[NU Sports] El Painful El Paso

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

> of Big-Ten and/or D-I kickers.  Commits are nice,
> but we have had a lot of highly touted commits.  If
> RW wants to play the 'tough-love' coach game with

Any suggestion where else we should look to improve
the kicking game besides the "nice" committments
through recruiting? Isn't that how a coach is supposed
to work to help the problem?

> We have all seen the recruiting grades and the
> predicted org charts - again, 'tough-love' RW MUST
> perform on the field, not in projections.  Again, MM
> MUST tell him that the defense MUST be consistently
> top 20% in D-I, or his services are no longer
> needed.

It's nice to set these MUST goals, but again folks,
there needs to be some intelligence and reason behind
setting goals. Any school can set goals that they MUST
be top 20 etc. etc. etc. or fire the coach. That would
mean firing almost 100 coaches each year.

We know where we need to improve - it won't happen
overnight. It is reasonable to ask to see improvement.
It is unreasonable to say something MUST be top 20 or
else fire the coach. It's that kind of thinking that
destroys any kind of program building before it gets
started.

> his task - not 6-7, 7-6, 2-9, etc.  For us to pay
> him like a media celebrity and expect (and accept)
> so little from him in return, is twisted.

Actually, if you did a study of wins per dollar
compared to these top 20 coaches where you seem to
demand NU be immediately, I think you'd find Walker to
be a bit of a bargain. I also doubt you could get NU
to cough up enough money to bring Charlie Weis, Urban
Meyer or Steve Spurrier to Evanston.

>  The whole notion of Northwestern is a University
> 'of the highest order', and the football teams we
> have been seeing lately are clearly NOT of the
> highest order.

OK, let's use this absurd analagy of a university's
hundreds of years of tradition vs. a coach with seven
years at a school with zero tradition of winning at
football ...

Say we started a marine biology program at NU and
demanded that it MUST be the best in the world. No
ocean nearby? Nonsense! Cold weather? Balderdash! We
refuse to look at any outside circumstances and DEMAND
that we MUST have it NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!

So someone comes to NU and builds a marine biology
program in seven years that had one great year in the
first four, but improved and was consistently among
the top half of the Big Ten and nation the last three
years. Would we scrap it and build it all over
demanding that we be top 20 NOW NOW NOW or else, or do
we see where the improvements can be made and address
these concerns with the leader who has gotten us this
far?

A school can't just start paying attention to football
and expect to be the best overnight after decades of
neglect to pretty much all of its major revenue
sports. Tradiiton, facilities, location, academics,
etc. ARE a factor and you can't change that overnight.
You will not find a person who will build NU into a
top 20 program NOW ... you need someone who is
committed to doing it the right way and doing it for
the long run. The same you would do if you founded a
new school at the university. Medill and Kellogg
weren't #1 overnight, there are years of tradition and
hard work built into earning that reputation -- and if
a new school started a business grad school tomorrow,
it would not be up with Kellogg, Wharton, etc. right
away -- it would take some time, money and dedication.

> We should expect to be the best in all things that
> the University involves itself in.

Are we really the best in everything? Are we the best
in all academic areas and all athletic areas? Hanging
a lot of NCAA Final Four banners in Welsh Ryan lately?
Are our law school grads running for president like
those at Yale and Harvard?

Again, it's a worthy goal -- but it can't be a MUST
goal or ELSE, it has to have some reason and thought
behind it. And if you look at NU throughout the years,
our football program has been better for this
generation of NU students than generations before. 

Had this "tough love" outrage come in the 1970s, or
1980s, it might have seemed merited. But after the
most successful decade of football in almost a half
century at Northwestern, it sounds more like a child
throwing a tantrum in a store that they want the toy
"NOW MOMMY NOW!" than a reasoned, thought-out
argument.

Yeah, bowl losses suck. From the one we were feeling a
decade ago at this time, to the four since. But if you
look at the bigger picture, you see that NU fans *are*
demanding more and *are* receiving more from their
football team. You can look at it one way, saying we
need to be top 20 NOW or else fire 'em all ... a
quick-fix way. Or you can look at it with a sound,
long-term approach ... was this past decade of
Northwestern football better than the decade (or two
or three) before it? Most definitely.

* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!


		
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