I don't like Currie.
Why . . just curious.
Bad vibe. Feel like his strategy (perhaps dictated to him by prez) is "I can pacify these rubes by talking about blackberries and twitter and transparency for quite a while". And he's probably right. The whole thing seems very RP-ish when it comes to talking instead of doing. Maybe I'm just that traumatized from the RP era. Of course, I was right about him from jump...
That's a good point . . . that being said, he's only been on the job since June 8th, he didn't exactly walk into the best situation. He's in the middle of trying to fight a ridiculous employment contract done by his predecessor. He has to deal with putting another long time worthless athletic department administrator who was given yet another ridiculous employment contract by his predecessor on administrative leave and then deciding what to do with the guy. He had to can the Business Manager and hire a new one, he's had to try and restore faith in an athletic department that's had one mis-step after another. He has to deal with an athletic department that was running millions of dollars in the black 2 years ago, to now running a budget deficit in the midst of the worst economic times in 70 years.
He walked in and immediately had to start implementing entire business process changes as dictated to him by the President and the Board of Regents. Then to to top it all off, he's had to deal with the, "Why do I have to pay handling charges on tickets" crowd, and the, "I've been a season ticket holder for 149 years and only 10 rows back you're selling season tickets for $99 dollars," people. Then he's trying to reach out to people, many of whom I still think don't know how to react to a K-State AD who you know, actually wants to talk to them, particularly people in KC, who have seen Currie more times in 3 months than they saw Tim Weiser in 3 years. Then to top it all off there's still the lingering issues of the old school, lets do everything behind closed doors, lets not talk to anybody or tell anybody anything influences that you know are still around . . . basically the same mindset that got us secret deals with Ron Prince, and $500K loans to athletic directors so he could buy some land to drive his King Ranch Ford F-150 out to and shoot pheasants and then sit by the campfire that night and order pleather jackets on his Blackberry.
But you're exactly right, if by August of 2010, all we hear from John Currie is the same old, "twitter, blackberry, family . . . blah, blah, blah line." line. With no discernible progress on things like facility improvements and financial improvements and real fund raising. Then we probably do have nothing but White Ron Prince on our hands. If by 2011 it comes out that K-State athletics still has significant problems, and Currie says, "we knew all along that was going to happen, we're preparing for 2012 and beyond." Then yes, you're point is well made, if you hear, "we wanted to build a run and hit athletic department, that's bold and daring." Then yes, you're spot on.