@DDuggan21
Gene DeFilippo on Frank Spaziani: "Spaz is coming back next year and our future here is really, really bright.”
@DDuggan21
DeFilippo also called called Spaz "The best coach that we’ve had in the 15 years that I’ve been here."
Gene DeFilippo is either blind or deaf. That is the only acceptable explanation. Because you would only come out with a strong endorsement of Spaz after this season if you did not see the problems in how Spaz approaches these games. Or worse he doesn't hear the growing outcry from our fanbase.
I think Gene thinks he always has BC's best interest at heart. But I suspect he has his best interest at heart. He is tied to Spaz's success. He risked his career with Spaz. He picked Spaz over candidates with more upside. And Spaz is probably the last coach in America that will let Gene serve as Coach Flip (our unofficial head coach). This means we are in for another letdown in 2012. This team has potential, but I have no faith in Spaz helping us reach our potential. His approach to games and his roster is stuck in the 1970s and ignores all the new data and strategies.
In the end, I will root like hell for BC. I hope we win every game and I hope I am wrong about Spaz.
To those who are upset by this, take comfort that Spaz and Gene's future at BC is not long. Their ages alone assure that. BC will prevail and one day football will be fun again. Until then keep cheering on the players, keep supporting the program and keep the pressure on our administration.
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47 comments:
#fireGDF is obvious in his pre-emptive strike. He knows that any gap in confirming #fireSpaz for next year will allow honest doubt to grow.
This strategy shows GDF's contempt for BC's fan and alumni base. Its one thing to say "we'll review and evaluate". Its something else to step on the Miami victory story with GDF's endorsement of Spaz's continued ineptitude.
GDF has to go, too.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. A. Einstein.
To those who are upset by this, take comfort that Spaz and Gene's future at BC is not long. Their ages alone assure that. BC will prevail and one day football will be fun again. Until then keep cheering on the players, keep supporting the program and keep the pressure on our administration.
That last paragraph is horrifically depressing, but true. In no other profession could you be this incompetent and keep your job.
Lenny. So right. GDF's timing not only sucks, but is just another part of his petty, manipulative personality.
He indeed has contempt for BC fans and I have contempt for him
This is just horrible, horrible news .
The fans at the game sitting around me indicated unanimously that want Spaz gone - and DeFilippo also, but everyone shrugs.
The father of a starting player answered my question about how the players felt about Spaziani and without hesitation he gave me the double thumbs down. The gentleman said that Spaz needs to be gone NOW.
This father further stated that Spaziani is so out of touch with his pre-game speeches, that the players don't even want to listen to him. They have their own closed door pep talks.
I have been around for a long time and I have watched a lot of BC football. This team could have been 7 and 5 or 8 and 4 - even without all the players Spaziani has run off and even with all of our freshmen playing so much. We have some talented players who give it their all.
Gene DeFilippo has really let us down and cares about himself more than he carfes about BC - our school, not his.
I will have to evaluate my participation in the Flynn Fund, and DBS Season Tickets now - and this is coming from a 36 year season ticket holder.
If I come back, it's only because of the players.
I hate to say this, but Keuchly is probably gone now.
Does this statement include other sports? ""The best coach that we’ve had in the 15 years that I’ve been here."
What a stiff!
This is an arrogant insult to the players and to BC football fans. I have to question the judgment of a school that allows a little dictator to make such decisions unchecked. My protest is being made with my pocketbook
This further demonstrates GDF's supreme arrogance. Why do they put up with this crap?
As much as I love BC, I am done at this point. Anyone who buys season tickets and donates funds at this point are now part of the problem. These quotes are a disgrace. A grassroots effort must start now and it starts with us on this board. Can we band together somehow?
"It doesn't matter" GDF on BC Fan's complaints
Contempt is correct. From HeraLd
"Overall, the Eagles are 20-19 under Spaziani and haven’t won a bowl game (though he led BC to a win in the 2006 Meineke Car Care Bowl as the interim head coach). That has led many fans to call for the firing of Spaziani, who signed a two-year extension last December that runs through the 2015 season. In an interview with the Herald, DeFilippo addressed the calls for Spaziani’s job.
