Dr. Daryl Gross Received $1.5M After NCAA Violations | Syracusefan.com

Dr. Daryl Gross Received $1.5M After NCAA Violations

My unsolicited thoughts:
A private university can do what it wants within the law.
Speculation: It was cheaper to keep Gross and mollify him with a contract extension than to fire him for cause and risk a high-profile, expensive lawsuit. He eventually left on his own for other athletic pastures.
JB is a Syracuse lifer who's given his all to the university and the program. In comparison to other coaches he doesn't bust the bank. Never has. And although he's made a few minor errors (qualify them as you wish) over the span of 40+ years (and a NC), would you have wanted anyone else there? Y'know 5 half-*** coaches over that span (or however it played-out)?
And yes I am an apologist for all the joy and heartache I've gotten from a private university that owes me nothing. What some call "deceitful" can also be looked at as an adroit handling of a situation that played out to SU's advantage. Why would they not do that? Gross is gone w/a minimum of acrimony and JB reigns, compiling FFs and Sweet 16s. There are counterpoints to my assertions, but overall a masterful job by SU. Enough w/the "SU should've self-flagellated more."
 
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I read the article and it reminds me of when a team trades a player to another team and agrees to pay part of his salary just to get rid of him, but I can't fathom why he was given the post-AD three year contract in the first place. :confused:
 
Gross had little to nothing to do with SU getting into the ACC. SU had been flirting with the ACC since the 80's and we were a Virginia tech/state of Virginia temper tantrum away from an official invite in 03.

Gross did have some accomplishments here. Big improvements to the field turf at the dome, improved Olympic sport team coaching are a couple that come to mind. I think he was creative about improving revenues while still in the Big East. Premium seating at BB games, for example. I think we are better off with our current AD, but Gross was not the complete disaster as asserted by some.
 
It was posited as some sort of scandal on twitter. Then I read the article. Lol.
 
Gross had little to nothing to do with SU getting into the ACC. SU had been flirting with the ACC since the 80's and we were a Virginia tech/state of Virginia temper tantrum away from an official invite in 03.
Ok...so how do you know this? You can’t disprove a statement by saying it ALMOST happened before. Fact is that it actually got done during his tenure, and that’s what matters.
 
Ok...so how do you know this? You can’t disprove a statement by saying it ALMOST happened before. Fact is that it actually got done during his tenure, and that’s what matters.
Because it is common knowledge. We would have been in the ACC 10 years sooner if not for a hissy fit by the VA governor to include the rednecks from Blacksburg. I am not going to go as far as the OP to say he had "little" to do with it, but he certainly was not the only leading player in the move. And he had a lot of history to build upon. A conference is much more than just an athletic association. Most group heads and of course the BOT were intimately involved. Was Gross the lead on the athletic side? Undoubtedly. Was he the only player? No.

All this is to say, yes, it happened on his athletic watch. And also, he had more than a little to do with it.
 
Sorry to say this but sometimes I wonder if the hatred of gross is more than just because he hired the worst football coach ever.

Yup. He riled the "anti-change" crowd. A lot of the criticism is without merit, in my opinion (especially in the context of his peers).

So he hired an unsuccessful football coach. Twice. Gross wasn't the first AD to make bad hires in that goofy line of work. That doesn't mean the hiring party is an idiot or didn't do his due diligence, it might just mean that it's not easy to win football games (especially with some fundamental disadvantages).

There are legitimate dings against his reputation. His department's attention to detail was horrible. But there's obviously more to the dislike than the substance of his tenure.
 
Yup. He riled the "anti-change" crowd. A lot of the criticism is without merit, in my opinion (especially in the context of his peers).

So he hired an unsuccessful football coach. Twice. Gross wasn't the first AD to make bad hires in that goofy line of work. That doesn't mean the hiring party is an idiot or didn't do his due diligence, it might just mean that it's not easy to win football games (especially with some fundamental disadvantages).

