You want to take the gloves off PurpleJ? You want to get down in a pissing match? Let's do it. Let's roll.
I'm getting completely fed up with your hate, negativity, and throwing people under the bus.
Quite frankly PurpleJ, I'm very, VERY happy that I don't know you. I'm quite happy that I don't lead what appears to be such a pathetic life that is faced with looking for the negativity in every situation. You need to go find something to smile at. Last I checked, it's summertime. The weather in Seattle seems to be pretty damn good right now - why don't you go check that out.
You are pretty damn wrong about things. You may think that the amount of time that you keep spewing your views that that you've now heard it enough times that you are right. Doesn't make you right.
You talk about 12-47 like that happened out of the blue sky. I've never seen you once suggest that the process of the downfall of this program began well before Emmert arrived.
You want facts? You want truth? Here's your truth.
Emmert came to the UW prior to the GLORIOUS 1-10 season under Gilby. The year before that (2003) Gilby managed to do enough to get us to 6-6, but that included the debacle at Cal where we gave up 700 yards (or thereabouts). It was an indifferent team that pretty much was at best mediocre. We lost 5 of our last 8, including the blowout to Cal, the blowout to UCLA, and a home loss to NEVADA. Yep, the program was heading in the right direction.
The 2002 season under Slick was another sterling season example that is most remembered for the "Northwest Championship." That was great. But it hid the fact that going into the "Northwest Championship" we were a 4-5 football team that was pretty much a joke at 1-4 in the conference. In both 2002 and 2003, we finished the season with a 4-4 conference record.
These weren't good football teams. The trend was heading downhill.
Emmert comes on board and immediately gets sadled with the Gilby 1-10 debacle.
Prior to Emmert coming on board, Babs jumps ship after a decade of mis-management, including allowing the stadium to begin the erosion process.
Throughout 2003, we're faced with Slick leaving and the subsequent lawsuit(s), Dr. Feelgood, and a whole mess with the softball program and Teresa Wilson.
Now keep in mind the following: ALL THIS HAPPENED BEFORE EMMERT WAS ANYWHERE NEAR BEING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON.
Things were not in great shape. I think just about everybody knew that.
A search committee is formed to replace Babs. The BOR, upper campus, and the big donor supporters of the school are sick of the egg showing up on their face. They are sick of the country club that Babs ran and the loose way she ran the department - particularly in light of what went on with Slick. They wanted someone prim, proper, and who they could count on would not sully the University name. ENTER TODD TURNER.
Now, this pretty much gets you up to the point where Emmert was hired. Did he have to sign off on the hiring of Turner? Most likely. But whatever.
At this point, Emmert isn't responsible for the on-field performance of the football program. There is a coach in place. It's not Emmert's job to oversee the football program or any other program in the athletic department. That job belongs to Todd Turner. It's Emmert's job to monitor the job performance of Todd Turner.
So 1-10 happens. Gilby is canned by Turner (rightfully so). Yes, the program went 1-10. But the actions of those charged with overseeing the program were correct. Turner fired the coach for poor performance. If I'm in Emmert's shoes, I can't complain.
Coaching search takes place and Turner has his heart set on Tyrone Willingham. It's Turner's hire. It's not Emmert's hire. Surely Emmert had to sign off on the hire. That's fine. You want to throw some blame on him for not having the foresight to negate the hire. That's fine. But the hire isn't Emmert's responsibility. It's Turner's responsibility. It's Emmert's responsibility to hold Turner accountable for the hire (which he did 3 years later when it was obvious that Tyrone wasn't the answer).
So Tyrone goes 2-9 the first year after a 1-10 year. Not great. Warning signs start going off, particularly with some poor performance to close games. But it's the first year of the regime and really hard to get too critical.
The next year the program goes 5-7 and has 2 significant events. The first significant event is the loss of the QB to injury. I think many could argue that without the loss of Isaiah that year, we go 6-6. The second event that was significant was the "suddenly senior" day and the unexplicable loss to Stanford with the most emotionless football team anybody had ever seen. Again, there's not enough there to fire Tyrone at that point. There are warning signs. There is ground to pretty much tell Tyrone that the following year is an action year where something needs to happen. He's on a short leash at this point in my opinion.