“It doesn’t matter,” DeFilippo told the Herald. “I’m with Spaz every single day. Spaz is the best coach that we’ve had in the 15 years that I’ve been here. Spaz is coming back next year and our future here is really, really bright.”"
What can we do? IF this story is true, and GDF gets away with it, the school has just basically told me, and other fans, it does not give a damn about us or the decline of the football program. This is my interpretation, and I don't know what more there is to say.
People like big jack need to walk with their donations and get older alumni with clout to beat the drums. I genuinely feel sorry for someone like jack. He knows bc and loves them more than anyone. Those quotes are a direct slap in the face to him and others who care. This may sound stupid, but we should all do a conference call together or meet somewhere, young and old. We can come with a way to combat this. With our bloggers ties to the press and our will, our thoughts can be heard. I am serious. This is so bad, its now comical.
I agree that this petty little man has been given way, way, way too much unchecked power-I don't understand why.
Insulting. Done with season tickets. I was gonna suck it up and still get them even with spaz back, but for gdf to feed u this crock of you know what saying he's the best coach in 15 years? What is he watching and how little does he think of the fan base?
GDF: "It doesn't matter" ..really? .WTF.
GDF is at it again. Contempt for devoted fans (read bloggers) combined with lies (Spaz is the best) and all done hastily in public in a very clumsy manner.
So why is GDF so eager to show the world once again that he is a fool? Why the rush on a Friday evening? Can't players be allowed a little time to enjoy an impressive win?
Perhaps there are other forces at play that are moving to push GDF and Spaz out? GDF feels accutely insecure and acts prematurely and in an unconvincing manner ???
There is more to this story. For sure
You guys really like playing the hysterical chicken-running-around-without-heads card, don't you?
It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that GDF would say such a thing.
Both TOB and Jags deliberately left Boston College, and I'm surprised at the degree to which our fanbase just overlooks this.
TOB left us for NC State. Sure, he stayed with us for a while, all time winningest coach, etc. I don't really like what it says about our program that our all time winningest coach left us for NC State - a decision which proved to be a disappointment, if not a disaster.
Yes, Jags was fired, but he deliberately disobeyed a direct order. Sure, an NFL coaching job is superior to most college jobs, but I dont fault GDF for wanting BC to be treated as a destination and not a stepping stone.
Say whatever you want about Spaz (and say it all, he's terrible), it still might be in our long term best interest to keep him on for next year. If he got fired after this year, we would have had FOUR coaches in SIX years. That is an absurd amount of turmoil and I don't know how any program could achieve consistency under it.
I also dont buy that our players dont listen to or respect Spaz. He is their coach and they should respect him. We have upstanding guys at BC, I don't see them going the rebellious route.
There is nothing to the story. Leahy doesn't care, I presume the new head of the board doesn't care either. Whatls worse is the fact non-alumni are on the board. That is even worse than spaz. Someone who never went to bc is on the board. It's damn near impossible for graduate school alumni to get on the board of top universities and we have someone who took zero classes at bc. We are just a joke all around. My money us going to my grad school, who shows much more appreciation.
You think this clown is gonna listen to us? Our one and only hope is for Doug Flutie to publicly call for regime change. Or, If Harris and other star players transfer, then perhaps GDF will get the message. I am a huge BC football fan and proud alum but I'm depressed about how this program has been devestated by non-BC people.
I'm also a mid-40's alum so my eyes are not the best. I meant "devastated."
Walter,
Yeah most of our guys are good guys, but we have clowns too, just not as bad as mist schools. If you think they all love spaz and are Rhodes scholars, I have sine great property to sell to in the desert. I have 101 stories about bc football players. We are clean program and we deal with idiots correctly, but there are stories, again we usually deal with those correctly. Most guys on the team would not be at bc if they could not play ball. Just like nd, Stanford, auburn, nebraska, Mich, Yale, or Harvard, name the school. some guys would yes, most no. The team hates spaz, give them a coach. They work too hard for anything less.
