gujake
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Posts: 831
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Post by gujake on Feb 26, 2008 17:57:02 GMT -5
The writer is a senior? So he came after Esh departed. He's known nothing but success as a Hoya Fan. Easy to minimize the prior days. Maybe Nixon should talk to some alumni whose entire time at GU took place while Esh was coach. Let's hear what they have to say. Georgetown's current seniors are among the luckiest bunch in the past 35 years. Maybe second only to the Classes of '85 - '87. As a current senior, I am so thankful for the success of the program. We play St. John's tomorrow night. That's all I care about. I know almost nothing about Esherick, and I really don't care. I know what people say about him, and I know the rant. I've listened to it a hundred times. It's hilarious. He's a joke to me. But if you were around when he was coach, you probably don't think it was that funny. And I don't see how you can write this article if you weren't around.
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Post by strummer8526 on Feb 26, 2008 18:06:29 GMT -5
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Post by mrsparkle12 on Feb 26, 2008 18:10:40 GMT -5
In terms of incompetence, Esherick is second to only to the lady who left an unencrypted hard drive with 20,000 social security numbers out over winter break. Considering he’s being paid until the 2008-09 season, he is not deserving of an apology.
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Post by BurleithBeast on Feb 26, 2008 18:18:16 GMT -5
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SirSaxa
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Posts: 747
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Post by SirSaxa on Feb 26, 2008 18:20:11 GMT -5
Quibbles about factual basis??Dan, You call leaving out the most important part y of the story, the Esh rant that led directly to his departure, "quibbling about facts"? SirSaxa, no I do (and did) not. The opinion column served its purpose - to get people talking about it. You do not have to agree with the writer's premise to agree with that. I note that you conveniently ignored this part of my original post: I think the University made the right decision at the right time with regard to the coaching position. I do not think the University did Craig Esherick wrong in any way. ..in your zeal to lump me in with the writer. Dan, I am so glad you brought up the point about "leaving things out" It was your line about quibbling over facts, then mentioning the Billy Packer opinion as though that was part of the "Fact quibbling", while never mentioning the key part of the Esh departure -- his own rant. THat isn't debatable. It happened. Maybe the impact is debatable, or the accuracy, or appropriateness, but not the fact that it happened. No, I wasn't lumping you in with the author. I know you better than that. But I have a serious disagreement over suggesting that a writer can ignore the most important event in Esh's departure -- that Esh brought on himself -- and then claim that GU and the GU community somehow owe Esh an apology.
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TC
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 9,468
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Post by TC on Feb 26, 2008 18:57:07 GMT -5
Did The Hoya April Fools Edition come early this year?
I haven't been to the board all season, but my Google News feed for Georgetown Basketball pulled up the "reparations for Craig Esherick" article, and I could not believe what I was reading. Seriously? Who do we need to apologize to next? Kenny Brunner?
At the end of the Esherick era, the team had quit on him, this board wasn't fun to participate in because of the overwhelming sense of despair, and there were suggestions that GU leave the Big East for some sort of all-Catholic conference. I don't know what the author was thinking with this article, but it's clear that he has no sense of what the zeitgeist was back in early 2004. Craig Esherick wasn't a great coach, and I'd argue that he wasn't even a great University ambassador - the "30 years" comment and the toilet-banner-that-wasn't-actually-above-the-toilet would be two examples that come to mind.
In the words of D. Pierce Nixon : "Hoya Saxa, Coach Esherick. Thanks for your time at Georgetown, and you, for one, should be sorry."
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tonyparker
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Post by tonyparker on Feb 26, 2008 20:02:18 GMT -5
As an '05 alum who lived through the infamous Esherick years, I'd like to say that my problem was always with the man signing his checks. The man who gave Esh a vote of confidence after even the most basic basketball fan could tell that he was in way over his head. I just hope that DeGoia realizes just how important basketball is to the Georgetown community and never makes the mistake of thinking that he can disregard the program again during his tenure.
