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Gene Smith (AD The Ohio State, '10 AD of the Year, '13 NAAC Organizational Leadership Award)

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Seriously...how is this guy still our AD? Everybody gets the axe except the most hands down incompetent executive we have. There is a reason fans boo him at every event he is introduced at. Nobody wants him, get rid of him. End of story. This the million +1 reason why he should have been gone long ago.
 
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OSU's Smith still standing after scandal
BY DAVE HACKENBERG
BLADE COLUMNIST

The NCAA's Division I Manual has 426 pages. That translates to about 200,000 words. That's a lot of subsections and appendixes and a whole lot of tedium. It has become ridiculous.

So when a school like Ohio State has 46 or 58 or however many the recent batch of secondary violations add up to, well, why should anyone be surprised? It happens to coaches in every sport at every school, it seems, and this is a school with more sports and more coaches than any in the country.

But OSU's critics -- and even many of its supporters -- threw a not-so-mild fit the other day when the latest news hit and especially when athletic director Gene Smith experienced a failure to communicate with the school's student newspaper.

After it became known that 46 secondary rules violations had been self-reported to the NCAA in the last year, Smith mentioned to the Lantern that another dozen were being processed and "may turn out to be secondary or may not." He meant "may not even be that serious." Many people took it as "may be major."

Such is the jaded legacy of the Buckeyes' vacated 2010 football season, the exit of coach Jim Tressel, and the sanctions that lasted into a forgettable 2011 and will affect the upcoming fall campaign, as well.

Also, such is the reaction to the man still minding the store. Gene Smith is the most polarizing athletic figure in the state and, just maybe, in all of college athletics administration.

He was in charge before 2010, during 2010, in the aftermath of 2010, and he's still in charge. He was Tressel's superior, by title, and endorsed the coach at almost every turn until the end came. But Tressel eventually went down. How did Smith not go down with him?

cont...
Click to expand...

http://www.toledoblade.com/DaveHackenberg/2012/05/27/OSU-s-Smith-still-standing-after-scandal.html
 
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I'm copying my wall of text from the 46 violations thread here..as it sums up my feelings on Gene..and when this rant is here I can move on with my day and be at peace with this thread. For now.

The man has to go.

Even if he is doing a good job on the administration side, a significant component of the AD position is public performance and the perception of the program...and we are failing on these fronts. I don't see how it can be argued otherwise..either he is either not capable of turning the violation spigot off (and compliance is his responsibility), or he is letting miniscule events turn into public floggings by not controlling the message. Either way... it reflects poorly on Ohio State.

These secondary violations in and of themselves are more an indictment of the NCAA rule book than OSU....I mean who cares if a grown man wants to put a dip of skoal in...but Gene has managed to juggle them into yet another black eye for Ohio State. It is yet another train wreck..when the original situation was actually a prime opportunity to show how serious OSU takes the rules..even if the rules themselves are flawed.

Gene continues to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at OSU expense. If there is any good being done at the AD level now would be a VERY GOOD TIME to make the public aware of his value...because absent that data..he remains a punching bag. Either show his value..or show him the door. The status quo implicates OSU as an institution even more so than Gene as an AD. When a manager tolerates bad employees or clear poor performance/poor outcomes: it is an indictment of the manager more so than the troubled employee.

I'm talking to YOU Ohio State: show us what he is doing well or do what needs to be done to improve the athletic department's performance, reputation, and brand.


1) he completely botched the original press conference in the wake of tattoo-gate.
2) the way JT was dismissed was mismanaged..it should have been done right away or not at all..but certainly not after the president gave his very public support of Tres as the coach and no additional misconduct by JT was revealed between giving that support and dismissing him
3) There was no need to comment on these tic tac violations..and if you *must* comment then don't go on the record with vague statements that can be misinterpreted to imply there may be major violations..prompting the department to now make a public showing of the 12 additional possible violations in an effort to undue the damage, but further drawing attention to the situation. Meanwhile. for all we know just about every school in the country is looking into several potential secondary violations right now..but no one knows, cares or is discussing it... because it doesn't have to be made public to counter the stupid [Mark May] their AD says.
4) we became the only program in NCAA history to receive a bowl ban for the violation shown in our NOA..with other repeat offenders before us not receiving such a ban for the same set of rule violations..yet Gene's 'inside understanding of the NCAA" was going to help us
5) He himself is directly committing secondary violations

Please show me a list of the benefits he has provided so I can have a better understanding of his performance. Personally I don't understand why he still has a job. All the above aside, on his watch as the AD OSU did have a major violation, went through a mess..and continues to attract attention to OSU's violations while offering no information or context to help show how we are REALLY doing compared to other programs. Instead we are once again under fire yet no one knows how this list compares to other schools..but we do know other schools have similar/worse performance but that isn't making news.

Oh, and another thing..in his effort to 'explain' his poorly worded comments about the initial list of new violations: he back peddled and said there were no additional violations for the football program...and then when the list is made public: boom...football.

He doens't even appear to know what is going on. That list is more silly trivial garbage..but you have to ask yourself: why are we all reading about and discussing such insignificant violations? Because Gene can't keep the lid on anything.

Oh no...we used mini basketballs! But now everyone knows it..and it *is* a violation no matter how minor. Why does our dirty laundry have to be continually aired? Why not just shut the **** up for a change? Many people don't bother to read WHAT the violations are...our reputation stops at MORE VIOLATIONS....more violations that should have never seen the public eye because they are more about dumb rules than actual VIOLATIONS...but once again the horse is out of the barn.

If he were to just say "NO COMMENT" his job performance would approve tremendously..stop feeding the trolls Gene!
 
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