Jim Livengood

[Merkin]

WTF? Forced out at both the UA and UNLV?

[KCF]

Let me show you my shocked face.

[Reydituto]

Forced out due to internal political struggles, not fired, not resigned amid a cloud of NCAA sanction and controversy. His induction is well-deserved, and his image outside of Tucson, and outside the skewed, narrow sample of UA online communities, is much more positive.

[CalStateTempe]

Look up bean-counter in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of Sunny Jim.

[ASUHATER!]

Forced out due to internal political struggles, not fired, not resigned amid a cloud of NCAA sanction and controversy. His induction is well-deserved, and his image outside of Tucson, and outside the skewed, narrow sample of UA online communities, is much more positive.

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[Reydituto]

Look up bean-counter in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of Sunny Jim.

That's nice. I mean, sure. But Wazzu, UA and UNLV all needed that when he was hired.

I won't deny he overstayed his welcome by a couple of years, and I don't want to rehash every argument I've had about him either ...

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At UA, the Lute Olson feud + lingering resentment from Mackovic fiasco created a political situation both within the UA Athletic Department and within the UA Booster community (including several big hitters) that was no longer tenable. Everyone here knows most of the rest of the story, or at least what they want to believe, so there's really no point in addressing it further. Let sleeping dogs lie.

At UNLV, he got on the wrong side of the University President early on who didn't like his campaigning for off-campus arenas (although he started an on-campus football stadium initiative that was still on the table when he left), as well as the lack of football success under his hire Bobby Hauck (who promptly took UNLV to a bowl game last season after JL left). In his 3.5 year tenure there, he tripled the department’s fundraising efforts, oversaw completion of the BB practice facility, and got UNLV BB out of the Kruger doldrums with increased attendance and revenues. He was also lauded for being highly visible and available to the fan base, something that some here didn't think he was at UA.

Fact is, Livengood turned down overtures from several big-time programs while he was at UA, and was seen as one of the better ADs within the AD community as well as college athletics writ large. He served on every NCAA board you could as an AD, including running the NCAA Basketball Selection Committee for two years. The only image hits he takes are within the UA fanbase, and even so it's far from unanimous.

So, there's my two bits. It's water under the bridge, I'm just tired of others making him a punching bag unnecesarily.

[azcat34]

His handling of the coaching search and steady decline of Arizona Basketball was one of the biggest disasters I've seen in college sports.

He inherited a Hall of Fame basketball coach and couldn't ever get football right, look at how much progress has been made with a true progressive Athletic Director.

Jim is seems like a nice guy, but I don't miss his leadership of Arizona Athletics.

[SCCat]

His handling of the coaching search and steady decline of Arizona Basketball was one of the biggest disasters I've seen in college sports.

He inherited a Hall of Fame basketball coach and couldn't ever get football right, look at how much progress has been made with a true progressive Athletic Director.

Jim is seems like a nice guy, but I don't miss his leadership of Arizona Athletics.

I don't know if I'd call it one of the biggest disasters I've ever seen in college sports, but I'm lots closer to your view than Rey's.

As far as I can tell the guy basically took something great that was created by someone else and gravy trained it and generally saw it steadily decline under his leadership.

The important, big decisions generally ranged from average to horrendous. Mackovick was basically as bad as a call can be. Stoops for performance gets a more average grade but in the end would we consider Stoops a good football CEO? I doubt it. Stoops in retrospect seemed to get a little lucky with some things, like having Mark as his DC, Sonny come in and be his OC for a couple years and most importantly having Foles drop into his lap from nowhere. It could easily be the case that if Matt Scott, as a redshirt freshman, was our QB for that entire year (which was like Stoops fourth year at the helm or something like that), we well might've had a horrible year and Stoops would've been fired that year.

The basketball situation when Lute was still around was probably pretty tough as basically no AD would've had the juice to outright fire or force a resignation of the legend. That said the eventual coaching search that we generally know the details on was another monumental clusterfuck; as far as I can tell, but for Jason Scheer JL would've hired Floyd and then we would've had to fire him four or eight weeks later or whenever the bribery scandal came out and Arizona Basketball would've been BF'ed. Then he goes on to alienate Sean Miller and we almost end up with Seth Greenberg...

