Barta either way...

B

Bigtenchamp

Well-Known Member
I'm with him on this meyer mud wrestling event...

However Barta is just such a putz... I know of at least 4 coaches that he fired because the parents were pressuring him. What is this 2nd grade? Also Ferentz wags the dog..

I'm not saying I could do his job better.. but he just appears to me to be such a weak leader.
 
Is the athletic dept successful? Yes
Is the athletic dept making more money than ever? Yes
Are the athletic facilities on par with the best in the country? Yes
Are things moving in the right direction on our major sports? Yes

I'd say he's doing ok...after all, he is technically the leader of the above efforts.
 
WinOneThisCentury said:
Is the athletic dept successful? Yes
Is the athletic dept making more money than ever? Yes
Are the athletic facilities on par with the best in the country? Yes
Are things moving in the right direction on our major sports? Yes

I'd say he's doing ok...after all, he is technically the leader of the above efforts.
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Your 4th line item isn't as clear as you make it sound... come to think of it, your 3rd line item isn't exactly accurate using "best in the country" IMO.
All that said, I think the OP's point was that he's a putz, which I definitely agree with. Jane Meyer appears to be a lil witchy. Not sure yet about her wifey.
 
I'm not sure how you disagree with either of the last two. Our football facility is on par with any in the country. CHA is being renovated to bring it up to par, right? We are a year removed from an undefeated regular season in Football, never been done in the modern era, and our basketball team is young and talented...actually our football team has some great young talent too. I don't follow the women's sports teams but we apparently demand alot of them.
 
Most importantly he's pretty much guaranteed that a Ferentz will be the head football coach through the 2060 season. Our offense at that time will consist of 5 OL, 5 TEs and a QB who can play TE if you need him to.

(For those unfamiliar with our current roster, we have 12 TEs on scholarship and 4 WR...one of these is hurt and another can't find the classroom).
 
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WinOneThisCentury said:
I'm not sure how you disagree with either of the last two. Our football facility is on par with any in the country. CHA is being renovated to bring it up to par, right? We are a year removed from an undefeated regular season in Football, never been done in the modern era, and our basketball team is young and talented...actually our football team has some great young talent too. I don't follow the women's sports teams but we apparently demand alot of them.
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Iowa is still dead last in the BIG conference in Learfield Director's Cup, at the end of 2016. The Director's Cup awards points in Men's and Women's sports based on order of finish in Conference standings.
As long as we keep scheduling cream puffs in the OOC to make our records look better, it doesn't matter that we don't win BIG titles in almost any sport.
And Barta is a lying POS to boot.
 
ugh... well yeah Mcaffery has some promise... Ferentz is still decent but on the downhill.

I'm not sure what Barta has done that's so great... but that wasn't really my point anyway.

My point is he is just a poser, a puppet, not powerful.. seems like a nice guy.. but not exactly dynamic.
 
WinOneThisCentury said:
I'm not sure how you disagree with either of the last two. Our football facility is on par with any in the country. CHA is being renovated to bring it up to par, right? We are a year removed from an undefeated regular season in Football, never been done in the modern era, and our basketball team is young and talented...actually our football team has some great young talent too. I don't follow the women's sports teams but we apparently demand alot of them.
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The last bolded line seems the only vulnerability for Barta and the University on these lawsuits which I think will come into play more in the Griesbaum suit. In 2017 neither of these women have a leg to stand on as far as the discrimination claims but the issue of double standards may have some play and come back to bite Iowa. Barta hasn't led particularly well on that front IMO. Putting a woman in the deputy position who he can work with and doesn't have an agenda on the social issues seems the way to move forward and he probably should have done it when he had to move Meyer out of the department even though I think Gene Taylor served us well and timed his departure well which we may have helped him coordinate.

In the spirit of the original post hard not to stand with Barta on this but his leadership outside of fund raising can seem ham handed. If they documented things properly on the firing and win both these suits he will have done a good job covering their tracks on the legalities and come out of this looking better than many of us give him credit for.
 
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Barta is doing alright but nothing to write home about. Iowa is making a lot of money but that comes down to 2 things: fans who pay incredible amounts to support Iowa's football team that supports the entire athletic department & BTN

Barta has huge issues with his football stadium & his basketball venue. Will he address them? Or continue to bury his head in the sand?
 
Xerxes said:
Barta is doing alright but nothing to write home about. Iowa is making a lot of money but that comes down to 2 things: fans who pay incredible amounts to support Iowa's football team that supports the entire athletic department & BTN

Barta has huge issues with his football stadium & his basketball venue. Will he address them? Or continue to bury his head in the sand?
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What are the huge issues with the football stadium?
 
The big one is bench seats and it's a big problem. People don't want the person ahead of them in their lap & the knees of the person behind them in their back. It's just not a comfortable game experience especially with huge HD tvs people can stay home. Every year I hear more & more people talk about this.

It's a little forward thinking because it probably won't be a problem in 5 years or maybe even 10 but at some point Iowa & a lot of other schools are going to have to address this.

