A new Bernie thread

[TEE]

In all honesty what Bernie wrote is mostly true. Until the University, Fr. Biondi, decides that athletics are as much as a priority as everything else than SLU athletics will continue to lag behind. If a mediocre Division 1 athletic department is acceptable than either stay the course or drop down to Division 2 or 3. I am not knocking SLU one bit, I am stating a fact. I really enjoy when you get to see almost the entire student athlete corp represented during halftimes at basketball games for their academic achievements. I always say to my dad, how neat would it be if Farther Biondi gave a damn and spent some money on these kids and gave them the facilities that they deserve because they are real student athletes. The real problem that SLU has is that Father Biondi, I don't think, sees the issue that athletics is just as important as a naked man statue, an art gallery or even a state of the art lecture hall. SLU needs to make a statement that they will retain coaches by paying them well, not letting coaches leave for greener pastures, having budgets for each sport that allows those teams to excel at a very high level and have very savvy marketing people to help sell the programs.

SLU has a great product to sell, the campus is beautiful, the academics are great, but the athletics are like the read headed step child.

SLU doesn't need great facilities, but they need good facilities. That starts with an ON campus arena that houses the athletic department, traing facilities, student athlete study centers and sports medicine. You have actual student athletes, SPOIL THEM! SLU needs to be in THIS Century. I am sorry but West Pine is a dump, the place is dreadful. It is like when you disembark an airplane in a different city with a better airport than ours and you realize the first impression of that city is better than St. Louis. What is an recruits impression of SLU when he sees West Pine to that of any other program that SLU fans aspire to be like.

It starts at the top, Father Biondi needs a kick in the a$$. There are building blocks in place, there are resources, USE them.

[billiken_roy]

tee said, "In all honesty what Bernie wrote is mostly true."

i believe it to be purely opinion. if he had facts to back up what he was saying, you can bet he would have given them to us.

tee said, "Until the University, Fr. Biondi, decides that athletics are as much as a priority as everything else than SLU athletics will continue to lag behind."

lag behind who? are you expecting that every aspect of slu is tops in the nation? you obviously werent around in the late 70's early 80's when i was at slu. if you were, you would actually be excited about the campus. and the fact he has stated he wants to build the arena, he has built the soccer field, etc. shows there is a priority there.

tee said, "If a mediocre Division 1 athletic department is acceptable than either stay the course or drop down to Division 2 or 3."

first how do you define "mediocre"? if using rpi rankings go average our rpi over the last few years and see where we lie. it is top 100. so if we are mediocre, what about the other 250 schools below us? should they all drop down as well? just this morning we read that umsl is considering coming up to d-1. and you can bet there are more umsl's out there. yet you want us to step down?

tee said, "I am not knocking SLU one bit, I am stating a fact. I really enjoy when you get to see almost the entire student athlete corp represented during halftimes at basketball games for their academic achievements. I always say to my dad, how neat would it be if Farther Biondi gave a damn and spent some money on these kids and gave them the facilities that they deserve because they are real student athletes. The real problem that SLU has is that Father Biondi, I don't think, sees the issue that athletics is just as important as a naked man statue, an art gallery or even a state of the art lecture hall."

while you rip the statues and art, i view it as raising the overall ambience of the campus to a higher level. father biondi has created an unbelievable campus and all of those things you are saying we can do without might have been the difference in making a different benefactor building the business school, or the last donation on the cancer research center, or getting a prospective slu doctor to come to our faculty. again, you cant believe how bad it was pre-biondi. the man knows what he is doing.

tee said, "SLU needs to make a statement that they will retain coaches by paying them well, not letting coaches leave for greener pastures"

what coach left because of money?

tee said, "having budgets for each sport that allows those teams to excel at a very high level and have very savvy marketing people to help sell the programs."

i dont necessarily disagree with the above, but the money has to come from somewhere to give those big budgets across the board. right now it is all men's basketball to support all the sports. or else it is benefactors donating to the billiken club. until we have the money, we cant spend it.

tee said, "SLU has a great product to sell, the campus is beautiful, the academics are great, but the athletics are like the read headed step child."