I don't think Esherick got a raw deal and don't think he deserves an apology. I do find it interesting that so many of us blame everything on him though, he loved Georgetown and I am sure he was working hard to try to keep the program among the elite. He just wasn't good at it. The problem was that no one in the administration cared enough about the program to fire him before he became Public Enemy No. 1 on campus, and that is unfortunate because he really did dedicate a significant portion of his life to a school where he is now a pariah
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Feb 26, 2008 20:45:36 GMT -5
I remember last year Darrel Owens showed up at a game and got a very warm reception from students and alumns, even though the year before he'd had the potential game winning shot the year before against Florida and missed it. People were able to look past his failure and give him the respect he deserved. Don't want to sound overly critical -- probably just a poor choice of words, but I don't associate DJ Owens with the word "failure" at all. Here's a guy who was academically ineligible at the start of his career and went on to be a solid basketball player and a serious student who holds two degrees from Georgetown. I think Owens got a hand because he was a classy guy who played hard and as a senior helped put that Hoya team (still one of my all time favorites) in the Sweet 16, not because people were able to look past his failure. Indeed, I wasn't trying at all to imply that DJ Owens was a failure in any way. My point was that he fully deserved the warm reception he received. If Esherick still believes he was wronged by the program and the school then that's sad. The University gave him every chance to succeed, and as JTIII has shown it's very possible to win with the resources available here. If Esherick wants to go on thinking that he somehow got shortchanged then he can keep doing that, but it's unfortunate because that's not the truth. On the other side of the coin, it's sad that certain alumns believe that they were personally wronged by Esherick's failure to win. If he had dragged the school's name through the mud by breaking the rules and causing scandals (see Sampson, Kelvin) then I could understand that sort of feeling, but Esherick's biggest crime was losing, nothing worse.
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hoyaclap
Century (over 100 posts)
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Post by hoyaclap on Feb 26, 2008 21:06:11 GMT -5
Rockaway: Mr. Nixon owes you NOTHING. Well thought-out argument. You've convinced me I'm wrong. "Gee, that was easy..." no, really though, if you would like real convincing... It seems difficult to dispute that the administration did indeed succumb to the "fears of an impassioned mob" the fact that the President can release a statement one day and mere days later essentially reverse course days later back that up. DeGoia was within his right to ask for Esherick's resignation or fire him was within his right. I have a difficult time believing that with Esherick's "rant" and the subsequent statement of confidence by his employers that he was under any impression that he was to be fired. I believe this is the heart of Nixon's article... Esherick may have rubbed Hoya fans the wrong way with his public persona as well as his coaching abilities, but for a life long Hoya to essentially be abandoned by his employers after given a public nod is simply wrong. I have no belief that the administration didn't mean what they said when they said they wanted to keep him at that very moment, but if they didn't even have the courage to defend that to Esherick's detractors then they should have thought out their promise a little longer. Maybe he deserved to be fired, but he didn't deserve to be lied to by the administration about his job security. No one does. He's a good man, and sometimes to a fault a prideful one as well. He deserved honesty from the administration. He doesn't deserve pot shots about destroying a program that was already sinking, or about his brother. We all passionately care about basketball here, I get that. Craig Esherick is family through and through and just doesn't deserve some of the vitrol from us as a community as hs been displayed. It wasn't cute when we as fans chanted "fire esherick" during games. We talk about players quitting on the man, its not that difficult when seemingly the entire world has too. I was on campus when he was fired and the joy that was in the air of the community was disgusting to me. A good man just got the wind knocked out of him in a very public and embarassing fashion by an institution that he spent more time at than at his own home, and we cheered,we honked our horns, we high fived at a fellow hoyas demise as if he didn't give it his all while he was here. He didn't deserve that at all. I've spent more time invested to Georgetown and the program than most of you can dream of, and as someone who was there, I am sorry, too. He deserved to go, but not like that.
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VelvetElvis
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pka MrPathetic
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Post by VelvetElvis on Feb 26, 2008 21:11:44 GMT -5
This thread is devastating!
