Instead of saying “we are BC” and we can win here, TOB always used what BC is and was as a reason for coming up short or to make his efforts look more heroic. He’s still doing it. Check out this quote in the Herald.
Asked if he felt at all underappreciated toward the end of his stay at BC, O’Brien paused ever so briefly before answering.
“I know this,” he said. “I know anyone in my profession and all my peers, every time I see them, quite frankly, they say how amazed they were at how things happened, the way that we played and what our staff accomplished. That’s all I care about. The people in this profession that know football know what was accomplished there in the last 10 years.”
Yet as I’ve shown, BC is a winning program. TOB did well, but he was not a miracle worker. But that mindset, whether he is spinning or really believes it, is the heart of the problem. He feels like he did great work and was never appreciated. Just look at what he said to his mouthpiece at the Sporting News.
Boston College fans won't soon forget O'Brien's departure after 10 years on The Heights. BC will get an up-close look at O'Brien on September 8, when the Wolfpack visits Boston College. So, Tom: How do you think fans will react?
"I know what they should do," he says. "But I don't know what they will do."
TOB doesn’t get it and never will. The losses were part of the problem, but TOB’s inability to open up to the fans and embrace BC was as big a problem as coming up short. How could he ever win championships at BC when he never believed BC could win it all?
Jags may never be as successful on the field as TOB, but his attitude and approach are welcome. He uses everything BC is as a selling point not a hindrance.
I don’t begrudge those BC fans who’ll give TOB a polite applause. That’s their right. In ten or so years, I am sure we’ll bring him back to honor his accomplishments in Boston. When that time comes and we’ve all moved on, I’ll give TOB the credit and applause his accomplishments earned. This Saturday I’ll boo.
[For those who don't think I am balanced on the subject of TOB, check out this series. I think it is pretty fair. Ten years or TOB: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.]
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26 comments:
GREAT POST!!! I couldn't agree more. Jags is all about BC, he uses the term "BC GUY" all the time. You could tell at the game Saturday there was a different vibe. You could see it on the Side Line and in the stands. You could feel it. Jags has people believing in BC. TOB never did that. He never believed in his own players. If he did they would have accomplished so much more. NCSTATE fans don't get it either. They say look at what TOB did, look at all those 8 win seasons. I say yeah look at them, look at everything TOB didn't do. What makes it worse is he never took responsibility for those "WTF" TOB loses that so defined his stint with BC. Never did he say it was his fault for sticking with Porter when everyone in the country knew Ryan should be in. Never did he say yeah you know its my fault we got smoked by 'Cuse because I didn't get this team ready. Instead he blamed the fans and BC's reputation as education first and athletics second. That quote you had by Logan a few days ago shows the difference between the two styles. Jags staff has embraced BC's unwillingness to just go after dumb jocks and wants to use that to our advantage. I mean look at programs like FSU, MIA, VTech, and most of the ACC they go after these super athletes but off the field they aren't super people. Look where its gotten them. BC has the best winning percentage in Basketball and Football since joining the ACC. That has nothing to do with TOB as far as I am concerned. It has to do with BC!!!!!! And if TOB ever got that through his head he would be a hero here and BC would have gone to four BCS bowls in a row, instead of 8 Toilet Bowls in a row. I hope that he gets the "reception he disserves". NOTHING BUT BOOS!!!!!! And in three years when NCSTATE FANS see the same thing we all see here I say I sympathize with you.
GO EAGLES, GO JAGS!!! "WE ARE BC"!!!
well put atl
Great blog and thanks for continuing to make almost daily entries.
I have a similar sentiment as you re: TOB in that I'm not sorry to see him go; however, if I were at the game this Saturday, I would not boo at his introduction. He doesn't deserve that type of treatment given the positive contributions he's made to the program, and booing would appear classless and play into the hands of BC naysayers who simply don't like the school for unfounded reasons. I encourage everyone to applaud TOB's return in a reserved thank you for helping bring us to where we are today. We can then let the team send the message we would have otherwise sent with their play on the field, which may be more inspired than we'll see the remainder of the season.
Glad to see Atl getting a shout out in today's Alumni Connections e-mail.
As far as TOB goes. He criticized BC's fan base on his radio show the week before leaving and has continued to do so while at NC State. Using us as an excuse for not elevating BC football to the next level is absurd. As a coach you need to take responsibility for the team's success, not alienate the very people that fill the stadium every Saturday.
He also left the team with one game left in the season to join a team within our division.
If he get's booed on Saturday, he will deserve it.
