The State of State Part Four – AD Battle Royale

AD & Department Baseball General NC State Administration NCS Basketball NCS Football Non-Revenue Rankings & Lists Stat of the Day63

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).

• The win/loss percentage statistics are only for the sports with a win/loss record which excludes cross country, golf and track. Those sports are included in the conference titles.

• W Soccer was not an ACC sport in Valvano’s first season (1986-87).

• Gymnastics was not included because they were not in a conference until 1996.

• Historical data for rifle was not available.

Years
• Jim Valvano—3 (1986-87 to 1988-89)
• Harold Hopfenburg—1 (1989-90)
• Todd Turner—6 (1990-91 to 1995-96)
• Les Robinson—4 (1996-97 to 1999-2000)
• Lee Fowler—8 (2000-01 to 2007-08)

ACC Championships
1. Turner—15
2. Fowler—13 (14 w/Softball)
3. Valvano—12
4. Robinson—7
5. Hopfenburg—3

ACC Championships Per Year
1. Valvano—4.00
2. Hopfenburg—3.00
3. Turner—2.50
4. Robinson—1.75
5. Fowler—1.63 (1.75 w/Softball)

ACC Championship Sports
1. Valvano—9
2. Turner—8
3. Hopfenburg—3
3. Fowler—3 (4 w/Softball)
5. Robinson—2

ACC Titles by Year by AD for the 20 Common ACC Sports
acc-titles-by-year.JPG

Football ACC Winning Percentage
1. Valvano–.619
2. Hopfenburg–.571
3. Turner–.565
4. Robinson–.438
4. Fowler–.438
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M Basketball ACC Winning Percentage
1. Valvano–.619 (1 ACC title)
2. Fowler–.469
3. Hopfenburg–.429
4. Robinson–.328
5. Turner–.298
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W Basketball ACC Winning Percentage
1. Hopfenburg–.857
2. Robinson–.641
3. Valvano–.619 (1 ACC title)
4. Turner–.543 (1 ACC title)
5. Fowler–.525
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Baseball ACC Winning Percentage
1. Hopfenburg–.667
2. Valvano–.593
3. Turner–.568 (1 ACC title)
4. Robinson–.522
5. Fowler–.512
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Volleyball ACC Winning Percentage
1. Valvano–.895 (1 ACC title)
2. Turner–.258
3. Robinson–.188
4. Hopfenburg–.167
5. Fowler–.021
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Wrestling ACC Winning Percentage
1. Valvano–.778 (2 ACC titles)
2. Fowler–.628 (4 ACC titles)
3. Turner–.600 (2 ACC titles)
4. Robinson–.550
5. Hopfenburg–.500 (1 ACC title)
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M Soccer ACC Winning Percentage
1. Turner–.500 (1 ACC title)
2. Valvano–.389
3. Robinson–.250
4. Fowler–.182
5. Hopfenburg–.167
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W Soccer ACC Winning Percentage
1. Hopfenburg–.750
2. Valvano–.571 (1 ACC title)
3. Turner–.517
4. Robinson–.259
5. Fowler–.164
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M Swimming ACC Winning Percentage
1. Turner–.725 (1 ACC title)
2. Robinson–.640
3. Hopfenburg–.600
4. Valvano–.375
4. Fowler–.375
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W Swimming ACC Winning Percentage
1. Turner–.400
2. Valvano–.250
3. Fowler–.234
4. Hopfenburg–.200
5. Robinson–.167
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M Tennis ACC Winning Percentage
1. Valvano–.350
2. Fowler–.227
3. Robinson–.188
4. Turner–.170
5. Hopfenburg-.000
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W Tennis ACC Winning Percentage
1. Turner–.255
2. Robinson–.219
3. Fowler–.213
4. Valvano–.150
5. Hopfenburg–.143
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ACC Championships for non-win/loss record sports:

