A little more swimming
by John Berkowitz on May 6, 2009 9:48 AM PDT
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PrintBob Condotta of the Seattle Times wrote a very nice article yesterday on the demise of the UW swim team. Based on much research, Bob produced an excellent piece sharing the emotion Steve Kelley attempted to present earlier in the week.
I fail to agree with much of Kelley's article, though I understand its underlying emotion. My belief is the writer must share the entire story and history, or he fails to accurate portray how this situation has been bungled for the past thirty-three years. To lay it all at the feet of Scott Woodward is unfair, though he was accurately assessed as insensitive.
One point Bob states is the turn down of a free Aquatic facility at UW happened under the reign of Mike Lude, not Barbara Hedges. According to Lude, it was former UW President William Gerberding who turned it down.
While examining this situation, it is hard to imagine anyone doing more harm to an athletic program than William Gerberding. Here are just a few incidents that happened during his tenure.
- The forced retirement of Marv Harshman
- The forced retirement of Mike Lude.
- The refusal to defend football penalties.
- The forced resignation of Don James.
- The hiring of Barbara Hedges.
- The refusal of the King County Aquatic Facility.
(The refusal of Paul Allen's offer to rebuild Husky Stadium at his own expense in exchange for a 15 year lease for the Seahawks.) Editors note it wasn't Gerberding it was McCormick who turned down the offer fearing pressure from Montlake neighborhood groups.
To be fair Gerberding is regarded as one of the best administrators to have ever held the President's post at Washington. If you talk to any academic or someone who does not care for athletics they will tell you he was the best thing since sliced bread.
His huge shortcoming was his desire to de-emphasize sports at the University of Washington for no good reason other than a petty jealousy of Don James and the Athletic Depatrment as a whole. Gerberding retired in 1995 and the seeds he sewed are still having a major impact today.
The cornerstone of the athletic program has always been football. If you damage that cornerstone the whole department will eventually fall into a slow state of decay.
Getting back to swimming this is the third time it has been on the chopping block since 1975. You have to go all the way back to the days of Jim Owens and Joe Kearney to find the start of its slow demise. A weak football program has always been the root cause of discussions to cut an expensive sport that does not produce self supporting revenue.
The opportunities have always been present to save the swimming program and build a new facility. The will of the University no matter who was President or Athletic Director has never been inclined to do so.
Here is a link to a guest editorial in the Seattle Times by Chris Toomey that I think you all will enjoy.
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Are you sure Gerberding was still President of the UW when Paul Allen made his offer? I thought that happened in the late ’90’s while McCormick was the President…
Not that it changes my perception of Gerb any – the guy may have been a great university President, but his disdain for the athletic department indeed set us down the path we are on today.
He's the George W. Bush of Husky Athletics
Jealousy/a distinct agenda has left us paying for his mistakes for YEARS and DECADES.
Not like the Utah Jazz... it's about REAL jazz. Go Dawgs, Go Blazers!
Toomey's article
If you consider he was a former swimmer and former coach at the UW, it’s no wonder he has an ax to grind with the UW administration. But how about some RESPONSIBLE journalism, correct me if I am wrong, but Willingham’s buyout was only $1 million, not $3 million. The other issue I have with it, he states that all of the swimmers education are now at risk, it REALLY sucks that they lose their sport, but they still get a free ride at the UW.
I think it is really horrible that the swimming program got cut, but I think Woodward is getting a lot of undue criticism over this. The guy did the inevitable, even “Her Majesty” Barbara Hedges tried to cut the program. It all goes to show you that you MUST take care of football, a winning football program would have prevented this.
"Bow Down to Washington"
"Kick the tires and light the fires!"
Correction
Washington state voters approved funding for a new event center and Seahawks Stadium on June 17, 1997.
Allen purchased the Seattle Seahawks NFL team in 1997 when former owner Ken Behring threatened to move the Seahawks to Southern California
I'm not sure jealousy is the right word
I think it’s just that Gerberding didn’t give a rat’s ass about truly top-rate athletic programs. He had a very old-fashioned view of the role of athletics in higher education.
I think “disdain”, as somebody said, is closer.
Jealousy may be just the right word...
Webster’s dictionary defines jealousy as “hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage.”
