A few months ago we ran the following comments in this entry comparing Lee Fowler to Joe Alleva in light of the LSU Athletics Directorship:
Lee Fowler’s interest in other Athletics Director jobs have not been a secret since his arrival in Raleigh in September of 2000. In the seven-plus years of Fowler’s tenure, the man that likes to be referred to as “Coach” has expressed interest and interviewed for multiple jobs of all shapes and sizes.
At the risk of over-stating the obvious - next year is a very important year for the NC State Football program and every single leader with any type of influence over the direction of the football program. Unless the Wolfpack can string together four consecutive wins to close out the 2008 season, the program is heading for a 4th losing season in the last five years - all under the ‘leadership’ of Athletics Director, Lee Fowler.
To offer some historical perspective on this - NC State has experienced four losing seasons in a five year period only three times since the formation of the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1953..
Thanks, Terry!
“both of you (Lee Fowler and Dick Baddour) have been extremely cooperative in helping us in ways that have given ECU Athletics an opportunity to stand on its own”
This whole pissing match between the embarrassment that is Lee Fowler and the AD too-good-for-his-current school (Terry Holland) is too ridiculous for words.
Since our great conversation earlier in the week, the N&O updated the scheduling snafu with a link to an adobe version of the actual letter.
As much as we enjoyed the ironic twists in Lee Fowler’s comments today (highlighted here), we also knew that Terry Holland wasn’t just going to sit back and let Fowler get away with it.
Earlier in the day I actually got an email from a buddy at NC State saying the following: “What is Lee Fowler doing? This is a lie. I wonder if Terry Holland is going to call him on it.”
The answer is an obvious yes.
“While I have no first hand knowledge of the circumstance of the comments made on a radio talk show, these are the absolute facts as I know them regarding future football games with NC State.”
Several gems in this article, so make sure to read the whole thing. The following is really interesting:
“We play them in ‘10, ‘13, and ‘16, and we haven’t scheduled any further out than that,” said (Lee) Fowler. “We had more games over those six years and I think Skip (Holtz) and Terry (Holland) got together and said, ‘We’ve got to make sure we can win and do some things properly’, so I think they wanted to back off every other year or every year, home and away”
There are a few FACTS that you should know:
BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS!
After booing on the kickoff of the second half of thursday’s game against North Carolina, Rutgers fans continued to boo on almost every play from scrimmage throughout the rest of the game. (Those fans that actually stayed and didn’t leave early to beat traffic)
RUTGERS!?! This is same program that was easily one of the worst programs in all of college football for decades prior to the last few years and with fans with credentials nowhere close to fans with these credentials. This is not hyperbole. This program was Duke-like in their futility. It sure doesn’t take long for fans to get ridiculously irrational with a little success.
If you visit regularly visit SFN then you know how to search our archives to find any of our many articles on the current position of NC State’s poorly performing Athletics Department. But, if you need some quick help you can click here for just a sampling of some entries that might be of interest to you.
In that^ spirit - and as Lee Fowler enters his NINTH year of ‘leading’ NC State’s Athletics Department - the projected performance of the programs on which he has put his stamp for almost a decade seems to resemble the underwhelming performance of recent years.
How do NC State’s ACC winning percentages and conference finishes compare to the other schools in the conference during Lee Fowler’s tenure as AD from 2000-01 to 2007-08? Below are winning percentage statistics in ACC play for the 13 sports that have win/loss records and average finish for the 8 sports that do not have win/loss records.
Notes:
• These stats are ONLY for the 21 ACC sports in which NC State competes. They do not include ACC sports in which State does not have a program (lacrosse, field hockey, rowing) or non-ACC sports (gymnastics, rifle).
The final ‘all-sports’ intercollegiate Directors Cup for 2007-2008 has been released and is accessible by clicking here. (Looks like Lee Fowler’s second embarrassment in one day.)
NC State didn’t obtain extra credit for our great ‘fuhcilities’ or our fantastic fans and therefore finished the year ranked 56th in the country and next to last in the Atlantic Coast Conference, besting private institution Boston College.
Q: What are the important items that require time and effort of men that run $50 million businesses in 2008?
A: Calling into radio stations to discuss “cougars” in mock drafts, of course!!
As you will see and hear by clicking to 850TheBuzz’s blog entry, the esteemed leader of NC State’s Athletics Department took the time and the initiative to call 850TheBuzz this morning to share his thoughts on attractive older women - also known as “cougars”.
Did any of you really think that Loose Lips Lee would forego any ‘open line’ to dial into a radio show?
Athletic Director Lee Fowler released the 2007-2008 annual report for NC State Athletics. Except for a few individual student-athletes and a couple individual programs, it was the accomplishments of NC State’s fantastic supporters and fans that received the most attention in the report.