again, what schools are you comparing us to to?

tee said, "SLU doesn't need great facilities, but they need good facilities. That starts with an ON campus arena that houses the athletic department, traing facilities, student athlete study centers and sports medicine."

father biondi has stated he wants this. is it his fault that slu has no bill laurie or the state of missouri to buck up 90% of the needed costs to do so?

tee said, "You have actual student athletes, SPOIL THEM! SLU needs to be in THIS Century. I am sorry but West Pine is a dump, the place is dreadful. It is like when you disembark an airplane in a different city with a better airport than ours and you realize the first impression of that city is better than St. Louis. What is an recruits impression of SLU when he sees West Pine to that of any other program that SLU fans aspire to be like. "

again, what programs are you comparing us to?

tee said, "It starts at the top, Father Biondi needs a kick in the a$$. There are building blocks in place, there are resources, USE them."

you are correct. we should go back to the pre-biondi days.

[willie]

I agree with most of your post. Biondi would like to have a top program but he isn't willing to get out front to build that program. It's an attitide of Ok Cheryl/Brad go out and do it ,not an attitude of what can I do to make it happen. I believe he's afraid of the SLU achademic community to truly support the program at the perceived expense of their issues. It's alright for the basketball coach to be the universities higgest paid employee, its alright to build an arena without having all the money,its alright to accept PE credits, its alright to hire a marketing director over the age of 25 and give that director a real budget.All of this will come with winning but we could sure help make winning easier.

[TEE]

Roy, I think you missed my point, I don't want to get into a pissing contest about RPI's etc, the have's vs. the have not's. SLU has the financial resources to get the athletic department out of the stone age.

Father Biondi also can open the purse strings to, if and when it happens, keep coaches from leaving, he will always choose not to do so.

This is an example of Father Biondi's treatment of the Athletic Department, A few years ago, can't remember the exact date, but I was on the golf course with my Dad, Doug Woolard and another man, Doug got a call from Father Biondi on his cell phone, it was about the new floor for the court at West Pine, mind you that Father Stark had already signed off on the cost, gave the ok etc.., but Father Biondi decided to look into the matter and wanted a meeting with Doug immediately, keep this in mind, Father Biondi earlier had no problem when the courts were changed to wood from rubber at Simon Rec Center, but all of sudden when West Pine needed a new floor Fr. Biondi, lets his super ego go mad, decides he needs a meeting to discuss God knows what. What I am saying is that until Father Biondi realizes that athletics are just as important as everything else, SLU will continue to tread water.

The other thing is that Father Biondi will not develop a relationship with people that can give big money donations, his ego gets in the way. On top of that do you realize that no one from Enterprise Rent a Car sits on the Board of Trustees. A multi BILLION dollar company!

[jzstldc]

OK we can obviously tell billiken_roy (who I agree with more often than not) is in bed with Fr. Biondi by defending him whenever possible. There is no doubt in my mind that Biondi doesn't care a bit about SLU athletics and has no interest in them succeeding. Let me make it clear, overall what Biondi has done from an academic standpoint and a campus standpoint since his arrival in 1987 is great and it has definitely made SLU a better place to attend school. Yes there are a few too many naked statues, etc but it is much better than what the campus was in the 80s and before. But he has not made Billiken athletics succeeding anywhere on his radar since stepping foot on campus. Also Tee you are right, West Pine should have been torn down years ago and those is the facilities that our athletes use. Serious upgrade needed. Also Biondi was extremely against the idea of a new arena until many others recognized what it would do 1) for our campus 2) for student morale and hopefully some students will actually attend games on a regular basis and 3) for our programs. Having such a venue would greatly help recruiting and would give SLU a true home court advantage which is something we definitely have not had since playing at Savvis Center.

I agree with most of what Tee wrote but also even though overall I am a big Bernie fan, his ideas on SLU basketball are complete hogwash. When is the last time you have seen him at a game, almost never happens but then again he thinks he can tell us how our program needs to be run. The following comment from his column proves to me that he truly does not like SLU basketball and it will take a lot for him to write something positive about program. In his Press Box on stltoday.com about 2 weeks back he called SLU's program an embarrassment. I say Bernie should stick to talking what he actually knows about. He also started out by saying "It is with some reluctance that I raise the topic of St. Louis University's men's basketball team in today's column." It was with reluctance that I read it after seeing that start.

