Let’s examine why a university would spend 250 dollars on 100 students of whom, 95% would not even have been accepted to NU,except for football! ACT’s less than 28 and learning and organizational change majors! Of which, 10- 20% or so,of these young men will have some sort of major surgery during their five years! The vast majority take five years to graduate. Meanwhile, the student center along the lakefront,home to thousands of students,won’t get needed updates, while the Hoops team, with similar demographics, got a 110,000 million investment. Northwestern has many needy students on campus. Can’t see how this investment of 350 million for sports is glamorized for basketball and football players. Can’t see the false idolization of Fitz, who although a good hearted man,is basically being put on a pedistal for teaching, as he himself states, “ a violent sport to violent individuals “! Am I missing something? If so, please enlighten me !
Since the facility was built to retain him, Is Fitz the highest compensated coach in history?
- Thread starter CatManTrue
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Not sure what it is, but in terms of recruiting, this isn't like Fitz's early years where we were getting unheralded OL recruits.
These days, nearly all of our OL have comparable offers from multiple Big Ten programs (feels like most of our OL have offers from Purdue/Illinois/Indiana and some more than those).
Incoming class is the same story with Franks having offers from a half the Power 5 and Foster a solid list as well. Other programs see the same talent in these guys that ours does at the recruiting stage of the process.
Wrassler, you ask the tough questions! Dang!!
Accepting your framing as is, it is a phenomenally large investment for a (relatively) paltry number of students.
But, these are investments in university brand-centric assets, rather than individual students. So let's look at the value to NU brand.
1) B1G football and basketball programs are very valuable media franchises. The Big Ten Network payout per school topped $50M this year. So a crude back of the envelop calculation suggests about a 7-year payback on this investment, which frankly, is not very good. But these contract revenues to look to continue increasing.
2) Power 5 basketball and football programs can be huge drivers of alumni engagement and support. I highly doubt that Pat Ryan and his SWAT team of well-heeled alums would have ponied up $350M for a cancer research institute, a new music school, or an Institute of Differential Equation Applied Research. But big sports and victories bring in big alumni dollars.
3) Running a destination university is like running 3 businesses 1) education and career placement 2) research 3) hosting and entertainment. Remaining competitive for the nation's best students does require investments in these types of facilities.
So it's not really about the players. Dang!
I suspect the OP does have a valid point if compensation is redefined as an intangible. In the end many who received tangible compensation end up becoming philanthropists and giving it away. Coach Fitz arguably has just skipped that intermediary step with the same end result.
It's not compensation. It is working conditions not unlike those that some executives demand or negotiate with boards as condition of their employment, especially in turnaround situations.
He cannot spend it (or take it with him) therefore it is not compensation. And many other coaches have stellar facilities. Oregon for example has the deep pockets of Nike. OSU spends plenty. Does he count those as compensation? No only with Fitz.
All true and he does deserve the occasional mulligan. But when it is mulligan after mulligan after... Then it is worth questioning.
My friend, you need to visit the movie theatre once every 40 years. Or better yet, just YouTube “Bill Murray Caddyshack” and enjoy the highlights. I wish I were funny enough to make up that story myself.
I hate to quote Carl Spackler two times in one thread... wait, no I don’t. Here’s a classic example of a color play-by-play:
“Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac... It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!”
Faulty premise with 90 responses, what does that tell you
In those other examples, not a single building was constructed for an individual coach.
There’s a reason why we refer on this board to the new athletic facilities as the Taj MahFitz, or as the “House that Fitz built”. Only he could have gotten it done, and if he had left for Michigan I’d bet my bottom dollar that NU’s athletes would still be practicing on that God-awful AstroTurf behind the basketball court - for at least another decade.
Which one?
Facility was going to be built at some point even if Fitz was never coach. (That's the biggest problem with the premise).
Even Illinois and Minnesota have spent big on facilities while going through a lot of coaching changes.
A&M spent a ton on facilities upgrade and then fired their coach. Then they got a better coach.
We're also spending $130+ million on basketball with no real idea of how long Collins will be coach here.
Why? Because you have to upgrade the program for the long-term regardless of whether you have a long-term coach in place.
You guys really think that with one of the richest alumni bases in D1 that we would never upgrade if Fitz wasn't coach?
The stadium is next btw. Regardless of football record (of course a bunch of bowl seasons + bowl wins would help fundraising a fair bit).
Even Illinois and Minnesota have spent big on facilities while going through a lot of coaching changes.
A&M spent a ton on facilities upgrade and then fired their coach. Then they got a better coach.
We're also spending $130+ million on basketball with no real idea of how long Collins will be coach here.
Why? Because you have to upgrade the program for the long-term regardless of whether you have a long-term coach in place.
You guys really think that with one of the richest alumni bases in D1 that we would never upgrade if Fitz wasn't coach?
The stadium is next btw. Regardless of football record (of course a bunch of bowl seasons + bowl wins would help fundraising a fair bit).
At a deeper macroeconomic level,there is an opportunity cost to divert money from thousands of needy students,to a select few. Those select few, continue to be exploited by the larger system. Buyer beware. As a former NU athletic letter winner,sporting five major surgeries from wrestling and boxing,I can tell you with regret,it it not worth the long term physical and psychological pain.
Back away from the keyboard.
I get all of the opposition now, and here’s my perspective: you’re wrong that “these things would have happened eventually” and it’s time for a tiny bit of personal history.
When I visited NU on an unofficial visit in the early 2000s, I was given a behind-the-scenes tour of Ryan Field and a lot of history. The one moment that still stands out: when the assistant AD and I were standing in the Press Box and overlooking the stadium, he told me that it was completely overhauled after the championship seasons (95-96) as Pat Ryan (and “others”) thought it was an embarrassment that our champion team was playing in a dive.