First, the NC State fans helped land Head Football Coach, Tom O’Brien; now, the support of the very fans that Lee Fowler so often criticizes provides his athletics program its primary success story of the year. (Oh the irony)
Here are a few of the highlights:
In previous entries, several commenters had expressed an interest in some historical statistics for comparison purposes. Below are some conference title and winning percentage stats over the last 22 years for the past five Athletic Directors at NC State.
Notes:
• For the 1989-90 season, Jim Valvano was AD until October, Harold Hopfenburg was interim AD until April when Todd Turner was hired. For this analysis, since he was AD for the majority of the season, Hopfenburg will be considered the AD of record for 1989-90.
• ACC championship stats are only for the 20 sports in which all 5 ADs fielded teams (Softball is excluded).
No…you read that headline correctly.
One of the only Athletics Directors in the country to have his own television show needs to make another radio appearance.
Update: You can click here to hear the interview.
In addition to his regular column in the Wolfpacker magazine and the recent tour of the entire State of North Carolina with the Wolfpack Club Caravan, NC State’s Athletics Director has made appearances and given thorough interviews to GoPack.com, PackPride.com, the News & Observer and WRAL-TV5.com in just the last 60 days.
Inside Carolina is reporting that Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green will all return to Chapel Hill for the 2008-2009 college basketball season, virtually guaranteeing that the Tarheels will hold the #1 preseason ranking as the heavy favorite to win the 2009 National Championship.
Lawson, Ellington and Green had become the targets of significant criticism brought about by UNC-CH fans, students and internet community members. The situation between Tarheel faithful and the players got so nasty that CBS Sportsline actually elevated the fans’ criticisms in a national article discussing the situation and criticizing the Tarheel faithful.
At a time when all focus should be on the quest of NC State’s Baseball to reach the College World Series - the Pack will travel to Georgia this weekend - our ‘esteemed’ Athletics Director turns some attention on…HIMSELF, of corse
Yesterday, Pack Pride highlighted an ‘extended interview’ that Lee Fowler gave WRAL-TV5 over the weekend. WRAL-TV also ran similar video interviews with Tom O’Brien and Sidney Lowe. The reason we aren’t criticizing Coach Lowe and Coach O’Brien for their inverviews is because (1) they are actually COACHES and don’t just play one in their fantasies and (2) they haven’t been interviewed at extreme lengths by GoPack.com, PackPride.com, 850TheBuzz and the News & Observer in just the last six weeks!
“My goals have always been to be in the top three in the conference. If you’re in the top three you always have a chance to win the championship. That’s an obvious goal as well. Minimum goals, we don’t want to be in the bottom-half of anything.. the bottom-half in any sport.”
–Lee Fowler, PackPride.com, 5-22-08
“Our minimum should be middle of the conference, not last in the league”
–Lee Fowler, Technician, 8-31-07
These statements lead to three questions.
Disclaimer: Only facts and statistics will be stated below, you the reader can draw your own conclusions and opinions.
Did NC State’s athletic programs make progress and do better this school year than they did last year? One metric (and certainly not the only one) is to look at regular season conference standings.
State competes in 21 different ACC sports plus gymnastics (EAGL) and rifle (SEARC & GARC). In the 2007-2008 school year, 6 out of those 23 programs finished higher in their conference standings than they did the year before, 11 finished worse and 6 maintained the same standing. All 12 ACC schools compete in the sport unless indicated.
RESOLUTION OF EXPRESSION
OF CONFIDENCE IN LEE FOWLER
Whereas: The Council on Athletics has expressed to the Chancellor that Lee Fowler “…is an outstanding Athletics Director and has the absolute support and confidence of the Council on Athletics,” andWhereas: Lee Fowler has maintained close contact with faculty through regular attendance at Faculty Senate meetings, andWhereas: Throughout his tenure as Athletics Director at NC State University he has consistently demonstrated his commitment to the integrity of the athletics program being of paramount importance, therefore be it
Resolved: The Faculty Senate of North Carolina State University endorses the position of the Council on Athletics and expresses its confidence in Lee Fowler.
Disclaimer: Only facts and statistics will be stated below, you the reader can draw your own conclusions and opinions.
Listed below are the overall ACC records for NC State’s team sports (teams that have a won-loss record) for the eight year time span Lee Fowler has been AD (2000-01 to 2007-08).
Revenue Sports
• Football: 28-36 (.438)
• M Basketball: 60-68 (.469)
• W Basketball: 63-57 (.525)
• Baseball: 109-104 (.512)
Both of the high profile revenue sports, Football and M Basketball, have losing records in ACC play.
Both W Basketball and Baseball have winning records in ACC play.
After failed attempts to garner some kind of notable success by a couple of NC State’s non-revenue sports fell flat this week (men’s golf and women’s softball), NC State’s Baseball team remains as the last primary opportunity for Lee Fowler’s athletics department to do something special and win a “major” ACC Championship.
It is something that hasn’t happened at NC State in a LONG time. And, as you will see from the statistics below it is something that hasn’t happened at NC State in far too long when compared to other programs throughout the country.