protested a number of years back until the university agreed to pay their director as a full time staff member. They also have many band members who are students in the music school there. At SLU we don't have a music school and most of the players don't play anywhere besides pep band.
5. Key word being "requirement." For an all volunteer band, there should be no requirements. And if there were any being levied against Austin and band members then, well, I guess this is what will happen and we will see how AD squirms now that their good thing they took for granted is now gone. But in general, it varies from school to school. You have football and non football schools. Football schools usually have the marching band AND the pep band (I knew a guy who played in Notre Dame marching full time and then pep band in the offseason). The marching band members receive a substantial stipend and scholarship, and play at various functions around the universities. It's a full time job, and extremely intense during the season. Then you have non football schools, which only have a pep band. VCU and George Mason, for example, play at a good number of their sporting events, i.e. basketball (mens and women's), volleyball, soccer, etc. But again, they are pretty well funded by relative pep band standards. Most other places just play at mens and women's basketball games.
All in all, a sad day for SLU basketball. Austin was a treasure and hard to imagine them finding a replacement in the next 1.5 weeks. Most band members will not return.
DeSmetBilliken and TheBand like this -
5 hours ago, Slu let the dogs out? said:
OG - You remind me of Dr. Dolan from Fletch. Have you ever served time?
Now, how long have you had these pains, Mr. Barber?
That's Babar.
Two B's?
No, one: B-A-B-A-R
That's two
Yeah but not right next to each other. I thought that's what you meant
MOOOOOONNNN RIVERRRRRRR
BrettJollyComedyHour and Slu let the dogs out? like this -
7 hours ago, dlarry said:
No need to waste your time with this argument tonight. When the Gaels are up 30 with 10 minutes to go tonight Hughes and Thames will both get time.
FIFY
dlarry likes this -
Wondering what it will take for our NET to recover from this one... A10 isn't gonna be a cakewalk.
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Our NET will take a serious hit after this one. Not good.
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Ballgame
End of a (mediocre) era. Travis Ford is out.
in Billikens.com Main Board
Posted
I'm sure most here would LOVE to have Chris May's job security.
End of an era. Feels like the program is right back to where good ol' Jimmy Crews left it.