Southerncharm
Rookie
Less than a year on the job the women's coach has left the program. Maybe this time the administration will hire the best candidate instead of only going after a certain gender.
Texas debacle continues
- Thread starter Southerncharm
- Start date
I'm not an established coach or in any way qualified but I will take the job. My first act is to hire the absolute best assistants in the nation so they can do all the things I don't know how to do.
Seriously, Texas is a name brand 'haves' program and I am sure they can find some very good coaches. Texas tends to think they can have anyone (in any sport) and their massive budget and name brand would have UVA's Boland, OU's Roddick or USC's Smith begging to come. They also thought Nick Saban was leaving Alabama for Austin. They need to merely be patient and find a very good candidate. I truly believe some very good candidates that will never make head coach are to be had if schools would just do their homework and get off their big name high horse.
on the line
New User
Texas back story
PATTERSON EXPOSED ON FUNDING OF UT TENNIS FACILITY?
Chip Brown
When new Texas president Gregory Fenves on Wednesday said UT's tennis facility to be built east of I-35 has already been funded, Steve Patterson had some explaining to do.
Patterson has sent out members of the Longhorn Foundation all over the state to meet with prospective donors and give them expensively produced packages detailing what contributions could mean in terms of naming rights for different parts of the tennis facility.
The message for months from Patterson's office to everyone inside and outside the athletic department has been that the money for a new $17 million tennis facility - all of it - would have to be raised. Every penny. And that if only $6 million was raised, then UT would build a $6 million facility.
One problem: Former Texas president Bill Powers had made it clear from the moment UT's former tennis facility - Penick-Allison - was targeted for demolition in 2012 to make room for a new medical school that the university, not athletics, would pay for a new facility.
Multiple sources told HornsDigest.com 10 months ago Powers made it clear to Patterson that $15 million for a new tennis facility was being deducted from a total of $30 million that athletics was set to share with the central university.
Sources said it was important to Powers that the university - not athletics - pay for a new facility because athletics had no say in the demolition of Penick-Allison, which was razed last June.
But for months Patterson would never acknowledge the $15 million when asked by HornsDigest.com about the funding for the facility. And, internally, Patterson kept telling everyone in the department every penny had to be raised to pay for it.
Some of the frustration of that utterly confusing dynamic played out Wednesday when women's tennis coach Danielle Lund McNamara resigned her position effective immediately after one season on the job.
That follows Patty Fen$#@!-McCain turning down a contract extension as women's tennis coach at UT and resigning last year. And it follows Texas being turned down four times in trying to hire McCain's successor. UT was turned down by Alabama's Jenny Mainz, North Carolina's Brian Kalbas and was turned down twice by Rice women's tennis coach Elizabeth Schmidt, an Austin Westlake product, before hiring McNamara, who was the women's tennis coach at Yale.
But sources said UT not having a tennis facility this season or next - combined with Patterson pinching pennies by cutting the number of times a UT coach can go into the athletic dining hall from unlimited to 30 times per school year (or they have to pay their own way), helped gut an already unstable women's tennis program.
"There was no place for Coach McNamara to meet with her team," one source close to the situation said Wednesday. "Was she going to use her own money each time she wanted to go into the athletic dining hall just to meet with her players? She'd be taking a pay cut. Come on. It's ridiculous."
The silence was deafening out of Patterson's office on Wednesday. A message left with athletics spokesman Nick Voinis went unreturned.
But an email from women's AD Chris Plonsky was sent out to UT faithful that blamed "a personal situation" for McNamara's resignation. Plonsky also added "we are feverishly fund raising to ensure that our men's and women's teams benefit from this new facility within the time frame of construction plans (which are in the early stages)."
Plonsky's email went out less than two hours before Fenves confirmed during his introductory news conference that the tennis facility had already been funded.
Austin's Carol Welder, a board member of the Capital Area Tennis Association and former vice president of the United States Tennis Association, has been following the fate of UT's new tennis facility very closely.
"Texas made the decision to tear down Penick-Allison and made a commitment to replace it, and that needs to be honored," Welder said. "If they are saying now the $15 million has to be raised for a new tennis facility - after the school vowed to spend the money to replace it Steve Patterson should know his men's and women's tennis programs premier programs - could be in jeopardy.
"If ground is not broken for the new tennis facility by the end of 2015, the completion date could push into 2017, meaning UT's men's and women's tennis programs would have been practicing and playing on public courts with no place to meet for three years. How would recruiting survive that?"
Here's another problem: Patterson himself has ruined the relationships with at least two donors who came forward with plans to give at least $1 million toward the tennis facility.
