Toddy Turner Fired Again (call it a resignation if you want)

Have you seen this?

(And people criticize NC State fans for being crazy?)

Turner

As an NC State fan, I firmly share the educated perspective that Todd Turner will forever be one of the two men MOST responsible for the destruction of NC State athletics in the 1990s that has contributed to a long-term deterioriation of our program that has proven too much to handle for the sub-par so-called ‘leaders’ who have succeeded the Turner/Larry Monteith era.

Turner left NC State for Vanderbilt in 1996; and Vanderbilt for Washington in 2003.

Today, Turner abruptly ‘resigned’ as AD at Washington succumbing to pressure from a tenuous relationship with Husky fans originating from the dichotomy of fans’ desire to win and Turner’s propsensity to ignore competition and results.

Sound familiar? Well, it seems the only thing different from that experience at Washington from that experience at NC State is that at Washington Turner gets fired and at NC State Turner never had one ounce of pressure exerted on him from the University.

Similar to the recent developments at Nebraska where the University held the Athletics Director accountable for the performance within his athletics department, Turner ultimately becomes a casualty of accountability from leadership and fans that the NC State community can only covet with extreme jealousy. It’s more than a little telling that Turner has been pushed out of two consecutive jobs in major conferences after his time at NC State where – despite the plight of our Athletics Department under his leadership – he was never pressured to leave and seemed to have one of those ‘jobs for life’ that are so prevelant in West Raleigh.

The legacy of Todd Turner, and his deficiency as an ATHLETICS Director, is manifested in the irony of his perceived disinterest in fielding winning ATHLETICS programs. Remember, this is a guy who had to lie on his resume about earning golf letter while in college to earn some ‘athletics cred.’ (If only his name had been George O’Leary he would have been out of a job. Again…ONLY at NC State).

Ultimately, every stop of Turner’s career can be summed-up from this 2003 article in The Tennessean about the Vanderbilt Athletics Department under Turner’s leadership:

Fan support has dipped not only for football, but for basketball as well over the last few years. Even the attendance by the school’s 6,319 students has been down .

(sarcasm alert) The good news for all of us is that we will all be seeing a lot more of Toddy in the near future. I can’t wait for UNC-Chapel Hill to now hire Turner to replace Phil Baddour. You see, throughout the 1990s the Tar heel faithful extolled the virtues of Les Robinson and Todd Turner and constantly told us all how wonderful the two were. Imagine our shock when the Carolina basketball Head Coaching job has turned over three times since Robinson left Raleigh without him becoming a candidate a single time?

Well, surely the Heels won’t make the same mistake twice and let another member of the dynamic duo slip through their fingers?! In light of Turner’s 1973 degree from “Chapel Hill” we see no reason why “Toddy” shouldn’t immediately be installed into a leadership role in Orange County by CD Spangler and all of the Tar heels that are on record with their high opinions of Turner.

The following are some comments from today’s announcement:

Washington athletic director Todd Turner abruptly announced his resignation Tuesday, effective next month.

The surprising move came six days after university president Dr. Mark Emmert retained coach Tyrone Willingham despite the football team’s continued struggles. Turner was a staunch advocate for Willingham.

Turner, 56, said his resignation would be effective Jan. 31. Emmert hired him in 2004, when Washington’s athletic department was reeling from a series of controversies.

Turner did not immediately return a call to his cell phone seeking comment, and his office referred questions to the school’s sports information department. That department announced Emmert would hold a late-morning news conference to discuss the change.

Turner was in the middle of a five-year contract worth $325,000 in base salary, with incentives that made the package potentially worth up to $420,000 annually. He had also received a low-interest, $475,000 home loan from the university

You can click here to see some recent quotes from Turner.

As you may remember, Turner did such a bang-up job as the Athletics Director at Vanderbilt from 1996-2003 that the University disbanded its entire athletics program and rolled it into the University’s intramural program in 2003. That’s right. Turner was literally replaced by the guy running intramurals.

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19 Responses to Toddy Turner Fired Again (call it a resignation if you want)

  1. CarnifeX 12/11/2007 at 4:23 PM #

    Can someone give me examples of quality Athletics Directors? I know good news doesn’t get much coverage so it may be hard to come by. But I’m curious if all AD’s are just terrible at their jobs or if there is actually a competent one out there.

    If someone says Dick Baddour I’m gonna punch the next tarheel I see in the face.

  2. Wulfpack 12/11/2007 at 5:17 PM #

    Ron Wellman – WFU
    Whomever Florida’s AD is

  3. Girlfriend in a Coma 12/11/2007 at 5:18 PM #

    Color me not shocked.

  4. StateFans 12/11/2007 at 6:22 PM #

    Obviously, Ron Wellman at Wake is the best in the ACC. Almost nobody will argue with that.

    Jeremy Foley is UF’s AD. He is awesome.

    DeLoss Dodds at Texas is fantastic.

    Jurich at Lousiville has been generally amazing.

  5. joe 12/11/2007 at 6:28 PM #

    Subpar leaders? I thought you people thought Mary Anne Fox was the 2nd coming of Jesus. After all she hired Lee Fowler and Chuck Amato.

    SFN: Who said that ALL of our leaders post-Monteith/Turner were subpar? Who said that MAF was subpar?

  6. Stoner 12/11/2007 at 6:44 PM #

    Pat Richter, Wisconsin’s recently retired AD, who hired Alvarez to coach their football team and then hired Dick Bennett and then Bo Ryan to coach the basketball team, was an outstanding AD. Wisconsin went from being a doormat to one of the better teams, in each sport, in the Big Ten.

  7. Primewolf 12/11/2007 at 7:21 PM #

    I like the Nebraska AD that got fired. He may have made a poor decision on the football scene, but man did he have some panache. I love his approach to accountability and no excuses. Hire him and fire that incompetent Lee.

