Ford Interview with Kilcoyne

[billiken_roy]

19 minutes ago, TheA_Bomb said:

Certain BoT members are very capable. It's unlikely that they even reviewed the contract and were presented the salient facts before voting y someone they employ to be the advisor on these matters.

If a building they approved collapsed would we blame them for not reviewing all aspects of the blue prints? 

May failed.  He's continuing to fail and he will keep failing. Also he's a Weiner.

if those voting blindly and were part of the fail by approving that contract, they should do the right thing and resign as they obviously are not on the board for the right reasons.   for you to easily absolve them from any blame you should resign as the passionate fan you have always shown to be.   again, plenty of blame to go around, i just dont think there needs to be one fall guy and the rest skate away with no scars.

[JMM28]

4 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

if those voting blindly and were part of the fail by approving that contract, they should do the right thing and resign as they obviously are not on the board for the right reasons.   for you to easily absolve them from any blame you should resign as the passionate fan you have always shown to be.   again, plenty of blame to go around, i just dont think there needs to be one fall guy and the rest skate away with no scars.

They aren't experts in the field of college basketball coaching contract terms. They are given that information from the dude that gets paid a lot of money to be an 'expert' in that field. 

[slu72]

27 minutes ago, brianstl said:

One of 38.

38! I’m surprised they agree on anything. 

[billiken_roy]

3 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

They aren't experts in the field of college basketball coaching contract terms. They are given that information from the dude that gets paid a lot of money to be an 'expert' in that field. 

b.s.  Some of the best contract attys and leaders in industry make up our BoT.   Most of them are far more experienced in contracts than any line employee at SLU.    It is likely one of the reasons they are on the BoT, And if that is wrong, they just inherited their success, they shouldnt be on the BoT,  They shouldnt be let off the hook for their share of the blame.  

[slu92]

5 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

They aren't experts in the field of college basketball coaching contract terms. They are given that information from the dude that gets paid a lot of money to be an 'expert' in that field. 

Exactly. Same guy that should’ve been raising concerns about NIL $$$ years ago. I’m not giving Travis a pass at all but he has a good reason to want to see May go with him. I’m sure Chris May goes to all the NCAA conferences he can possibly get to throughout the years. I highly doubt NIL was never brought up and if Travis really just did “get a better understanding of NIL” over the las month, lol, then that’s on AD too. I don’t get how he’s still employed as of today at SLU. I really don’t. Profoundly stupid guy. 

[slu92]

I said this before but if Bob OLaughlin thinks Chris May is so great, hire him at LHM and when he loses the company millions and millions of dollars, pat him on the back and tell everyone how great he is at his job. Think that would happen at LHM or anywhere else? WWT? Ed Jones? Just academia. It’s a funny joke if it wasn’t true. 

[billiken_roy]

11 minutes ago, slu92 said:

Exactly. Same guy that should’ve been raising concerns about NIL $$$ years ago. I’m not giving Travis a pass at all but he has a good reason to want to see May go with him. I’m sure Chris May goes to all the NCAA conferences he can possibly get to throughout the years. I highly doubt NIL was never brought up and if Travis really just did “get a better understanding of NIL” over the las month, lol, then that’s on AD too. I don’t get how he’s still employed as of today at SLU. I really don’t. Profoundly stupid guy. 

i think ALL as in Ford, May the BoT, the boosters, all knew the effects that NiL was going to have.   unfortunately, they also believed that the billiken fandom would forgive, forget and accept all their excuses and if a total fail (as in now) they could draw straws for the fall guy and we blindly would play the part of Kevin Bacon in Animal House and repeat over and over "all is well".    we are the fall.  the victims.  the unwitting stooges.   and judging by all the other times that the billiken fandom has faced this, (ekker time, the end of grawer, romar/soderberg, crewsplatt and ford tough) they will expect us to be the good little lemmings and fall in line and accept.  

[Pistol]

The makeup of the SLU Board of Trustees is public information that's extremely easy to find. They're not some mysterious council of elders that meets in secrecy in the top of a hollowed out mountain on a remote island.

The way that Ford's contract would've been presented to them is as a budget-neutral line item for approval. They would outline the terms of the contract, explain that the contract will be privately funded by donors, and take a vote. They would know that this has been negotiated by the Athletic Director and already has the support of several board members, who may or may not have already spoken to them about it.

I'm not quite sure why people here expected Board members to take a stand against this contract. If you're a SLU Board member, you're either a business executive, a Jesuit, or a born-wealthy philanthropist, or some combination of the above. You probably sit on multiple boards, you develop relationships within these boards, you rely on department heads (like the AD) to give you the information you need, and you vote based on that. At SLU, you're making decisions about major capital projects, cost cutting measures, endowment initiatives, academic programs, and the like. When the AD presents the MBB head coaching contract as something that pays for itself, it's going to seem pretty reasonable to move forward with it.

Do you really think one or more of these people was going to raise their hand and be like, "WAIT! What about his track record at Oklahoma State?!"