A successful football program and a top-flight academic University are not mutually exclusive. To scuttle the football program does not serve the upper campus, it only expedites the slow painful death of the entire athletic department. if Gerberding’s “old-fashioned view” included burying athletics in favor of academics, then it certainly reeks of jealousy to me.
ps. It didn’t start with Gerberding. Charles Odegaard pulled the plug on a completely privately funded north upper deck during the Jim Owens days for the same reasons….too much emphasis on athletics.
It actually started when Suzzalo fired Dobie
The upper campus has always made the wrong decisions concerning football over time. Whenever the program becomes succesful they try to de-emphasize it which is stupid because it pays all the bills for the non revenue producing sports.
by John Berkowitz on May 7, 2009 9:40 AM PDT up reply actions
Wow! That's quite a tradition.
That firing too place in 1916!
I would guess with the UW being first and foremost a university — a place of higher learning — that football has been tolerated to some extend by too many who’ve have a say in ‘upper campus’.
Since Giby’s day, we have evolved this strange dichotomy in American colleges. While they have become world renown educational institutions, they’ve also have a dual life as a de facto “minor leagues” for sport of football.
Can’t we celebrate both?
Particularly, as alums have tended to get wealthier when their school reaches alma mater status…they become part and parcle of an important segment of university funding.
We need to celebrate both
As President Emmert says athletics is the front door step of any University.
by John Berkowitz on May 8, 2009 8:08 AM PDT up reply actions
I've never read that before
I knew that Gerberding had Lude force out Harshman (too old) and then he canned Lude next, and I know the UW did not defend itself in the Billy Joe era. But thanks for plainly stating that he forced DJ to resign. That was never mentioned at the time, that I am aware of. Hugh Millen lists Gerberding and Hedges as the worst thing that happened to FB, but never stated it this blunt.
I always wondered why the pool ended up in Fed Way. The UW made much more sense. A much bigger mistake was the Paul Allen Husky Stadium decision. We’ll get over the swimming team, but one of America’s great stadiums is fighting a huge uphill battle. Good luck.
Well, Gerberding didn’t confront DJ and tell him to resign. However, he knew that DJ had threatened to quit if the penalties on the team were switched from the originally planned 2-year TV ban/1-year bowl ban to a 2-year bowl ban/1-year TV ban. Even knowing this, Gerberding opted to reduce the hit to department revenues and opted for the 2-year bowl ban/1-year TV ban, and once that happened DJ followed through with his threat and he resigned.
I don’t think Gerberding hated sports in general or even football specifically – I think it was more that he had an Art Thiel kind of mindset in that he objected to the big business/big money aspect of college football and found it distasteful. I think he preferred an idealized notion of student-athletes competing for the love of the game and without all the semi-professional trappings that big-time college athletics have become.
I also know my dad worked for an engineering firm early in his career that did an early mock-up of the North upper deck, and when they met with Odegaard, he shot it down, claiming that football wouldn’t even be around that much longer at universities, so why bother.
You can call it what you want...
Gerberding made a deal that DJ couldn’t refuse. He knew what he was doing the entire time.
by John Berkowitz on May 7, 2009 9:42 AM PDT up reply actions
Harshman
Harsh was only turning 65 and he had plenty of coaching left in him. He is still going strong in his 90’s. That was all Gerberding.
by John Berkowitz on May 7, 2009 9:41 AM PDT up reply actions
Might as well be a Mountain West School (or WSU)
We might as well join the WAC or Mountain West if we have become one of those schools that cannot support a swim team. I am not a big swimming fan, but it just doesn’t feel right. A high school can support a swim team, but what is supposed to be the elite University in the entire NW region cannot? What a joke. Some of Toomey number might not be correct, but his logic is.
It is not fair to punish this sport for Todd Turners and Tyrone Willingham’s blunders.
So you’re volunteering to help endow a swim team scholarship? You’re ponying up a significant contribution to build an on-campus facility?
Comparing H.S. swimming to NCAA swimming is apples and oranges. Public H.S. swimmers aren’t on scholarship, and they’re they’re usually traveling locally, not throughout the West Coast of the U.S.
The economics are what they are. The swim team and local swimming community should be thankful that Husky Football has paid for their sport for so many years, and shouldn’t feel too upset when the football team no longer makes enough money to subsidize them any more. If the local swim community really wants the program to survive, they need to pony up the money to make it work.
