If basketball made 4 NCAAs in 10 years....

[No_Willie_Jokes_Yet]

Ah, but grasshopper, football play in a $150,000,000.00 stadium.  Basaball play in a $237.00 field.

At least its an even playing field when were playing other teams at home....

[No_Willie_Jokes_Yet]

Almost forgot:

[smazza]

every coach has an excuse for losing

i am waiting for leavitt to demonstrate what a good coach he is.

will we see it this year?

[Sitting_BULL]

At least its an even playing field when were playing other teams at home....

That makes no sense?  The orange bowl will be too when we go this year but, we won't win.  Why?  Because until now, we haven't had the facilities or means to recruit at their level.

Well, our baseball team has been dealing with that for some time now.  Yet they still make the NCAA's every couple of years.

[Bullpride08]

Fine we could use football instead of basketball.

If we would have continued to force CJL or whoever coached our football program to work out of a trailer and a 3,000 sq-ft weight room....how successful do you think we would be? Sure we may get some good players just b/c of the talent base in Florida but do you really think we would consistently recruit difference makers? That is the problem baseball faces....

Case in point: Dee Brown was between UCF and USF a couple of years ago. Brown has turned out to be a very good player for the Knights and won them some games. Remember what made the difference in his recruitment?UCF was opening up Bergman Field the year he signed.  

It's players like this that we used to get all the time from Stetson, JU and UCF that are we are now missing on. Build a new playing facility and we start winning these recruiting battles again and start competing with the UFs, Tenn, and FSUs of the world for recruits.

BTW....that's not a bad looking deadhorse.

Good point about Dee Brown.  Dee was looking like a USF lean when the new baseball facilities at UCF swayed his position.  Dee ended up being a very big contributor in both sports for UCF, and sadly every summer he drove past USF on his way to the UCF campus from his Hernando County home.

I could probably say that I feel almost certain had we had a comparable baseball stadium and the new facility that Dee Brown would have been a Bull.

Check to the facilities crew.

Oh bulliever.....on the idea of your competitor passing you by while you're at the helm.  Let's use a real world analogy.  Say you're a salesman for a computer company, sayWANG Computers, and you're at the top of the heap, but then your competitors build a better computer and operating system for less and continue to pass you by and scoop up all your customers.  How can you help that as a sales person?  This is all you've got to sell, despite it's inferiority, and you now have two choices.  Choice one, jump ship and move to your competitor, or figure out how they improved their computer and OS, and determine what your company can do to keep up.  

At USF, you either accept your fate, or you change.   Since no one seems to want to accept the fate of being mediocre the only other option is change or improve the stadium.  If you improve your product or equipment and it still doesn't effect the bottom line and gross sales numbers that's when you examine the systems and processes from within to determine what needs to be changed for more effective sales and net income.   So, until we honestly provide an equal product to our competitors on the field- that means budget, facilities, and support (fans, financing, equipment, travel)- it's impossible to examine the systems and processes to determine what, if anything is wrong.  Particularly when Coach's teams are simply marginal.  I could understand if baseball was going 13-44, but as long as we win 32-35 games, it's difficult to question tactics when you compare our baseball resources to our competitors.

[Brad]

Oh bulliever.....on the idea of your competitor passing you by while you're at the helm.  Let's use a real world analogy.  Say you're a salesman for a computer company, sayWANG Computers, and you're at the top of the heap, but then your competitors build a better computer and operating system for less and continue to pass you by and scoop up all your customers.  How can you help that as a sales person?  This is all you've got to sell, despite it's inferiority, and you now have two choices.  Choice one, jump ship and move to your competitor, or figure out how they improved their computer and OS, and determine what your company can do to keep up.  

Problem is as HC he's the CEO not the salesman - (see: Leavitt, Jim)

At USF, you either accept your fate, or you change.

Exactly!

[Sitting_BULL]

Problem is as HC he's the CEO not the salesman - (see: Leavitt, Jim)

Grasshopper, Leavitt, Jim was 4-7 last year.  Why?  He had not been able to recuit at the 1-A level until recently (see facilities).  Also he was not playing 1-A competition until recently.

Baseball has not been playing 1-AA.  They go up against the real deal.  Winning and going to  the NCAA's every two years is overacheiving with what they have to work with.  (See facitlities)

[Bullpride08]

Problem is as HC he's the CEO not the salesman - (see: Leavitt, Jim)

Exactly!

Again the CEO is the salesman, simply put he's just the head salesman.  SO, either he effects a change or leaves.  Sticking around at status quo will only mean deteriorating sales, and eventual bankruptcy, and job loss.  

Eddie is more like the President of a Division, a Division that's generally had obsolete products compared to the competition.   A good CEO that has strong market research realizes that Eddie, despite his Division's obsolescence, has done all he can to maximize the divisions potential, and thus doug Woolard (CEO) either must effect a change, i.e. improve products and services; or stay with the status quo which would mean fire Eddie and find a viable "Yes Boy" replacement that will simply manage costs and keep a cheap, orderly ineffective product on the field that albeit will never win at least it will eak out a marginal profit (sound familiar- SEE: Vince Namoli).

I now actually believe that firing Eddie would be more of an act of desperation, and demonstrating status quo  than keeping him in-place, giving him a bigger budget, raise, and new facilities.  If the CEO strives for excellence and the president doesn't follow suit then you fire, not before, you can't fire a man when the rest of the organization isn't committed or driven, unless it's a fiscal decision it sends an awful message.

[Brad]

Okay, I can't tolerate all the analogies...sorry.

I have recapped this time and time again.  Facilities are important, but to me, they are not a crutch or the sole determinant of success.  We can hide behind that all we want.  But if we are really to approach this seriously, we need to look at more than just facilities and I am confident that will happen.

If EC believes in things as some here do, how can he muster the energy to compete?  He's defeated.  I think "the whispers" likely have something to do with the culture of success and its relative absence from the program.

It is what it is...you must win with the resources you have or be gone.  I don't beleive this A.D. will sit back and say - you're right Eddie, you can't win...how 'bout re-upping for another five years?  Baseball is a backburner issue at USF, but I believe it will become much more important in coming years.

[fscmoc]

If facilities and recruiting are the most important factors in producing a top 25 baseball program then I suppose

we could get anyone to put a lineup together and meet at home plate before each game.

They both go hand-in-hand with the MOST emphasis being placed on coaching.

If by some chance Jim Morris-UM, or Mike Martin-FSU, or Augie Garrido-UT, decided they wanted to move to the Bay area and would love to take over the baseball job

at USF, how many of you would say "No way!". If they would come under the same circumstances that already

exist would you turn them away?

Please don't come back and say they would never come

under these conditions-it's all hypothetical but maybe it

helps to understand that coaching is first and foremost in any program's desire to be at the top.

I've stated this before and had no response but again,

how is Duke so successful in basketball with an awful

facility.? Also, I seem to remember a  young football coach a number of years ago go to Duke and turn the program around and after he left it went back to the cellar.

You're all fooling yourself if you don't think coaching is the #1(by far) reason for a team's success.