  8. TNCSU 12/11/2007 at 7:31 PM #

    Terry Holland at ECU! When was the last time an ACC team played Basketball in Greenville? Much less… lost in Greenville?? Two home BBall in one week vs. ACC teams. Had home games versus UNC and State in the same year? I know we have a sour taste right now, but if you’re a ECU fan, you’d have to like him. He’d get my vote.

  9. TNCSU 12/11/2007 at 7:32 PM #

    ^^To clarify…two home FOOTBALL games vs. UNC and State.

  10. Pakkfan 12/11/2007 at 8:31 PM #

    Good AD’s:

    NCSU : Willis Casey

    Casey found Lou Holtz at William and Mary, promoted Bo Rein, and later pulled in Dick Sheridan. He also found a guy named Jim Valvano and Norm Sloan.

    Casey crafted a contract with Valvano so strong when UCLA attempted to hire Valvano even they couldnt muster the money to pull it off after Valvano’s championship run of 83. All our great coaches (Kay Yow, Bob Guzzo, etc…) were hired by Casey.

    Toddy Turner and larry montieth (not deserving of capital letters) helped ruin NCSU so much that Adam Gold was heard telling a caller in Herbies last year “surely you can’t expect NCSU to be a basketball powerhouse like a Dook or Carowhina can you?”

    Well Mr. Gold, when Dook was dreaming of national championships and Dean had his 1 to give UNC their 2nd 30 years apart, NCSU wrapped up its 2nd National Championship within 10 years of each other in the ole’ round ball.

    How dare us want to “Achieve” which ironically was the NCSU motto in public advertising.

  11. ADVENTUROO 12/11/2007 at 9:41 PM #

    Lest we NOT forget…Monteith was the cowardly Chancellor that impaled Jimmy V. Between the stress of this dastardly deed and the piling on of the N&O, Jimmy V. eventually developed a rare form of cancer….which some noted researchers have said that “stress is indeed a FACTOR (spelled Causal) in some types of cancer and other terminal diseases…”

    So WHAT did Dr. Monteith do? He fired V, who was both the AD & HBBC…THEN he hired Todd Turner. Todd’s father was a good man…I knew him personally…but Todd does NOT have his qualities.

    I STILL THINK that the BEST FUTURE for NCSU Athletics, particularly FB, would be for TOB to be promoted to AD and Mr. Cowher (perhaps you heard…he is living in Raleigh) to become the coach…

    God save us from all the wonderful FACULTY intervention….of course, look at DOOK…the LAX team had the highest arrest record of any NCAA School…WOW.

  12. GAWolf 12/11/2007 at 9:59 PM #

    What’s the logical next step of pushing this idea that we need new management in our athletic department on those who can do something about it? I guess it would be getting the N&O to look at the numbers and start writing about our Athletic Department’s impotence. Like it or not, the N&O is influential when it comes to getting public entities to make changes. The local paper virtually runs the Wake County Courthouse despite a previously important “paper” called the U.S. Constitution. I say we get Caulton and Co to start looking at the numbers and you might see enough heat from the masses to at least get a reaction out of the NCSU administration.

    As for Turner, a good friend of mine went to Vanderbilt and was moaning to me one day about their AD. He hadn’t put it together that he wrecked our athletic department before he set out to do the same at Vanderbilt. I told friend that he wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

    Man… I’d like to be an AD. I could stand the raise and at this point it seems about as production-based and accountability-stripped as being a weather man. I can dig that.

  13. EverettBeez 12/11/2007 at 9:59 PM #

    the guy at App – Cobb his name? – isn’t he a State Man? He sure is doing a nice job up there.

    As for Faculty Oversight – it can and has worked well. That Athletic Council might not be perfect, but most of the screw ups fall on the shoulders of the ADministration, not that faculty that find time among many other duties to try keep some sort of student in student-athlete.

  14. stejen 12/11/2007 at 10:54 PM #

    I was a student at NC State during the Valvano years and I can tell you this. NC State was two schools, the engineering school and “all the other schools”. If you were an engineering major you couldn’t sign up for American Lit. for an elective, you had to sign up for an American Lit. specifically for engineering majors. Even the professors would say on the first day of class “if you are not an engineering major you need to drop this class as you do not want to be here” and I don’t think I need to tell you why. Monteith saw the chance to make the engineering school the #1 priority at State and he did it at Valano’s espense.

  15. Pack92 12/12/2007 at 5:48 AM #

    I hope that rotten piece of crap Turner molds over in a ditch somewhere. He was also responsible for our losing one of the best baseball coaches in the country – Ray Tanner.

  16. Six Pack 12/12/2007 at 6:17 AM #

    I’d have to say the guy at Texas Tech is pretty good. Anyone who can talk Mike Leach and Bobby Knight into moving to Lubbock, TX has got to be a genius.

  17. Astral Rain2 12/12/2007 at 7:04 AM #

    Only way things will change is an empty arena. You take the money away- things will change. I’m not giving a dime to anything State-related until Fowler is gone.

  18. joe 12/12/2007 at 8:14 AM #

    I guess Fox did a great job if you ignore the hiring of Fowler and Amato and also her support of Sendek when 90% of the fanbase wanted him gone.

    I think hiring Sheridan was one of the last big things Casey did , that was in late 85. In early 86 he retired and Valvano became AD. I remember Valvano was named AD right before a BB game against Louisville because someone asked Denny Crum about being coach and AD and he said he thought it was a crazy idea to do both jobs.

  19. redfred2 12/12/2007 at 6:38 PM #

    “What’s the logical next step of pushing this idea that we need new management in our athletic department on those who can do something about it?”

    How about for starts, firing the chancellor? That might get somebody’s attention.

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