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Extended Dan Monson only to fired him months later.
Huh? I suspect what you mean is that Monson wasn't fired when Maturi met with him spring of 2007 in Cincinnati? Monson's contract wasn't extended then.
I assume that's what he's referring to. That incident was nothing short of a fiasco. Whatever his intentions, once it leaked to the front page of the Star Tribune, they had to go through with firing him. The ensuing press conference where he said 'if this was just about wins and losses, I'd probably fire him' was one of the most riduclous things I've ever seen. Monsons tenure was toast that day. But Maturi forced us to endure a 9 win season before moving on. The fact that he stumbled into Tubby Smith does not excuse this. It was one of the worst handlings of a major coaching move I've ever seen.
-Extended Glen Mason only to fired him a year later.
Or, put another way, fired Glen Mason after he publicly insulted the student section, failed to advance the team and embarrassed the University at its post-season bowl game. The only criticism I'd make in Maturi's handling of the situation with Mason was that he waited a long time (too long in many minds at the time) to extend Mason.
Regardless of whether Mason deserved to be fired after the 2006 season or not, there was zero excuse for waiting until after the Bowl Game. There's a reason no other schools do this. It ruins the recruiting class and leaves you out on all of the legitimate candidates. Yes, the collapse was horrific, but we weren't even favored to win that game. To fire a coach even partially because he lost the
Insight Bowl is beyond ridiculous.
And yes, his actions the year prior in waiting until 11:59 on New Year's eve to get an extension done were equally pathetic. Maturi does nothing but dither when big decisions need to be made.
-Zero improvements made to baseball "stadium" that is in great need of upgrading.
They're fund-raising for a new baseball park ... he'd be castigated (and rightly so) if he made substantial improvements to the existing park in light of this.
This may be true. But they've needed a new baseball stadium for about 10 years right? It should have been done already. Because they seem incapable of multi-tasking or raising money for multiple projects, everything has had to go one at a time.
-Botched the Royce White situation.
I know it's in vogue to saddle Maturi for this situation but I don't recall Tubby Smith saying anything but that he'd made the decision to suspend White. And, there's a fair number of us who don't blame either Tubby or Maturi for what was ultimately White's bad decisions.
Tubby's not going to through Maturi under the bus, but I tend to think that were it totally up to him, White would have been playing sometime in January and this matter would never have escalated to where it ended up.
-Zero Jan 1. bowl appearances for football team.
Fair enough. And, if there's no progress this next year, the onus will be on Maturi to both take action and be accountable for the hiring of Brewster. I think we're a year away from evaluating the decision to hire Brewster.
Will he have the stones to do anything or will he just dither some more? In any case, I don't really want him being the one to select the new coach.
-Lacking parking/tailgating experience despite new stadium opening.
While there were bugs in the parking management, only part of that can be laid at Maturi's doorstep. He can jawbone but not direct the folks responsible for parking lots on and off-campus. And, I frankly thought there was pretty good service recovery after the first couple of games. Nothing was so bad as to deserve firing the A.D.
The overall marketing of the athletic department is something of a joke. There's a reason the student section's not full and the basketball season ticket holders are all ticked off. It's not fireable on itself. But one more black mark.
-Mismanageed Tim Brewster contract extension.
You'd have extended him faster? Longer? Not at all? I'm not sure what would have been ideal "extension management" in your mind.
Faster or not at all. Dithering until a few days before signing day meant it did no good for this year's recruiting. Slashing the buy-out in half means no recurit will be fooled as to Brew's status for next year, so it wont' help 2011 recruiting either. You may as well not have done it at all.
-Horrible ticket office customer service.
This is an area that continues to need a lot of work. But validation for firing Maturi? Nah.