No, if someone wants to talk about good things JL did they'd have to bring them up because there seem to be fairly solid piles of pretty bad stuff. Some might want to say he balanced the books? I can pay someone $4K a month to balance the books of a thing someone else built. What else did he do?

[WildcatLouis]

He may have done some good at some point in his tenure at Arizona, but his departure was the breath of fresh air that AZ Athletics needed. The big money college athletics game had simply past him by - probably many years before his departure. He may have balanced books, but he did so on the back of crumbling facilities and by paying coaches less than the market probably dictated.

Some of the renovations/construction that we are now seeing were planned during Livengood's time, but Byrne really provided a true shot-in-the-arm to get things going. In the four years in which Byrne has been here, AZ Football got the Lowell-Stevens Facility and two new scoreboards, McKale has begun an $80 million renovation, baseball got a "new" facility (which also allowed football to get out of the terrible Jimenez practice facility and into a re-purposed Kindall/Sancet), Hillenbrand is about to start a renovation, tennis is getting renovations, golf has found a new home, AZ got a sand volleyball team, etc. At the time he left, Livengood would not have been capable of getting nearly that much done. I will salute him for stumbling ass-backwards into hiring Coach Miller on his way out, but I am REALLY thankful that Byrne is the guy in charge now.

[Spaceman Spiff]

His handling of the coaching search and steady decline of Arizona Basketball was one of the biggest disasters I've seen in college sports.

He inherited a Hall of Fame basketball coach and couldn't ever get football right, look at how much progress has been made with a true progressive Athletic Director.

Jim is seems like a nice guy, but I don't miss his leadership of Arizona Athletics.

Yet we wound up with the right guy in Miller. I agree Byrne has revitalized the athletic department and been far more aggressive and innovative. That said, the track record of other AD's makes you realize that things could have turned out much, much worse.

[azcat34]

His handling of the coaching search and steady decline of Arizona Basketball was one of the biggest disasters I've seen in college sports.

He inherited a Hall of Fame basketball coach and couldn't ever get football right, look at how much progress has been made with a true progressive Athletic Director.

Jim is seems like a nice guy, but I don't miss his leadership of Arizona Athletics.

Yet we wound up with the right guy in Miller. I agree Byrne has revitalized the athletic department and been far more aggressive and innovative. That said, the track record of other AD's makes you realize that things could have turned out much, much worse.

You can thank the donors that rallied together to land another meeting with Miller in El Paso after JL did everything he could to completely screw it up.

That coaching search was the dumpster fire of all dumpster fires.

Even after all the rallying, it took a late night call from Calipari for Miller to see the true value of Arizona. This is something that the Athletic Director of Arizona Athletics should be communicating, not a family friend/industry rival.

The true potential of Arizona is shining through with Byrne and the best is definitely yet to come.

[Merkin]

Didn't JL hire Lopez? Did get a NC out of that. But even a blind squirrel...

Also hired Niya Butts too, whose team lost 20 out of 21 to ASU. Try that in a sport someone cares about.

[ElGatoBlanco]

Yet we wound up with the right guy in Miller. I agree Byrne has revitalized the athletic department and been far more aggressive and innovative. That said, the track record of other AD's makes you realize that things could have turned out much, much worse.

He did choose Tim Floyd over Sean Miller though fwiw and was a last second Calipari phone call away from blowing our chances with Miller. That rental car trip from Albuquerque to Santa Fe sure impressed Miller.....

[Merkin]

Yet we wound up with the right guy in Miller. I agree Byrne has revitalized the athletic department and been far more aggressive and innovative. That said, the track record of other AD's makes you realize that things could have turned out much, much worse.

He did choose Tim Floyd over Sean Miller though fwiw and was a last second Calipari phone call away from blowing our chances with Miller. That rental car trip from Albuquerque to Santa Fe sure impressed Miller.....