There are legitimate dings against his reputation. His department's attention to detail was horrible. But there's obviously more to the dislike than the substance of his tenure.

To me that was the icing on the cake, (Rosie jersey retirement screamed we have way too many high paid admins, and no one actually running the kitchen) as well as was a window into the inner workings of his AD empire. Hiring his wife to lead marketing, not so good... Add to that, building a personal bonus structure around the success of Olympic sports, and then putting way to much money into glamour coaches, (looking at you Luke Jensen) rubbed me the wrong way. I am all for a healthy department and success across the board. I have followed and gone to more FH, women's lax, softball, ice hockey games, than I can count. That said, I think we could have balanced out the department a bit better, (seen similar results with a less expensive tennis coach) and long term success is built around sustaining your money making programs. Gerg, Shafer, yeah those stunk, but I agree, the facilities and lack of structure to succeed in football, began before TGD. I'll say this imo, the AD during his tenure seemed to lack a functional long term plan. We were day trading as opposed to working on our retirement plan.
 
Yup. He riled the "anti-change" crowd. A lot of the criticism is without merit, in my opinion (especially in the context of his peers).

So he hired an unsuccessful football coach. Twice. Gross wasn't the first AD to make bad hires in that goofy line of work. That doesn't mean the hiring party is an idiot or didn't do his due diligence, it might just mean that it's not easy to win football games (especially with some fundamental disadvantages).

There are legitimate dings against his reputation. His department's attention to detail was horrible. But there's obviously more to the dislike than the substance of his tenure.

Awful football coaching hires aside...

He pissed away way too much cash for my taste in a time when the conference affiliation (i.e. tv $$) wasn’t generating enough revenue to support it.

The misguided NYC’s college campaign, aforementioned absurd salaries for Olympic sports coaches, et al would’ve been fine if the dept was generating revenue to warrant those “investments” and simultaneously bank some for future needs (like facilities upkeep).

I think there’s a correlation between the crapiness of his football hires (except the BOT stepping in for Marrone) and how he spent cash.

He tried to go cheap on the FB hires to support his other (IMO misguided) expenses (foolish taxi cab placards and Gary Gait/Luke Jensen salaries).

That’s it for me. I appreciated DG’s willingness to push things that Jake seemingly accepted at face value (FieldTurf). But he was overall an awful AD.
 
Awful football coaching hires aside...

He pissed away way too much cash for my taste in a time when the conference affiliation (i.e. tv $$) wasn’t generating enough revenue to support it.

The misguided NYC’s college campaign, aforementioned absurd salaries for Olympic sports coaches, et al would’ve been fine if the dept was generating revenue to warrant those “investments” and simultaneously bank some for future needs (like facilities upkeep).

I think there’s a correlation between the crapiness of his football hires (except the BOT stepping in for Marrone) and how he spent cash.

He tried to go cheap on the FB hires to support his other (IMO misguided) expenses (foolish taxi cab placards and Gary Gait/Luke Jensen salaries).

That’s it for me. I appreciated DG’s willingness to push things that Jake seemingly accepted at face value (FieldTurf). But he was overall an awful AD.

It was never "NYC's college campaign".

It was New York's College Team. New York STATE.

The same ads ran in Buffalo and Albany.
 
Awful football coaching hires aside...

He pissed away way too much cash for my taste in a time when the conference affiliation (i.e. tv $$) wasn’t generating enough revenue to support it.

The misguided NYC’s college campaign, aforementioned absurd salaries for Olympic sports coaches, et al would’ve been fine if the dept was generating revenue to warrant those “investments” and simultaneously bank some for future needs (like facilities upkeep).

I think there’s a correlation between the crapiness of his football hires (except the BOT stepping in for Marrone) and how he spent cash.

He tried to go cheap on the FB hires to support his other (IMO misguided) expenses (foolish taxi cab placards and Gary Gait/Luke Jensen salaries).

That’s it for me. I appreciated DG’s willingness to push things that Jake seemingly accepted at face value (FieldTurf). But he was overall an awful AD.