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FLHoya
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Proud Member of Generation Burton
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Post by FLHoya on Feb 26, 2008 21:19:16 GMT -5
This column reflects a broader problem with college newspapers, and is certainly not unique to this particular staff at The Hoya, or even The Hoya in general: lack of perspective. By its very nature as a student newspaper, your most senior writers have only been around for 4 years, and they are unlikely to have a true feel for what happened previously even if they go back and read the archives. A certain type of myopia results, and we see not only columns like this, but we also see similar stories repeated every few years with no recognition of their connection to previous events. We also see that those with institutional knowledge are able to shape the reporting of historical events in their favor, with vanquished opponents now no longer available for comment. That is more often the result in news stories than in columns like this, which, as far as I can tell, did not rely on speaking to anyone involved in Esherick's departure. As often happens in these sorts of threads, I find the post that I agree with the most on page 1. I'd never dream of claiming that only those who experienced a certain period of history are allowed to write about it--this would invalidate my entire academic career. However, I also believe very strongly that if one is going to either implicitly or explicitly assign "blame"--and my reading is that DPN has done both in his column--they owe it to themselves and their readers to at least perform due diligence with their research and presentation of the case. Unfortunately, I do think that DPN's "generational bias" hurts his argument. Some of it creeps into his presentation of facts--the statement that as soon as Esherick left on his recruiting trip "alumni threatening to withhold donations bullied DeGioia into changing his mind" is questionable at best, and impossible to support without doing the kind of research that would take this piece far beyond an opinion column in The Hoya. (Side note: one of the "facts" that is seldom cited about this issue--the infamous "Save the Hoyas" rally happened the day after the announcement that Esherick had been fired. It was also not especially well attended.) A lack of perspective also informs the implicit assumption that DeGioia/Lang's comments supporting Esherick were made with a basketball-focus, and the firing decision was made with an alumni relations-focus. You'd have to go beyond just reading quotes from articles published in The Hoya in Spring 2004 and understand the context in which DeGioia, Lang, and even Esherick made their remarks at the time to get a proper sense of their meaning. These came, we'll recall, during Georgetown's worst season of basketball in nearly three decades, and pressures from all sides for a definitive statement on the future of Hoya basketball were real. Suffice it to say, I interpreted the comments rather differently when they were made and I was a Senior at Georgetown. I can agree with DPN that "the manner in which [Esherick's] replacement took place was a negative experience for the school," although we likely have a different perspective as to why that was. (As for the claim that said experience "has long been ignored," well, to quote an esteemed Georgetown alumnus: "That is crap." Also, a consequence of generational bias--of course people in the Class of 2008 don't remember Craig Esherick.) What I think would make for a better story in The Hoya is something DPN grazes in his column and that has come up in a few tangents in this thread. This is the first year since Esherick was fired that no student on a four-year track was at Georgetown to see his teams compete. The current crop of Hoyas has had a remarkably happy experience with their basketball program, and seen school spirit rise tremendously in a short period of time. It would be interesting to talk to folks who had experienced a very different era just five years ago and have them compare the differences they see today. I bet a lot could do it from personal experience. I know this because I sit in the Young Alumni section at the Verizon Center and see my 2004 classmates all around, along with faces I recognize from the classes of 2001-2003. I've seen and heard the data from the Ticket Office about the growth of the YA section, about all of the recent alums coming back in droves to become season ticket holders again. I go to the alumni events in the DC Metro area from time to time, and basketball always draws a crowd. Are the members of Generation Burton who were on campus in the spring of 2004 an "impassioned mob"? Absolutely. In the same sense that the 3,500 students wearing "We Are Georgetown" shirts at the Verizon Center these days are an impassioned mob. The same sense that the hundreds of GU alums from across the country who gathered in the lobby of the Hotel Affinia before the BET Final last year are an impassioned mob. No matter what generation we're from, I suspect most well-meaning Hoya fans recognize that Georgetown basketball is a happy diversion from the grind of our everyday lives. It's a chance to show school spirit, root for you classmates, and reconnect with your friends and fellow alums. That's why I enjoy it anyways...what, you think I like visiting Syracuse? And that's why all those impassioned mobsters from my generation are still out there every day supporting the men's basketball program. Things didn't go so well for one double Georgetown alum in 2004, and he lost his job. It wasn't a proud moment for any Hoya alum--how could it be to see the program reach such a point? But I don't think this was the right moment to bring it up either, especially if the author wasn't willing to take a closer look at what Georgetown administrators and alums were really going through just a (short) generation ago.
