Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Newhouse_83, post: 3027666, member: 7139"] You kind of went for the shiny thing and skipped the meat. There are a multiple reasons this program isn't what it used to be; you can tell that just by reading this board. Some are somewhat controllable, others require the staff to make adjustments. People with a decent knowledge of the realities know, for example, * There's an issue with locking up big recruits who give us a verbal and then sign elsewhere * HS talent isn't limited to a handful of geographic areas, two of which (315/585/607 and Westchester/Rockland) where we had a history and a home filed advantage. * There are many more schools that kids can go to than 10-20 years ago. A number of kids are going to choose to go someplace they have a chance to play immediately than go to SU and a few other schools and sit for a year, or two years ... * Your school is as expensive as many of your competitors, but it's not as well-located and the endownment is smaller. * Kids who would struggle to afford your school used to be SOL in terms of options; kids this decade could play for national titles at Albany and Penn State and leave tens of thousands of dollars in their parents pockets, or avoid years of debt. * There's essentially NO diversity in your coaching staff; everyone is a product of the Syracuse area. You don't have decent ties to other programs/states that other programs have (someone will try "Rogers coached in Ohio," but that's it. Maryland's OC is connected to more places than SU's entire staff. How much of this came out in the P-S story? Not. Very. Much. It's useful to hear what people with connections/ownership stakes think. It would be enlightening to hear from a coach at a high school that used to have an SU pipeline -- why don't you send kids to SU anymore? You don't get any of that insight if you just talk to guys who are not only sons of the SU program, but who were incredibly successful there -- Dom Fin was AA x3 here, but he's not watching the lax program a whole lot while he's runing the trading floor at a Wall Street equities firm 25 years after graduation. Of *course* he's gonna say everything's fine. Good reporters effectively use unnamed sources all the time, but few stories -- including this one, if done right -- stand strictly on unnamed sources. They go into a stew that includes named sources and data and public records, and you're measuring that stuff against what others might have told you.. Simply dismissing them out of hand is cutting off your nose to spite your face -- you end up with one-dimensional dreck like the original piece here, or ... nothing (pay close attention to coverage about your favorite NFL team; stuff about personnel decisions and the draft and things not being hunky-dory doesn't happen without unnamed sources). We're not giving people carte blanche to fire away -- the reporter understands if he's been doing the job for a while whether a person is capable of commenting on something or not, what a person's "agenda" might be -- many people don't have them, somebody like a retired coach might well be flattered to be asked. What agenda would Starsia have? It would be invaluable to know how other programs recruit *against* SU, how SU is viewed elsewhere. Is it the title drought? Is it the weather? Is it that the coaching staff is older than your parents? The only way you get that is from someone you can't name. You don't get that from your own guys. You kind of went for the shiny thing and skipped the meat. There are a multiple reasons this program isn't what it used to be; you can tell that just by reading this board. Some are somewhat controllable, others require the staff to make adjustments. People with a decent knowledge of the realities know, for example, * There's an issue with locking up big recruits who give us a verbal and then sign elsewhere * HS talent isn't limited to a handful of geographic areas, two of which (315/585/607 and Westchester/Rockland) where we had a history and a home filed advantage. The '83 team was basically Onondaga County plus Tim Nelson. * There are many more schools that kids can go to than 10-20 years ago. A number of kids are going to choose to go someplace they have a chance to play immediately than go to SU and a few other schools and sit for a year, or two years ... * Your school is as expensive as many of your competitors, but it's not as well-located and the endownment is smaller. * Kids who would struggle to afford your school used to be SOL in terms of options; kids this decade could play for national titles at Albany and Penn State and (and maybe UMass in the near future) leave tens of thousands of dollars in their parents pockets, or avoid years of debt. * There's essentially NO diversity in your coaching staff; everyone is a product of the Syracuse area. You don't have decent ties to other programs/states that other programs have (someone will try "Rogers coached in Ohio," but that's it. Maryland's OC is connected to more places than SU's entire staff. How much of this came out in the P-S story? Not. Very. Much. We got a one-dimensional story that said exactly what anyone here could have predicted. It's useful to hear what people with connections/ownership stakes think. It would be enlightening to hear from a coach at a high school that used to have an SU pipeline -- why don't you send kids to SU anymore? You don't get any of that insight if you just talk to guys who are not only sons of the SU program, but who were incredibly successful there -- Dom Fin was AA x3 here, but he's not watching the lax program a whole lot while he's running the trading floor at a Wall Street equities firm and raising kids and whatever else he's doing 25 years after graduation. Of *course* he's gonna say everything's fine. Hearing from some transfers, or kids who were expected to come here would also be valuable. It's too soon to get Wisnauskas or the kid from Texas who just left, but what about the younger Maltz kid, or Ferrigan?Maybe with the latter, it's as simple as the guys ahead of him were better, but why did a kid whose dad and brother loved the place want to play in College Park. And you're not just gonna get, nor are you looking for, negatives. These kids saw something good enough about SU to have it on the short list. What does Chuck Wilber think? He might know the program as well as anyone who wasn't directly involved -- good and bad. Finally, good reporters effectively use unnamed sources all the time, but few stories -- including this one, if done right -- stand strictly on unnamed sources. They go into a stew that includes named sources and data and public records, and you're measuring that stuff against what others might have told you.. Simply dismissing them out of hand is cutting off your nose to spite your face -- you end up with one-dimensional dreck like the original piece here, or ... nothing (pay close attention to coverage about your favorite NFL team; stuff about personnel decisions and the draft and things not being hunky-dory doesn't happen without unnamed sources). We're not giving people carte blanche to fire away -- the reporter understands if he's been doing the job for a while whether a person is capable of commenting on something or not, what a person's "agenda" might be -- many people don't have them, somebody like a retired coach might well be flattered to be asked. John Galloway's perspective could be valuable -- he's seen the best and the not so best, but it won't be honest if his name is associated with it. It would be invaluable to know how other programs recruit *against* SU, how SU is viewed elsewhere. Is it the title drought? Is it the weather? Is it that the coaching staff is older than your parents? The only way you get that is from someone you can't name. You don't get that from your own guys. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?