Don't forget the messy hamburger.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Yet we wound up with the right guy in Miller. I agree Byrne has revitalized the athletic department and been far more aggressive and innovative. That said, the track record of other AD's makes you realize that things could have turned out much, much worse.

He did choose Tim Floyd over Sean Miller though fwiw and was a last second Calipari phone call away from blowing our chances with Miller. That rental car trip from Albuquerque to Santa Fe sure impressed Miller.....

I'm not sure he necessarily deserves any more credit than not letting his ego drive him to sticking with Floyd, but there are plenty of AD's who would have stuck with Floyd just because.

There is honor in not compounding your mistakes by binding yourself to them as they fall off the cliff into the pits of fire.

[Chicat]

Yet we wound up with the right guy in Miller. I agree Byrne has revitalized the athletic department and been far more aggressive and innovative. That said, the track record of other AD's makes you realize that things could have turned out much, much worse.

He did choose Tim Floyd over Sean Miller though fwiw and was a last second Calipari phone call away from blowing our chances with Miller. That rental car trip from Albuquerque to Santa Fe sure impressed Miller.....

Don't forget the messy hamburger.

I think you're thinking about the Maryland AD. Another guy who refused to try and win the press conference.

I think the Livengood era can be best illustrated with one quote:

"I feel reasonably sure right now that we have a phenomenal basketball coach."

He should have been 100% sure that he had a phenomenal basketball coach in Sean Miller, especially in front of Miller, his family, boosters, the press, and the entire fanbase.

[catgrad97]

Nailed it, Chi. I pointed it out in the press conference thread, and it's the only thing I still remember about Sunny Jim--he was "reasonably sure." And I talked with the guy for 15 solid minutes in his office as a college senior!

Miller's response was the best: "You SHOULD be sure."

[EVCat]

Forced out due to internal political struggles, not fired, not resigned amid a cloud of NCAA sanction and controversy. His induction is well-deserved, and his image outside of Tucson, and outside the skewed, narrow sample of UA online communities, is much more positive.

Yup. The man ran our athletic department the way it had to be ran given the resources available, and was very good at his job. But the anti - Livengood thing is just a quirk of this board and its predecessor. Most, if not all UA fans/boosters/donors I know think he was the perfect man for the job at the time. And are grateful to have Byrne in this new era of PAC 10/12 operations.

The Replacing Lute situation went against every logical situation you would expect to be in. Miller said no, and had someone close to him talk him out of it...Livengood didn't tell him to piss off. We were a wounded program looking to replace a legend that had managed, through two odd and, as we know now, ill years to make our program less attractive then it should have been. Even then, Livengood had secured Calipari until the one thing he couldn't out negotiate happened...UK opening up. Shit hit the fan, he scrambled, and Miller said no then yes after Cal ' s early morning call with Sean and Livengood. Miller was already pushed to the limit of saying yes...Cal helped push him over the line, but Livengood had done much of the work up to that point.

Jim Livengood operated our program at a surplus at a time when the environment with the regents wouldn't allow for much leeway, kept Lute Olson happy enough for Lute to throw his considerable weight behind Jim without breaking the bank. That was a Livengood negotiation...an ongoing one that was aced. Livengood secured Mike Stoops at a time when he was the hottest assistant in the country and some of our fans thought Ricky Hunley was a legitimate candidate. Stoops' personal life imploded and the program he was building rather well suffered for it. But the Stoops hire was a fantastic hire by Livengood...he got the guy virtually everyone dreamed of getting during that search.

It isn't some weird conspiracy...he is well thought of and being honored because, well....he was good at his job. He wasn't the right guy for the program going forward, and we are fantastically blessed with Greg Byrne. But Jim Livengood was a success as AD of the U of A

[thenewazcats]

Forced out due to internal political struggles, not fired, not resigned amid a cloud of NCAA sanction and controversy. His induction is well-deserved, and his image outside of Tucson, and outside the skewed, narrow sample of UA online communities, is much more positive.