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theexorcist
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,506
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Post by theexorcist on Feb 26, 2008 21:28:39 GMT -5
It wasn't cute when we as fans chanted "fire esherick" during games. We talk about players quitting on the man, its not that difficult when seemingly the entire world has too. I was on campus when he was fired and the joy that was in the air of the community was disgusting to me. A good man just got the wind knocked out of him in a very public and embarassing fashion by an institution that he spent more time at than at his own home, and we cheered,we honked our horns, we high fived at a fellow hoyas demise as if he didn't give it his all while he was here. He didn't deserve that at all. I've spent more time invested to Georgetown and the program than most of you can dream of, and as someone who was there, I am sorry, too. He deserved to go, but not like that. First thing - don't pull that "I'm a bigger fan than you" thing. It's tiresome and pointless. It's clear that Esh was in over his head. At a certain point, you need to take stock and leave if you can't do your job. This becomes even more important when you have a bond with what you're doing. If you're a firefighter, and you love being a firefighter with all your heart, but you stink at it, you need to leave. And if you pull insane hours and give it "your all" and you still stink at it, you REALLY need to leave. I'll respect you for your effort, but you need to leave. Esh didn't do that. He didn't even pull a Huckabee and make light of the situation. He decided to dig in his heels and say he was the best there was - maybe the best there ever was. And so other Hoyas fought back and made their displeasure known. When you're in a PR crisis mode, the usual response is to say "there's a silent majority that agrees with me". The chants and the signs blunted that argument. And, right after he dug in his heels and said that, despite the fact that his inability to do his job was destroying a thing that he said he loved, he was staying, for once, the administration that usually seems like it barely tolerates its students and alumni did something that everyone asked for. They should have done it better. But they did it. It was jubilation that there might be light ahead when there was only darkness.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Feb 26, 2008 21:36:54 GMT -5
Well thought-out argument. You've convinced me I'm wrong. "Gee, that was easy..." no, really though, if you would like real convincing... It seems difficult to dispute that the administration did indeed succumb to the "fears of an impassioned mob" the fact that the President can release a statement one day and mere days later essentially reverse course days later back that up. DeGoia was within his right to ask for Esherick's resignation or fire him was within his right. I have a difficult time believing that with Esherick's "rant" and the subsequent statement of confidence by his employers that he was under any impression that he was to be fired. I believe this is the heart of Nixon's article... Esherick may have rubbed Hoya fans the wrong way with his public persona as well as his coaching abilities, but for a life long Hoya to essentially be abandoned by his employers after given a public nod is simply wrong. I have no belief that the administration didn't mean what they said when they said they wanted to keep him at that very moment, but if they didn't even have the courage to defend that to Esherick's detractors then they should have thought out their promise a little longer. Maybe he deserved to be fired, but he didn't deserve to be lied to by the administration about his job security. No one does. He's a good man, and sometimes to a fault a prideful one as well. He deserved honesty from the administration. He doesn't deserve pot shots about destroying a program that was already sinking, or about his brother. We all passionately care about basketball here, I get that. Craig Esherick is family through and through and just doesn't deserve some of the vitrol from us as a community as hs been displayed. It wasn't cute when we as fans chanted "fire esherick" during games. We talk about players quitting on the man, its not that difficult when seemingly the entire world has too. I was on campus when he was fired and the joy that was in the air of the community was disgusting to me. A good man just got the wind knocked out of him in a very public and embarassing fashion by an institution that he spent more time at than at his own home, and we cheered,we honked our horns, we high fived at a fellow hoyas demise as if he didn't give it his all while he was here. He didn't deserve that at all. I've spent more time invested to Georgetown and the program than most of you can dream of, and as someone who was there, I am sorry, too. He deserved to go, but not like that. Finally, a response I can respect. You make several good points, a lot of which I agree with. The administration totally dropped the ball on this. They wouldn't have had to "succumb to the pressures of an impassioned mob" if they had done the right thing to begin with; that is, fire Esh the day after we lost to BC in the BET. Also, I do agree Esh