M Cross Country ACC Championships
Valvano—1
Turner—3
Robinson—4
Fowler—5

W Cross Country ACC Championships
Valvano—2
Hopfenburg—1
Turner—5
Robinson—3
Fowler—4

M Golf ACC Championships
Hopfenburg—1

M Indoor Track ACC Championships
Valvano—1

M Outdoor Track ACC Championships
Valvano—2
Turner—1

Softball ACC Championships
Fowler—1

Some Summary Statistics
• Lee Fowler has a lower ACC winning percentage than Todd Turner in 9 of the 12 common win/loss sports. Fowler leads in M Basketball, Wrestling and M Tennis. (Men’s Basketball was on NCAA probation and punitive academic restrictions under much of Turner’s tenure)

• Compared to the previous four ADs, Fowler ranks last (or tied for last) in ACC winning percentage in 6 of the 12 common win/loss sports.

• Compared to Les Robinson, Fowler’s predecessor, 4 of the 12 common win/loss sports have improved their ACC winning percentage under Fowler (M Basketball, Wrestling, W Swimming, M Tennis).

• NC State has never won more than 3 ACC titles in one season under Fowler, a mark surpassed by Todd Turner 3 times.

• As a 1996 graduate of NC State, I was in school for the last 4 years of Turner’s tenure as AD in which State won 7 ACC titles. This year’s State graduates in the class of 2008 will have won 5 ACC titles (including Softball) during their 4 years.

• Please feel free to share any other conclusions or patterns that you may have noticed.

Coming Sometime Soon in Part Five
Bar graphs galore–color coordinated with ACC winning percentages for each school!

About WV Wolf

Graduated from NCSU in 1996 with a degree in statistics. Born and inbred in West "By God" Virginia and now live in Raleigh where I spend my time watching the Wolfpack, the Mountaineers and the Carolina Hurricanes as well as making bar graphs for SFN. I'm @wvncsu on the Twitter machine.

AD & Department Baseball General NC State Administration NCS Basketball NCS Football Non-Revenue Rankings & Lists Stat of the Day

63 Responses to The State of State Part Four – AD Battle Royale

  1. redfred2 06/17/2008 at 9:12 PM #

    NICE WORK! WV

    I don’t have time to digest all of that right now, but at a glance it looks like just about what I would have expected though. I’ll look at it again tommorrow. Right now I need a good night’s sleep without any more nightmares.

  2. TopTenPack 06/17/2008 at 10:04 PM #

    Can somebody please print this out and send a copy to Fowler? I don’t think he has an internet connection in his office.

  3. wufpup76 06/17/2008 at 10:05 PM #

    this is great work … a valuable asset to be able to look up and make comparisons based on data … well done 🙂

  4. choppack1 06/17/2008 at 10:10 PM #

    Good stuff wv wolf.

  5. whitefang 06/17/2008 at 10:58 PM #

    good work from wv wolf as usual. But reality has no relevance in our athletic dept.
    I am sure another award of excellence will be coming Fowlers way soon.

  6. wirogers 06/18/2008 at 6:24 AM #

    First, I know using the information I was taught while earning a degree at State to discuss the statistics presented is completely unacceptable when discussing the AD and the Athletic Department. That is too logical (what we were taught to use while obtaining our degrees)

    However, at first glance most (a potential statistical majority) of these major sports contain a negative slope through the Fowler era. With a complete statistical analysis, I believe that this dataset would support a hypothesis that in the Fowler era there has been more losses than wins in a statistically significant number of sports.

    Assuming this hypothesis is correct, evaluating it as I would do within my business and including the money that has been spent within the athletic department I would conclude that we are receiving a negative return on our investment. Logically this would lead to a bankrupt company.

    How can this type of statistics be awarded as has been completed by our administration. The one last thing that would be interesting is to complete this same evaluation through the Fowler era. I would suspect it would demonstrate the same negative slope presented in these graphs.

  7. Wxwolf 06/18/2008 at 7:27 AM #

    Nice job putting all of this together!! I’ll have to take a closer look at everything later on.