Yup. The man ran our athletic department the way it had to be ran given the resources available, and was very good at his job. But the anti - Livengood thing is just a quirk of this board and its predecessor. Most, if not all UA fans/boosters/donors I know think he was the perfect man for the job at the time. And are grateful to have Byrne in this new era of PAC 10/12 operations.

The Replacing Lute situation went against every logical situation you would expect to be in. Miller said no, and had someone close to him talk him out of it...Livengood didn't tell him to piss off. We were a wounded program looking to replace a legend that had managed, through two odd and, as we know now, ill years to make our program less attractive then it should have been. Even then, Livengood had secured Calipari until the one thing he couldn't out negotiate happened...UK opening up. Shit hit the fan, he scrambled, and Miller said no then yes after Cal ' s early morning call with Sean and Livengood. Miller was already pushed to the limit of saying yes...Cal helped push him over the line, but Livengood had done much of the work up to that point.

Jim Livengood operated our program at a surplus at a time when the environment with the regents wouldn't allow for much leeway, kept Lute Olson happy enough for Lute to throw his considerable weight behind Jim without breaking the bank. That was a Livengood negotiation...an ongoing one that was aced. Livengood secured Mike Stoops at a time when he was the hottest assistant in the country and some of our fans thought Ricky Hunley was a legitimate candidate. Stoops' personal life imploded and the program he was building rather well suffered for it. But the Stoops hire was a fantastic hire by Livengood...he got the guy virtually everyone dreamed of getting during that search.

It isn't some weird conspiracy...he is well thought of and being honored because, well....he was good at his job. He wasn't the right guy for the program going forward, and we are fantastically blessed with Greg Byrne. But Jim Livengood was a success as AD of the U of A

Thumbs up. I agree with this perspective.

[Chicat]

The Replacing Lute situation went against every logical situation you would expect to be in. Miller said no, and had someone close to him talk him out of it...Livengood didn't tell him to piss off. We were a wounded program looking to replace a legend that had managed, through two odd and, as we know now, ill years to make our program less attractive then it should have been. Even then, Livengood had secured Calipari until the one thing he couldn't out negotiate happened...UK opening up. Shit hit the fan, he scrambled, and Miller said no then yes after Cal ' s early morning call with Sean and Livengood. Miller was already pushed to the limit of saying yes...Cal helped push him over the line, but Livengood had done much of the work up to that point.

Jim Livengood operated our program at a surplus at a time when the environment with the regents wouldn't allow for much leeway, kept Lute Olson happy enough for Lute to throw his considerable weight behind Jim without breaking the bank. That was a Livengood negotiation...an ongoing one that was aced. Livengood secured Mike Stoops at a time when he was the hottest assistant in the country and some of our fans thought Ricky Hunley was a legitimate candidate. Stoops' personal life imploded and the program he was building rather well suffered for it. But the Stoops hire was a fantastic hire by Livengood...he got the guy virtually everyone dreamed of getting during that search.

I feel like you've intentionally glossed over a few historical items in order to paint a rosier picture of his tenure, such as why Miller initially turned down the job (no, it wasn't because of the messy Lute departure and interim coaches) and why Stoops had to be hired in the first place.

No one is all good or all bad. It's ok to acknowledge that Livengood did good things and not so good things during his time as Arizona's AD. So let's praise his accomplishments and at the same time acknowledge that he absolutely failed when hiring John Mackovic, very nearly blew it with Sean Miller, and was very much not the right person to lead us into this new era of Wildcat sports. The job he did during his time as the AD was simply adequate in my opinion, especially when compared to the man we have now who has taken marketing and fundraising to new heights.

[UAtrue]

Wish we could give rep on this board...

[ElGatoBlanco]

Yet we wound up with the right guy in Miller. I agree Byrne has revitalized the athletic department and been far more aggressive and innovative. That said, the track record of other AD's makes you realize that things could have turned out much, much worse.