did not deserve to be yanked around with a false promise of public support. The fact he even got any public support to begin with was laughable, considering the job he did. But, here is the overall gist of my original post, which mind you, never attacked Esh directly or "displayed vitriol" towards Esh as you put it: where does the writer of the article get off by telling me and other former students/fans/alums how we should have acted and thought back in 2004? Does it make him feel better as an individual to attempt to right what he perceives as an injustice of the past through words? As HoyaJake put it earlier, "I don't see how you can write this article if you weren't around." Nixon wasn't there to see the travesty that G'town basketball had become. He wasn't there when G'town had become so irrelevant their games weren't even shown on TV. And he wasn't there when Esherick embarrassed us multiple times in the press. Unless he was there like you and I were, he'd have no clue of why the anti-Esherick sentiment on campus existed, minus doing a little research (which certainly isn't the same). I'd be willing to bet he knows nothing of how much frustration the years of G'town basketball immediately preceding his time on the Hilltop caused the supporters of this program. And I don't expect him to. That's precisely why I don't appreciate him talking down to me from his high horse like he's some sort of expert on a subject which he has little to no knowledge of. He should instead thank the people who initiated change (when the administration didn't) for allowing him to experience one of the greatest 4 year stretches in Georgetown basketball history, and went on his way.
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DanMcQ
Moderator
Posts: 30,883
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Post by DanMcQ on Feb 26, 2008 22:13:13 GMT -5
SirSaxa, no I do (and did) not. The opinion column served its purpose - to get people talking about it. You do not have to agree with the writer's premise to agree with that. I note that you conveniently ignored this part of my original post: ..in your zeal to lump me in with the writer. Dan, I am so glad you brought up the point about "leaving things out" It was your line about quibbling over facts, then mentioning the Billy Packer opinion as though that was part of the "Fact quibbling", while never mentioning the key part of the Esh departure -- his own rant. THat isn't debatable. It happened. Maybe the impact is debatable, or the accuracy, or appropriateness, but not the fact that it happened. No, I wasn't lumping you in with the author. I know you better than that. But I have a serious disagreement over suggesting that a writer can ignore the most important event in Esh's departure -- that Esh brought on himself -- and then claim that GU and the GU community somehow owe Esh an apology. Sir Saxa: Let me be clear: I did not suggest "that a writer could ignore" what Sir Saxa says is "the most important event in Esh's departure ... and then claim that GU and the GU community somehow owe Esh an apology." My statement was meant to say that one could argue over the "facts" of the story but that nobody should give a damn what Billy Packer thinks. The writer of this opinion piece did just that: write his opinion. Never did I suggest I agreed with it - in fact, I believe I wrote the opposite.
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hoyaclap
Century (over 100 posts)
Posts: 202
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Post by hoyaclap on Feb 26, 2008 22:24:32 GMT -5
First thing - don't pull that "I'm a bigger fan than you" thing. It's tiresome and pointless. I only mentioned that as a point to the criticism of Nixon revolves around the fact that he wasnt even around for the Esherick years. Well, I was, in intimate way, and I agree very much with his article. Now, I don't know very much about journalism, but I'm not so sure that "I talked to some of my upperclassmen friend during my freshman and sophomore years" flies as sourcing. So maybe there is an inherent problem with the integrity of his piece, leaving too many holes in his reasoning. Granted. But in my humble opinion as an eye witness to the campus among other things, those that ignore some of the harsher things that were said about him personally are deluding themselves. We are all Hoyas here, and its just worth me noting again that Craig Esherick is one of us. He served at the pleasure of the University and was dismissed. He doesn't owe us an explanation or apology, but it was disappointing that we couldn't treat him with a greater level of respect upon his departure. Maybe I have a greater level of tolerance for a man who lashed out under indescribable stress. I'll give him a pass. Ill even give us a pass for our statements towards him during those stressful moments from the outside. But now that we are years removed to stand by that mindset is disappointing. I'm not pointing any fingers, but the air of anger towards Esherick is clear to me, but maybe it's just a mirage...
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DanMcQ
Moderator
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Post by DanMcQ on Feb 26, 2008 22:49:01 GMT -5
The best response to this thread is not even in this thread, it is in the game thread.