Agree with you re TOB. When he left, my fellow BC friends (and I) said good riddance. I never confident that TOB could take the Eagles to a New Year/BCS bowl.
I was most impressed on Sat with BC's composure after the 1st play interception! Best of luck to the team and Jags. I'll be at the game at GA Tech. Vamos Eagles!
Many believe TOB thought of BC as a stepping stone to a bigger job. But in reality I think it will be TOB who was BC's stepping stone to the next level.
5 years from now with no BCS bowl TOB will have a hard time finding an excuse other than the one that stares him in the mirror each morning.
Great post, Bill.
Also - what a nice shoutout to you in the most recent email alumni newsletter!
To boo TOB would send him the message that we are upset with him for leaving. I don't spend too much time thinking about his departure, I probably won't boo.
The urge to boo TOB is overwhelming, but I do think booing him reflects poorly on the school, and that the best way to prove our point about the type of place BC is would be to applaud him, even while despising him and the mediocrity he stands for. Booing him just lends TOB more credibility when he bashes us. None of us have to like him to pay homage to the good things he did for the program.
I'm old enough to remember the end of the Jack Bicknell era and the Dan Henning tenure. Bicknell was a great coach whose time had passed him by. Henning was a horrific coach. TOB came in and returned Boston College to the Top 25. For that I will always be grateful. Sure, he is not the life of the party, but he took an absolutely dismal program, riddled with a gambling scandal, and made them winners.
Many of you overestimate how easy that is to do. In Boston, college football is maybe, maybe the 5th most popular sport in town. Where I come from college football is king and a state with barely more people than the city of Boston fills 2 Alumni Stadiumswith fans. It is extremely difficult to get recruits to play for a little school in the far northeast that is never on national TV and has high academic standards. Yet, TOB was able to do so. In fact, with the exception of Costanzo, those were all TOB players that beat Wake Forest on Saturday. Without TOB, we don't have Jags.
Jags has won one game. You TOB bashers will turn on Jags the minute he loses one or 2 games. Why would you boo the winningest coach in BC history? This guy beat Notre Dame 5 out of the last 6 times! Have some class. Don't be Massholes. No one likes a Masshole. Go to Alumni, show some respect and then cheer for BC to kick NC State back to Raleigh.
Finally, get over it. TOB is gone. Jags is the coach. Why waste one ounce of energy on TOB? I'm happy we have Jags and, although I did not agree with many of TOB's decisions, that is in the past and it's not like we were going to win the National Championship if TOB started Ryan over Porter anyway.
eagleboston, I'm sorry, but I just cannot let some of your comments get by without a rebuttal.
First of all, I agree with you that TOB did a tremendous job the first 4-5 years at BC. He ran a clean, winning program and made all of us proud to be BC football fans. Sure there were disappointing losses, but there were some great wins too. I will also say that TOB was a very good recruiter. Not the best, but very good. For all of that, he deserves credit.
But something happened somewhere around 2002. TOB hit a plateau. And when the disappointing losses started to pile up, he started blaming BC and it's location in the college football universe. As Bill stated, this is not the best way to handle things. Not only that, most of TOBs (and your) reasons for BC staying in that rut can be refuted by the success of Wake Forest: private school with hardly any football tradition or fan support and little to offer in the way of recruiting. Yet Jim Grobe has been able to run a clean and VERY successful program and with recruits that hardly any other top program would want. So I don't buy your argument about how hard it is to be successful at BC. A coach can be (and has been) very successful at BC. But no one said it was easy. Maybe that's what TOB was looking for: a program where it was easy to be successful. Hence, his constant whining about fan support and facilities. This is probably why he had been looking for a job since 2002.
As far as Jags, sure, there will be some dissappointing losses with him as well. But most BC fans gave TOB about 5 years to turn things around. I for one am willing to give Jags at least that much.
Finally, as far as leaving TOB alone, it's hard to do that when TOB has continuously insulted BC fans and players in the press. In no way did he have to say those things. I find it kind of ironic that he chose THAT moment to abandon the usual soft-spoken demeanor and go after BC with both barrels. You know the comments I'm talking about. We can't let him get away with that, so we fight back on the message boards.
I think that "getting back" at TOB for the negative things he said about BC fans, would only lend credence to his unbiased claims. The fans should take the high road here and show everyone we have more class than he does.