I hated the carelessness with cash (and you didn't even touch on the fact that he hired his wife and a bunch of other questionably qualified characters). No complaints about the New York's College Team thing, though - as you note, it was the sort of move that Jake wouldn't have thought of. But there's no quantifying whether it's successful or not.

As an aside, it's weird to me that Gross gets so much crap for Robinson (the normal-seeming dude with Super Bowls on his resume and a Pete Carroll recommendation who 99% of us really liked in 2005) but much less for Shafer (who was unprofessional on the field and clearly at the time had very few of the attributes that had had Marrone scratching at success). I get that the budget was tight, but that was a brutal hiring decision. Indefensible at the time (and with hindsight as well).
 
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... long term success is built around sustaining your money making programs. Gerg, Shafer, yeah those stunk, but I agree, the facilities and lack of structure to succeed in football, began before TGD. ...

Exactly - isn't Crouthamel a bad AD because he left a lousy football program (with its SJ green-painted end zone on ancient Astroturf that allegedly could never be replaced by Field Turf) in Gross's lap?

Strategy and attention to detail were obviously weak points for Gross. He wasn't a great department managers by any estimation.

But I think he was a victim of timing - the guy who has to make public decisions about an atrophied program is going to look worse than the one who doesn't make public decisions and steers the ship as the program atrophies. Even so, Gross inherited a broke athletic department with a crappy football program and he left the school with a self-sustaining athletic department (in spite of his own recklessness/carelessness with money) and a crappy football program. That's a slight improvement.

I'll remember him for "Bowie" first and foremost. I just don't think he was a terrible AD. Mediocre, maybe. Like Crouthamel and many of the rest of them, he had weak points and strong points and was only as good as the chancellor and trustees (and basketball coach?) above him.
 
Overall Gross did a good job. Was it all good? No, and I not privy to the inside info which make knock him down a few notches.

His "problem" was that from day one people never warmed to him. He was this Hollywood guy that was flashy and I think a lot of Syracuse people preferred someone like Jake and his smokey blue cardigan (and ideas) straight out of 1984.
 
Overall Gross did a good job. Was it all good? No, and I not privy to the inside info which make knock him down a few notches.

His "problem" was that from day one people never warmed to him. He was this Hollywood guy that was flashy and people prefer Jake and his smokey blue cardigan from 1984.

Yeah, that's what I've thought for years (and was getting at in the first post).

For a lot of old CNY football fan types, aesthetics matter. West Coast young black guy with a Porsche and a photo of two phones on his ear? Scary. Old Northeast curmudgeon in a cardigan with a pack of Winstons in his breast pocket? Not scary.

Folks don't like change, and that change set Gross off on the wrong foot through no fault of his own.

When he started racking up some actual mistakes, that confirmed initial suspicions to the old-timers and also opened up the door for new criticism from people who actually care about having substantive reasons to be critical.
 
Exactly - isn't Crouthamel a bad AD because he left a lousy football program (with its SJ green-painted end zone on ancient Astroturf that allegedly could never be replaced by Field Turf) in Gross's lap?

Urban legend.

Jake actually did all the research on the Field Turf project, but he didn't have the money in the budget, and Buzz was cheap. It wasn't until Chancy Nancy opened up the checkbook that the turf was replaced.
 
Urban legend.

Jake actually did all the research on the Field Turf project, but he didn't have the money in the budget, and Buzz was cheap. It wasn't until Chancy Nancy opened up the checkbook that the turf was replaced.

OK, but publicly he said it couldn't be done. And that was the state of affairs Gross inherited.
 
OK, but publicly he said it couldn't be done. And that was the state of affairs Gross inherited.

Jake was a loyal company man. He was told by Buzz to make do with what he had, so Jake kept his mouth shut.

Maybe a different AD would have thrown Buzz and the bean counters under the bus, but Jake just toed the company line and said it was impossible.
 

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