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TC
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 9,468
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Post by TC on Feb 26, 2008 22:49:15 GMT -5
It seems difficult to dispute that the administration did indeed succumb to the "fears of an impassioned mob" the fact that the President can release a statement one day and mere days later essentially reverse course days later back that up. DeGoia was within his right to ask for Esherick's resignation or fire him was within his right. I have a difficult time believing that with Esherick's "rant" and the subsequent statement of confidence by his employers that he was under any impression that he was to be fired. From my memory, you have your timeline wrong. It was more like : - alumni, students and fans protest - administration released a statement of support - Esherick thumbs his nose at fans, alumni, and students with the "30 years" statement - administration backs off of statement of support and replaces Esherick I really believe that if Esherick had kept his mouth shut he would have gotten at least one more year. The "30 years" statement really was the turning point - until that point it seemed like the administration was willing to support Esherick - but Esherick thumbing his nose at his detractors changed all of that. How do you keep supporters in a program that already has severe financial issues when a coach coming off of a tremendously disappointing season is thumbing his nose at your support base? What would they have been supporting? Esherick put his employers in an impossible situation.
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Filo
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Post by Filo on Feb 26, 2008 22:54:17 GMT -5
Wow, so much has been said that I feel I need to add my two cents. Let me just say that I have nothing to say about this topic.
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KHoyaNYC
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,901
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Post by KHoyaNYC on Feb 26, 2008 23:07:28 GMT -5
Seems like we always get at least one Esherick thread during the season......is that a rule on this board?
Esherick was ultimately a victim of his own hubris (30 years comment), but he couldn't coach either. That's a bad combination. But none of that matters now. We need to focus on these last 3 games.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Feb 26, 2008 23:09:25 GMT -5
I glanced at this thread before leaving work, and, despite the bitterness and poor basketball that pervaded in the final years of Esherick's regime, a vision of the Brandon Bowman throw dribble came to mind. So, perhaps things have moved past the revisionist accounting that was printed today in our campus paper. This debate aside, can we not agree that we hope Bobo makes the NBA so some NBA video game artist somewhere can contemplate inserting a secret code in a video game so the Bobo throw dribble is a "special move?" So, some 10 year old kid somewhere presses the button and shouts "WTH is this move good for?"
Anyway...This debate has just about run its course, and my position in it has been consistent and clear. In any event, the following came to mind in perusing Nixon's revisionism:
1) Why was this commentary needed now and what prompted it? It seems like Esherick only pops up at critical points of a season. Last year, it was the Final 4, and we had some press joker asking our players questions about him as if Esherick had anything to do with the event itself outside of recruiting these guys years ago. Frankly, I don't view these articles as good karma and wish they were released in preseason if a media person is so tempted so the players can focus, and the fans can just enjoy the season. Moreover, I think the board has been good this year in not engaging this now irrelevant debate. 2) If SID revokes press credentials of the Voice for printing a commentary about Esherick, can we get the same for the Hoya? Before the cries of "the Voice was worse" are sounded, this Hoya piece was arguably more vindictive in that it attacked a large group of alums and Hoop Club donors. I donated when we were up and when we were down and don't feel Mr. Nixon's moralism is well taken or well placed.
3) It will probably do the Eshericks no favors if we have a full examination of issues, motives, and the like. There likely were no "saints" in the March 2004 decision-making, but we are fortunate enough that the process produced a "saint" in JT3. ----------------------- In reading this thread, I don't see a point to the continued sniping. The positions on all sides are well-known and have been held to scrutiny several times. The truth has had its boots on for some time now and does not seem to be challenged fundamentally by Nixon. He seems more concerned with motives and how everyone feels about the situation, which have never been a focus in any successful team of which I was a part.
Lastly, some on this board have contacted me privately to indicate their support of the March 2004 decision to end the Esherick regime. But, they are not able to voice that sentiment for a variety of reasons, including loyalty to a classmate. I think that position should be respected, as they seem diplomatically to be placing the University ahead of Craig Esherick and, ultimately, that was the lesson of March 2004. And, I am glad that the strength and health of the University carried the day.
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