Bernies column: There's little interest in SLU basketball. The program is, at this time, largely irrelevant. Attendance for home games dwindled, and the Billikens are dragging at No. 211 in the national RPI ratings - trailing such basketball powerhouses as Lipscomb, Hampton, Fairfield and Robert Morris. SLU has made only four NCAA Tournament appearances since the field expanded to 64 in 1985.

[billiken_roy]

do you know if taylor wants to be on the board?

second, you need to explain the resources you are speaking of. where are these resources that he wont use.

[billiken_roy]

jzstldc said, "OK we can obviously tell billiken_roy (who I agree with more often than not) is in bed with Fr. Biondi by defending him whenever possible."

i've never spoken to father biondi in my life.

jzstldc said, "There is no doubt in my mind that Biondi doesn't care a bit about SLU athletics and has no interest in them succeeding."

if that was the case, he indeed would have let them go to division 3 back when he came to town. instead he mandated he wanted to expand the athletics dept and the basketball team become a top 50 program. what i do think is that he has never taken the time to really find out what that takes. last, if biondi had no interest, why did he even propose the arena?

jzstldc said, "he has not made Billiken athletics succeeding anywhere on his radar since stepping foot on campus."

if the billikens are not on his radar, why does he bother to attend most games? why does he go on the road for games occasionally? again why did he even propose the arena?

jzstldc said, "Also Biondi was extremely against the idea of a new arena until many others recognized what it would do 1) for our campus 2) for student morale and hopefully some students will actually attend games on a regular basis and 3) for our programs."

i have never heard anyone ever state biondi was against an arena. i have always heard it the other way but the board never accepted the mention of it.

jzstldc said, "Having such a venue would greatly help recruiting and would give SLU a true home court advantage which is something we definitely have not had since playing at Savvis Center."

while a state of the art on campus arena is an advantage, the savvis is not a disadvantage in recruiting. ask brad soderberg what the last thing he shows a recruit. it was the nba quality palace arena, the savvis center. and when we were in the top 10 in attendance in the claggett through hughes years, i say it was a huge advantage to us. in fact, there have been strings here by kwyjibo where he shown the statistical proof that slu has a homecourt advantage at the savvis. i dont remember how long ago it was, maybe he can repost the information. that all said, i will conceed that i would rather have the on campus arena that has been proposed and agree that the home court advantage would be increased even more by having one.

jzstldc said, "I agree with most of what Tee wrote but also even though overall I am a big Bernie fan, his ideas on SLU basketball are complete hogwash. When is the last time you have seen him at a game, almost never happens but then again he thinks he can tell us how our program needs to be run. The following comment from his column proves to me that he truly does not like SLU basketball and it will take a lot for him to write something positive about program."

i totally agree with this. imo, either biondi, woolard, someone p!ssed off bernie. his passion for this topic is unusually strong and it goes back to romar and before. what amazes me is that slu has such a terrible marketing and public relations effort. someone should be out there doing everything they can to make sure this kind of stuff is never said by the media and trying to plant thoughts and stories that show slu in the best light regardless of what is going on at the time on court.

jzstldc said, "In his Press Box on stltoday.com about 2 weeks back he called SLU's program an embarrassment. I say Bernie should stick to talking what he actually knows about. He also started out by saying "It is with some reluctance that I raise the topic of St. Louis University's men's basketball team in today's column." It was with reluctance that I read it after seeing that start.

Bernies column: There's little interest in SLU basketball. The program is, at this time, largely irrelevant. Attendance for home games dwindled, and the Billikens are dragging at No. 211 in the national RPI ratings - trailing such basketball powerhouses as Lipscomb, Hampton, Fairfield and Robert Morris. SLU has made only four NCAA Tournament appearances since the field expanded to 64 in 1985."

i actually would have had no problem with constructive criticism as long as it is fairly stated and all facts disclosed. he didnt even try to present the issues fairly. and when they were pointed out to him he never admitted mistakes and lies/mistatements. that is what really disappoints me about the last few weeks of bernie isms.

