Fleck claims taking Gopher job was "a major pay cut'

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Still trying to figure out if he was trying to get people to admire him or feel sorry for him.
 

Aw shoot, kind of wish I would not have listened to the interview. Got to confess, like the guy less now.
 

fan of Ray Williams said:
Aw shoot, kind of wish I would not have listened to the interview. Got to confess, like the guy less now.
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Agreed.
It was a stupid comment to make.

Good thing he didn't tweet about it.

Still hope he is able to take the Gophers into the top tier of the BIG. Ski-U-Mah
 

saintpaulguy said:
He's going to have to buy the apples in bags, as opposed to the individual ones. The kids might cry.

Honestly, this is silly.
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"dad had to sacrifice a lot" "I took a major pay cut to come to the University of Minnesota" "which nobody knows alright, with the contract I was POSSIBLY gonna get at Western Michigan" Wow! It's worse in context and in black and white. Silly and maybe a little scared he is in over his head? They guy praises himself every day to the media.
All that and if he can get the grass cut at the new "dad had to sacrifice a lot" house, I think he can get us to 7 and 0. Deep breaths PJ, breathe into a paper bag. It's gonna be okay, pal.
 

He gives a good explanation on Nadine's timeline. The contract at WMU was for more years, so was for more money overall.
 


Wow a lot of people bent out of shape over information that we don't have. Wonder how many more pages this one is going to be. Negative thrives.
 

DLguy said:
He gives a good explanation on Nadine's timeline. The contract at WMU was for more years, so was for more money overall.
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Here's the video DLguy was referring to. Not only do I think he did a nice job of explaining it, but he actually thanked me for the question afterwards:

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It's very disingenuous to say that taking less money here in 5 years than he would have made there in 10 years is a "major pay cut." There is almost zero chance that he makes less money in the next 10 years (here and wherever he ends up next) than he would have at Western Michigan.
 

It's not clarifying. It's spin/backpedaling.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 



He needs to just stop talking about this. I know he was asked and I appreciate that he responded, but he needs to just stop defending it.

He did not walk away from more money at Western Michigan. It is disingenuous to even imply that that kind of argument is valid. He was given a large pay raise and he deserves the large pay raise. There is nothing wrong with it. He earned the raise and he has made a good enough name for himself that he'll make way more money over the course of the next ten years than he would have if he would have accepted (and coached out) the entirety of the Western Michigan offer. The fact that we are trying this fact as a dirty little secret is strange. He earned it, he deserved it, why are we spinning it?
 

So if a MLB player accepts a 1 year $2M contract over a 3 year, $5M contract, he is taking more money? Got it.
 

GopherLady said:
Here's the video DLguy was referring to. Not only do I think he did a nice job of explaining it, but he actually thanked me for the question afterwards:

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I think the highest paid state employee and multi millionaire coach should shut up about money. No upside to reminding folks how much we over pay coaches in this era, especially in MN.

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GopherinPhilly said:
I think the highest paid state employee and multi millionaire coach should shut up about money. No upside to reminding folks how much we over pay coaches in this era, especially in MN.

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Spot on. I thought he was smarter than this.
 

Did he take a yearly pay cut? No. Did he take a smaller contract to come to MN? Yes. This isn't that difficult to figure out.
 

beavergopher said:
Spot on. I thought he was smarter than this.
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At this point he is responding to questions. What should he do just blow off the reporters like GopherLady that ask for clarification on what he meant? This entire thing has gotten blown way out of proportion, and I am sure if he could go back and reword his original answer he would but at this point all he can really do is answer questions when asked and I am sure he would be more than happy to move on and not discuss it anymore.
 

MNVCGUY said:
At this point he is responding to questions. What should he do just blow off the reporters like GopherLady that ask for clarification on what he meant? This entire thing has gotten blown way out of proportion, and I am sure if he could go back and reword his original answer he would but at this point all he can really do is answer questions when asked and I am sure he would be more than happy to move on and not discuss it anymore.
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When she asked the question, if I were him, I would've said something along the lines of, "I'll admit that the question caught me off guard, and my response was ill-advised. I want to move on from this situation and focus on building an elite program here at Minnesota."
 

MNVCGUY said:
At this point he is responding to questions. What should he do just blow off the reporters like GopherLady that ask for clarification on what he meant? This entire thing has gotten blown way out of proportion, and I am sure if he could go back and reword his original answer he would but at this point all he can really do is answer questions when asked and I am sure he would be more than happy to move on and not discuss it anymore.
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It did, because of how he answered the question in the first place.
In a way this is kind of similar to Claeys tweet about supporting his players.
I think in both instances the message they were trying to send got taken out of context.
 

GopherLady said:
Here's the video DLguy was referring to. Not only do I think he did a nice job of explaining it, but he actually thanked me for the question afterwards:

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Good enough for me.

The original line was poorly chosen, even with the odd context, but it was all of one silly line so no big deal.
 

MNVCGUY said:
At this point he is responding to questions. What should he do just blow off the reporters like GopherLady that ask for clarification on what he meant? This entire thing has gotten blown way out of proportion, and I am sure if he could go back and reword his original answer he would but at this point all he can really do is answer questions when asked and I am sure he would be more than happy to move on and not discuss it anymore.
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I agree with this. Not a whole lot different than Kill's "I own a lake home in Illinois." comment a few years ago. People are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I am sure he'd take it back if he could. But it's been said, he clarified what he said, now we should move on. Unless you are the type of person who wants to add this to the "Reasons I don't like Fleck" list. His comments don't bother me or affect my day-to-day life. I'll live.

