Fleck, who switched jobs 2 yrs after extension, thinks society has commitment problem

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I don’t think anyone really disagrees with the policy, just that it is bit ridiculous to get preachy about it considering most coaches and most people reading this are constantly looking to improve their situation and very likely not emailing their boss about their new job search or the interview they have next week (unless they are angling for a raise - kudos once again to Jeff Brohm).
 

Pompous Elitist said:
It is analogous to coaches constantly trolling for the next better job which every single one outside of a select few is doing. PJ even curiously states he encourages this as he wants his coaches to promote their careers, whereas most employers may start searching for one’s successor sooner rather than later if they find out one is looking to move on. Can a revolving door of recruiters affect recruiting? Is it hypocritical to preach commitment when the assistants are actively looking to leave the minute they walk in? Are they telling recruits they’re staying at MN?

Again, nothing wrong with the policy and let’s face it recruiting and selling of any product is full of half truths, white lies and everyone does it but it can’t be that hard to figure out why it’s hypocritical to get on a soapbox about it, is it?
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Encouraging assistants to seek promotions is not the same thing in any way shape or form. In the case of coaches we are talking about their career and livelihood, if a coach can get a promotion from assistant to coordinator or coordinator to head coach it would be foolish to turn that down to stay in the same place. This is their career.

Same can be said for head coaches in terms of keeping their options open. The University can fire them at a any point so it would be foolish to expect the coach to be 100% committed to the University.

Fleck is telling recruits he is 100% committed to them if they are 100% committed to him and the program. If they are not at that point then he is telling them not to commit as he wants to make sure those spots go to players that are fully on board.
 

GophersInIowa said:
A better comparison would be that if Fleck had told Coyle he was leaving Western Michigan to become the next coach, but then he continued to do interviews with other programs.
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His history at NIU suggests he did exactly that. Hypocrite, or not?
 

MNVCGUY said:
Encouraging assistants to seek promotions is not the same thing in any way shape or form. In the case of coaches we are talking about their career and livelihood, if a coach can get a promotion from assistant to coordinator or coordinator to head coach it would be foolish to turn that down to stay in the same place. This is their career.

Same can be said for head coaches in terms of keeping their options open. The University can fire them at a any point so it would be foolish to expect the coach to be 100% committed to the University.

Fleck is telling recruits he is 100% committed to them if they are 100% committed to him and the program. If they are not at that point then he is telling them not to commit as he wants to make sure those spots go to players that are fully on board.
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We’re not talking about players futures, lives and possible professional careers? Wake me up.
 

GophersInIowa said:
If QB A is "committed", but looking around at other schools, and you have QB B that wants to commit to you right now, stop looking around, totally shut everything down, etc., should you accept the commitment from QB B and tell QB A he no longer has a scholarship offer? Assuming the talent level is similar, most people would say yes. QB A has a greater chance of decommitting, I'd rather have the guy that is 100% on board. But then if you do that, it looks bad because we (the public) see it as just pulling the offer from someone that is already "committed".

If someone is looking around, then to me, by definition, they aren't really committed.
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Exactly, there are some recruits that use verbals as a placeholder but if you are still looking around, taking visits, and talking to other schools then you are not in fact committed so the verbal means nothing.
 


Pompous Elitist said:
We’re not talking about players futures, lives and possible professional careers? Wake me up.
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Only for a very small percentage. The vast majority will be done playing football when their college career ends regardless of what school they sign with.

If Fleck was saying commit now or we are pulling the offer that would be a problem. Telling them not to commit until they are positive they want to be there is not a bad thing.
 

Perhaps the semantics need to be altered. Rather than adding descriptors to the level of commitment perhaps commitment should only be used after signing day. What new word would be more appropriate to describe the current system? Engaged?

Going even further, and this is tangent, perhaps in the interest of creating a level playing field a match system could be implemented as is commonplace.

Player lists their preferred teams in descending order, teams have their player big board and on down the line each player is assigned a destination. Huge drama for players, coaches, fans. Personally for me this recruiting stuff is very tiring.
 

Posted this in another thread as well. Feels like a really good analogy to this situation.


You ask your girlfriend to marry you and she says yes.

Your Fiancée then informs you that although she still wants to marry you she is going to go out with some other guys and keep on seeing other people.

Do you stay engaged and hope she stays committed to you or do you end the engagement until she figures out what she wants?
 

rockford said:
Once again I'm left to wonder, is there a forum someplace for people who like Gopher sports?