The following year we lose games in ways that are unexplainable. Blow a huge loss to Arizona - a game we should have never lost. The most ridiculous ending to an Apple Cup I've ever seen where a guy was open by 20 yards coming out of a timeout. Blowing a pair of 21 point leads to Hawai'i. It was pretty obvious at this point that things weren't working. Coaching change was in order. Perhaps an AD change was also in order. The coaching change was blocked and complicated. The AD's head fell - and rightfully so due to some other issues that he had and such a terrible hire of a head coach.
Prior to the decision to fire Tyrone after 2007, it's really hard to argue with ANYTHING that Emmert had done with respect to the football program.
I will say that bringing Tyrone back for 2008 was a disasterous mistake. It should have never happened. You want to throw 0-12 on Emmert - I'm all for it. I think if you caught Emmert in a reflective, truthful moment, he would tell you in hindsight that he should have made the move and that it wasn't worth the carnage of 0-12.
Throw Emmert under the bus for 2008. That's his responsibility. 2004-2007? Not so much. By all means, please, please tell me where he has responsibility for 2004 and 2007 other than the fact that he's the University President. Please tell me what specific actions that he did to undermine the program. You aren't going to find them - they aren't there.
Your criticism of Emmert is ridiculous. Your criticism of Woodward is just downright comical.
Where has Woodward screwed this program? He has only been responsible for this program in the summer of 2008 in a full-time role. Are you going to hold him to the fire for being the interim AD for the first half of 2008? How is he responsible for anything from 2004-2007 when he wasn't even involved with the Athletic Department? Talk about conspiracy theories. This may be one of the greatest conspiracy theories I've ever seen.
I don't like losing. I don't like what I've seen the last 5 years. It's made me sick to my stomach many times over. But unlike you, I can at least take a step back and realize that the genesis of this problem began well before Mark Emmert became President of the University of Washington.
If I spent my time being a "mindless PurpleJ minion," then I'd be convinced that the only logical explanation for our failures have been Mark Emmert and Scott Woodward.
Quite frankly, that opinion is one of the most idiotic insanely stupid opinions that I've ever seen in my life.
I don't defend the "wrong targets." There is blame to be thrown Emmert's way. I readily acknowledge that. But it isn't his full blame. Babs deserves blame. Gerberding deserves blame. McCormick deserves some blame. Slick deserves some blame. Gilby deserves some blame. Turner deserves some blame. Tyrone deserves some blame. Of the names I've listed, only 3 of those names have any timeline that extends into any portion of Emmert's tenure. That's less than half of those names.
Quite frankly PurpleJ, you are a world class donkey. When I hear people bitch and moan about the people in the State of Washington - you are a crystal example of why people bitch about the State of Washington. When I hear people that bitch about the fans of the University of Washington and what their complaints are, you represent what those complaints are.
In my opinion, you are not good for the University of Washington. You aren't helping the program. You aren't helping the University. You are entirely self-serving and a pompous, egotistical jerk.
You are barking up the wrong tree if you are going after me. I'm not naive enough to shove my head so far up my arse to ignore what I am seeing. I don't think that there is anybody that knows me that would say that I wouldn't call a spade a spade.
All that paying for and attending games longer than I've been alive has done for you is given you a perceived ability to go be a bitter old man. Congrats on that.
Thanks for showing those of us in a younger generation how not to act in 20-30 years when we are in your shoes.
If you like to write so much, why don't you start contributing front page articles? Ever think of that?
People still get whooshed here?
What's next? "Race has done it again"?
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood. France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous. In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence. All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures—the creatures of this chronicle among the rest—along the roads that lay before them.
Comments
this thread has a lot of words
i need me some of dem moving pictures
People still get whooshed here?
What's next? "Race has done it again"?
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.
It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood.
France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous.
In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence.
All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures—the creatures of this chronicle among the rest—along the roads that lay before them.