Sorry for errors, typing on a phone.
Last comment, I am just enraged. If we don't show minimal effort to compete (gdf, spaz) I would rather be in the patriot league. I don't want to be Oklahoma, but show some effort if leadership. If not, I don't have a problem with going non-scholarship. We can use the scholarship money for other things. Heck, Harvard will beat us in bball for the fourth year in a row this year. They our recruit us now. The beat a ranked day team today. We went to overtime against one of the worst teams in d-1. I would rather the administration choose one or the other because now we are a joke.
I don't have much to write but get the hell of your asses alumni and fans and stop typing your disdain here. Copy the lively letter, write your own.. Whatever.. Make your voice heard beyond the blogosphere and write Fr Leahy, the board, and the flynn fund and let the know with your stopage of dollars this won't be tolerated. Don't be passive. Don't ignore the calls and solicitations. Make your voice heard and your check books inaction felt.
Whoa...wait a minute...Gene says he's with Spaz every day and he sees what a great coach he is?
How can that be when he still golfs with Jags?????
Tool.
I am giving everything to my grad school now. BC doesn't care about alumni. At my 10 year reunion (in a parking lot by the rec plex, classy) they had a police presence pushing out pregnant women like we were undergrads on shea. I called and complained, they said I was ungrateful and everyone loved it. It was a joke. They actually told me I was wrong and it was great. My gd who went to duke was shocked at the police action. I went to her reunion at duke. I fe mt embarrassed for bc, not only was it elegant, it was free. I paid $75 a ticket to stand in a parking lot and get harassed by police. In fact, they refused to give my gd a gift bag at the end even though she had a ticket. I was just embarassed plain and simple. If BC can't tear alumni right at a reunion do you think they care about are opinion on a football coach? I went to a Yale alumni event last year. My 10 year was like a frat party in morgantown compared to that. They just don't care. I love BC, that will never change. But to follow an idiotic administration who won't listen, is idiotic.
There is no joy in Mudville. Mighty Casey has struck out. I would support "occupying the heights". The problem now is that the team has started to actually look a lot better. WPL and GDF actually appear to look good by sticking with a controversial candidate. Spaz has been loyal but incompetant. It was stupid to give him a two year extension. Obviously, GDF has tied his star to Spaziani because he stuck his neck out for Jags and had it chopped off. The verbage is now equating 4-8 to should have been 10-2. Even Spock knows that this is not logical.
Withholding of Flynn Fund contributions is appropriate. Bill Flynn would be sick over this situation.
Don't forget to also change your Shaw Society status. Those of us who intend to leave our estates, however modest, to BC will have to reconsider. Perhaps that will get some respect.
I am beside myself. Gene is either apathetic or ignorant or some disgusting combination of the two. I will always love the school - the best four years of my life were spent there, but I will never donate to the Flynn Fund so long as Gene remains the AD.
I love Donahue and think he's taking the program in the right direction, but at the end of the day the school is a football school and Gene's blindness to that is appalling.
But this problem won't be resolved until the board forces Leahy to remedy the issue and by that I mean fire Gene. Because even if he grew a pair and fired Spaz, he'd go out and hire someone who'd be his lapdog and we'd be in the same situation in a few years. Make no mistake, the problem lies with Gene and we'll continue to suck until he's gone. I give him all the credit in the world for getting us into the ACC but there's only so much time he can hang his hat on that. But anytime an AD wages war on his fanbase and donors (see his passive aggressive tweet about Clemson fans in the stadium before kickoff), it's time for the guy to go.
I'm not on the board and don't know anyone who sits on it but I can only hope that they aren't as numb to this as they seem to have been over the past few years. Like I said, I'll always love the school and will root and donate until the day I die, but none of my money will ever go to the athletic dept. so long as that assclown still has his job. The school means to much to me to fund any more of his crap.
There is no wonder the only other cost that has matched healthcare inflation is college tuition. When you employ self serving incompetents what else can you expect.
BC leadership is not even competent enough to muzzel Gene. Next move for BC is to announce a Gene statue next to Flutie.
