billiken_roy Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 11 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said: it's explicitly Chris May's job to impress on the BoTs how important upgrades are and to get them "approved". how do you know he didnt try? do you know the cost of the installation? once again, if you dont know the line items then you have no idea what he's up against. MB73 likes this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenfan05 Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 11 minutes ago, billiken_roy said: how do you know he didnt try? do you know the cost of the installation? once again, if you dont know the line items then you have no idea what he's up against. How do you know he did try? IF your post is accurate, and it’s not,Then answer my second question, if the BoT is so blatantly torpedoing his attempts to bring the Baseball field or any other facilities up to basic standards, why in 20 years has he not said F this and moved on? He’d have no problem finding a better situation, right? according to the brochure on this site, I’d conservatively say it would be 250-300k for installation. https://willbrands.com/products/baseball-field-lighting?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsaqzBhDdARIsAK2gqnf2zsDDTOxW3R8kokpV4HaHbCuDtjkufCRycpWIjqoyLJ9fcRlcn30aAm-8EALw_wcB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufan13 Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 How would you think of Chris May if he had a full head of hair? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheA_Bomb Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 2 minutes ago, slufan13 said: How would you think of Chris May if he had a full head of hair? He'd still be a chorizo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenfan05 Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 9 minutes ago, slufan13 said: How would you think of Chris May if he had a full head of hair? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 32 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said: How do you know he did try? IF your post is accurate, and it’s not,Then answer my second question, if the BoT is so blatantly torpedoing his attempts to bring the Baseball field or any other facilities up to basic standards, why in 20 years has he not said F this and moved on? He’d have no problem finding a better situation, right? according to the brochure on this site, I’d conservatively say it would be 250-300k for installation. https://willbrands.com/products/baseball-field-lighting?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsaqzBhDdARIsAK2gqnf2zsDDTOxW3R8kokpV4HaHbCuDtjkufCRycpWIjqoyLJ9fcRlcn30aAm-8EALw_wcB torpedoing is not a likely answer. no one said they BoT didnt want to help. but they as a managing board have more than a few balls they are juggling at a time. each sport has varying level of needed attention and funds and they have to prioritize the best they can. the same with Chris May. i am sure Chris and the BoT would love to give each sport an unlimited budget. but private schools are more limited to what is available. often to exceed what you want applied it requires funds outside the bounds of the income from the tuition the students pay and that might come with direction on how the funds are to be used. if a donor specifically wants the baseball team to get x amounts of their donation, it would be done. if they do not direct such, then indeed it is up to the BoT and then Chris May to use as such. i hate pointing out the obvious, but obviously you need this level of instruction. MB73 likes this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenfan05 Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 3 minutes ago, billiken_roy said: torpedoing is not a likely answer. no one said they BoT didnt want to help. but they as a managing board have more than a few balls they are juggling at a time. each sport has varying level of needed attention and funds and they have to prioritize the best they can. the same with Chris May. i am sure Chris and the BoT would love to give each sport an unlimited budget. but private schools are more limited to what is available. often to exceed what you want applied it requires funds outside the bounds of the income from the tuition the students pay and that might come with direction on how the funds are to be used. if a donor specifically wants the baseball team to get x amounts of their donation, it would be done. if they do not direct such, then indeed it is up to the BoT and then Chris May to use as such. i hate pointing out the obvious, but obviously you need this level of instruction. Oh you think I’m the one who isn’t getting the obvious? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 6 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said: Oh you think I’m the one who isn’t getting the obvious? well you have more than proved over the many many months you have tried to get Chris May that you dont have a clue. so i am just trying to help. if you dont want help and would rather continue to make a fool of yourself. i'll just cease trying to help you. that part is obvious. so good day. Billiken Rich, billikens747 and MB73 like this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenfan05 Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 8 minutes ago, billiken_roy said: well you have more than proved over the many many months you have tried to get Chris May that you dont have a clue. so i am just trying to help. if you dont want help and would rather continue to make a fool of yourself. i'll just cease trying to help you. that part is obvious. so good day. Ok, Roy, whatever reality you wanna create for yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheChosenOne Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 I refuse to hear a defense for the baseball field not being better than the local high school fields. Honestly, I thought similar about the soccer field (not the same comparison) when the locker rooms were under the bleachers, so I am glad that new facility was built for the program. billikenfan05 likes this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 chosen, i too am disappointed. however, to direct the disappointment towards just chris may without knowing for sure he is the one that witheld the needed funds for improvements like lights, seating, pressbox, etc is what is wrong. there are plenty of directions the finger pointing can go. unfortunately that blame cant be assessed with the information that is made public. my assertion is that if may alone is to blame, then why is it continued to be allowed to go on? my guess is it is out of his control. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnbj14 Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 This assertion that the Athletic Director at SLU has effectively zero decision making power is mildly amusing to think about. Improving baseball’s setup would be a very nice win for the athletics complex, and eliminate one of the last real eye sores on campus, especially in a high foot traffic area on basketball game days. May does some good, does some bad. I generally think his tenure has been fine, but that we’re no closer to the goal of the Big East than when he started. SLU_Lax and billikenfan05 like this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenfan05 Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 11 minutes ago, johnbj14 said: This assertion that the Athletic Director at SLU has effectively zero decision making power is mildly amusing to think about. Improving baseball’s setup would be a very nice win for the athletics complex, and eliminate one of the last real eye sores on campus, especially in a high foot traffic area on basketball game days. May does some good, does some bad. I generally think his tenure has been fine, but that we’re no closer to the goal of the Big East than when he started. I can’t believe some people need to be told this. If the baseball stadium is out of his control, is the decision to hire a basketball coach out of his control? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 45 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said: I can’t believe some people need to be told this. If the baseball stadium is out of his control, is the decision to hire a basketball coach out of his control? Imo, Recommendation definitely. final decision not likely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenfan05 Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 13 minutes ago, billiken_roy said: Imo, Recommendation definitely. final decision not likely. It's his job to sell projects to the BoT, not recommend. To present them with all of the facts and figures as to why a facility addition is necessary. It's his job to convince the BoT of the projects worth. If they don't approve it, he then what throws up his hands and says oh well? Or does he look for a solution to rework the proposal? Regardless of this, the delay in installing the grass in the outfield and making a decision to source funds for lighting installations are not something the BoT is really concerned with. If Chris May/Darin Hendrickson wants to try to raise the rest of the installation cost through baseball alumni, why would the BoT or Pestello reject a project funded completely by private donations? OkieBilliken likes this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiken Rich Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 5 hours ago, OkieBilliken said: I think the dichotomy exists between those who support men’s basketball exclusively and those who support the overall athletic program. Those who support men’s hoops are fine when other SLU sports do well, but really don’t care one way or another. They certainly don’t want resources that could be better used to support mbb to go anywhere else. I am in the strongly in the other camp but I have family that is exactly the opposite. I would rather watch SLU women’s soccer or baseball on ESPN+ than just about any pro sport. I think the wbb run in the WNIT was as enjoyable to me as some of the big mbb wins I have had the pleasure of attending. Overall I don’t think it’s a winning strategy to forsake other sports. Schools that I would look to compare ourselves with are Xavier, Marquette, Creighton. Our basketball arena is on par but would they have facilities as bad as our spring sports? The Big East has some excellent baseball teams in it. Would they be interested in playing at our godawful embarrassment of a field? That's me.......First Women's Soccer game and Women's Basketball games ever last year. The NCAA soccer game would've been fun and closer to my home at Soccer Park and the NIT was fun but.......well......fun enough at SIUE. If we have to upgrade this stuff for the Big East, so be it. Otherwise...