GFBfan said:
It did, because of how he answered the question in the first place.
In a way this is kind of similar to Claeys tweet about supporting his players.
I think in both instances the message they were trying to send got taken out of context.
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For once, I agree with you GFBfan. :)
 

dpodoll68 said:
When she asked the question, if I were him, I would've said something along the lines of, "I'll admit that the question caught me off guard, and my response was ill-advised. I want to move on from this situation and focus on building an elite program here at Minnesota."
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Why? What was wrong with the way he responded? He explained the context of the answer and why he gave that answer. When he explained his response, it makes complete sense. If his total contract compensation offer from WMU was for $20M and his current one is for $18M, isn't the contract he took less? And anyone can figure out his leash at WMU would be a LOT longer at WMU. He could easily fail here and get fired during year 3. This is the same reason many pro athletes take less money per year spread out over more years, than more money per year in a shorter contract. Because in sports, nothing is nearly as certain as most of our jobs in the real world.
 

Without knowing the buyout provisions impossible to know what part of that WMU contract was guaranteed.

NFL player contracts are typically backloaded because the team never intends to pay that full amount. The player will be cut loose or asked to renegotiate unless they are indispensable which is a very short list. A player and agent try to get as much on the front end of the contract as possible.
 

Why was it ever even discussed? Money has nothing to do with why I coach. I'm here to develop young men and in the process win some football games.
oh and I forgot.. Row the Boat...Ski U Mah
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
He needs to just stop talking about this. I know he was asked and I appreciate that he responded, but he needs to just stop defending it.

He did not walk away from more money at Western Michigan. It is disingenuous to even imply that that kind of argument is valid. He was given a large pay raise and he deserves the large pay raise. There is nothing wrong with it. He earned the raise and he has made a good enough name for himself that he'll make way more money over the course of the next ten years than he would have if he would have accepted (and coached out) the entirety of the Western Michigan offer. The fact that we are trying this fact as a dirty little secret is strange. He earned it, he deserved it, why are we spinning it?
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My thoughts as well. His clarification is where he should have started. It does feel like CYA at this point. The WMU contract $$ were were a potential possibility...just talk from what I have heard and read, not a written offer he turned down.
 

60's Guy said:
Why was it ever even discussed? Money has nothing to do with why I coach. I'm here to develop young men and in the process win some football games.
oh and I forgot.. Row the Boat...Ski U Mah
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Go listen to the interview. It is 9:20 long and the part people are getting bent out of shape about comprised about 20 seconds of the interview. Had he said he took less guaranteed money to come to Minnesota as opposed to a the "pay cut" line it would have been a non-factor for most people.

It was a bad choice of words on his part in the point he was trying to make but it is getting way too much attention locally. As others have mentioned how about the fact that Jim Rome wants to interview the head coach at Minnesota during the off season? We have been begging for more National attention around here, now we are getting it and people are finding new reasons to complain. I love all the publicity we are getting since Fleck was hired, every chance he gets to get in front of a National audience to promote the program should be viewed as a great thing. Personally I want recruits all over the country to hear him talking about the new facilities.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Go listen to the interview. It is 9:20 long and the part people are getting bent out of shape about comprised about 20 seconds of the interview. Had he said he took less guaranteed money to come to Minnesota as opposed to a the "pay cut" line it would have been a non-factor for most people.

It was a bad choice of words on his part in the point he was trying to make but it is getting way too much attention locally. As others have mentioned how about the fact that Jim Rome wants to interview the head coach at Minnesota during the off season? We have been begging for more National attention around here, now we are getting it and people are finding new reasons to complain. I love all the publicity we are getting since Fleck was hired, every chance he gets to get in front of a National audience to promote the program should be viewed as a great thing. Personally I want recruits all over the country to hear him talking about the new facilities.
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But from what most say, all he does is talk about how bad our OLine situation is. How on earth will he be able to fit THAT in to any interview? :cool:
 

I don't think it's a big deal, but in general it's a bad PR move to be talking about taking a pay cut when he is in the 1 percent club. Doesn't play well with most of the fanbase. Just don't talk about money. Ever. This sort of plays into the thought he's primarily about fame and personal ambition rather than the love of coaching football even if he thought coming here (MN) showed that.
 


DLguy said:
Why? What was wrong with the way he responded? He explained the context of the answer and why he gave that answer. When he explained his response, it makes complete sense. If his total contract compensation offer from WMU was for $20M and his current one is for $18M, isn't the contract he took less? And anyone can figure out his leash at WMU would be a LOT longer at WMU. He could easily fail here and get fired during year 3. This is the same reason many pro athletes take less money per year spread out over more years, than more money per year in a shorter contract. Because in sports, nothing is nearly as certain as most of our jobs in the real world.
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I don't think it was that it was taken out of context. It was just poorly-phrased at best (the context was fine, he just didn't clearly get his point across). It's still not the end of the world though. People that talk as much as him in public are bound to poorly-phrase things now and then. He should have just said he goofed and moved on.
 

e.bigelow said:
Unless you are the type of person who wants to add this to the "Reasons I don't like Fleck" list.
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Which is what the uproar over this comment for some is really about. Another one to add to the list.
 

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