FW: [Husker] The Family

[Kenneth McKillip]

I do not buy the analogy equating firing HP to firing a FB coach who has a
bad year or two.

I also don't accept the validity of arguments that include "except for this
major issue what did he not see".

However, I do respect Steve's judgment and I'm glad, since HP will likely
hang on, that Steve thinks he is good the University.  I do think there
needs to be consequences for HP.

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Reichenbach [mailto:reich at inetnebr.com] 
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 11:21 AM
To: husker at tssi.com; kmckillip at houston.rr.com; reich at inetnebr.com
Subject: RE: FW: [Husker] The Family


Yes, I was one of those who thought Pederson was tremendously "foolish
and risky" (as I wrote than) in firing a coach who was 9-3, had been in
the BCS Championship game less than two years earlier, had a better
than 75% winning percentage (about the same as Osborne's at the same
time in his head coaching career), and had made what looked to be
excellent changes in his staff.  I criticized Perlman and emailed him
to fire Pederson years ago (to which Perlman responded with his strong
disagreement).  If only he'd listened to me years ago ;-).

However, firing Perlman over this would be like firing a coach
everytime the team loses a game or benching a QB everytime he throws
a pass off the mark.  That would be accountability --- the kind of
accountability that is poison to an organization, the kind of
accountability that Pederson supposedly applied to change head football
coaches and led us to where we are now in the football program.

Perlman is not a man who "does the easy thing."  I know that from
seeing how he makes hard decisions over which he knows some vocal
special interests (e.g., the faculty of which I'm a member) will
lambaste him.  In fact, I would say that your judgement in this is way
off the mark.  Can you name any major issue at the university (other
than this one) where Perlman has made the wrong decision because it was
"easy"?  I cannot and I watch the university pretty carefully, so I
doubt that you can.  On the other hand, I can name some very difficult
decisions he made for the better of the university.

Accountability _is_ important, but if an organization fires people who
make _a_ mistake and ignore the breadth of their job performance
(especially when the mistake does not involve a core mission), the
organization ultimately is paralyzed and ends up with no people of quality
because they make no difficult decisions for fear of ever being wrong.
In fact, the very root of the word suggests "accounting" for all of
the ledgers, each with its own relative importance.

The most important aspect of accountability is learning from mistakes
and changing to improve.  Apparently, Perlman learned the error of his
way in going with Pederson and hopefully he will do better picking a
good AD to replace him.  I think he already did.

For many, many reasons, Perlman will not be replaced over this mistake.
And, that is a good thing.


> Steve.  When I was pointing out the problems associated with firing the
10-3
> staff and where I saw it leading you were right there with me early on.
> 
> I seldom disagree with you, but Harvey's own words doom him.  He is a man
> that does the easy thing.  We need men that do the hard thing when it is
> right.  For the long term good of the university he needs to go.  Future
> leaders will make better decisions in an environment of accountability.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Reichenbach [mailto:reich at inetnebr.com] 
> Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 3:57 AM
> To: husker at tssi.com; kmckillip at houston.rr.com
> Subject: Re: FW: [Husker] The Family
> 
> > HP still needs fired.  The cancer will not be gone until he is run out
> > of town - for being so exceptionally stupid.  STUPID.  STUPID.  STUPID.
> > Accountability is absolutely necessary to keep people from repeating 
> > stupid mistakes.  This entire soap opera was based on stupidity.  We
> > must root out stupidity.  Stab it through the heart.  Fire HP.
> 
> I can't tell if this is based on (a) a lack of understanding of the
> role of the chancellor or (b) an over-reaction to something not going
> as desired.
> 
> Having worked at the university for a long time, now as a professor
> and formerly as department chair, I have seen several chancellors.
> The chancellor is very important to the university; Perlman is an
> excellent chancellor.  Firing him would be bad for the institution
> internally (as it would be viewed as a stupid move about something
> that isn't even at core mission of the institution), it would be
> perceived by the wider academic community outside the university as
> a boneheaded and misguided action, and UNL would likely get someone
> who is less successful (especially given that subsequent candidates
> would be wary of an institution whose top academic officers were
> subject to the success of the football program) in running the
> university.
> 
> That said, Perlman isn't perfect.  He made a big mistake in letting
> Pederson, who looked to be a pretty good hire coming in, run the
> athletic depeartment as he wanted.  I complained in email to him
> (but he wasn't convinced).  Then, he was convinced by last season's
> success, the pre-season hype, which had NU rated (and so was not so
> foolish), and Pederson's say-so, that all was going well.
> 
> He made some mistakes.  So, why don't we fire him like we did with
> Devaney in 1968 and Osborne (take your pick 1978 or 1990) and Solich
> in 2003?  Oh wait, we weren't always so short-sighted to as to fire
> someone doing a good job when things weren't perfect.  Sometimes,
> we looked at the bigger picture before firing one of the "family".
> 
> Take a look at the big picture before you jump from the frying pan.
> Haven't we learned _that_ lesson in the last five years?  (I'm
> afraid the answer is no.)
>