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 2 hours ago, billikenfan05 said: It's his job to sell projects to the BoT, not recommend. To present them with all of the facts and figures as to why a facility addition is necessary. It's his job to convince the BoT of the projects worth. If they don't approve it, he then what throws up his hands and says oh well? Or does he look for a solution to rework the proposal? If he was that good of a salesman/administrator, he'd likely be working for nNovelly, Chaifetz, rex, etc. But just to play along, let's say the lights will cost $250,000 to install and to offset the first year increase in utilities. The department gives them that or the can't sign the lines of Avila because Kentucky is offering $200,000 final offer below our bid. Pick one. You seem to think this job is a walk in the park. Who you gonna please. The 125 average fans at the baseball game or the 6,000+ fans at the basketball game? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierPal Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 The Story behind the Story. With a department in crisis, Indiana State athletes and Sycamores fans deserve better Gregg Doyel Indianapolis Star A wildly popular baseball coach who never wanted to leave is gone, following out the door a basketball coach who never wanted to stay, as the Indiana State athletic department — and its fan base — plumbs new depth of plummeting morale. This is neither breaking news nor a recent development, but the ISU athletic department, like the school as a whole, is in crisis mode as the campus prepares to welcome a new president and athletic director to Terre Haute. And while I’d love to share good news here, because few things make me happier than the success of a state school, the news isn’t good. Because one problem at Indiana State remains: The Board of Trustees. Those folks, as well-intentioned as they must be, have overseen the collapse of the athletic department at the same time enrollment figures have been dropping. Four-year enrollment is dropping across the state, and country, but the trend hits harder at a school like Indiana State, which offers the most affordable tuition among the state’s five largest public universities (IU, Purdue, IU Indy and Ball State). The Board of Trustees made a poor hire in 2016 at athletic director (Sherard Clinkscales) and a disastrous hire in 2018 at president (Deborah Curtis), spent too many years watching those two drive this athletic department off a cliff — even rewarding them with contract extensions through 2025 — before finally getting separation from those two a year ahead of schedule. Curtis announced in October the 2023-24 school year would be her last, while the school and Clinkscales announced a mutually agreed separation on Dec. 31. Those two get the brunt of the angst from supporters of Sycamores athletes, and they deserve it, but the Board of Trustees allowed this to happen with poor hires and zero oversight. The low moment came last spring when the Indiana State baseball team won the Terre Haute Regional but turned down the chance to host the Super Regional against TCU because of a sheer lack of effort from Curtis and Clinkscales. The 2023 Special Olympics were in town that week, eating up most of Terre Haute’s hotel vacancies, but rather than working with nearby communities and colleges for alternative housing options — as Kentucky had successfully done that spring to host the Lexington Regional — Indiana State pulled its Super Regional bid without a peep … and then hid behind the arrival of the Special Olympics. That lack of care from his top two bosses gutted baseball coach Mitch Hannahs, a 1989 Indiana State alum who applied for the job several times before finally getting it in 2014. Hannahs, the back-to-back Coach of the Year in the Missouri Valley Conference, left last week for South Florida after leading the Sycamores to their third regional in five years. The Super Regional fiasco of 2023 hurt him, and people close to Hannahs will tell you the school’s failure to replace Clinkscales with longtime assistant AD Angie Lansing was the final straw. Lansing, who applied for the job in 2016 that went to Clinkscales, is universally liked and widely considered one of the most valuable employees on campus. She was given the title “interim AD” after Clinkscales’ departure, but the impermanence of that move pushed Hannahs out the door of the only job he’d ever really wanted. The departure of men's basketball coach Josh Schertz was different. He was wildly successful — kudos to Clinkscales for hiring him — but unpopular within the athletic department, a self-serving climber routinely allowed by Clinkscales to play by different rules from the rest of the department. After leading Indiana State to the 2024 NIT title game, Schertz shopped around and found the highest bidder at Saint Louis, with inaccurate rumors flying in Terre Haute of alumni raising millions to keep him. This is not a school with deep pockets, which makes the future of its athletic department terrifying in an era where NIL and the transfer portal have made it even more difficult for mid-majors to compete, especially given the backward step the Missouri Valley Conference has taken as a whole. But this is a school where things can get done. Thanks largely to Schertz, Hannahs and the school’s perennially awesome track and field programs, Indiana