[TheA_Bomb]

27 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

if those voting blindly and were part of the fail by approving that contract, they should do the right thing and resign as they obviously are not on the board for the right reasons.   for you to easily absolve them from any blame you should resign as the passionate fan you have always shown to be.   again, plenty of blame to go around, i just dont think there needs to be one fall guy and the rest skate away with no scars.

The BoT reviewing every contract in depth is not feasible. This contract should have never been put forth as it is so out of line with the market rate.

I know you're a very loyal person and you feel loyal to May because he's been nice to you. Whether he's nice or not is immaterial as he's incompetent in his job.

The BoT isn't going away. They're not employees we can't pinpoint who the problem is so firing May and getting an effective AD might help.

[johnbj14]

I truly don’t know what Chris May has done to earn such a fervent defense argument as, “well actually, it’s the BoT who are to blame.”

The way I see it, he’s had two major impactful decisions in his tenure.

1. The extension for Ford. On its own, it wouldn’t be a disaster if it was not such an inflated amount, but it is, and he was played for a fool. 
 

2. The Champions Center. A nice facility upgrade, but not the game changer it was marketed as. 
 

His overall tenure is pretty uninspiring in the context of where SLU Basketball has gone under his watch. I don’t trust him in the slightest to make a good hire, and disagree entirely with the notion the BoT should have ignored the contract he negotiated. That’s not the function they serve, and a competent AD wouldn’t have agreed to the terms Chris May did. 

[slu92]

10 minutes ago, TheA_Bomb said:

The BoT reviewing every contract in depth is not feasible. This contract should have never been put forth as it is so out of line with the market rate.

I know you're a very loyal person and you feel loyal to May because he's been nice to you. Whether he's nice or not is immaterial as he's incompetent in his job.

The BoT isn't going away. They're not employees we can't pinpoint who the problem is so firing May and getting an effective AD might help.

Chris May is only nice to people he thinks can help him, he can use or is afraid of. Plain and simple. The guy could care less about anyone but himself, much less an entire staff or the university. So insecure, so fake and so incompetent. Only still at SLU bc he is stuck and Fred and BoT have absolutely no clue, they genuinely think he wants to be a Billiken for life! So disconnected from reality it’s pathetic in all honesty. 

[slu92]

1 minute ago, johnbj14 said:

I truly don’t know what Chris May has done to earn such a fervent defense argument as, “well actually, it’s the BoT who are to blame.”

The way I see it, he’s had two major impactful decisions in his tenure.

1. The extension for Ford. On its own, it wouldn’t be a disaster if it was not such an inflated amount, but it is, and he was played for a fool. 
 

2. The Champions Center. A nice facility upgrade, but not the game changer it was marketed as. 
 

His overall tenure is pretty uninspiring in the context of where SLU Basketball has gone under his watch. I don’t trust him in the slightest to make a good hire, and disagree entirely with the notion the BoT should have ignored the contract he negotiated. That’s not the function they serve, and a competent AD wouldn’t have agreed to the terms Chris May did. 

Contract alone should get him fired 100%.
 

CC. Very nice, over promised expectations once again, huge under delivery. New offices for two basketball programs that are tanking and bringing down whole ship and a cafeteria basically for mbb/wbb and nobody else. Plus every other school has had something similar last 10/20 years! Seriously. 
 

CC is the perfect example of how dumb May is, when we started to come out of Covid everyone knew the costs of materials and supplies sky rocketed. Right? He knew about what was coming in regards to NIL, he should’ve said hey guys let’s put a pin on CC and focus on what’s important very very soon for our success and that’s NIL. Now I get you should and can do both projects, but not at SLU. CC still isn’t paid for! So if you’ve been there that long you should know we can only do one thing at once. Let’s focus on NIL/winning we already have millions pumped into Ford already. If we win we can build whatever we want. 
 

Instead we have a $20 million white elephant built for a mbb program who is dead last in A10 with highest paid coach by far in league. Smart. Visionary. Two words not associated with Chris May. 

[Crewsorlose]

32 minutes ago, Pistol said:

The makeup of the SLU Board of Trustees is public information that's extremely easy to find. They're not some mysterious council of elders that meets in secrecy in the top of a hollowed out mountain on a remote island.

The way that Ford's contract would've been presented to them is as a budget-neutral line item for approval. They would outline the terms of the contract, explain that the contract will be privately funded by donors, and take a vote. They would know that this has been negotiated by the Athletic Director and already has the support of several board members, who may or may not have already spoken to them about it.

I'm not quite sure why people here expected Board members to take a stand against this contract. If you're a SLU Board member, you're either a business executive, a Jesuit, or a born-wealthy philanthropist, or some combination of the above. You probably sit on multiple boards, you develop relationships within these boards, you rely on department heads (like the AD) to give you the information you need, and you vote based on that. At SLU, you're making decisions about major capital projects, cost cutting measures, endowment initiatives, academic programs, and the like. When the AD presents the MBB head coaching contract as something that pays for itself, it's going to seem pretty reasonable to move forward with it.

Do you really think one or more of these people was going to raise their hand and be like, "WAIT! What about his track record at Oklahoma State?!"

Pat Sly is on the board, a former board chair, and very into hoops. I imagine he's a season ticket holder and I've also talked with him about hoops at HS games. 