This is bad news indeed. In talks with current players, I've been told on more than one occasion that several key players agreed to transfer if Spaz was kept on after this season. Be prepared for announcements soon.
#FIREGENE
The problem with Gene is that he has no filter and he is a fundraiser/salesman more than a true Athletic Director who can balance fundraising with managing people. Managing people requires tact in communication. Gene and Spaz are not good at public communication.
Jerry York is the master of public communication. His thoughts are clear and positive. He would make an excellent Athletic Director.
Back to Gene, he was very excited by the win over Miami and jumped at the opportunity to endorse his guy, Spaz, after he won a big game.
He is partially correct when he says it doesn't matter. If we were 8-4 people would still bitch and moan about something, see the TOB years.
That being said Spaz was not a good coach this year. He did not communicate well with the media, he did not manage games well at all, and he did NOTHING to motivate the team in the first 5 games of the year.
Spaz is getting another year because he salvaged the season with a win on National Television.
The is no economically rational way that Spaz could be fired after this year. That is why Gene was running his unfiltered mouth after the game . . . Spazs' win saved Gene from a year of having to deal with an off season of questions about why he did not let his Head football coach go.
One concern I have is Coach Bill McGovern. He will certainly get calls this off season to be the D-Coordinator at higher paying schools. He did a great job against ND and Miami on National TV. If we lose him we are in trouble. He does a very good job.
Here is the letter I will send to the VP of Development, with a CC to Leahy, GDF, and the Board of Trustees:
Dear Mr. Lockerby:
Five years ago, I made a pledge to donate $1000 per year for five years to BC's general fund. I write to inform you that I will not be honoring the fifth year of my commitment this year.
Although I am not a direct donor to the Flynn Fund, I am an indirect donor to BC athletics: As you are likely aware, Boston College's athletics department is not self-sufficient. Accordingly, money that is paid by students (meaning, parents) in the form of tuition and fees is siphoned off from academic-related expenses to supplement the athletics budget so that it can break even. Yet I was asked to give money to the general fund to support the university's academic programs.
As a proud alumnus who considers BC's athletic programs to have been an important supplement to my overall experience at BC, I never saw a problem with this (although I obviously hope that one day our athletics program will be self-sufficient.)
That changed with Gene DiFillippo's announcement yesterday that he is retaining Frank Spaziani as head football coach, and his comment that he believes that Spaziani is the "best coach he's had in 15 years." These comments reflect that DiFillippo is patently unqualified to serve as Boston College's athletics director. Spaziani's performance over the past three years has reflected that he is patently unqualified to serve as Boston College's head football coach.
Accordingly, if Boston College feels that it is necessary to siphon off ANY portion of its academic budget to support Spaziani's $1,079,410 salary or DiFilippo's $600,884 salary, clearly you are of the opinion that our academic departments are overfunded and its money can be used for bad investments in athletics. If the academic departments are overfunded, you no longer need my donation.
If you decide to put my money into an investment in athletics that might result in a positive experience for Boston College students, please let me know.
What's worse for the program long-term, two more years of a dull, predictable, under-achieving product or a third change in head coach (and perhaps some assistants) in five years (plus the loss of another couple of million bucks)?
In both cases, you eventually get coaching turnover and its impact on recruiting. In the former, you precede that with two years of lackluster recruiting, potentially transfers of key players, alumni dissatisfaction and disengagement as fans and donors.
In the latter, you get the recruiting anxiety out of the way quickly. In fact, it would probably be seen as a positive from a recruiting standpoint. Plus, you re-energize current players, students, alumni, and fans, assuming of course that you made a good choice of new HC, which is clearly not a given under the current admin.
gene's comments are bizarre, but what can we really expect from this guy? we went 4-8 this year, and had several early losses that i blame on spaz's failure to adjust in game and not putting players in a position to win.
