Re: UNH Wildcats - Marty Scarano
Wow, the whole West Stadium debate seems to have polarized opinion between our hockey-first and football-first factions. While I'm unquestionably in the hockey-first faction, I don't think there's any reason that IF the finances can be generated via fundraising without impacting adversely on tuition, there shouldn't be a commitment to upgrading the football facility. It is frankly beyond embarrassing to the school that the current facility is FAR worse than high school facilities in Portsmouth and Exeter (and I'm sure elsewhere across the state - I mention those two due to proximity to Durham). The proposed facility is NOT Gillette Stadium North, or even close. It should be do-able. But then that brings us back full-circle to the constant underlying subject of our thread ...
This football proposal comes down to making difficult choices....courageous choices....I question Marty Scarano's ability to make these choices....he certainly hasn't exemplified much courage, in any respect, during his tenure...
I couldn't agree more. During his tenure at UNH, it would be charitable to BS35 to say that overall, UNH athletics have been "treading water". Men's Hockey has gradually fallen from where they were before he arrived, and Men's Hoops is pretty much status quo - as in abjectly abysmal. Even Football ... while Coach McDonnell has enjoyed a superb run with his team over the last 10 years, recall (1) he was NOT hired by BS35, but by his predecessor, and (2) Coach Bowes before him also had a long run of successful teams, too.
I'm not going to get into the smaller sports, as the underlying assumption there is that - as good, bad or mediocre as they all may be - they are not adding to the "bottom line". And they exist in large part due to revenues generated by the revenue-generating sports, of which Hockey is probably the only one that runs a "profit" or even close. So the question to me becomes ... why then is UNH satisfied to rely on only Hockey to be the revenue-positive sport? Look around, the biggest lost opportunity in the entire Athletics Department without question is Basketball. Smaller rosters, low equipment costs, travel to schools generally much closer than the other sports ... that all makes Basketball a MUCH better prospect to generate revenue for the department and the school than does Football, with its huge rosters, high equipment AND medical costs, and the sheer expense of traveling with a huge entourage to far-away road games.
And the kicker for the Basketball situation is ... IF someone were to ever get the program(s) off the ground, the infrastructure for the growth of the program is already in place. Once the program(s) succeeds to bang out Lundholm Gym (something I've experienced only in the Drapeau/Alosa/Chapman years in the '90's) ... the Whittemore Center is already in place, and offers the opportunity to double or treble the capacity of Lundholm. I know that is "dreamland" right now ... but BS35 has had almost 15 years to fix the situation, and is no closer to doing so than he was the day he started. In fact, it's probably even further removed now than it was back then.
Bottom line, BS35 has been the face of UNH Athletics during a period when one word - "complacency" - can best describe what's been going on across the various high-profile athletic programs. "Courage" has been in extremely short supply, as shown when he had the chance to back his Women's Hockey coach, but took the coward's way out and dismissed him. His concept of "leadership" is apparently to bully volunteers, coaches, players and his remaining minions into remaining mum about their personal feelings on the situation.
If President Huddleston is indeed the "agent for change" I think he has a major obstacle currently sitting in the AD's chair ...
Carry on....
When you talk about a new scoreboard for the Whit are referring to instant replay? We already have a center ice scoreboard.