Those donors asked not to be identified. But both told HornsDigest.com that they wanted to meet with Patterson about potential naming rights. Both said they had numerous forms of correspondence initially ignored by Patterson's office before working with members of the Longhorn Foundation to set up a meeting with Patterson.
Both donors said they had more than one meeting canceled by Patterson initially. And then when they finally did meet with Patterson, the Texas athletic director let them know he was very short on time.
"The athletic director - supposedly desperate to raise money for a new tennis facility - tells me he only has 15 minutes when we sit down for lunch?" one of the donors said. "I said, 'I'm sorry. I thought you all were asking me for help.'"
The meetings went so badly, according to the donors, they both have vowed never to give any money to Texas while Patterson is the athletic director.
When I asked Fenves Wednesday if $15 million had been earmarked by the central university for a new tennis facility, per a longstanding agreement between Powers and former athletic director DeLoss Dodds, Fenves said:
"That's been funded, and we will proceed."
He then described how some existing facilities - the UT Press building - will need to be relocated before construction can begin just north of Disch-Falk Field and across Comal from the Longhorns' softball stadium.
Fenves said the new estimate for the tennis facility is $17 million.
Sources said Powers was committed to $15 million for a new tennis facility and that if athletics wanted to go above and beyond that, they could raise any additional money.
But Patterson may be his own worst enemy when it comes to raising money - one of the most important jobs of an athletic director.
Ask any athletic director in a Power 5 conference and they'll tell you they are personally responsible for looking after the top 40 or 50 donors to athletics. Multiple sources said Patterson is incapable of that because his people skills are so bad. So more and more people have been hired at Texas to do the fund-raising for him. Multiple sources said Patterson's wife, Yasmine Michael, is now taking a lead role in donor relations.
And Patterson has turned to his coaches to raise money - something former AD DeLoss Dodds always discouraged because it often put coaches in difficult positions.
Patterson has told all of his non-revenue coaches they have to "come up with ways to make your programs profitable." That has included Patterson telling coaches to cultivate/develop donors connected to their sports to help cover costs.
That was another reason women's tennis coach Danielle Lund McNamara resigned on Wednesday, sources said. She was having a hard enough time coaching and meeting with her players without a facility to start worrying about having to be the program's fund-raiser, too.
[Chip Brown]
PATTERSON EXPOSED ON FUNDING OF UT TENNIS FACILITY?
Chip Brown
When new Texas president Gregory Fenves on Wednesday said UT's tennis facility to be built east of I-35 has already been funded, Steve Patterson had some explaining to do.
Patterson has sent out members of the Longhorn Foundation all over the state to meet with prospective donors and give them expensively produced packages detailing what contributions could mean in terms of naming rights for different parts of the tennis facility.
The message for months from Patterson's office to everyone inside and outside the athletic department has been that the money for a new $17 million tennis facility - all of it - would have to be raised. Every penny. And that if only $6 million was raised, then UT would build a $6 million facility.
One problem: Former Texas president Bill Powers had made it clear from the moment UT's former tennis facility - Penick-Allison - was targeted for demolition in 2012 to make room for a new medical school that the university, not athletics, would pay for a new facility.
Multiple sources told HornsDigest.com 10 months ago Powers made it clear to Patterson that $15 million for a new tennis facility was being deducted from a total of $30 million that athletics was set to share with the central university.
Sources said it was important to Powers that the university - not athletics - pay for a new facility because athletics had no say in the demolition of Penick-Allison, which was razed last June.
But for months Patterson would never acknowledge the $15 million when asked by HornsDigest.com about the funding for the facility. And, internally, Patterson kept telling everyone in the department every penny had to be raised to pay for it.
Some of the frustration of that utterly confusing dynamic played out Wednesday when women's tennis coach Danielle Lund McNamara resigned her position effective immediately after one season on the job.
That follows Patty Fen$#@!-McCain turning down a contract extension as women's tennis coach at UT and resigning last year. And it follows Texas being turned down four times in trying to hire McCain's successor. UT was turned down by Alabama's Jenny Mainz, North Carolina's Brian Kalbas and was turned down twice by Rice women's tennis coach Elizabeth Schmidt, an Austin Westlake product, before hiring McNamara, who was the women's tennis coach at Yale.
But sources said UT not having a tennis facility this season or next - combined with Patterson pinching pennies by cutting the number of times a UT coach can go into the athletic dining hall from unlimited to 30 times per school year (or they have to pay their own way), helped gut an already unstable women's tennis program.
