The Bobcat Nation

How do we go about starting a serious campaign to get rid of Fields? Would it take a petition, a buyout, or can he just be fired and pay off his remaining contract. Unless Bobcat fans take action, I don't see anything happening. Other than Football our programs are pretty much in shambles.
The BBall games are not even fun to go to let alone have to watch us lose on a continual basis every year.

bobcats35 wrote:How do we go about starting a serious campaign to get rid of Fields? Would it take a petition, a buyout, or can he just be fired and pay off his remaining contract. Unless Bobcat fans take action, I don't see anything happening. Other than Football our programs are pretty much in shambles.
The BBall games are not even fun to go to let alone have to watch us lose on a continual basis every year.

and on the positive side. MSU won the presidents cup 2 years ago and finished 2nd last year.

Hawks86 wrote:

bobcats35 wrote:How do we go about starting a serious campaign to get rid of Fields? Would it take a petition, a buyout, or can he just be fired and pay off his remaining contract. Unless Bobcat fans take action, I don't see anything happening. Other than Football our programs are pretty much in shambles.
The BBall games are not even fun to go to let alone have to watch us lose on a continual basis every year.

and on the positive side. MSU won the presidents cup 2 years ago and finished 2nd last year.

So apparently we are very good at the sports no one cares about?

Speak for yourself. I care about Track just as much or more than basketball. Just seems that Fields gets all the blame for the bad and no credit for the good of MSU athletics.

Ok, but right now, those of us paying for season football tix are footing the bill for the entire athletics budget. If the current trend continues, football tix will be waaaaaay too expensive. Especially if we continue with 7-5 records

Hawks86 wrote:Speak for yourself. I care about Track just as much or more than basketball. Just seems that Fields gets all the blame for the bad and no credit for the good of MSU athletics.

I'm assuming that you may have been a track athlete yourself, but whether you like hearing it or not, most Bobcat fans' interest is limited to football and hoops, and hoops is hanging by a thread right now. I'm about as diehard as any Bobcat fan you'll ever meet, and a huge sports fan in general, but I readily admit that I don't know anything about MSU's track team. Are we normally pretty good in track? Do we usually beat the Griz? Most Bobcat fans would gladly trade 10 President's trophies, for one BSC title in hoops, or one NC in football. That's just the way it is, whether you like it or not. For most of us, PF's legacy isn't going to be defined by how we fared in track, or golf, or even rodeo or volleyball, under his leadership. I don't mean any disrespect to the athletes who compete in those sports, and I'm sure they are just as dedicated and train just as hard, as do the football and basketball players. But as they say, "it is what it is".

Over the past eight years my wife and I have had season tickets to football and women's basketball. We regularly attend volleyball games and men's basketball games. Over those eight years we have had the opportunity to watch 32 home games in those sports between MSU and our rival UM. While I don't have access to a record book I'm pretty sure this statistic is pretty close to being correct: I believe that MSU has defeated UM a total of TWO (2) times in those 32 games against UM in Bozeman. I can certainly understand the difficulty of defeating your rival on THEIR home field/court.

But I would think a 6% winning record at home over the past 8 years against your rival would not be acceptable. It is great to have teams that have high character and good academics. But surely you can achieve this and still OCCASIONALLY win a home game against your rival.

John K wrote:

Hawks86 wrote:

bobcats35 wrote:How do we go about starting a serious campaign to get rid of Fields? Would it take a petition, a buyout, or can he just be fired and pay off his remaining contract. Unless Bobcat fans take action, I don't see anything happening. Other than Football our programs are pretty much in shambles.
The BBall games are not even fun to go to let alone have to watch us lose on a continual basis every year.

and on the positive side. MSU won the presidents cup 2 years ago and finished 2nd last year.

So apparently we are very good at the sports no one cares about?

To be fair, those two President's Cup finishes had a not insignificant amount to do with the Bobcats two football conference titles in those years - not exactly a sport nobody cares about. Track meets are great to watch in person, I had a great time when the Big Sky championships were held in Bozeman a couple years ago. Far more entertaining than any Bobcat men's basketball game I've been to in the past 10 years or so.

I LOVE the idea of running PF out of town I don't see it happening.

It was pretty obvious last night in his halftime interview that that the singular focus at MSU is on student athletes grades and graduation. He successfully pivoted to student athletes when Bruce Parker tried to get him to talk about the Fieldhouse changes and the curtains part of the work. I commend him for the impressive GPA, community service, and stellar graduation rates.