He did choose Tim Floyd over Sean Miller though fwiw and was a last second Calipari phone call away from blowing our chances with Miller. That rental car trip from Albuquerque to Santa Fe sure impressed Miller.....

I'm not sure he necessarily deserves any more credit than not letting his ego drive him to sticking with Floyd, but there are plenty of AD's who would have stuck with Floyd just because.

There is honor in not compounding your mistakes by binding yourself to them as they fall off the cliff into the pits of fire.

Wait I don't get it? Floyd turned the job down. What guy continues strongly pursuing a guy who publicly turns the job down? Livengood gets credit for not continuing to pursue Floyd after he said no or did I just misread you?

For the record I'm not a Livengood basher. Much like the posts before this one I agree that he was the right man for the job at the right time. He even laid out the original plans for the NEZ and McKale that Byrne has followed up on. The one thing I've been most critical of sonny Jim though is Floyd and then the handling or mishandling of the meeting with Miller. I mean we were that close to ending up with Jim Boylen as our basketball coach. Oy vay...

[azcat34]

He did choose Tim Floyd over Sean Miller though fwiw and was a last second Calipari phone call away from blowing our chances with Miller. That rental car trip from Albuquerque to Santa Fe sure impressed Miller..... [/quote]

I'm not sure he necessarily deserves any more credit than not letting his ego drive him to sticking with Floyd, but there are plenty of AD's who would have stuck with Floyd just because.

There is honor in not compounding your mistakes by binding yourself to them as they fall off the cliff into the pits of fire.[/quote]

Wait I don't get it? Floyd turned the job down. What guy continues strongly pursuing a guy who publicly turns the job down? Livengood gets credit for not continuing to pursue Floyd after he said no or did I just misread you?

For the record I'm not a Livengood basher. Much like the posts before this one I agree that he was the right man for the job at the right time. He even laid out the original plans for the NEZ and McKale that Byrne has followed up on. The one thing I've been most critical of sonny Jim though is Floyd and then the handling or mishandling of the meeting with Miller. I mean we were that close to ending up with Jim Boylen as our basketball coach. Oy vay...[/quote]

Yea, I didn't get that either. Even though it worked out in Arizona's favor by a landslide, we all still had to read reports of the USC basketball coach publicly telling his team he wasn't taking the Arizona Basketball job.

I get the Kentucky job opened and the Calipari thing blew up, but you can't be an AD in Division I sports without having a backup plan or three. Gillespie was spiraling out of control and it was clear for months that there was a good chance that job was opening up as well.

[Chicat]

Yea, I didn't get that either. Even though it worked out in Arizona's favor by a landslide, we all still had to read reports of the USC basketball coach publicly telling his team he wasn't taking the Arizona Basketball job.

I get the Kentucky job opened and the Calipari thing blew up, but you can't be an AD in Division I sports without having a backup plan or three. Gillespie was spiraling out of control and it was clear for months that there was a good chance that job was opening up as well.

How about the fact that he wasn't out in front of the Floyd story as it unraveled underneath him? Scheer snaps that pic and all of a sudden you have Cat fans up in arms from coast to coast. Then those same fans have to suffer through the indignity of watching their beloved school get turned down by a guy who had to openly cheat to get mediocre results.

As soon as Floyd got on the plane to go back to LA Livengood should have gauged the reaction of the most diehard of fans (aka - checked the internet to see what people were saying) and then made a statement to the effect that no one had been offered the job and that all avenues were still open and there was a large list of coaches being evaluated. That would have made many people put down the pitchforks and it would have preemptively nixed Floyd's ability to turn down the job (or accept it). The statement during Miller's press conference about not offering anyone the job sounded hollow and silly in light of what Floyd had said previously. And it was completely out of place. That day should have been about Sean Miller, not the flailing fail of a search up until that point.

[Merkin]

we all still had to read reports of the USC basketball coach publicly telling his team he wasn't taking the Arizona Basketball job.

Larry Smith said the same thing when he went the opposite direction.

