He absolutely is. No accountability.
But the University!
But the board!
Why even have an athletic department then?
Historically the reason for the AD at Syracuse has been to provide cover for the administration and take the bullets for the decisions they crammed down the athletic department’s throat. The ADs role was to take the bullets and keep his pie hole shut about the fact he was getting screwed. That’s why we had the “unique” accounting in the 90s where funds almost all other schools allocated to the AD were going to the general fund, causing Syracuse to fall further and further behind when the spending arms race was in full swing.
The AD is also supposed to handle all the hard questions from the media, because we’ve seen what happens when the media goes around the AD. We get Shaw telling the fans to get a life…not good. I guarantee nobody on the BOT wants to give a presser explaining why they wanted Red so badly right now - they’ll let John handle those questions instead.
This really isn’t that hard to understand - if Wildhack were to get fired, what it communicates to everyone relevant is that the role of AD at Syracuse is to deal with whatever decisions the BOT crams down your throat, deal with the horrible PR mess that is created as a result, and ultimately get fired if the PR is too negative for the school to stomach anymore. Does that sound like a job opportunity a lot of highly qualified upwardly mobile individuals are going to sign up for? (Hint: the answer is no).
Looking at all the empty seats at basketball games, it’s obvious the Red experiment has failed. I have no idea how this entire process played out - but if Wildhack was expressing concerns with the approach to the administration/BOT as we moved on from JB and hired Red - he’s in a FANTASTIC position to say “I told you so” (although it needs to be more diplomatic than that) and start to leverage this trainwreck into more decision-making power than the AD at Syracuse has typically had. It’s realistically the only shot for athletics at Syracuse getting sustainably better. If he gets fired, it means the BOT is on the hunt for another figurehead to raise funds and take the bullets when their imposed decisions fail. I think a lot of people on here would celebrate Wildhack getting fired, oblivious to the fact that effectively dooms Syracuse athletics for generations at minimum, possibly forever.
Accountability is absolutely needed. But accountability without authority - which is what you are advocating for - is catastrophically bad. I’ve seen in the corporate world instances where people leveraged a disaster into more authority for themselves that they should have had in the first place - so I’m hopeful JW can run the same playbook here and help lead Syracuse out of the current mess.
(PS - If Wildhack wasn’t expressing concerns with the process that led to Red - then we’re screwed regardless. I highly doubt that is the case though).
