[Husker] Sadler gets contract extension

[Bob Beach]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Duane Feldman 
  To: Bob Beach ; husker at tssi.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 10:40 PM
  Subject: Re: [Husker] Sadler gets contract extension


       >>Bob, after a comment like that, I guess I would need more specifics.  Before being hired, NU was in the top ten or top 25 (depending on year) for the All Sports Trophy.  I don't think we have won the conference version even once during SP's tenure.  We've even fallen out of the top two conference wise.  Byrne won the conference title at least half the time if not more often.  What did we win (any title, any sport) under SP that we didn't win under Bill Byrne?


       I didn't say Pederson took an Athletic Program that was downtrodden and put it on the map.  I also am not talking about how he got along with co-workers.  I am just saying that when he left most every sport on the field (court, whatever) was performing at a virtual high level with the exception of football.  And, it is for footbal he is disliked at least among the fans.  If football would have been Conference Champs every year he was here with a couple football National Championships thrown in the other sports wouldn't have mattered.  He is perceived to have torn down the football program.  The other sports survived his tenure quite nicely.  



       >>I was ecstatic when SP was hired to replace Byrne, but that excitement was short lived and ended when he didn't give Solich a chance to see if he had "righted the ship."  Frankie may not have been the right answer, but only Solich's worst year was worse than Callahan's best.  I don't see any of the other sports exceeding those of Bill's.  Wrestling, volleyball, gymnastics, rifle, basketball, baseball,  soccer,  softball, swimming, track, golf,  . . . .OK, bowling but bowling wasn't a sanctioned sport until SP took over.  Even Bill's alley squads won an theoretical bowling national trophy, but it wasn't sanctioned by the NCAA at the time.

       >>Past that, I don't see what is better.


        I have never made the statement he made things better.  I only stated a lot of things were right with the program when he left and he did some things that were right. ("Steve Pederson did many things right with the athletic program.  He just messed up football and that is the cardinal sin of all time".)

     At the very least he seemed to have maintained things in sports other than football.  At the time of the firing of Solich I was 100% behind it.  I still am.  Where things went South is in the hiring of the next coach.  Pederson's mistake wasn't in firing the existing coach it was in who he hired to replace him in my opinion.


  Bob Beach