One thing about JL is that he never needed to take money from the state to support the AD unlike his counterpart at ASU, whoever it was that preceded Lisa Love. Of course a lot of that credit had to go to Lute Olson, whose profits had to cover even the football program in the Mackovic disaster years.

Didn't JL bring in Stoops, a lifelong assistant coach, to make more than Olson did? I do believe Olson received a raise shortly afterwards.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Yea, I didn't get that either. Even though it worked out in Arizona's favor by a landslide, we all still had to read reports of the USC basketball coach publicly telling his team he wasn't taking the Arizona Basketball job.

I get the Kentucky job opened and the Calipari thing blew up, but you can't be an AD in Division I sports without having a backup plan or three. Gillespie was spiraling out of control and it was clear for months that there was a good chance that job was opening up as well.

How about the fact that he wasn't out in front of the Floyd story as it unraveled underneath him? Scheer snaps that pic and all of a sudden you have Cat fans up in arms from coast to coast. Then those same fans have to suffer through the indignity of watching their beloved school get turned down by a guy who had to openly cheat to get mediocre results.

As soon as Floyd got on the plane to go back to LA Livengood should have gauged the reaction of the most diehard of fans (aka - checked the internet to see what people were saying) and then made a statement to the effect that no one had been offered the job and that all avenues were still open and there was a large list of coaches being evaluated. That would have made many people put down the pitchforks and it would have preemptively nixed Floyd's ability to turn down the job (or accept it). The statement during Miller's press conference about not offering anyone the job sounded hollow and silly in light of what Floyd had said previously. And it was completely out of place. That day should have been about Sean Miller, not the flailing fail of a search up until that point.

I'm not claiming any insider knowledge, but I had always thought that Floyd's "rejection" was a show move because the **** already hit the fan and both sides were just trying to save face by racing to be the one to reject the other. I admit this is an amateur opinion.

Again, I tend to grade on a curve. Look at other programs where a legend left. Indiana is still in nowhere, UCLA floundered for a good decade, even UNC had the Guthridge/Doherty years. It isn't easy, and just getting the right guy by accident get you a B- in my book.

[gumby]

Make this discussion go away before somebody says "Livenbad." Livenbad", get it? You take the "good" and ... well, I sure miss this debate. Like a bad hangover.

[UAdevil]

Jim did a fairly good job for the bulk of his tenure imo. It was a bit rough toward the end, and him going when he did was fortuitous.

[Chicat]

Yea, I didn't get that either. Even though it worked out in Arizona's favor by a landslide, we all still had to read reports of the USC basketball coach publicly telling his team he wasn't taking the Arizona Basketball job.

I get the Kentucky job opened and the Calipari thing blew up, but you can't be an AD in Division I sports without having a backup plan or three. Gillespie was spiraling out of control and it was clear for months that there was a good chance that job was opening up as well.

How about the fact that he wasn't out in front of the Floyd story as it unraveled underneath him? Scheer snaps that pic and all of a sudden you have Cat fans up in arms from coast to coast. Then those same fans have to suffer through the indignity of watching their beloved school get turned down by a guy who had to openly cheat to get mediocre results.

As soon as Floyd got on the plane to go back to LA Livengood should have gauged the reaction of the most diehard of fans (aka - checked the internet to see what people were saying) and then made a statement to the effect that no one had been offered the job and that all avenues were still open and there was a large list of coaches being evaluated. That would have made many people put down the pitchforks and it would have preemptively nixed Floyd's ability to turn down the job (or accept it). The statement during Miller's press conference about not offering anyone the job sounded hollow and silly in light of what Floyd had said previously. And it was completely out of place. That day should have been about Sean Miller, not the flailing fail of a search up until that point.

I'm not claiming any insider knowledge, but I had always thought that Floyd's "rejection" was a show move because the **** already hit the fan and both sides were just trying to save face by racing to be the one to reject the other. I admit this is an amateur opinion.

We should have won that race.

[SCCat]

I'm still wondering what he did to even get a theoretical overall C grade?

Is all we're talking about balancing the budget when you have one of the most profitable basketball programs in the nation (which someone else created) and when you cut things to the bone in the football program so much so that we're only moderately competitive?

