Boatright Stealth Extended?

[SubGod22]

That statement just goes to show the level of incompetence going on over there.

It's a sad, sad day to be a Shocker.

[1972Shocker]

At a young age, I was taught that sometimes, it is better to keep your mouth shut and make people wonder if you are stupid rather than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

That explanation is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

This is the way the world operates these days. Those in power and their minions just gaslight, gaslight, gaslight, gaslight.........

[1972Shocker]

Makes you wonder at this point if a return to the MVC is not in our future, or worse.

[Stickboy46]

Timing of the extension is really odd .. towards the end of the Marshall investigation. Sure feels like ADDB took advantage and basically said "If I have to fire Marshall, I need to be guaranteed I have a job for a few years". Hopefully someone does a FOIA for every email that Boatright sent around that time.

[molly jabali]

One would have to hope that donors would approach Muma, or someone near him, about paying any buyout to get rid of DB. It's definitely going to be cheaper than buying out IB right now and could still give time to get someone in place that can bring donors back into the fold.

The only positives are we already have in place some good coaches in other, non revenue sports, that can hopefully maintain or build upon what they've already done and hopefully the lack of funds coming in as a whole don't hurt them too much. Most of those sports don't have a lot of extras anyway.

Bad news is both basketball teams are struggling and their futures are much more in doubt. How long can we hold onto current staff? We don't want DB making the next decisions.

Wedge should take care of baseball and doesn't need DB for anything. I'm not sure how well KB and company fundraise on their own, but she's built a solid program and I would hope can get a little boost in attendance as well as regional recognition to help her keep things moving in the right direction without needing DB. Lamb has been doing it a long time in VB and has a great young core. He's also done fairly well fundraising on his own and doesn't really need DB for much of anything. Same can be said for Rainbolt and company in Track and CC.

Everyone is effected on some level because basketball has funded all for a long time. How much has that helped these other programs and coaches get to where they currently are and how much will that lack of funds hurt them I'm not completely sure. I assume most work on some relatively small budgets even with those funds so I hope it's not a drastic change. Though one could see where those on smaller budgets are more greatly impacted by the loss of relatively little in funds, but I'm trying to be optimistic of things outside of basketball.

I'm not sure which programs can essentially self fund potentially. I assume baseball could get there with Wedge and some success and a rise in attendance. Volleyball was there at one point I think a decade or so ago when we were averaging top 10 attendance. We were at the very least close to even. Softball just doesn't get the love of the masses enough to pull that off and I don't think the stadium is big enough to accommodate the attendance necessary to do it, even with a top 25 program. Track, tennis, golf and such are never going to drive revenues to do it and absolutely rely on the success and funding from others from a balance sheet perspective.

I got sidetracked again, but the only hope is for some donors, and/or former donors, to care enough to approach leadership to buyout DB. But this is a major negative to Muma. It would be one thing if the contract was going to run out and he felt a small extension was necessary as to give whoever became president time to adjust and figure out what was needed. But that wasn't the case at all and I'm not sure it can actually be defended.

I know many of you hate IB and apparently Keitha, but I see Boatright in a worse light than them.I think IB IS early into his growth and is hardly inept...the next John Wooden? no...but way better than Frank Haith...

[WstateU]

Gotta be goats and sheep involved.

[BOBB]

GTFOH

[WuDrWu]

Make sure I got this right. During a pandemic (Oct 2020), while most (if not all) college athletic budgets were getting destroyed, virtually no raises to staffs because of it…in fact, some athletic department staff members took a pay cut (not sure that happened at WSU), and many other departments were cutting staff to the bare bones. People lost jobs.

During that time, we give our AD a pay raise, and a contract extension.

Got it.

Just to shed a bit more light on your (correct) statement. Many of the highest paid staffers (FHCGM for instance) were asked to take UNPAID leaves. To my knowledge, anyone asked to do this accepted. That doesn't mean they all did or they were all asked, but the few I know that were asked, complied.

