BULLheaded

That's my point...they are not different to the owner. If you go out and buy a business, funded from your own pocket and start up say a little coffee shop then that is YOUR property every bit as much as your home, your car or any private club you may be a member of. If you want only 25 year old plummers in your home that is no different then wanting only 25 year old counter help at your coffee shop....heck maybe you only want 18 year old beautiful blonde chicks there regardless of the criteria you want it should be you and you alone that determine who and why a person gets employed in that business...after all employment in your business is a privelege extended by you to a person not an obligation of yours to the public. I will agree that some may not be morally correct in their decisions but that is still their decision to make, best way to counteract that as a society is in giving incentives (ie tax breaks or other financial breaks) to those that don't discriminate. In other words give benefits to those that follow certain hiring practices and NOT taking away the rights of those that don't.

BullDoug to me it isn't the age factor but the right to do with your own property as you see fit. There is a big difference between something in the public realm and the private realm. Seat belt laws, drinking laws, hiring proceedures for public corporations all fall into the public realm, in other words they are owned and regulated by the public and therefore the public should be in control. On the contrary private clubs, businesses and even homes are property of particular individuals or groups of individuals and as such it is those individuals rights to run them as they see fit. For some reason people think an owner of a private business should have less rights to that property then an individual's home, what if you only want adults in your own home? What if you only hire one particular ethnic group to handle various jobs around your house? Maybe you are morally wrong in rulling out all plumbers that are under 25 years old but does that mean you shouldn't have the right to make that decision of who you hire to work on your home? Should the government step in and force you to allow someone in your home if you don't want them there EVEN if you keep them out for discriminatory reasons? So basically I'm not agreeing or disagreeing that the NFLs rule is right or wrong but that I believe that as private property of the NFL owners they have the right to make those rules. Green Bay on the other hand may have some issues

you are an adult at 18 but by law you are not old enough to drink until 21. Age discrimination? Actually I find that law to be more discriminatory then the NFL, truth is that the NFL is not a public corporation and is actually private businesses to the owners and I just don't see why as the owner you don't have the right to make whatever hiring decisions you want based on any criteria. Wether it is right or wrong morally that should be someone's choice when it comes to their own property, same argument with Augusta a few years ago.

Leavitation, I don't think Gene was making any implication that you can't have camradarie without joining our club. With the season coming up this was just a post to let people know about the club and offer some benefits to joining in which we believe a comradarie between members is one. There will obviously be other clubs, groups and even just friends that will generate camradarie as well but we are working pretty hard in establishing that feeling and want people to know this.

True velcro! I guess I just wish they wouldn't try to discourage people who do like the idea of the club. Of course as bull nation grows I wouldn't be surprised to see the growth of other BBC type clubs as well....the more support the better IMO!! ;D

Interesting, I guess I never really expected a contraversey behind creating an entity who's sole purpose is to generate interest in the Bulls :-/

Nope, you don't have to pay but then that would be the case for any social organization wouldn't it? We are trying to provide some additional activities the AA doesn't provide (can there be enough support in the community?) and while you can also put these together yourself, doing so successfully (as we have discovered) is quite a challenge over a message board and never turns out as simple as...were doing this come join us. One thing your also missing is that the club is a great way to centralize fans ideas to promote our Bulls, we don't have much say in what the AA does but in the club anyone who joins can work on creative ideas. Yes again it can be done on the message board BUT as many of us got burned on just such an idea (remember the trophy for the team?) I think this is a much better way to go. If you want to join a group of people where you can not only attend activities but can be a creative force in coming up with new ideas, activites etc... then that is a benefit of the Bull Backers.

Leavitation, This board is great as a virtual club and source of Bulls info. In some occations I'm sure that will translate to meeting people outside of the net however the Bulls Backers is specifically trying to give Bulls fans avenues to socialize and support our Bulls in person. As of now we not only have tailgates and watch parties but we are planning an auto "stampede" up to the south carolina game which will also include a taigate prior to the game. As bullsmania mentioned, we are also working on regular happy hour get togethers, golf outings, club picnicks and several other events. So basically while this board is awesome I don't see the Bull Backers and this board being similar in anyway other then they both are common ground for Bull fans, instead I think they are great compliments to each other.

wasn't it opened only 3 hours prior last year and the 4 hours is an hour extra?

well they sure enjoyed rubbing our faces in the two previous years the eagles knocked us out of the playoffs. All I can say is revenge is soooooooooooooo sweeeeeet! ;D

Is that the football team that every other sport gets to watch play at somebody elses facility or is it the football team that was able to bring in a state of the art athletic center for everyone to use? Sorry but I have to agree with Brad, the other sports had how many years to succeed before football was an issue? As long as football continues to prove success in bringing in the fans and the dollars as well as the performance on the field I can't see any reason to redirect those funds to the other sports. The money will come but like it or not it will come from football and the other sports should wait until the time that football is at a point that it can start spreading out it's wealth to other areas.

probably roots for the gators too

true mike, my dad is an executive head hunter and he wouldn't have even considered that fee unless trying to do the school a favor.

I guess the point is that we just don't know at this point how well he will do. Some credentials he has along with examples of others in similar situations give cause to believe he will do a good job. In addition there are things that aren't proven such as his ability in football, running a large vs small school and frankly being able to make bball successfull when it isn't going to be his main focus. This is just my opinion that while he has potential he is not a proven commodity in the type of environment he will be heading up. I am not furious and I am not estatic either, I'll just wait to see how he performs before I form an opinon.