JTG
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An article about Gopher Sports being debated on the Gopher Sports forum. We all hate Gopher Sports because of this?
 



Pompous Elitist said:
His history at NIU suggests he did exactly that. Hypocrite, or not?
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He left the day after he accepted the NIU job. More than likely he had already interviewed for the Tampa job prior to him accepting the position with NIU. That would be like a kid committing to a school, then getting an offer from his dream school the next day. No one would fault him if he switches his commitment.
 


GophersInIowa said:
He left the day after he accepted the NIU job. More than likely he had already interviewed for the Tampa job prior to him accepting the position with NIU. That would be like a kid committing to a school, then getting an offer from his dream school the next day. No one would fault him if he switches his commitment.
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As Doeren said he bled NIU. #Commitment ��
 




MNVCGUY said:
Only for a very small percentage. The vast majority will be done playing football when their college career ends regardless of what school they sign with.

If Fleck was saying commit now or we are pulling the offer that would be a problem. Telling them not to commit until they are positive they want to be there is not a bad thing.
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Paragraph 1: Does that make it batter?
Paragraph 2: Are you certain he doesn’t? How about if he said, “you don’t have to commit now if you aren’t certain, but I can’t promise the scholly will still be available later”? Would that really be much different?


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the verbal commitment is the equivalent of a promise ring. It may lead to an engagement and marriage, but sometimes the "promise" turns out to be something far less binding.

If I was king of the world, I would get rid of verbal commitments, 'hat' ceremonies and all of it. If a player wants to tell Team A that he intends to sign with them, great. But - If I was king of the world - there would be no hype, no announcements, no tweets, zilch UNTIL national signing day.

Let's say you run a car lot. I come in and say "I'm going to be back next week to buy that BMW." And I never come back, and later you see me driving a Lexus. You may think I'm a jerk - but until you sign the contract, you have no legal obligation to buy that BMW. And until a recruit signs a LOI, he has no legal obligation to attend that school.

IMHO, a lot of this is driven by the recruiting web sites and services. they help create the hype to make their service seem more important and drive up subscribers.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
the verbal commitment is the equivalent of a promise ring. It may lead to an engagement and marriage, but sometimes the "promise" turns out to be something far less binding.

If I was king of the world, I would get rid of verbal commitments, 'hat' ceremonies and all of it. If a player wants to tell Team A that he intends to sign with them, great. But - If I was king of the world - there would be no hype, no announcements, no tweets, zilch UNTIL national signing day.

Let's say you run a car lot. I come in and say "I'm going to be back next week to buy that BMW." And I never come back, and later you see me driving a Lexus. You may think I'm a jerk - but until you sign the contract, you have no legal obligation to buy that BMW. And until a recruit signs a LOI, he has no legal obligation to attend that school.

IMHO, a lot of this is driven by the recruiting web sites and services. they help create the hype to make their service seem more important and drive up subscribers.
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I agree with everything you wrote except for the part about the LOI. An LOI is not a legal document and does not require a signing student/athlete to attend a school. Rather, it is an agreement among the schools not to give an athletic scholarship to anyone who has signed an LOI with another school. I don't know all the details of the LOI agreement among the schools but I believe it allows a player to enroll and walk-on at any program just like any other student. I also understand this LOI agreement only applys for one year. In other words a player could stay home for one year and then be free to sign an LOI to any school.
 

I have no issues with coach Flecks comment and I do believe our Society has a issue with finishing what it started.
 



Spoofin said:
What he meant by this was.....


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This isn’t really fair to PJ Fleck and is indicative of the silliness that permeates the coaching carousel. The answer he gave is the only answer he can give. And while it’s over the top, so is everything else he says, so not doing that would be the clue he’s leaving. You never talk about your next job until you’ve agreed to take it.

The real gem in this article is the speculation was WMU was going to double his salary to $1.6MM per year.

I’m still trying to figure out how that’s a pay cut from the $3.5MM we paid him in 2017......


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caliGopher said:
This isn’t really fair to PJ Fleck and is indicative of the silliness that permeates the coaching carousel. The answer he gave is the only answer he can give. And while it’s over the top, so is everything else he says, so not doing that would be the clue he’s leaving. You never talk about your next job until you’ve agreed to take it.

The real gem in this article is the speculation was WMU was going to double his salary to $1.6MM per year.