    One suggestion. Separating out Hopfenburg’s stats from one year as interim AD and comparing it to the multi-year statistics from the other ADs is a little misleading, particularly with the trend charts since it shows a one-year trend compared with multiple year averages for the other ADs. I’d suggest bundling his stats in with Valvano’s, especially if Hopfenburg didn’t make any major decisions affecting the athletic programs in that year (hiring coaches, etc.).

  8. RAWFS 06/18/2008 at 7:28 AM #

    WV – your pictures will be worth 1,000 words on some radio station or television show from Lee Fowler. He’ll have trouble denying the truth in the trendlines.

  9. whitefang 06/18/2008 at 7:50 AM #

    Sorry for this off-topic post but I thought my fellow Wolfpack alumni might find this as amusing as I did:
    I am in the middle of a business trip to Asia and I just finished dinner in southern China with a Taiwanese business associate that I have done a lot of work with over the years. He has businesses in Taiwan, China, and Vietnam but moved his family to Perth a few years ago so a pretty ‘worldly” guy. He knows I went to NC State and has a 17 year old son in high school in Perth. He starts asking me about State because he is considering sending his son to college in the US. He says he has heard NC State has a good design school and engineering school and those are fields of study his son is intersted in. Of course I enthusiastically and proudly agreed with him on this.
    But then the kicker:
    “Also I have heard ALL universities in ‘Norse’ Carolina (his English isn’t that great) has really good basketball. My son loves basketball so NC State might be very good fit for him.”
    Me: “Wellll… Yes we did have good basketball there in the past… Maybe not so good now as before… Still a very good school though…”

  10. Astral Rain 06/18/2008 at 8:41 AM #

    Tell him that the experience of following State will help to build his character.

  11. PackerInRussia 06/18/2008 at 8:46 AM #

    I think we need a new AD for not other reason than to complete the smiley face on the M. Basketball graph (assuming he can ramp up the wins to .600 or so. Well, that concludes my statistical analysis.

  12. triadwolf 06/18/2008 at 8:50 AM #

    His son will get to frequently see great basketball if he goes to State. He’ll also get to frequently see absolutely horrid basketball – it all depends on which team he watches while he’s at the game.

  13. packbackr04 06/18/2008 at 8:51 AM #

    that was great. I was going to suggest that you superimpose the other schools performances during those same years to show just how putrid our athletics have been…. Then i get to the bottom and you guys are one step ahead of me. I cant wait to see the visual of how we stack up against other acc programs.

  14. Wulfpack 06/18/2008 at 8:54 AM #

    Jed has been bad, no question. Problem is, so have the others. We sure haven’t set much of a standard.

  15. StateFans 06/18/2008 at 8:59 AM #

    Does it get any better than this?

  16. choppack1 06/18/2008 at 9:03 AM #

    “WV – your pictures will be worth 1,000 words on some radio station or television show from Lee Fowler. He’ll have trouble denying the truth in the trendlines.”

    Not true. He’ll just say that these items were trending this way and we haven’t had a chance for the brand new facilities to kick in.

    It’s also worth noting that the one sport Fowler had which showed substantial improvement over his predecssors, has now seen that trend reverse, in no small part because of his own botched search.

  17. mafpack 06/18/2008 at 9:07 AM #

    Fantastic data WV! Would it be possible to include a simple graph of the Athletics Departments budget and annual booster giving during these same time periods? I wouldn’t even see a need to compared winning% vs budget%, etc, just the simple visual comparison of what previous ADs had to work financially with compared to the current administration.

    Again, awesome work!

  18. WV Wolf 06/18/2008 at 9:32 AM #

    Thanks for the compliments, I appreciate that.

    Wxwolf–I agree that having Hopfenburg’s one year with the other multi-year stats isn’t ideal and did consider giving them to Valvano but in the end I felt it seemed best to put them in their own category. It did point out that in a year with an interim AD and an athletic department scandal we still won as many ACC titles (3) as in Fowler’s best year.

    wirogers–you’re spot on with the downward trends, that’s the main reason I went to the trouble of making all the line graphs because it makes it so easy to see.

