Dan's quick hits:
1. Yes Paladin is banned. He was not warned this time, as he is lucky to be on here in the first-place. Stop making him out to be something Nation, he is a moron and always has been. Just as banning him does not change reality ...saying something does not make that a reality either. The difference between yourself and Paladin is that you flavor your disdain for certain people with wisdom, Paladin does not. However, having a mind does not make everything you say correct ...just as me starting this board does lend anymore credence to some of my opinionated and less-than-knowledgeable comments.
2. Neither the OC, MBB coach, or AD are controversial. You just do not like them. Which is fine. The OC does not run a traditional smash-mouth YSU offense; but he produces points and (last year aside) we certainly have had less than stellar defenses in the past 6-years. The MBB coach is doing everything that he can with what he has and we could not even hope to find anyone nearly as good with the investment that we have made. The idea that upping the salary to $200k will produce better results is a bad one as well (not yours Nation), as we will not see any improvement in coaching quality under the $300k to $500k mark. This will mean a couple of very expensive assistants as well. I really wish we would dump money into the program and keep Slocum in-charge just to show certain people what he can do. The AD has been stellar in my opinion. We ignored so much for so long, yet we have been able to address these issues without closing our doors.
3. The athletic department is actually doing well, but revenues are down & football is not picking up all of the costs anymore ...but we are still in good shape & you really have to credit Strollo's financial sense and his ability to work cooperatively.
4. Paladin's idea that we have some sort of "good ole boy" system is not true ...I wish it was. It was that way when Tressel was AD for about 5-years & Malmusar...things were smooth. Now Strollo has to fight for every nickel (as any AD does) and he has truly been the first YSU AD to have to do this. We have really only had 2 AD's; the first one was incompetent (Malmusar) ...Tressel was an on-the-cheap hire, given a stipend of $15k - then up to $50k. He did not even have time to learn the job, so he just focused on football and the new conference.
In short, YSU has always been able to make something out of nothing and you can credit the "good ole boy" system for that. Look at coach Duzzer ...working his back-side off and the result was "the Ice Castle". Back then, the university was not the athletic department's friend by a long-shot. The AD at YSU (and probably many other universities) has to be hated by everyone ...the business community (as he is always asking for money) and the academic community (for basically the same reason). Yet, we all have to assume that someone knows what they are doing and it is not president Tressel. It is Ron Strollo. Maybe we will find our trust is misplaced, but Strollo has done nothing to show us this.
