I feel badly that we fired Tubby, he was such a nice guy.
My favorite part of having Tubby as our coach was when the team was beating the opponent and Tubby would take everyone out and put in all new players, allowing for the other team to catch back up, it made the games far more exciting and interesting to me.
And I also liked that Tubby worked for free. See, if we had paid him a lot of money, then I might have expected him to work real hard. And if we had paid him well, then I wouldn't have felt badly when we fired him. But since he worked for free, I was ok with his being lazy at recruiting.
Thing is, I don't regret the hiring of Tubby Smith, but I also don't regret the Firing of him, either. Tubby was given the chance to prove himself here, he could have truly made a name for himself here. But he didn't do that.
Someone mentioned that he won a Natl Title at Kentucky??? I wonder if that person knows how Kentucky fans feel about Tubby? He was nicknamed Ten loss Tubby. Every Kentucky fan I've ever met credits that Natl Title to the PREVIOUS Coach. Much the way fans of Tony Dungy give him the credit for Tampa Bays Super Bowl win won the year after he was let go. Tubby was great at building up programs and its understandable that they hired Tubby, but after winning that Title in his first year, its like that was enough for him. He was coaching at Kentucky, he may have fet that being at Kentucky, and having won UK a Title, meant that recruits should be coming to him? That is when Kentucky fans believe he started mailing it in.
He may be a nice guy, but he apparently lost his fire. The University of Minnesota needs guys like PJ Fleck and Rick Pitino. We don't need any more nice guys who mail it in.
And I'm not going to be made to feel guilty for daring to criticize Tubby Smith, because I know the University of Minnesota paid him VERY WELL!!!
The University of Minnesota is one of the largest businesses in the entire state of Minnesota. It employs tens of thousands of people, it's mission is to serve the state and the people of the state, the TAXPAYERS who have contributed towards the University of Minnesota. So it's like a multibillion dollar business that is beholden to its shareholders. Billion dollar companies don't keep people around to run departments/branches of their business just because they are nice guys. If they are not doing a good enough job, they get demoted or fired or let go.
College basketball and football is depended upon to support all of the other sports at the school, so it is irresponsible of the Athletic Department if they keep cbb or cfb coaches around just because they are nice guys.
The B1G Conference is a multi-Billion dollar business and does a lot for each of it's individual schools, and those schools need to do what they can to help out the conference. Minnesota as an institution was "Mailing it in" when it came to football and basketball, and my guess is the Conference may have had a talk with some people at the U, about the U's responsibility towards the conference. Minnesota is the only Div 1 school in the state and it was/is embarrassing how the Dakota schools are beating the U out in recruiting, in basketball and in football.
The wasted potential is almost criminal, if anything, it was irresponsible. The people of the State of Minnesota deserve better. The B1G Conference deserves better.
And NOW, now we finally have a new outdoor football stadium, it took too long, but we got it. And NOW, now we finally are getting a new Athletes Village. It took long enough. It was being talked about a very long time ago. Minnesota was near the bottom in coaches pay and near the bottom in facilities. But they finally started to see the light. The success the B1G Conf was seeing with the BTN, may have been part of the reason why U officials finally started seeing the light.
So was Tubby Smith a nice guy? Sure? Was he paid well? YES! Did he give us our money's worth? That is debatable. I don't think so. Others disagree.
But now with new facilities, and an admin whose attitude seems to be improving, the days of keeping around coaches because they are "nice guys" should be behind us.
So if you don't like how the TC or Tubby Smith firings were handled, that's fine, you are Minnesotans, and Minnesotans are nice, right?
Well I will say it again, when those coaches take HUGE pay cuts and work for next to nothing, then I will accept keeping them around just because they are nice. So when the University of Minnesota is kicked out of the B1G Conference and drops down to the Division III level in Athletics, then we should ask coaches to work for next to nothing and we should then accept mediocrity and take into consideration whether or not they are a nice guy or not.