That's not only not really good, it's not even good. I would go so far as to say anyone with any sort of reasonably competent background could've done that. Anyone.

I'm really pretty hard pressed to think what value add he brought. What did he do that literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of other people couldn't have that was at all above average in any way?

[KaibabKat]

It's a great day to be a Wildcat.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I'm still wondering what he did to even get a theoretical overall C grade?

Is all we're talking about balancing the budget when you have one of the most profitable basketball programs in the nation (which someone else created) and when you cut things to the bone in the football program so much so that we're only moderately competitive?

That's not only not really good, it's not even good. I would go so far as to say anyone with any sort of reasonably competent background could've done that. Anyone.

I'm really pretty hard pressed to think what value add he brought. What did he do that literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of other people couldn't have that was at all above average in any way?

Not actively screwing your department up as an AD doesn't sound like a big deal until you count the number of AD's who actively screwed things up and left the program in a place where success was harder.

I know ties are like kissing your sister, but they're better than kissing dog poo. Tennessee's another example. Look at their football and basketball hires recently. The range is dumpster fire to uninspiring.

Simply not doing harm is an underrated virtue. I don't disagree that we upgraded, but it could have been much worse.

[SCCat]

Not actively screwing your department up as an AD doesn't sound like a big deal until you count the number of AD's who actively screwed things up and left the program in a place where success was harder.

I know ties are like kissing your sister, but they're better than kissing dog poo. Tennessee's another example. Look at their football and basketball hires recently. The range is dumpster fire to uninspiring.

Simply not doing harm is an underrated virtue. I don't disagree that we upgraded, but it could have been much worse.

If this is where we are in talking about JL then this is where we are and that's ok.

But what this sounds like is "He was given a top ten in the country AD and managed to not turn it into a bottom ten in the country AD."

[teemackdee]

I know ties are like kissing your sister, but they're better than kissing dog poo.

When I read this I lol'd, and even when read out of context to the other guys in my office we all had a good laugh. Strong work.

[azgreg]

Who is this guy? https://twitter.com/NotJimLivengood" target="_blank

[Spaceman Spiff]

I'm still wondering what he did to even get a theoretical overall C grade?

Is all we're talking about balancing the budget when you have one of the most profitable basketball programs in the nation (which someone else created) and when you cut things to the bone in the football program so much so that we're only moderately competitive?

That's not only not really good, it's not even good. I would go so far as to say anyone with any sort of reasonably competent background could've done that. Anyone.

I'm really pretty hard pressed to think what value add he brought. What did he do that literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of other people couldn't have that was at all above average in any way?

Not actively screwing your department up as an AD doesn't sound like a big deal until you count the number of AD's who actively screwed things up and left the program in a place where success was harder.

I know ties are like kissing your sister, but they're better than kissing dog poo. Tennessee's another example. Look at their football and basketball hires recently. The range is dumpster fire to uninspiring.

Simply not doing harm is an underrated virtue. I don't disagree that we upgraded, but it could have been much worse.

Three years later, my words about Tennessee's football hiring have a weird timely aspect.

[MrMeow]

I'm still wondering what he did to even get a theoretical overall C grade?

Is all we're talking about balancing the budget when you have one of the most profitable basketball programs in the nation (which someone else created) and when you cut things to the bone in the football program so much so that we're only moderately competitive?

That's not only not really good, it's not even good. I would go so far as to say anyone with any sort of reasonably competent background could've done that. Anyone.

I'm really pretty hard pressed to think what value add he brought. What did he do that literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of other people couldn't have that was at all above average in any way?

I have advocated this for years. Livengood's "claim to fame" was balancing the books. Under the circumstances, any competent accountant, not even a CPA, could have done that, and I haven't noticed the books out of balance since Dr. Shelton wisely declined to renew Sunny Jim's contract.

[DiehardDave37]

That guy obviously is NOT JIM LIVENGOOD. His rants remind me of TJ Mc's hater.