[cheeseman]

You can not tear down West Pine Gym - it listed on the National Registry of Historic Buildings. There probably is some way to get it taken off the list but that is probably not very easily done. I have no inside info on Fr. Biondi and his relationship with big donors but it would seem to be silly on his part not to have a good relationship with them. As far as the Taylor Family is concerned - that is a good question but I do know that they have not taken any real interest in the owner's high school's plight and it is struggling. I am not sure what the issue was with the gym floor but was it not you you told us that it was Jim Braun who got the million dollar match donation and when I questioned how you knew that you said something like well he is the one who always gets the donations. When I further questioned did you know that for a fact, you continued to assert that it was him. Now we find out it was Fr. Biondi who got the money and everyone seems to be still saying he is not supporting the athletic program. Now I do know a head coach down there that coaches a minor sport and he would tell you that money is tight but that the basketball team gets pretty much what they want within reason. He would also tell you that he recognizes that the bb team does carry the overall program. Additionally, no bb coach has ever left and cited a lack of funds or pay as the reason. Now I know they probably won't like to say anything bad when the leave but the stats even shared on this board show that the team gets funded above average compared to other CUSA schools. What this program needs is continued support from everyone - I am still waiting for someone to contact me about giving to the arena as I am sure many of you are also - so where is Mr. Braun now?

[TEE]

Taylor's, Jack no way, Andy probably not,

ERAC President Don Ross would be a logical choice, family involved in one Jesuit school in town, DeSmet. But Father would have to really develope a strong relationship with someone from ERAC, or similar companies in town.

St. Louis has maybe about 10 or 12 people/families that have net worths of $100 million and above. If I were Father Biondi for a day I would go out of my way to develope some type of relationship with those people, because many of those people/families like to donate money to worthwhile causes. Plus I would have jumped through burning hoops to keep Fr. Reinart's relationship with Bob Hope.

Side note: when I had a good friend at Loyal of New Orleans and we played pick up bball at their Rec Center, and wouldn't you know, it was a carbon copy of Simon and guess what it was the home of the athletic dept., it makes you wonder when that school has better facilites.

[BillikenButch]

Tell me why athletics should have the same priority as academics at a Jesuit institution.

[TEE]

OK, athletics is a great way to sell and promote a univeristy. In SLU's case they actually have student athletes. The deserve the best.

I always remember the line from the movie "The Program."

"when was the last time 80,000 people turned up to watch a chemistry experiment."

A good athletic program can help the overall image of the University.

Keep in mind it must be done the correct and ethical way.

[billiken_roy]

when was the last time that a football or basketball team found a cure for cancer or figured out how to stop inflation?

[slufanskip]

I'm not an insider by any means so I have no idea if Father Biondi had anything to do with the following but Mens Bball and Mens and womens soccer have definately improved under his watch.

Mens basketball has been competitive in a top conference the last 10 years and was in the top 10 in attendance for a few years. This is light years ahead of where we were before he came to SLU.

We have a new and competitive womens soccer program that was on the border of making the NCAA tourney.

Our mens soccer team has a beautiful new stadium that is recognized by many as one of the premier stadiums in the country. We are also consistently in the top 10 in the country in attendance for mens soccer and not far behind for womens. Our mens team is also once again competitive on a national level with a top young coach.

So it seems to me that with the improvements made to our 3 highest attended sports Father Biondi has made considerable improvements. I can't imagine they would have happened without his support.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H. Waldman

[TEE]

fine I'll bit, Boston College can thank Doug Flutie and his heroics for helping turn B.C. from a commuter school to a school where kids from all over come to study. I am not saying SLU should just screw academics and use all the resources for athletics. I am saying you get what you put into it and right now that ain't much. For example down I-70 is a state school that used to have great football, but is an absolute joke right now. For example the asst. coaching staff budget at Mizzou for Football is somewhere around $1.2 million, that is nice but a school I am very familar with is Univ. of So. Cal. and their asst. coach budget is two times that, they might have the highest paid coaching staff in the history of college football, USC's academics are amazing and thanks to sucesses in football, baseball, water polo , volleyball, golf, (you name the sport and chances are they may have won a national championship recently) kids want to go to school their.