See I think if we don't boo that will back up what he is saying. He always thought that our fans weren't passionate enough, that we didn't care. If we give him a standing O that will back all that up. What would Sox fans do? They would boo loud enough to be heard all the way at NCSTATE. Everyone would agree that Sox fans are some of the most passionate fans around. Really I think class has nothing to do with this. Booing is part of being a fan. There is nothing wrong with it. HE SHOULD BE BOOED! THERE SHOULD BE NO ARGUMENT HERE!
Vinsanity, even though you drew a good laugh out of me, I still don't see how BC fans can look good by booing someone that is perceived nationally as doing good for BC. We're the only ones who feel slighted by his comments and no one else in the media (other than atleagle) is even aware that he made them. If we boo, the story that gets printed is that we're a bunch of sore losers with no class.
if we don't boo, then you losers (some of which posted on this very board) who congratulate tob for what he did will be all TOB and anyone else watching this game will hear. this is not the new testament, and i refuse to turn the other cheek. TOB is PoS, and if i could get away with hitting him in the head with a golfball, i'd do it. cry me a river.
sorry for the multiple posts, my first one had too many typos from being so heated while writing it
this post and from what I can tell about this blog is pure nonsense...I assumed when it was published in the alumni connection that there might be some veracity in the postings here but you know what they say about the word assume...
Point #1: Tom O'Brien didnt want to leave BC. He and his family liked it here. The ad wanted to "hire" his own coach. End of story.
Point #2: You gridiron gurus act as if BC is suddenly Texas-East. Try again. One of O'Brien's complaints was about how he and the staff were treated. See USA Today last fall to underscore that he and his his staff were woefully underpaid in comparison to other like accomplished college coaches. I would bet their pay was a direct result of point #1.
Point #3: To deny that O'Brien might have been the best coach in history at BC is pure folly. Given his resources and the stink that he inherited, to end up as the program's all-time winningest coach is nothing short of miraculous. For those that would deny me this point, take a long look at Syracuse (a school with more resources, easier admission, and better history) and regale me with how easy turning around a program and then sustaining that success is.
Point #4: Be careful for what you wish for. Like a new bride Coach Jags has no warts...Now anyway. I think it is interesting that Gene, repeat Gene, hired two former D1 head coaches (Bicknell/Logan) to keep his "guy" in line. But then again maybe I am wrong, Jags was mentioned for just about every other opening last January...
Final point: O'Brien took BC where he could. The school and its adminstrators will not give the resources to the football program to make it anything more than what it is. Good not great. On the cusp of BCS. No more, no less.
For proof dial up the athletic department's #1 booster and endower of the football coaches position: Greg Barber. He knew the special work that Obey did within the full context of the job. He spoke out about it when Obrien left (see Blaudschun/Globe).
And yes, the page has turned. But anybody that boos O'brien is clearly ignorant of the picture then and now!
insideeagle,
I am thankful that the Alumni connections featured me in the newsletter. If you don't approve of their endorsement don't read. I won't lose sleep over it. To your points:
1. TOB didn't want to leave? How come he tried to get the UVA job, the Georgia Tech job and the Washington job in prior years?
2. The info in the USA Today article has been shot down repeatedly. TOB was paid and paid well.
3. Leahy, Coughlin and Yukica might disagree with you there. Mike Holovak had a nearly identical win pct to TOB's. Does he deserve a mention too? Or how about Jack Bicknell who coached the school's only Heisman and actual won a bowl played on New Year's Day.
4. I never said that Jags was perfect or was sure to be a success. Like TOB said, I just think it was time to move on.
No one thinks BC should or can be Texas east. However many fans want that one season where a school that does things the right way gets to a BCS game (like Wake Forest last season). TOB didn't think that could happen here. Best of luck to him.
I wish the whole stadium would greet him with collective silence. It's not worth the effort to boo him.
Tom O'Brien thought he could never win more than 9 games at BC. He never lost fewer than three conference games; and never believed it was possible to do better. That alone made him utterly unqualified to be head coach. Period.
Also, perhaps "insideeagle" will deign to share with us the "institutional limitations" that prevented O'Brien-coached teams from beating Syracuse, UNC, NC State, and Miami over the past three years. I also wonder whether those "limitations" would have disappeared if O'Brien had beaten a 5-5, miserable, Syracuse team at home and earned the $6 million BCS berth.
And Greg Barber was mad not because he so worshiped O'Brien, but because he thought the school was penny-pinching and it made HIM look cheap. As you might be able to tell with the $ BC is spending on Jags, Logan, Spaz, and Bicknell...MONEY WAS NOT THE ISSUE.