Also, many support staff were eliminated. I understand the need to cut staff in the face of a disaster. I had to be the one making those decisions in the private sector. Nobody wants to do it and it's not fun. Faced with the same issue, I would have made different decisions, but that's me. The athletic program, like so much of education, is bloated with mid-management type positions. I would have retired a bunch of those types before I slashed the entry line staff that WSU decided to do. And yes, there were a couple of notable exceptions but not enough imho.

But like someone said, unless ADDB has dirt on PRM (and I'm NOT suggesting he does) or within the program (who knows) then extending him at that time made absolutely no sense.

[wheathead]

Timing of the extension is really odd .. towards the end of the Marshall investigation. Sure feels like ADDB took advantage and basically said "If I have to fire Marshall, I need to be guaranteed I have a job for a few years". Hopefully someone does a FOIA for every email that Boatright sent around that time.

This nails it on the head.

[SubGod22]

I know many of you hate IB and apparently Keitha, but I see Boatright in a worse light than them.I think IB IS early into his growth and is hardly inept...the next John Wooden? no...but way better than Frank Haith...

I don't hate IB. I have always disagreed with hiring a man to lead the most important athletic program at Wichita State that few people viewed as a potential head coach before he was given the interim role. I'm not as opposed to hiring an assistant as some on here are, but some are obviously groomed for or just have a natural ability to be the types of assistants that could step in and do well. I can't recall any rumbling about IB as a future HC while he was an assistant here. I know after he was given the keys he mentioned some unnamed school that reached out and he declined to interview with, but that's it. Compared to guys like Boyle, Jans, Heier and Grant, it's a big difference. Not to say each of those guys would have been received with open arms if they went straight to the first chair here, but a couple of them would have been. And they have since gone on to have successes elsewhere as head coaches.

To Keitha, I've just found the program maintaining a ho-hum feel about it. Maybe I'm wrong, and I could be as I don't follow them closely, but the program feels like it's just kind of there and not really taking that next step.

But I believe there are few on this board that will disagree with Boatright being worse than than them. He's the biggest problem. And if those hires, or others, don't work out, we don't want Boatright to be the one here to make the next hire.

[pinstripers]

Timing of the extension is really odd .. towards the end of the Marshall investigation. Sure feels like ADDB took advantage and basically said "If I have to fire Marshall, I need to be guaranteed I have a job for a few years". Hopefully someone does a FOIA for every email that Boatright sent around that time.

that's logical, and I wouldn't blame him for asking that

[SB Shock]

Unfortunately none of the links above to the openrecords.wichita.edu produce anything these days. WSU for some reason decided to make the open records requests less transparent since October 2021. Too bad Taylor or someone at the Sunflower doesn't look into why that happened.

Well, we know why they have taken down the open record request log (and data it generated). They didn't like the transparency and potential accountability it might generate.

[RoyalShock]

Well, we know why they have taken down the open record request log (and data it generated). They didn't like the transparency and potential accountability it might generate.

I know Bardo took a lot of heat for how some of the Innovation Campus was built/financed, but it seems like he fostered an environment of transparency. Muma, however, appears to favor translucency, at best.

[SHOCKvalue]

All of this... ALL of it, is the result of inferior candidates falling ass-backwards into jobs they aren't qualified for, but were a convenient bandaid at a given place and time. Neither Brown, Boatright, or Muma would have so much as sniffed a lateral, roughly-similar position elsewhere at the time of their respective hirings. Not a snowball's chance in hell. They are ALL well out of their weight class. And having three such individuals in the arguably three highest profile positions at a sizable university is currently and will continue to compound shortcomings one on top of each other.

The future is NOT bright, at least in the near term.

[BOBB]

All of this... ALL of it, is the result of inferior candidates falling ass-backwards into jobs they aren't qualified for, but were a convenient bandaid at a given place and time. Neither Brown, Boatright, or Muma would have so much as sniffed a lateral, roughly-similar position elsewhere at the time of their respective hirings. Not a snowball's chance in hell. They are ALL well out of their weight class. And having three such individuals in the arguably three highest profile positions at a sizable university is currently and will continue to compound shortcomings one on top of each other.

The future is NOT bright, at least in the near term.

Best take I've seen on this whole goat**** of a situation. You can afford one empty suit, but not three. I'll also add Hanlon's Razor:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.