I don't want to hear the Paige Laurie crap, the Lauries are an afterthought at SC.

[TEE]

you can thank the Hermann family for that wonder facility, plus we are blessed in this community with great soccer people, as Rammer calls is the soccer mafia.

I wish we had something like that for basketball.

[Major Majerus]

nm

[SLUMS81]

The Athletic department does not find cures for cancer. What a high-powered athletic department can do is to create enough energy at a school to attract students (and their wealthy parents) and maintain their interest in the University with the ultimate goal of long-term financial support for the University.

[AlumniFan]

You are dead wrong about several things. One is that there are a LOT more families with net worths over $100 million in St. Louis. Not individuals, but families.

Second, if you think that the school is not trying to develop relationships with these families AND doesn't already have relationships with many of these families, you are not well informed. Period. Period. Period.

I could not care less what Bernie thinks of SLU. I do care when he publicly spreads misinformation (e.g. Gordon and, by implication, academics at SLU), intentionally or unintentionally. This is a pet peeve of mine with this board. People state things as if they are fact, when they are NOT.

Now, I understand people make mistakes (like looking at the wrong newspaper ;-)), so if you are just trying to make a point and recognize that some of the things you said are not exactly accurate, then fine, I don't have a big problem. However, if you are going to strenuously argue the points, then you really should make an effort to become better informed.

[AlumniFan]

You make some good points and it is good to hear what your friend has related to you. Also, a push for funds for the new arena from season ticket holders and others is likely to come soon. It is NOT being ignored, trust me.

Everyone should remember, this University is in the midst of a very successful $320 capital campaign. They have already raised a very significant portion of the money despite the fact that the legacy of a commuter campus has kept alumni giving participation rates down (something that is a major focus of the development office). It blows my mind that the University's success in this regard is so ignored by many (not everyone) on this board, although I am sure it is not intentionally, just a lack of interest in the facts. I do not mean that pejoratively. SLU could be better about publicizing their successes, but there has been information in University publications as well as from other sources. Besides, the transformation of the campus obviously came from successful fund raising.

Finally, someone else above said something like Biondi does not care about athletics. That is just not true. It just is not. I guess Biondi has to hold a press conference and swear on a stack of Bibles that he really is supportive of the athletic programs before some people would believe him. Now, are the athletic programs lower in importance than academics, the research building, the new business school, the renovation and addition to the law school, etc.? HELL YES!!! And thank GOD they are! But that doesn't mean that Biondi or the school is not behind the athletic programs.

Okay, now let the crucifying begin....

[slufanskip]

Mizzou never had had great football ... rarely decent football.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H. Waldman

[tseugnekillib]

TEE wrote......"until Fr. Biondi decides that athletics are as much a priority as everything else(at the University), than SLU athletics will continue to lag behind". TEE, you must wear a jock 24/7!

[3star_recruit]

Strong athletic programs help increase enrollment and loosens the pockets of alumnni who are sports fans, increasing the pool of money for things like research centers and law school buildings. It happens other places -- why not SLU?

[AlumniFan]

nm

[TEE]

yeah another pissing constest!!!!!!!!

[AlumniFan]

Sorry, but you are wrong about the family wealth in St. Louis. For the past 20 years I have worked in the wealth management industry on the high end in St. Louis. St. Louis has a lot of very wealthy families (although it seems that the younger generations keep moving away).

Why is it that you can post a comments critical of SLU and Biondi, but when someone responds you label it a "pissing contest"? I think that is unfair and that is why people start with the personal attacks.

Besides, it is a central part of your argument so it is relevant. If there are only 10 families that might be in a position to make the really big contributions, the game is much different and Biondi DOES have to suck up to every last one of them, including the Taylors who, incidentally, have been very generous in St. Louis. However, we are fortunate in St. Louis to have a fairly wealthy population at that higher level.

Sorry if I offended you; it was not my intent.

P.S. Check your PMs.