Cowen and Leaving Div 1A--How Did It Go Down?

[timlan2057]

I don't know the details; this was before my time.

How exactly did Cowen try to move Tulane athletics from Division 1A until an alumni outcry threw a cog in the monkey wrench?

What was his rationale? Actually, I'm more interested in how he tried to justify or rationalize this when the cat was let out of the bag.

[RWR]

It wasn't just alumni it was the fans who never attended Tulane that descended on campus and fought him off. He claimed it was part of a university wide review of every dept..

[TURVS71]

Let's see:

He felt that being one of two undefeated teams, being on national television, being on the front page of the sports section almost every week, (not to mention USA Today), being talked about on ESPN and many other national shows, being a great representative of New Orleans, etc, etc,. etc was "not the mission" of Tulane.

Of course I am being sarcastic!, Frankly, he had NO GOOD REASON and fortunately was shot down. He was wounded. I STILL do not trust him!!

[IM42lane]

Cowen tried to sneak this by everyone, hoping that noboby of any significance cared much about what he was trying to do. He got caught. After that, in this day and age of advanced communications, the word spread all over the TU community about his doings, and over a period of about two weeks or so Tulane people from all over expressed their outrage over this attempt to end the football program. When longtime big donors joined in, he decided to back it off.

HE GOT CAUGHT, and most of us on this forum will never forgive him for it, including myself.

[TURVS71]

I sure wish those "long-time donors and supporters" would use their "influence" to have him replaced. Tells me that the "influence" MAY not be that strong!

[JTLiuzza]

As others have stated, he was trying to eliminate D1 football and do it quietly. There is a local family who are past and present supporters of Tulane athletics. The father, I believe, was on the board at the time and was privy to the talks about destroying football. His son decided to leak that information to the public. He posted the leak on the yogwf under the name olivernblue and his posts were repeatedly deleted. Sound familiar?

At the time, the only board available not run by short-sighted anal retentive huns was the nola.com board so he posted it there, where it was not deleted. From there it caught fire.

The local media picked up on it. Particularly as I recall Buddy D broadcast quite a few hours on the subject, and his take was that it was a stupid move to change classification. Also Kaare Johnson ran with the story and was of the same opinion as Buddy D. Sure fire weapon against a shallow egomaniac like Cowen is to publicly question his intelligence and competence. Works like a charm.

He backed down, obviously, and presented the situation as a "review" as others here have stated. That was an out and out lie. The athletics department was in the red, not winning ball games and consequently had few fans. A legitimate review would have looked at all the problems, created solutions and a strategy for moving forward, and implemented them. Either that or concluded that the department wasn't worth salvaging. No actual review of a department in such a state would have concluded with status quo. No way. But that's what the conclusion of Cowen's exhaustive "review" was: status quo.

So either that was the most dunderheaded "review" conducted anytime, anywhere, in any business or organization in the history of the world, or there was no legitimate review at all and that was all a cover story.

The mistake we all made is that, after Cowen exposed himself to be a sneak and a liar, we didn't insist upon his ouster then and there. So apparently Tulane is content with such a man as it's president. So much for class and dignity.

[jonathanjoseph]

As others have stated, he was trying to eliminate D1 football and do it quietly. There is a local family who are past and present supporters of Tulane athletics. The father, I believe, was on the board at the time and was privy to the talks about destroying football. His son decided to leak that information to the public. He posted the leak on the yogwf under the name olivernblue and his posts were repeatedly deleted. Sound familiar?

At the time, the only board available not run by short-sighted anal retentive huns was the nola.com board so he posted it there, where it was not deleted. From there it caught fire.

The local media picked up on it. Particularly as I recall Buddy D broadcast quite a few hours on the subject, and his take was that it was a stupid move to change classification. Also Kaare Johnson ran with the story and was of the same opinion as Buddy D. Sure fire weapon against a shallow egomaniac like Cowen is to publicly question his intelligence and competence. Works like a charm.

He backed down, obviously, and presented the situation as a "review" as others here have stated. That was an out and out lie. The athletics department was in the red, not winning ball games and consequently had few fans. A legitimate review would have looked at all the problems, created solutions and a strategy for moving forward, and implemented them. Either that or concluded that the department wasn't worth salvaging. No actual review of a department in such a state would have concluded with status quo. No way. But that's what the conclusion of Cowen's exhaustive "review" was: status quo.

So either that was the most dunderheaded "review" conducted anytime, anywhere, in any business or organization in the history of the world, or there was no legitimate review at all and that was all a cover story.

The mistake we all made is that, after Cowen exposed himself to be a sneak and a liar, we didn't insist upon his ouster then and there. So apparently Tulane is content with such a man as it's president. So much for class and dignity.

Lots of good stuff in here, but don't forget that there was a lot of alumni activitism.....people organizing email lists, conference calls for strategy, people ponying up funds for the necessary PR moves, things that set the wheels in motion. Without alumni taking those initiatives, Tulane would not have a D1-A athletic department today.

And you are correct that we, as alums and a community, have erred in not insisting on Cowen's ouster before now. Even though the Tulane community spoke very clearly about the importance of the athletic program to Tulane, Cowen has shown that he has no problem ignoring the will of the Tulane constituency. Even after that debacle, it's clear that Cowen is either still intent on eliminating athletics or simply does not understand the basic economics that they present.

Either way that's a BIG problem for the Tulane community.

Speak up, or you are complicit in allowing this to happen. Join the New Wave Facebook group if you want to make your voice heard. Social media is taking down a 30 year long dictatorship in Egypt, so believe that if Tulane alums got angry and made a small effort Scott Cowen would go down so fast he wouldn't know what hit him.

It's up to you.