State — despite its financial limitations — has ranked third in the Valley in all-sports tabulations over the past four years. The Sycamores can survive with hard and smart work, but in addition to losing those two successful coaches, the athletic department has seen the departures of key personnel in marketing, operations and sports information, and failed to replace most in a timely manner (if at all, in some cases). This is a school where players on the softball team have had to use the press box to change into practice gear, where the air-conditioner in one campus gym broke and went unrepaired for a year, where the Board of Trustees features mostly out-of-towners — leading to the disconnect with the Terre Haute community — and where one BOT member used Twitter this spring to try to bully Lansing into making a hire he wanted. This is a department, and a school, that inspire no confidence. And this is a campus, and town, that deserve better. “This athletic department has so many issues,” said one former longtime employee, “I don’t know if it’ll ever get back to normal.” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenfan05 Posted June 13 Share Posted June 13 51 minutes ago, billiken_roy said: If he was that good of a salesman/administrator, he'd likely be working for nNovelly, Chaifetz, rex, etc. But just to play along, let's say the lights will cost $250,000 to install and to offset the first year increase in utilities. The department gives them that or the can't sign the lines of Avila because Kentucky is offering $200,000 final offer below our bid. Pick one. You seem to think this job is a walk in the park. Who you gonna please. The 125 average fans at the baseball game or the 6,000+ fans at the basketball game? His job is a sales job. He sold you didn’t he? He was touted as a fundraiser, that’s a sales job. Idk man, in your completely impossible hypothetical. Maybe they should just go to the Endowment ATM(you keep clamoring about) for the 250k, because that also doesn’t exist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted June 14 Share Posted June 14 @CenHudDude: c'mon, man. It's a cliche. Seriously, in most cases, you take the time to write a letter to just about any company, and you will more than likely get a response. Let's change 'fat, dumb, and happy' to 'content' and you likely don't bother to write a letter or drop a line if you are content because anger is the typical great motivator. Hell, I played baseball at SLU in the mid-70's and we had to practice in Forest Park, Carondolet and Tower Grove. I am in no position to offer any decent perspective based on that experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almaman Posted June 14 Share Posted June 14 11 hours ago, Taj79 said: In my previous life, we had a term we used for groups and individuals like this. "Issue publics." One group protested the overall issue focused on their specific concern. If it was an environmental problem, there was the air public, and the water public, and the jobs public, and the recreation public, the emissions public, and so on. That seems to what we have here. People have some issue with May and it branches off into baseball, volleyball, field hockey, scheduling, and many other sub-issues. Plus if you are fat, dumb and happy, you say nothing because only the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Frankly, the constant complaining is downright monotonous and boring but it is your right to practice free speech. last line applies to 50% post imo. petty little infighting always makes me grin when folks contemplate if the kids follow us MBM. if they do we must look like a bunch of what's the word pope used? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
majerus mojo Posted June 14 Share Posted June 14 2 hours ago, HoosierPal said: The departure of men's basketball coach Josh Schertz was different. He was wildly successful — kudos to Clinkscales for hiring him — but unpopular within the athletic department, a self-serving climber routinely allowed by Clinkscales to play by different rules from the rest of the department. After leading Indiana State to the 2024 NIT title game, Schertz shopped around and found the highest bidder at Saint Louis, with inaccurate rumors flying in Terre Haute of alumni raising millions to keep him. Pretty wild paragraph from known loser Gregg Doyle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted June 14 Share Posted June 14 2 hours ago, billikenfan05 said: His job is a sales job. He sold you didn’t he? He was touted as a fundraiser, that’s a sales job. Idk man, in your completely impossible hypothetical. Maybe they should just go to the Endowment ATM(you keep clamoring about) for the 250k, because that also doesn’t exist. Ha I'm a retired middle management banker. He has to sell some of the greatest business minds in America. Hard no nonsense guys. Big difference Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted June 14 Share Posted June 14 2 hours ago, billikenfan05 said: His job is a sales job. He sold you didn’t he? He was touted as a fundraiser, that’s a sales job. Idk man, in your completely impossible hypothetical. Maybe they should just go to the Endowment ATM(you keep clamoring about) for the 250k First sensible thing you've said since I've known you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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