OK, so spaz is coming back. this isn't a surprise, i've been saying for weeks that if spaz won either the ND or miami game he'd probably come back.
what happens on the offensive side of the ball? we were one of the worst offenses in the country this year. 112th in points scored. rogers quit 2 games into the season. i would like to see the entire offensive side of the ball cleared out -- nobody has earned their keep. it is not re-assuring, given that gene spent several weeks finding an OC and settled on a guy that didn't even last 3 weeks into the season. but we need new strategy and ideas on offense. our defense has been great, and i expect kuechly to be gone (and a top 15 pick in the draft).
rettig, finch, andre williams, swigert, and amidon will all be juniors. they have talent. let's find a guy to be in OC, allow him to fill out the rest of the offensive staff, and see if we can get it done next year.
also, its disappointing that gene has to come out and unabashedly support a coach who "led" us to 4 wins this year and ruin what is likely the best BC sports day for a while. BC team hung tough and got a win in overtime. football team executed and we were treated to a tour de force and what is probably kuechly's last game. we beat the U in miami. and yet we can't even celebrate b/c slick gene comes out and supports spaz 100% and acts like a 4-win season is some sort of reason for celebration. ridiculous.
Matt,
For the sake of the credibility of your letter . . . Gene spells his name DeFilippo.
Re: Possibility of losing McGovern -"If we lose him we are in trouble. He does a very good job."
Sounds familiar to the chorus we were all hearing about you know who when TOB left.
And it appears to have prevented us from getting Whipple.
Keeping Spaz is rotten, rotten, rotten. It is all about GDF.
Not the BC way at all.
Hope key players do not start transferring - Suntrup? Can't imagine this will help our current precipitous drop in recruiting. (current class is worst or close to worst in ACC)
As for spelling GDF's last name, just remember 1 "L" for "loser" and 2 "p"s for "piss poor"
DeFilippo
You will never misspell that bleep's last name again.
Matt,
How about Thank you or nice catch?
Typical . . . douche.
Mark Whipple couldn't make NFL level talent at Miami successful.
He is coaching the Cleveland Browns QB's now . . . ha.
You really are a douche.
Jimmy, to be fair, firing Spaz and hiring the 4th coach in 7 years probably wouldn't help recruiting either.
i can't remember a year where BC had a highly touted class. (maybe 04 with toal? who cares about recruiting, its such a bogus industry. raji and montel were 2-star recruits, matt ryan and luke kuechly 3-stars). it looks like we have a typical BC class headed next year, a bunch of 3 and 2 star recruits.
you could see this coming from a mile away. spaz got his 1 big win and will be back. let's clean house on the offensive side and install an OC as the head coach in waiting.
Knucklehead,
Didn’t Whipple win the NCAA Division I-AA title his first year at UMASS?
And didn’t he win a Super Bowl ring?
Pro QB talent at Miami? Really?
Thanks, Knucklehead. Just got your post now. Post-Thanksgiving familial obligations kept me from instantly reflecting my gratitude.
"it doesn't matter" GDF.
This is what we should write on all solicitations received from BC until GDF is gone and takes Spaz with him.
I think we should work to associate this phrase with GDF as "let them eat cake" is associated with Marie Antoinette (wrongly; but that is another story). The attitude is the same--arrogant and ignorant of reality.
If we are looking for a "hero on a white horse" our only hope is Fr. Monan, the Chancellor of the U, who was an actual fan and could read a bottom line better than anybody. Fr. Monan would be the one to tell Fr. Leahy to dump GDF.
El Miz, take a minute to actually look at the recruiting ratings. This year isn't a typical BC recruiting class, its likely to be the worst on record going back to '02. Spaz is killing this program in recruiting and on the field.
He won the championship with the previous coaches players. Hodges?
He coached Ben Rothliesberger. Big Ben doe what Big Ben wants to do. Whipple cannot coach what Ben brings to the game. He got a Superbowl fine.
Every offensive player at Miami has NFL potential if they are coached properly. They had Hankerson and Graham and Cooper. They have had a few O-linemen drafted. The program has the pick of the litter so Whipples eye for talent is not great.
When Colt McCoy doesn't lead the Browns to the playoff will that be Whipples fault?
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