The key term: Pat Ryan. He rallied said “rich alums” to get the upgrades done. And the more I learned about him after I left the team, the clearer it was it would never have happened without him. And in theory: Fitz, Darnell, MRCat95, Schnur, and the rest of those champions. Our team would likely be playing in a slightly-updated version of Dyche Stadium if not for them.
And that brings me to my take: Fitz demanded, Ryan & other rich alums accepted & funded it, and now we have the beautiful Taj MahFitz on Lake Michigan. If you remove either of those two individuals, I’d wager that whatever facilities we ended up with would have been built in another decade or so, and far inferior to what we now have.
Let’s imagine that Fitz leaves for Michigan and we hire, perhaps, Brady Hoke in 2011 to replace him. Do you think Pat Ryan returns Phillips’s calls about upgrades? Hell to the No. Case closed.
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Back away from the truth? Is that what my fellow posters want?
I didn’t go to NU, your questions outside of can you buy me a drink, can be too much for me.
Wrassler does not own a keyboard. His PC has a Vulcan mind meld device that reads his every thought and posts it on this forum. That should explain everything.
Then what explains the W-R upgrades and Triennens for $130m+?
I understand the history, but the 90s Dyche overhaul of $28 million was a mini-makeover compared to the current projects.
At some point we were going to have a President and AD who understood the value of using athletics to sell the university.
Even if Fitz had never become HC and Walk was in his 20th season as coach, we'd be in the midst of a massive set of upgrades.
Why? Because this kind of spending is happening campus-wide.
Northwestern has been more aggressive than ever before in fundraising: the 'We Will' campaign passed $3 billion in 2.5 years.
The sports facilities were always going to happen because Barnett started the ball rolling and the rich alums started caring.
Fitz and Collins (and the rest of the AD) are obviously the beneficiaries of these massive fundraising campaigns, but it was inevitable once Schapiro and Phillips were together.
Fitz and Collins deserve credit for helping drive enthusiasm among donors, but this is a product of this era where alumni giving is far more widespread than before and where the richest alumni of institutions see parts of the University as their pet project.
If that’s how you want to view it, yes.
That threads where the OP is so laughably dumb sometimes are entertaining and thus popular?
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We fundamentally disagree then. I don’t deny that *some* sort of upgrades would have occurred at some point. But I believe that both the W-R renovations and the Taj MahFitz wouldn’t have raised nearly that much or been so incredible without Fitz’s efforts over the past 20 years and, in particular, his 2011 demands.
If corbi’s post is right, then hopefully Fitz will demand excellence amongst all of his assistants now that he’s gotten it when requested elsewhere. We’ve seen it on the defensive staff the past 10 years: hopefully we get top-notch coaching from the offensive & special teams staffs for the next decade.
The problem is that you aren't really countering my point.
Go back to the mid-90s.
We spent around $28 million on then Dyche, and I would guess that our fundraising in those years from donors was around $100 million a year overall; somewhere around $300-400 million over the 4 year period where that renovation occurred.
Now we're spending $400 million on AD facilities while our donors are giving $1 billion a year to the University, or $4 billion over the 4 year period.
The numbers are all 8-12 times larger, but not much has changed in the underlying dynamic. Similar percentage of overall giving goes to athletics now as in the 90s. Our alums are just much richer...
What has changed beyond just richer alums (due to 3 major stock market booms in large part) being more willing to give.
Fitz could retire tomorrow and we'd still end up looking at a major stadium renovation over the next 5 years. I would admit that a Fitz retirement would certainly slow/delay any project but these kinds of things you have to spend on to compete at a basic level.
BTW all these increases match other numbers: NU's endowment was around $1.3 billion in 1995. Now it's around $11 billion.
The total networth of NU's alumni base (an extremely nebulous concept I'd admit) has probably grown from around $10-15 billion to $100-150 billion (largely due to increases in asset values, i.e. stocks/equity ownership).
It's hard for me to say Fitz deserves responsibility for the University and its alums getting 10x richer and donating 10x more... correlation isn't causation.
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If @CatMan2006 flipped the premise - has Northwestern spent more on a head coach than any D1 program ... I’d agree.
So there’s 1/2 of a yes. Congrats.
I can’t believe the post topic is still the thread topic 100 posts in. Solid.
So there’s 1/2 of a yes. Congrats.
I can’t believe the post topic is still the thread topic 100 posts in. Solid.
Bro... we’re largely in agreement. I don’t deny that contributions would have increased 10-fold between 95 and now, but both of the major sports investments you cite (the stadium upgrades & the Taj MahFitz) *were a direct result of Fitz’s success* within the football program. If not for him, those funds would likely have been reduced for athletics or shifted elsewhere - making wrassler happy as non-athletics would have had more.
We’ll obviously get a stadium upgrade at some point. But I’d bet a lot of money that it will be a lot nicer if Fitz leads us to another Rose Bowl before the plans are finalized. If we continue with inconsistency and non-championships, will Pat Ryan and his friends pony up a third time?
Finally! Somebody who gets it and improves on my verbiage. I graduated with honors from McCormick, not Medill: I’m neither a frickin’ master writer nor poster. But you actually solved the thought experiment, so well done.
NU has spent more to retain Fitz than any coach, at least that I’m aware of. I considered it as part of his comp as I’ve had former coworkers who counted nice holiday parties & crap like that as compensation. But you phrased exactly what I was after and improved on it.
Case closed by NUCat320.
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