Pistol is largely correct about the role that boards play at universities. Unless things start to go extremely sideways, the board is mostly carving out time for 3-4 meetings/year and rubber stamping things.

I've been at two universities where the faculty rebelled against the president and in both cases the boards were woefully misinformed about basic matters, and were largely willing to believe any and everything that presidents and other upper administrators would tell them. 

[slu92]

If Chris May left SLU today and became Taylor Swifts manager….within 6 months she would barely be able to sell out at the Holiday Inn in Ames, IA. That’s how bad he is at life. 

[TheA_Bomb]

24 minutes ago, slu92 said:

Chris May is only nice to people he thinks can help him, he can use or is afraid of. Plain and simple. The guy could care less about anyone but himself, much less an entire staff or the university. So insecure, so fake and so incompetent. Only still at SLU bc he is stuck and Fred and BoT have absolutely no clue, they genuinely think he wants to be a Billiken for life! So disconnected from reality it’s pathetic in all honesty. 

Would you say in your expert opinion that he's a Weiner? Does he exhibit traits of weinerism?  

[billikenfan05]

18 minutes ago, slu92 said:

Contract alone should get him fired 100%.
 

CC. Very nice, over promised expectations once again, huge under delivery. New offices for two basketball programs that are tanking and bringing down whole ship and a cafeteria basically for mbb/wbb and nobody else. Plus every other school has had something similar last 10/20 years! Seriously. 
 

CC is the perfect example of how dumb May is, when we started to come out of Covid everyone knew the costs of materials and supplies sky rocketed. Right? He knew about what was coming in regards to NIL, he should’ve said hey guys let’s put a pin on CC and focus on what’s important very very soon for our success and that’s NIL. Now I get you should and can do both projects, but not at SLU. CC still isn’t paid for! So if you’ve been there that long you should know we can only do one thing at once. Let’s focus on NIL/winning we already have millions pumped into Ford already. If we win we can build whatever we want. 
 

Instead we have a $20 million white elephant built for a mbb program who is dead last in A10 with highest paid coach by far in league. Smart. Visionary. Two words not associated with Chris May. 

MBB. WBB and Soccer success or lack there of do not move the needle financially. 

[slu92]

Just now, TheA_Bomb said:

Would you say in your expert opinion that he's a Weiner? Does he exhibit traits of weinerism?  

In my professional opinion he definitely suffers from an acute case of weinerism and also pussitis. So yes on the spectrum of wieners he would be a huge, plump, bald wiener. Yes that’s fair to say. 

[billikenfan05]

Chris May was hired by Biondi to be his personal bankroll for athletics, not make decisions on spending. 

[HoosierPal]

1 hour ago, billiken_roy said:

b.s.  Some of the best contract attys and leaders in industry make up our BoT.   Most of them are far more experienced in contracts than any line employee at SLU.    It is likely one of the reasons they are on the BoT, And if that is wrong, they just inherited their success, they shouldnt be on the BoT,  They shouldnt be let off the hook for their share of the blame.  

Roy, we have some MBM's that apparently believe that Ford and May sat down at a coffee table and hammered out this contract themselves, with no involvement from other decision makers for the single largest contract at SLU.

[billikenfan05]

5 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Roy, we have some MBM's that apparently believe that Ford and May sat down at a coffee table and hammered out this contract themselves, with no involvement from other decision makers for the single largest contract at SLU.

You two are having a completely different conversation than anybody else here. 

[3star_recruit]

54 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

i think ALL as in Ford, May the BoT, the boosters, all knew the effects that NiL was going to have.   unfortunately, they also believed that the billiken fandom would forgive, forget and accept all their excuses and if a total fail (as in now) they could draw straws for the fall guy and we blindly would play the part of Kevin Bacon in Animal House and repeat over and over "all is well".    we are the fall.  the victims.  the unwitting stooges.   and judging by all the other times that the billiken fandom has faced this, (ekker time, the end of grawer, romar/soderberg, crewsplatt and ford tough) they will expect us to be the good little lemmings and fall in line and accept.  

The BOT will continue hiring glorified secretaries because they like it that way. MBMs know they can't do anything about the root cause of the problem, so we attack the figurehead.  They get away unscathed and we get somebody to throw fruit at.  It's a win-win.

[TheA_Bomb]

9 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Roy, we have some MBM's that apparently believe that Ford and May sat down at a coffee table and hammered out this contract themselves, with no involvement from other decision makers for the single largest contract at SLU.

Or some people are aware of how boards work and higher level decision making and others are blinded by personal affinity?

But yes your version above is closer to the truth than thinking a high powered attorney on the BoT was going to take the time to review details of a coaches contract.

[HoosierPal]

Just now, TheA_Bomb said:

Or some people are aware of how boards work and higher level decision making and others are blinded by personal affinity?

But yes your version above is closer to the truth than thinking a high powered attorney on the BoT was going to take the time to review details of a coaches contract.

As you get older and more experienced, you will someday understand.

[billikenfan05]

Just now, HoosierPal said:

As you get older and more experienced, you will someday understand.

Or slower, less self aware. 

[Box and Won]

I appreciate the laugh that reading the word "pussitis" brought me this morning.