    Here’s another question I have that I’d love to hear other opinions on. Supposedly Todd Turner is the worst AD to have ever walked the planet, been fired 3 times, put Vandy out of business and ran State into the ground.

    So if Turner is the bottom of the barrel, where are the upward trends? Did Turner inherit a decent athletic department, which would account for his numbers looking decent, but let things deteriorate and left us in such bad shape that after 12 years we still haven’t dug our way out? Or were Fowler and Les just that bad? Or a combo of the two? Or, and I know this sounds crazy, did Turner actually do a halfway decent job while he was here?

  19. Plz2BStateFan 06/18/2008 at 9:44 AM #

    ^good point about turner comparing to fowler

    Anyway to get those sports average season records to go along with the championships?

  20. Paramarine 06/18/2008 at 9:45 AM #

    Excellent data and analysis. Thank you.

  21. StateFans 06/18/2008 at 10:00 AM #

    The scary thing is that Todd Turner cared the least about winning — and was dealing with the general overhang of the basketball issues as well as the tangential impacts of the basketball issues (probations, etc). Plus…remember how horrible our ‘fuh-cilities’ where back then. One would think that Turner’s tenure should clearly have been the worst in history of NC State.

  22. StateFans 06/18/2008 at 10:37 AM #

    In case anyone ever doubts the level of intellect exhibited by the people in this community compared to the folks on appropriately labeled “idiot boards”…then all you need to do is take 2 minutes to read the comments of the community on this thead on Pack Pride.

    I am honestly embarrassed to be in the same fan base with people who are this dumb.

    Every now and then it is nice to experience an example of why/how we can be so successful (along with RAWFS, Section Six and others).

  23. ruffles31 06/18/2008 at 11:01 AM #

    This is a great article. Thanks WV Wolf.

    The negative trending is evident in most every graph. What jumps out to me also is that even if you take out any trends, you still get the problem that our winning percentage is still very poor in so many sports. Forget 70%, or even 50%. Most of those graphs show winning percentages in the 30% range. That is completely unacceptable, unless you are someone in power in Raleigh.

  24. WV Wolf 06/18/2008 at 11:06 AM #

    For my own mental health, I’m going to refrain from responding in that Pack Pride thread.

    This particular analysis did not start out as “let’s find another way to make Lee Fowler look bad”. Now I’ll admit that perhaps some of my other stuff did start out that way but not this one.

    The idea was that things might be ugly now but at least we’re past the Todd Turner days. Things have got to be better, right? I wanted to see how much we had improved after getting rid of the “worst AD ever” but sadly I didn’t find that overall improvement, at least not where ACC titles and winning percentage is concerned.

  25. Ed89 06/18/2008 at 11:15 AM #

    Excellent work. As a side note, during most of the Valvano years, there were 8 teams in the ACC, then 9 (through the Turner and Robinson years) and up to 12 about 3 years ago. Therefore, percentage wise, your chance of winning an ACC title goes down. Not that I’m defending Fowler, but numbers wise, you have to beat more teams (11) now than you did when V was AD (7). Overall, good analysis, and we can definitely see that there is alot of room for improvement across all sports. As with alot of issues, the gap between the haves and have-nots seems to be getting wider. We need to jump back up the “haves” because we’ve been “have-nots” for far too long — especially in the Big 2 revenue sports that 99% of us really care the most about.

    SFN: Winning percentage is not impacted by expansion. Percentage of titles won is not analyzed in this analysis.

    The opportunity to win a higher number of titles than previous ADs is negatively impacted by having more teams in the conference. Similarly, EACH team in the league experiences the exact same impact of having new league members.

    If analysis related to this item is of interest then this link will take you to a head to head comparison of how we fare compared to the rest of the league.

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