Other than that, the view of the O'Brien era from your high horse must have been quite different from my view in the stands.
InsideEagle, I don't think that anyone actually wants to diminish TOB's accomplishments on the field. You're right, he took a program that was in trouble, real trouble, and made it both an athletic and academic success. The bowl streak is impressive in its own way and the volume of BC players in the NFL is further proof of TOB's abilities as a coach.
However, it's hard to argue that he was the best coach, period, in program history. This is a program that does have previous New Year's Day bowl games and even has a National Championship (1940, that's right) on its books. I would argue for Bicknell or Leahy (he of the 1940 title and Notre Dame fame) for the title of best coach. And the fact is that schools like Wake Forest, Stanford, and Northwestern (all inferior football programs will far less historical success--BC has consistently been a winning, though not great, program) have been able to get to New Year's Day bowls since Flutie and Bicknell took the Eagles to the Cotton Bowl.
Really, what makes me dislike TOB is that he has repeatedly and intentionally alienated the Boston College fan-base, even going so far as to blame the fans for the football team's inability to get out of the third-tier bowls. As the saying goes, don't bite the hand that feeds and it is the fans (boosters) who paid TOB's salary and for his success. Was he underpaid? Sure. But that isn't the same as not wanting to leave. He tried to get the jobs at UNC (Davis) and Washington (Willingham), before he bolted. It is clear that he was planning to leave.
If I were at the game this weekend (which, unfortunately, I will not be), I would not boo (he doesn't deserve that), but I certainly would not cheer for him. He said it was MY fault (and yours, EagleInsider) that he couldn't take the Eagles to the next level. That is unforgivable.
I am stunned that the AD gets a pass here and the guy the put the school on back on the discussion table is the villian...
Couple of things to the host and others:
1) Ask Fr Leahy and Gene if the USA Today article wasnt correct or didnt have a factor in O'brien ultimate departure. Those who know both sides know it did. And he clearly was not paid to the level of equally accomplished coaches.
2) I have watched games under Yucika, Chelbek, Bicknell, Coughlin, Henning, and O'Brien. I cant speak to Leahy or Holovak. But O'Brien clearly produced more than the other modern coaches - Bicknell included; his teams went as far as Flutie took them (some would say those squads could have won more) and save one other year his BC tenure was average at best.
3) Like Jerry York is the perfect fit for BC hockey; I believe that Tom O'Brien was the right person for the job. He might not have won as many big ones as he could have (the Syracuse and Wake losses stand out) but he had us in contention.
4) O'Brien did not want to leave; never said he wanted to leave; ever. His relationship with the AD had deteriorated to the point that a move had to be made. Again shoot an email to Blaudschun, Vega or others. They will confirm. This fact is undeniable. The big donors know it, including Barber.
As I concluded my first post, whats done is done. Gene finally got to hire a football coach, has surrounded him with guys he hired, and in ten years we will see if it was the right move. But the criticism of TOB and the talk of booing him is silly.
Sometimes you have to dig a little to get the truth...let me know when you want the real story on Sean Williams...
On Saturday, think about how good this team would be with Ryan Glasper out there.
Then remember that TO'B forced him back from an injury too early, so he could bolster his resume to get the heck out of dodge.
Just remember that, and think about whether that's a man you want running your program, or whether that's a man you want to cheer.
Let me be the first one to boo that clown. TOB=BOOOOOOOOO!!!
TOB deserves to be booed, like Nick Saban deserves to be booed when he returns to LSU. Let's not forget that TOB left BC and went to NCST solely for more money. Further NCST is in the same division, let alone the same conference as BC which adds more salt to the wounds. As for me, I will be the conductor of the chorus of boos on Saturday.
I think flutie22 made some good points. The best thing to do in this situation is to have 45,000 fans in the stands be dead silent when TOB is announced to the crowd. No booing. No cheering. It wouldn't reinforce TOB's assertion that BC fans aren't passionate enough, but rather that they are well informed and did their homework. Then we bury NC State on the field and let the results of the game speak for themselves. I think this is the best way to go ...
I am appreciative of the job that TOB did on the Heights, but agree that he burned more than a few bridges with fans and alumni on his way out. Attending BC from 2000-2004, you could see that he peaked somewhere in 2002-2003, and the regular season ending loss to Syracuse was the game that made the slide complete. I still appreciated the job that TOB did until I read the Globe article on Glasper last year. I lost a LOT of respect for TOB and was happy to see him go after that.
Looking forward to seeing everyone on campus this Saturday. Go Eagles!
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