I’m still trying to figure out how that’s a pay cut from the $3.5MM we paid him in 2017......


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I've always assumed what he meant by that was that he could've pursued a different job (e.g., Oregon) that would've paid him more (i.e., $4 million+) and by his insane logic taking "only" $3.5 million was a "pay cut". It's completely asinine, but that's the only way I can make any sense out of the pay cut comment.
 



MNVCGUY said:
I assume you are just trolling to troll, but do you really not see a difference between players and coaches?
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How would you explain the difference between players and coaches?

I hear what Fleck is saying (it would be nice if recruits stuck to their commitments), but not sure I'd be preaching about commitment when most coaches (himself included) change jobs all the time.
 
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Word said:
How would you explain the difference between players and coaches?

I hear what Fleck is saying (it would be nice if recruits stuck to their commitments), but not sure I'd be preaching about commitment when most coaches (himself included) change jobs all the time.
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This is spot on. There is nothing wrong with PJ moving on and improving his personal situation, but don't preach that others should stick with their current situations even if better ones present themselves. There is one defense of that approach and that is simply, "I am a really big Gopher fan and refuse to look objectively at the situation."

And that is fine, but let's not pretend that we would rise up as a fanbase and stand up for let's say Jim Harbaugh if he said the same thing.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
the verbal commitment is the equivalent of a promise ring. It may lead to an engagement and marriage, but sometimes the "promise" turns out to be something far less binding.

If I was king of the world, I would get rid of verbal commitments, 'hat' ceremonies and all of it. If a player wants to tell Team A that he intends to sign with them, great. But - If I was king of the world - there would be no hype, no announcements, no tweets, zilch UNTIL national signing day.

Let's say you run a car lot. I come in and say "I'm going to be back next week to buy that BMW." And I never come back, and later you see me driving a Lexus. You may think I'm a jerk - but until you sign the contract, you have no legal obligation to buy that BMW. And until a recruit signs a LOI, he has no legal obligation to attend that school.

IMHO, a lot of this is driven by the recruiting web sites and services. they help create the hype to make their service seem more important and drive up subscribers.
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You also don't expect the BMW dealership to hang onto the specific car you say you're interested in if someone else is interested in it.
 

WoodburyTim said:
This is spot on. There is nothing wrong with PJ moving on and improving his personal situation, but don't preach that others should stick with their current situations even if better ones present themselves. There is one defense of that approach and that is simply, "I am a really big Gopher fan and refuse to look objectively at the situation."

And that is fine, but let's not pretend that we would rise up as a fanbase and stand up for let's say Jim Harbaugh if he said the same thing.
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PJ didn't say they couldn't decommit
 

WoodburyTim said:
This is spot on. There is nothing wrong with PJ moving on and improving his personal situation, but don't preach that others should stick with their current situations even if better ones present themselves. There is one defense of that approach and that is simply, "I am a really big Gopher fan and refuse to look objectively at the situation."

And that is fine, but let's not pretend that we would rise up as a fanbase and stand up for let's say Jim Harbaugh if he said the same thing.
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Heres a small difference in my mind. I would guess that 90% of head coach hires are already head coaches elsewhere. It's what I would do if hiring as you would prefer a proven commodity.

The issue is that every head coach has at least 2 or 3 years left on his contract because you cant recruit if you dont have at least that many years left. No coach coaches to the end of their contract. It's kind of a catch 22. Its virtually impossible for a head coach to improve his his situation and move up without breaking a contract.

Ive said this before, but would allow players to transfer with no repercussions if head coach leaves.
 


Word said:
How would you explain the difference between players and coaches?

I hear what Fleck is saying (it would be nice if recruits stuck to their commitments), but not sure I'd be preaching about commitment when most coaches (himself included) change jobs all the time.
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A coach leaving one job for another is similar to a player transferring from one school to another. A verbal "commitment" on the other hand has nothing backing it other then the word of the player. There is no contract, no buyout, no scholarship.....a player can back out of a verbal at anytime with no real negative repercussions.

If a coach wants to leave for another school there is typically a buyout involved. If a player wants to transfer they usually have to sit out a year. Coach can get fired at any time by the university, regardless of how many years they have on their contract. In other words, a coach leaving for another school is very different then a recruit committing and then decommitting.

Fleck wants his verbal commitments to come from players that are truly committed and ready to shut down recruiting. He doesn't want guys that are unsure about where they want to go to commit just to hold their spot while they hunt for better/different offers.
 

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