"There was no place for Coach McNamara to meet with her team," one source close to the situation said Wednesday. "Was she going to use her own money each time she wanted to go into the athletic dining hall just to meet with her players? She'd be taking a pay cut. Come on. It's ridiculous."
The silence was deafening out of Patterson's office on Wednesday. A message left with athletics spokesman Nick Voinis went unreturned.
But an email from women's AD Chris Plonsky was sent out to UT faithful that blamed "a personal situation" for McNamara's resignation. Plonsky also added "we are feverishly fund raising to ensure that our men's and women's teams benefit from this new facility within the time frame of construction plans (which are in the early stages)."
Plonsky's email went out less than two hours before Fenves confirmed during his introductory news conference that the tennis facility had already been funded.
Austin's Carol Welder, a board member of the Capital Area Tennis Association and former vice president of the United States Tennis Association, has been following the fate of UT's new tennis facility very closely.
"Texas made the decision to tear down Penick-Allison and made a commitment to replace it, and that needs to be honored," Welder said. "If they are saying now the $15 million has to be raised for a new tennis facility - after the school vowed to spend the money to replace it Steve Patterson should know his men's and women's tennis programs premier programs - could be in jeopardy.
"If ground is not broken for the new tennis facility by the end of 2015, the completion date could push into 2017, meaning UT's men's and women's tennis programs would have been practicing and playing on public courts with no place to meet for three years. How would recruiting survive that?"
Here's another problem: Patterson himself has ruined the relationships with at least two donors who came forward with plans to give at least $1 million toward the tennis facility.
Those donors asked not to be identified. But both told HornsDigest.com that they wanted to meet with Patterson about potential naming rights. Both said they had numerous forms of correspondence initially ignored by Patterson's office before working with members of the Longhorn Foundation to set up a meeting with Patterson.
Both donors said they had more than one meeting canceled by Patterson initially. And then when they finally did meet with Patterson, the Texas athletic director let them know he was very short on time.
"The athletic director - supposedly desperate to raise money for a new tennis facility - tells me he only has 15 minutes when we sit down for lunch?" one of the donors said. "I said, 'I'm sorry. I thought you all were asking me for help.'"
The meetings went so badly, according to the donors, they both have vowed never to give any money to Texas while Patterson is the athletic director.
When I asked Fenves Wednesday if $15 million had been earmarked by the central university for a new tennis facility, per a longstanding agreement between Powers and former athletic director DeLoss Dodds, Fenves said:
"That's been funded, and we will proceed."
He then described how some existing facilities - the UT Press building - will need to be relocated before construction can begin just north of Disch-Falk Field and across Comal from the Longhorns' softball stadium.
Fenves said the new estimate for the tennis facility is $17 million.
Sources said Powers was committed to $15 million for a new tennis facility and that if athletics wanted to go above and beyond that, they could raise any additional money.
But Patterson may be his own worst enemy when it comes to raising money - one of the most important jobs of an athletic director.
Ask any athletic director in a Power 5 conference and they'll tell you they are personally responsible for looking after the top 40 or 50 donors to athletics. Multiple sources said Patterson is incapable of that because his people skills are so bad. So more and more people have been hired at Texas to do the fund-raising for him. Multiple sources said Patterson's wife, Yasmine Michael, is now taking a lead role in donor relations.
And Patterson has turned to his coaches to raise money - something former AD DeLoss Dodds always discouraged because it often put coaches in difficult positions.
Patterson has told all of his non-revenue coaches they have to "come up with ways to make your programs profitable." That has included Patterson telling coaches to cultivate/develop donors connected to their sports to help cover costs.
That was another reason women's tennis coach Danielle Lund McNamara resigned on Wednesday, sources said. She was having a hard enough time coaching and meeting with her players without a facility to start worrying about having to be the program's fund-raiser, too.
[Chip Brown]
bluetrain4
G.O.A.T.
How does he get to be AD at Texas? That's an enormous job and one that should never be filled, and rarely is filled, with someone with "bad people skills." Glad handing, schmoozing, a**-kissing, diplomacy, grinning and bearing it are probably the most important aspects of the job.
NYCtennis13
New User
What are the chances both sides said "Hey, this isn't working" and decided to split, with the coach deciding she made a mistake leaving Yale and heading back there again?
http://www.yalebulldogs.com/sports/w-tennis/coaches/index
cali_tennis_machine
New User
That's a big statement. While he did a great job at Houston, getting released from there not really the beat qualifications for getting one of the best jobs in country. On top of the fact he is not a women
Oddyssey
Rookie
Crazier things have happened. Won't be surprised if he does get the UT job.
