Harris Pastides

[Fried Chicken]

How does this guy get overlooked? Came on as President in 2008 and, of course we had a great run in Football and Baseball. But he didn’t make those hires. He was responsible for hiring away the best coach in our Athletic Department away from us (Tanner) and giving the AD job to a man with absolutely no experience (Tanner).

Just never understood how this guy is so beloved. Of course there is more involved but…am I missing something? Genuinely asking. We blame Tanner for the state of our athletics today, and rightfully so. But this guy has as much claim to burning it all down as anyone in my opinion.

 

[gamecockengineer2011]

Im in total agreement. The most commonly used metric of academic standing is the US News & World Report college rankings, and under his watch we really didnt get much better. The only reason people loved him is because he was highly visible at athletic events.

Caslen was an absolute disaster. I think hiring Amaritis as president was a step in the right direction to improve our academic standing but it may take a little while to recover from his predecessor.

 

[KingWard]

You're second rate at best as a university if you aren't an AAU school. I don't see us ever being one. US News ranks Georgia ahead of us and they aren't even one. They could become one, however. Just weighing in.

 

[Piscis]

You're second rate at best as a university if you aren't an AAU school. I don't see us ever being one. US News ranks Georgia ahead of us and they aren't even one. They could become one, however. Just weighing in.

UGA not being an AAU school is sort of interesting. US News ranks them 46th in universities and 19th in public schools but they aren't AAU. They recently got accreditation for their new medical school and their engineering college, which is about 15 years old now, has been growing. Their business school is top ten. I wonder if the addition of the medical school will push them into AAU membership?

 

[KingWard]

UGA not being an AAU school is sort of interesting. US News ranks them 46th in universities and 19th in public schools but they aren't AAU. They recently got accreditation for their new medical school and their engineering college, which is about 15 years old now, has been growing. Their business school is top ten. I wonder if the addition of the medical school will push them into AAU membership?

My understanding is that the amount of research a school conducts is the major factor that separates those schools.

 

[Piscis]

My understanding is that the amount of research a school conducts is the major factor that separates those schools.

I guess that explains why university presidents are always pushing so hard for research. I'm sure the real bottom line is money.

 

[KingWard]

I guess that explains why university presidents are always pushing so hard for research. I'm sure the real bottom line is money.

I think South Florida recently made the grade.

 

[hillna2]

He was a great man and he's an academic. Sure he only hired Tanner as our AD, but he wasn't hired away. I'm pretty sure he was done either way. I think he had mentioned that at some point throughout the years. He grew the university on other levels, I'm not really sure what you're expecting him to do, the main money that he's interested in is tuition and research dollars. Tuition generates almost a $1 billion/year. He did his job the way he was supposed to do it.

Edited: Also in case you were wondering, that tuition figure is about 5 times the money generated by athletics.

 

[will110]

Pastides was well-known on campus. He was involved with campus life, he interacted with students. He was a fan just like the rest of us. That's why he was beloved.

 

[atl-cock]

He was a great man and he's an academic. Sure he only hired Tanner as our AD, but he wasn't hired away. I'm pretty sure he was done either way. I think he had mentioned that at some point throughout the years. He grew the university on other levels, I'm not really sure what you're expecting him to do, the main money that he's interested in is tuition and research dollars. Tuition generates almost a $1 billion/year. He did his job the way he was supposed to do it.

Edited: Also in case you were wondering, that tuition figure is about 5 times the money generated by athletics.

Tanner was done with the dugout regardless. I thought everyone already understood that

 

[ThinnyJ]

My understanding is that the amount of research a school conducts is the major factor that separates those schools.

When I was a sophomore at Clemson, they started their big push to the "top 20." If you'll remember, they were slimy... They hired people from the US News deal to start the manipulation of numbers to climb rankings. They learned what to do to earn the perception of a great public school...

For instance, if they had 5 history classes, and kept 4 of them at 35 students and the 5th was at 400 students, it was scored better on the student-teacher ratio or whatever... Dump on students, we want rankings...

If you'll remember, there was a whistleblower who called them out on climbing the rankings without doing anything to actually deserve it through any real "change."

The lady that called them out was given the axe in like 2 weeks....

This was right around the time they were voted #1 party school in the nation and we started receiving all these e mails from the President with links to surveys they wanted us to take to immediately change that. It was around 2001-ish if I'm not mistaken.

 

[hillna2]

Tanner was done with the dugout regardless. I thought everyone already understood that

That’s what I was saying.

 

[gamecock stock]

Criticize Pastidis all you want. But people don't realize how much our Board of Trustees gets involved in athletic decisions. I remember going to a funeral. I was standing right next to Pastidis. Next to him was the local university President. This was right about the time that one of our football assistants (can't remember his name) was caught urinating in public. Pastidis told the other university President, "if that was you or me who did that, we'd have been fired the next day". Tanner was the BOT decision. And based on what I have heard, making Beamer our Head Coach was also a BOT decision.

I do believe that the BOT made a great hire of Amiridis as our President. And I believe that Amiridis hire of Donati was a home run hire.

 

[Piscis]

University presidents are convenient punching bags. A large university is a mammoth entity with endless moving parts. The president has to keep all of the pieces running smoothly and make sure the money is there to pay everyone. He also has to be the face of the university and an accomplished fundraiser. Athletics is one part of the huge picture. The university president can't spend an inordinate amount of time micromanaging sports in general, much less a particular sport.

I think Pastides did a good job.

 

[bayrooster]

University presidents are convenient punching bags. A large university is a mammoth entity with endless moving parts. The president has to keep all of the pieces running smoothly and make sure the money is there to pay everyone. He also has to be the face of the university and an accomplished fundraiser. Athletics is one part of the huge picture. The university president can't spend an inordinate amount of time micromanaging sports in general, much less a particular sport.

I think Pastides did a good job.

Now Holderman...

 

[atl-cock]

University presidents are convenient punching bags. A large university is a mammoth entity with endless moving parts. The president has to keep all of the pieces running smoothly and make sure the money is there to pay everyone. He also has to be the face of the university and an accomplished fundraiser. Athletics is one part of the huge picture. The university president can't spend an inordinate amount of time micromanaging sports in general, much less a particular sport.

I think Pastides did a good job.

A university president can't/shouldn't spend an inordinate amount of time micromanaging anything at the school.

 

[atl-cock]

Now Holderman...

Ugh.