The bottom line is that as far as fans are concerned he hasn't done much. His coaching hire by committee process is designed to deflect his liability and they definitely got Ash right....but without Waded the stadium would not have happened. The recent success of football, of which I think he gets minimal credit, has masked a lot of his deficiencies as an AD.

As someone else posted on another thread, relying on football success as the main revenue driver is a huge risk when we aren't at a point where competing for BSC titles every year is pretty much a sure thing. If football faulters or slips in attendance for any reason, Athletics has no backup sport to focus on like basketball to make up the funds.

It's really depressing to see basketball slide from the 80"s and 90's. There are plenty of schools who have good student athletes and are competitive on the court. If we had a university that demanded both we would get both, but they don't.

I think we're pretty much stuck with Fields and Huse until PF retires. There's a reason he hasn't advanced his career...and I can guess that most presidents look at the entire picture and realize he doesn't get it.

We need a creative and enthusiastic AD who has worked in the private sector in a marketing sport driven company like at Under Armor or Nike. We need to get out of the status quo politician type person in the job. Someone like Kent Haslam over I'm Missoula would be ok too, he appears to be young and aggressive.

It isn't too much to get good grades, graduate, and be competitive. It gets done lots of schools.

BozCatFan wrote:I LOVE the idea of running PF out of town I don't see it happening.

It was pretty obvious last night in his halftime interview that that the singular focus at MSU is on student athletes grades and graduation. He successfully pivoted to student athletes when Bruce Parker tried to get him to talk about the Fieldhouse changes and the curtains part of the work. I commend him for the impressive GPA, community service, and stellar graduation rates.

The bottom line is that as far as fans are concerned he hasn't done much. His coaching hire by committee process is designed to deflect his liability and they definitely got Ash right....but without Waded the stadium would not have happened. The recent success of football, of which I think he gets minimal credit, has masked a lot of his deficiencies as an AD.

As someone else posted on another thread, relying on football success as the main revenue driver is a huge risk when we aren't at a point where competing for BSC titles every year is pretty much a sure thing. If football faulters or slips in attendance for any reason, Athletics has no backup sport to focus on like basketball to make up the funds.

It's really depressing to see basketball slide from the 80"s and 90's. There are plenty of schools who have good student athletes and are competitive on the court. If we had a university that demanded both we would get both, but they don't.

I think we're pretty much stuck with Fields and Huse until PF retires. There's a reason he hasn't advanced his career...and I can guess that most presidents look at the entire picture and realize he doesn't get it.

We need a creative and enthusiastic AD who has worked in the private sector in a marketing sport driven company like at Under Armor or Nike. We need to get out of the status quo politician type person in the job. Someone like Kent Haslam over I'm Missoula would be ok too, he appears to be young and aggressive.

It isn't too much to get good grades, graduate, and be competitive. It gets done lots of schools.

No matter what, football is always going to carry the load. No other sport will ever carry the numbers to make it profitable.

allcat wrote:

BozCatFan wrote:I LOVE the idea of running PF out of town I don't see it happening.

It was pretty obvious last night in his halftime interview that that the singular focus at MSU is on student athletes grades and graduation. He successfully pivoted to student athletes when Bruce Parker tried to get him to talk about the Fieldhouse changes and the curtains part of the work. I commend him for the impressive GPA, community service, and stellar graduation rates.

The bottom line is that as far as fans are concerned he hasn't done much. His coaching hire by committee process is designed to deflect his liability and they definitely got Ash right....but without Waded the stadium would not have happened. The recent success of football, of which I think he gets minimal credit, has masked a lot of his deficiencies as an AD.

As someone else posted on another thread, relying on football success as the main revenue driver is a huge risk when we aren't at a point where competing for BSC titles every year is pretty much a sure thing. If football faulters or slips in attendance for any reason, Athletics has no backup sport to focus on like basketball to make up the funds.

It's really depressing to see basketball slide from the 80"s and 90's. There are plenty of schools who have good student athletes and are competitive on the court. If we had a university that demanded both we would get both, but they don't.

I think we're pretty much stuck with Fields and Huse until PF retires. There's a reason he hasn't advanced his career...and I can guess that most presidents look at the entire picture and realize he doesn't get it.

We need a creative and enthusiastic AD who has worked in the private sector in a marketing sport driven company like at Under Armor or Nike. We need to get out of the status quo politician type person in the job. Someone like Kent Haslam over I'm Missoula would be ok too, he appears to be young and aggressive.

It isn't too much to get good grades, graduate, and be competitive. It gets done lots of schools.

No matter what, football is always going to carry the load. No other sport will ever carry the numbers to make it profitable.

Sure, but wouldn't it be nice if it was closer to 60/40 rather than 90/10?

Where do I sign the petition?