He resigned, whether forced or not. And the 22 wins this year along with the ITA awards and stellar recruiting should put him at the top of the list. I don't think the head coach has to be a woman, either.
I strongly doubt that she will go back to Yale. I won't say never but it would be shocking if that were the case.
He was forced out apparently for doing nothing other than *edit* trying to win championships sounds better, bad AD down at UH
He would be fantastic at UT, he got SFA and UH into Top 50 on mediocre budgets, so imagine what he could do with a budget and supportive AD.
I could also see him end up at ULL for the time being.
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Southerncharm
Rookie
Jlyon any word on what UH is doing with their search. I have to believe that the controversy over the last coach leaving could be making it difficult.
atatu
Legend
If they are going to hire a man, then Ricardo seems like the obvious choice.
on the line
New User
....hmmmm you make him sound heroic but actually this is not the reason he was let go.
Southerncharm
Rookie
So what is the real story, seems like a lot of speculation but no one has said anything for certain. From the outside it does seem weird because he had a great deal of success and then all of the sudden is gone. Can someone shed some light?
Silver Fox
New User
I asked him directly at NCAAs and he said that he was not on board with what the administration wanted from him and for the program and was forced to resign, plain and simple. I asked about the booster issue. He said that played a part in it and I will keep the full story to myself, but it was not as juicy as the rumors I had heard, and nothing "heroic". Just ****ed off a guy with too many zeros in his bank account, basically.
He was disappointed with how things went down but he is too good not to get another chance, if he wants one. Bottom line is they announced he was leaving a month before NCAAs and he was still there coaching his player, so he obviously didn't break rules or do anything majorly wrong or they would have pushed him out immediately like they have done at USF and other places. I think if it was a money sport and it was just a an outspoken coach with a difference in philosophies that ****ed some booster off, Texas would have already hired him (he would have never been fired!). But apparently Texas doesn't care all that much more than Houston does and unless Steve Patterson all of the sudden develops a major jones for winning at women's tennis :lol::lol:, they will go with someone "safer".
IMHO he's really a better fit at an underdog type of place like Texas Tech or like Baylor used to be.
Good grief what else does the admin want? He took a low Top 75 team into a Top 30 team in under 3 years, what else do they want. UH will go down the tubes now that Patrick is gone. Embarrassing AD there.
Silver Fox
New User
They wanted him to keep the girls and the boosters happy, first and foremost.
He seems like an easygoing guy on and off court, but anyone who is winning big at a mediocre academic school with no money and a dumpster tennis facility across from crack houses (literally) is pushing hard. I don't care how good a coach you are, no one gets to the top 25 at "Cougar High" by just handing out orange slices and making sublime suggestions at changeovers. Whether is tennis, business, government etc. to fix a situation that has broken bad you have to impose your will and make strong changes. No different than Charlie Strong, except with UT football the payoff is hundreds of millions of dollars and he can step on some toes. UH tennis ain't gonna make a penny even if they win the national championship.
I hate to say this but from the UH point of view, I get it. You are broke as a department and sinking any money into basketball and football desperately hoping that they will succeed and that the Big XII will throw you a lifeline. You have this girls tennis coach winning big and getting ITA coach of the year and whatnot, but you have a couple of players complaining that it's too hard and a booster that wants an all-access pass that is getting stiff-armed at the door. You ask the guy to keep the kids and the booster happy and he refuses to bend over for you. Kudos to principles, but that's not how you keep a job.
Sad situation in college athletics in general but the Houston AD is no different than Patterson slow-playing or flat out lying about the UT facility. Doesn't make any sense to spend $17M when you can spend 3 and put the other 14 into football (good thing he got called out). Doesn't make any sense to keep the hard-nosed Coach McNamara who is running girls who are (maybe) bad seeds off but creating drama you don't want to deal with.
marco forehand
Semi-Pro
Howard has moved a lot. He tends to bring quality players with him. It will be interesting to see how many A&M players end up in Austin.
Clemson_tennis
Legend
Looks like going to the city of Austin was a huge part of his decision. Which I mean who can blame him for choosing Austin over College Station?
This. With respect to football (the most important sport/religion for Texans) I still can't fathom how any high school recruit would pick CS over Austin. But I went to UT so, of course, I'm biased.
bluetrain4
G.O.A.T.
Yes. We often talk about relative salaries and relative strengths of programs when discussing coaching moves. But, if both choices pay well and are decent programs (even if not exactly the same), then of course "I'd rather live there" is probably a huge factor.
