I didn't know Maturi has been AD since 1972. That's a long tenure.
I was thinking the same thing, not to excuse Maturi's misdeeds/mistakes, but our entire athletic department has seemed (let me stress
seemed) so unstable for a number of years. Paul Giel had the longest tenure of any atheltic director (17 years, 1971-1988), with Maturi's nine years being next. Two years for Rick Bay (1989-1991); three years for McKinley Boston (1992-1995); four years for Mark Dienhart (1995-1999) and three years for Tom Moe (1999-2002). Moe, if I recall, was pretty much a figurehead put in to merge the men's and women's program into one administrative structure (women's athletics had a separate director from 1974 to 2002) and clean up the mess from the academic scandal under Clem Haskins.
But there were some other messes. All the shenanigans under Musselman (which led to the forfeited season). The motel incident involving the basketball team in a Madison motel. Holtz' close personal friend Luther Darville. I frankly don't know if we're any worse than other programs, but, and I hate to invoke a Reusse observation, "it's one thing to cheat, but it's worse when you're really bad at it."
Maturi doesn't have a sterling record, but looking back at the 40 years of ADs that preceded him, it's difficult to find much to smile about post-Marsh Ryman (Giel's predecessor). And I don't know why that is.
A lot of guys have worked hard, but it seems that something bad, either on or off an athletic field, has happened to each one of the ADs. I'll excuse Moe, because he had big work to do and took some hits to get it done, but get it done, he did. I also wonder what would have happened if Rick Bay had stuck around.
