The ouster of UVA president Teresa Sullivan is just the latest (and most vivid) example of current and future ACC member schools experiencing unrest at their highest administrative levels. Given that the conference is still viewed by many as a ripe target for poaching (and this despite its aggressive history in acquiring new schools), the added variable of real and potential leadership changes in the conference’s schools is another variable to the conference realignment conundrum…
SLF has moved! Check out the full post at http://www.secondlevelfootball.com/2012/06/15/embattled-leaders-in-the-acc/
While Va Tech is currently the model of stability, it’s biggest problem is the aging leadership. Many of the top administrators have reached, or will soon reach 65 or 66 years of age. There can’t be but so many more years left in them.
Our football coach, and the most powerful man in the athletic office, will hit 66 this fall. Plus, our AD is getting up there in age and has Parkinson’s disease. He may not be long for leadership either.
Hopefully we are lucky and get great replacements.
No worry. Shane Beamer (not Bud) will be the man when Frank is all said and done.
Frank’s replacement is an important issue, but I would put forth that the replacements for Charles Steger and Jim Weaver are more important, especially collectively.
I just wish all this realignment crap would end already.
Have you seen this? http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/uva-billionaire-donors-plot-corporate-takeo
Tough to jump to the conclusion Syracuse has “baggage.” As an alum myself, it’s been frustrating to see the school focus less on students and more on community outreach, but that really hasn’t been a factor for football at all. For the most part, those strugles trace back to a poor coaching hire (Greg Robinson), and the rise of other northeast programs at the same time (Rutgers and UConn, plus Temple too, to an extent), cutting into the Orange’s traditional recruiting grounds. Under current coach Doug Marrone, those issues are being dealt with, but it’s going to take some time to repair the damage of the Robinson era.
Seems like you inadvertently supported my point. I think the only thing you can really argue in SU’s defense is that it not only is Cantor no longer embattled, but that her personal capital with the trustees, faculty, and alumni base is restored (and given where you took your argument, it’d be a position you probably wouldn’t believe yourself.) Otherwise, SU is bringing a volatile/compromised executive situation into the ACC leadership mix. I can’t see how that isn’t baggage. I don’t think anyone would consider it a neutral or positive factor.
Looking at the recent specifics of the football team and the won-loss record is avoiding the issue of leadership the piece is focused on. Florida State has a baggage train, to abuse the earlier idiom, and they’re BCS contenders. If Jim Barker or Charles Steger were getting nationally publicized flak (internal and external) about the very direction they were steering CU or VT, I’d have to include them here.