I'm sorry but I disagree about the experience. He was an assistant at a school with football over a decade ago when college football was entirely different. Will he have some benefit from that? I'm sure he will but I would hardly count that much in the way of experience in running a football program.

I have no idea whether or not leavitt handling the AD operations for football are true or not (I highly doubt it) I was basically responding to those that are saying the lack of experience woolard has in working in football operations is not important since leavitt will basically be handling all those duties and woolard would be focusing mainly on the other sports. I have seen numerous other threads implying the same thing that football is ok since leavitt will be in charge and I think that is a wishy washy way to patch woolards lack of experience in this area. I also believe that YES leavitt needs help and has had help all along in growing this program. He has put a great product on the field by his incredible talent as both a coach and a recruiter but the growth of the entire program has been a cooperative effort between leavitt, selmon and genshaft (and i'm sure many many others along the way) This AD will and should be running this program and I have concerns over his lack of experience in this area. Please don't take this as my preaching the "end of the program" or "he is destined to fail" but take as nothing more/nothing less then I said...a concern. As bien and others have pointed out in this process there are quite a few reasons to believe woolard will do a great job and has the tools necessary to get us where we need to be, but it can't be ignored that there is a fairly gaping hole in his experience in a critical area.

the priority list is probably why there is so much disagreement. I disagree with basketball being the number one priortity, I think getting ray jay filled, continuing to work towards being a national power in football and solidifying the BEs place as a legitimate BCS league is priority number one. I believe all successes will branch off of this. I also think the idea of Leavitt being the AD on the football side isn't that great of an idea. He is a great coach and should have a decent amount of input but completely in control of the AD position? I'd much rather he focus on the product going on the field and have an AD that can work well WITH him yet be the one to handle the off the field football operations. Other then one coach that could arguably be considered the best of all time, just look at how miserably teams have failed when allowing coaches to be both coach and general manager. It can work but the cards aren't stacked in your favor with this type of setup.

I don't believe anyone is saying they don't like him or the job that he hasn't done here yet. In my case (admitedly based only on what is publically known) I am concerned over his qualifications and experience. I am not and I don't believe most are saying he will fail but instead are just expressing that they are worried about this hire. There are basically 3 kinds of fans here, those that can't see anything negative we do, those that can't see anything positive we do and those that try to be more moderate. It is those moderates that I think can indicate how most are feeling about a particular decision and in this case it does appear to me that most of those in this category have concerns. Unfortunately expressing concerns to those that really hate to hear anything negative get's exaggerated to the extent that all of a sudden this concern is interpreted as bashing or not supportive etc...

There is nothing wrong with not liking every choice we make at USF. Personally I have some concerns over this hire (as noted in a different thread) but the decision is made and I just hope that my concerns are unfounded. Mike, your right that we have much less information then the comittee did to form our opinions and I'll just trust they had some good reasons for this choice and expect he will end being a top knotch AD.

Sure glad to be getting BCS money now BUT Man the BCS is just such a joke, the whole thing started since everyone was complaining about split championships and a biasness inherent in polling. NOW they are all still complaining about split championships yet complain about the human judement (ie biasness) not counting enough in the formula : I think it all just shows that there really is no way that truely works other then to let it be decided in a playoff system. Until that day comes (if it ever does) I will just be glad we are no longer left out!

Personally I don't mind guest posters but just a few things. Freedom of speech is one thing but private clubs, groups etc... have the right to make up rules of conduct including limiting what people say. While its true that the public has access to this board, it is still Brad's board and as such it is his right to make rules as he likes and hold everyone who comes here accountable. Also, since registration is free there is zero hindrance to posting even if registration is required. All in all I doubt we would really see much difference in these type of posts regardless of allowing guest posters or not. Boards that require registration have the same problems just caused by dupe nics instead of guest postings. It seems that some people just love to start trouble and will ususally go through hoops in order to do so and it is most likely an average person posting that won't "bother" to register.

maybe if your reading comprehension was better you'd notice I said your reasons were valid AND I thought both were important. Just because YOU happen to feel football experience is totally irrelevant doesn't mean you have to harp on those that feel otherwise. But then lord bien has spoken so I guess I'll just agree since that is the only solution.

I don't count it for a couple reasons 1)time, not only has it been over a decade since he last worked at a college that had football BUT the way football programs run NOW are nothing at ALL like they were back then. If you ran a bank 10 years ago and came back today just about nothing you knew then would be relevant today. You would now have to understand running an investment firm and a brokerage and several other areas of financial institutions in order to run that bank and your experience 10 years ago would be too outdated and I would say the same if you were up for candidacy in that type of situation. 2)Not only was it 10 years ago but he was only an assistant 10 years ago so he NEVER had experience running a football program. If we choose an assistant now it would be ONLY because he is familiar with the environment that we are moving into with the BE. jesus christ bien, if I knew all that I'D be up for the position now wouldn't I? Excuse the hell out of me that I feel having experience in certain areas is important and don't just bow down to your assessment. As I have said over and over and over and over I will keep an open mind AND I don't think he is destined to fail ONLY that it is a concern to me that he doesn't have this experience.

as I said I'll keep an open mind. I disagree with you on the importance of football and BCS experience, I do however agree that several of the other points you bring up are valid and feel that it was important to have both in the next AD. I am concerned that we are leaving out ONE of the most important qualifications if we choose woolard. It is my opinion that our success will be tied almost entirely to our success in football and I would have felt much more comfortable knowing that the person to lead us in that area had some hands on experience in that area.

yep, this is true. there is a thread here from yesterday on this and it links to the usf site's statement on this