Sure, it’s too bad, but wishing isn’t going to make the budget deficit go away, and swimming was the most logical area to target for cost cutting.
Doing swimming right would cost $40 Million
$30 million for the facility and $10 million to endow scholarships. That doesn’t include the allual maintenance and up keep on the facilty which is extrely expensive.
I am not saying with planning decades before it couldn’t have been done.
by John Berkowitz on May 7, 2009 10:00 PM PDT up reply actions
I'd rather see them make men's and women's rugby
varsity sports. I’m not sure how the scholarship money required would compare, but with current facilities it would be relatively low maintenance. It’s already there at the club level and they’ve had some pretty good players go through the program on their own. OPSB is a super league team and Seattle RFC had a very good US reputation before they went Canadian. Marketed correctly, it could even draw some fans and, someone needs to challenge Cal and BYU, so the field as far as quality teams is pretty wide open. CWU won the NW division this year. I believe the club is already supported by some sort of endowment, so why not make it official. My only worry is that you’d need a strong coach to keep the less savory social aspects of rugby in check. I’d love to see a rugby match between our opponent of the day precede a Husky game.
Then again, I’m a rugby fan…what do I know?
by hairofthedawg on May 7, 2009 11:09 PM PDT up reply actions
I like Rugby too
I would also love to see Ice Hockey, and Lacrosse but it just isn’t going to happen.
I don’t think anyone offers rugby scholarships.
by John Berkowitz on May 8, 2009 8:10 AM PDT up reply actions
WSU cuts?
What is wsu giving up in athletics? The Huskies can’t get funding for Husky Stadium and have to cut swimming. So what exactly is wsu giving up? Oh I forgot, they make a PROFIT every year.
Washington Husky Football-1991 National Champions
WSU
WSU is in deep trouble with no help on the immediate horizon.
by John Berkowitz on May 12, 2009 7:21 PM PDT up reply actions
Gerberding = right more than he was wrong.
Great timing John! I’ve been meaning to write you and ask specifically what you and many others are blaming on Gerberding. I was in school during his tenure and I hate to say it but the UW Football program had far too many off-field problems to count…every…single..weekend, to be exact.
But of course they were great on the field and that’s certainly all that Mike Lude (or most of us) cared about…but you’re right that Gerberding wasn’t an enabler of elite athletics over academics. I do give you credit for acknowledging that Gerberding is widely regarded as a great President by those that really understand what that means. But the reality is that the UW was damn near on its deathbed as an elite institution due to underfunding by the Legislature and a lack of endowment money and saving it was the #1 priority of Gerberding, not football.
My priorities as a student were certainly football wins over institutional integrity but I no longer have the excuse of the stupidity of youth! Gerberding was right more than he was wrong.
Here’s the problem with Gerberding – while he was great for the school academically, and that was correctly his top priority, the decisions he made that harmed the athletic department didn’t at the same time benefit the school academically. In other words, these weren’t zero sum decisions – he could’ve been good for the school and good for the athletic department at the same time.
I guess I fail to see how forcing out Mike Lude early benefited the school;
I fail to see how forcing Marv Harshman to retire early benefited the school;
I fail to see how insisting on Andy Russo over candidates like Mike Montgomery benefited the school;
I fail to see how back-stabbing Don James on the NCAA sanctions benefited the school;
I fail to see how prioritizing breaking the gender barrier over actual competence when hiring a new athletic director benefited the school
One can be a great academic administrator and support the athletic department at the same time. Just because Gerberding was great at one excuses him from being awful at the other.
I should clarify (I hate that you can’t edit posts here) – I meant to say “Just because Gerberding was great at one does not excuse him from being awful at the other”.
I hate it too.
On my end I have the option to delete and repost.
by John Berkowitz on May 13, 2009 6:53 AM PDT up reply actions
Gerbs
You won’t find a single person in the know who doesn’t think Gerberding was a brilliant administrator. Take away his stance on his athletics and the guy gets an A plus.
The problem is as kirkd lists above is that what he did to sports actually hurt the school long term and there is little or no excuse for that.
206 makes a point about off the field behavior. I have to agree it wasn’t very good. There were obviously some very good football players who didn’t belong in school. However to say Lude or James enabled that is incorrect. To say that Lude only cared about on the field perfomance is incorrect.
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