I'll be surprised if some of our top players ask for a transfer after this continuing sihtshow.
Killing the program, ruining the kids potential, and embarrassing the **** out of the University.
If the top Administration is too damned dumb to pull the plug when something is broke - then how good is the level of the rest of the University?
In my view, UM is a rickety house of cards. Shalala tied the university to a boat anchor when she sunk countless millions into buying Jackson, a money-losing proposition which afaik has yet to show any substantial gains for the school; allowed the AD to gift Golden a multi-year extension that we now find a huge albatross hanging around our necks; and has permitted Jim Morris to continue to underachieve at what was once the best baseball program in the state.
There are some good parts, of course- we have a very high percentage of foreign and out of state students who pay exorbitant rates to obtain a quality education, which helps fund better facilities and faculty, and she's done quite well in the fund-raising aspects by all accounts. The status of having a UM degree has gone up under her watch, and you can't really dispute that.
However, there is (and continues) to be a gigantic disconnect between the rise of Miami as a national power in sports and the people who have been running the school for over 30 years. They simply cannot come to terms with the fact that our football program put the entire university on the map. There is a systematic level of denial of this very indisputable fact within the walls of the school, and so what should be the flagship athletic program is constantly treated with disdain, disrespect, and a lower level of importance than it rightfully deserves. Thus, we collectively get saddled with a bargain-bin coach for the 10th straight year, who obtains bargain-bin results, and the beat goes on.
None of what I mentioned will change, until there is a change at the very top. The next school president will set the tone as to whether or not we begin to treat the football program with the honor and respect it deserves, or if we continue to take the hard-earned gains from 1983 through 2002 for granted and do nothing to improve our current pathetic situation.