An appeal for a Board Member to show courage

[CN Hide & Seek Team]

At the time of Cowen's efforts to quietly kill football with Jay Lapeyre's scheme in '03, courageous board Member Billy Slatten sounded the alarm, and the spontaneous revolt overwhelmed the culprits designs.

So , when Rick Dickson says for the record early 2010 that we are simlar to TCU(and tulsa, SMU etc. elesewhere), and then turns around eight months later and exaggerates TCU's outlay for football and contradicts his earlier analogy to them, it is reasonable to assume that Dickson is attempting to fool somebody. He must have failed to raise the money for the stadium or Cowen is retreating in some fashion from stepping up to the plate now. Cowen's credibility is nil, but now we have a situation where the AD is accessory.

Dickson is on the record telling alumni(one of which which he is not) that our expectations should be for Tulane to at best be "competitive" in a crap league. This, while alumni are still around who have seen Tulane ranked top ten in 1949(just before de-emphasis) and also witnessed the "1969 to 1984" admin's policies' results on the field and in the stands. It's ludicrous. Support for athletics is the result of the administration's policies toward NCAA athletics parameters. History proves it.

I myself am tired of being told that we cannot be what we were before, when this university is a perpetual going concern. I never thought i'd wistfully remember Eamon Kelley's leadership in hiring Mack Brown,Perry Clark, Chet Gladchuck, Kevin White, Rick Jones, and Tommy Bowden. he did kill us with new policies in 1984, but at least he hired good coaches and ADs who didnt tell us we cannot be what our peers are.

We need someone on the Board, who has courage like Billy Slatten, to step forward and call BS on this lip service crap and loser expectation theory. Maybe we need rick Jones to be AD. Atleast he wants to win, and win big.

[jonathanjoseph]

Bravo for your post.

Just as in 2003, the Board will react accordingly when enough alumni show that they have had it with losers as leaders.

Slatton may have got the ball rolling in 2003, but nothing came of it until the alumni responded. It's time for that to happen again because thats the only way this problem is getting fixed.

[RWR]

You keep referencing Tulane alumni. If it's up to them Tulane athletics is dead. When we were drawing 40,000 a game at least 38,000 never attended Tulane. Your audience is all wrong if you want to help save Tulane athletics. Most people who are fans adopted Tulane b/c they are the home team. When Tulane holds their nose in the air like Sean Payton's wife they turn everyone off.

[St. Amant Wave]

Amen! Excellent posts!

[golfnut69]

I am not sure who blew the lid in 2003...all I know is that I made a phone call to a Tulane Athletic Dept employee from a Golf Course in Austin,TX asking if Tulane was dropping Football..I was told "no", when asked why I would ask that question, I then read from a letter signed by Dr.Scott S Cowen that Tulane was advising the University of Texas that Football would be eliminated and that future contracts pending would be cancelled and that Texas should begin searching for a suitable team to replace Tulane on future schedules..at the time, I was playing Golf with two Texas coaches and a member of it's broadcast team...at one time I worked on the Tulane Football broadacst team with Ken Berthelot, fist with Bill Curl and then Steve Barrios, so I knew many people in the Tulane athletic Dept and had their direct phone numbers...The letter was on a Tulane University letterhead, not a Tulane Athletic Dept letterhead. and there is a difference

[golfnut69]

FYI... I will not identify the person I spoke with, they are still employed at Tulane, but not within the Athletic dept

[CN Hide & Seek Team]

It's not possible to be even more repulsed by Scott Cowen. He is maxed out.

As for the commentary on local community and alumni. I recognize that Tulane enjoys a favorable long term embrace from Greater new Orleans and iuts a shame the admin doesnt realize that "whats good for New Orleans is good for New Orleans, and Vice Versa"(actual Dave Dixon quote).

Yet the Univeristy lives off of tuition and alumni charitable financial support, thus they have selective attention, unfortunately.

Aslo, we should all realize that over 25,000 living alumni reside within 100 miles of campus. Add to that relatives employees et al and you have a huge group of connected stakeholders.

[Bigschtick]

Well said!!!!!!

[RWR]

It's not possible to be even more repulsed by Scott Cowen. He is maxed out.

As for the commentary on local community and alumni. I recognize that Tulane enjoys a favorable long term embrace from Greater new Orleans and iuts a shame the admin doesnt realize that "whats good for New Orleans is good for New Orleans, and Vice Versa"(actual Dave Dixon quote).

Yet the Univeristy lives off of tuition and alumni charitable financial support, thus they have selective attention, unfortunately.

Aslo, we should all realize that over 25,000 living alumni reside within 100 miles of campus. Add to that relatives employees et al and you have a huge group of connected stakeholders.

The problem is that those supposed stakeholders don't care about tulane athletics. I understand you want them to care but they don't. They didn't care as students as exhibited by the very empty student sections at football, basketball and baseball games and so they are not going to care as alums. Unless an identifiable and well funded individual such as a Roch Hontas steps up and does a public ad campaign igniting the masses nothing will be done about this situation. The masses don't even know about RD's latest comments.

[Jonathan]

Do you know cowen has put his own people on the tu board. I have stopped supporting tu when chris scelfo was hired. Tu should move now to division 3 cowen our ad and coches all suck