Look at Minnesota. Less than 10 years ago the spent less than 300 million to build a stadium. Since then Iowa has done or will do 2 separate renovations, both at about 90 million and Minnesota will still have a better fan experience than Kinnick.

Every NFL team has renovated or built new because they see it happening. And of course they want to charge more & make more money too. They're building bars in the concourses, open areas to watch the game while standing, fantasy football centers so guys can keep up with that, etc. they're adjusting to the fan. I just don't see Iowa doing a good job of that right now for the long term.
 
Xerxes said:
The big one is bench seats and it's a big problem. People don't want the person ahead of them in their lap & the knees of the person behind them in their back. It's just not a comfortable game experience especially with huge HD tvs people can stay home. Every year I hear more & more people talk about this.

It's a little forward thinking because it probably won't be a problem in 5 years or maybe even 10 but at some point Iowa & a lot of other schools are going to have to address this.

Look at Minnesota. Less than 10 years ago the spent less than 300 million to build a stadium. Since then Iowa has done or will do 2 separate renovations, both at about 90 million and Minnesota will still have a better fan experience than Kinnick.

Every NFL team has renovated or built new because they see it happening. And of course they want to charge more & make more money too. They're building bars in the concourses, open areas to watch the game while standing, fantasy football centers so guys can keep up with that, etc. they're adjusting to the fan. I just don't see Iowa doing a good job of that right now for the long term.
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Barta I think just has to put all the crap that led to these lawsuits in the past and move forward to build Iowa athletics into a big tent that serves everybody involved the athletes, students, fans and the donors. We will likely have Kinnick for a long time especially if tv revenues decline in the future with all the cord cutting and switching to streaming. The stadium represents our brand in that it has a traditional old school flavor with modern touches that we add over time to it.

Carver seems like the bigger issue in terms of venues. Attaching the practice facility to it means we will likely have to live with it for awhile but we could make it so much better. Barta needs to lead here getting the students more involved, solving the student transportation problems and changing the price structure to make the games more accessible to families and the average fan. It all seems doable and let's see what he's made of going forward once we clear the air from these suits.
 
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Xerxes said:
The big one is bench seats and it's a big problem. People don't want the person ahead of them in their lap & the knees of the person behind them in their back. It's just not a comfortable game experience especially with huge HD tvs people can stay home. Every year I hear more & more people talk about this.

It's a little forward thinking because it probably won't be a problem in 5 years or maybe even 10 but at some point Iowa & a lot of other schools are going to have to address this.

Look at Minnesota. Less than 10 years ago the spent less than 300 million to build a stadium. Since then Iowa has done or will do 2 separate renovations, both at about 90 million and Minnesota will still have a better fan experience than Kinnick.

Every NFL team has renovated or built new because they see it happening. And of course they want to charge more & make more money too. They're building bars in the concourses, open areas to watch the game while standing, fantasy football centers so guys can keep up with that, etc. they're adjusting to the fan. I just don't see Iowa doing a good job of that right now for the long term.
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Eh, don't compare Iowa to MN...The Goofs draw shatty crowds to a nice stadium to see a shatty product year after year. Can you pick a real team for comparison?
 
Xerxes said:
The big one is bench seats and it's a big problem. People don't want the person ahead of them in their lap & the knees of the person behind them in their back.
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Have to slightly agree to disagree. Ever sit in the non-VIP seats @ CHA? Talk about awful. Hard plastic, narrow, cheap, very uncomfortable, non-existent leg room.

I sat on benches in the old Fieldhouse and, yes, while crowded, it was more comfortable for sure.

*If* they put in seats in Kinnick, they need to look at the ones in CHA, then immediately look at the other end of the fan-experience spectrum. Plus you can always buy the temp seats @ Kinnick to avoid space encroachment.
 
lightning1 said:
Iowa is still dead last in the BIG conference in Learfield Director's Cup, at the end of 2016. The Director's Cup awards points in Men's and Women's sports based on order of finish in Conference standings.
As long as we keep scheduling cream puffs in the OOC to make our records look better, it doesn't matter that we don't win BIG titles in almost any sport.
And Barta is a lying POS to boot.
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And you really believe football, basketball, baseball and wrestling are not on an upswing now? Look what Fran has coming in the next year or two and look what Brands has coming in. Football at least has a youth movement going and different view points coming in. As far as gymnastics or golf or soccer or tennis, I have no clue about those sports and how they are.
 
He is such a terrible negotiator and overall manager. He had all the leverage with an aged KF an still gave KF the best buyout in all sports. Now, he cannot negotiate a deal to keep this mess out of the news-just horrible PR for Hawkeye athletics in general, and it might drag into football season, so get ready for national sports commentators to rehash it for their benefit - and to the detriment of Iowa.
 
westender said:
And you really believe football, basketball, baseball and wrestling are not on an upswing now? Look what Fran has coming in the next year or two and look what Brands has coming in. Football at least has a youth movement going and different view points coming in. As far as gymnastics or golf or soccer or tennis, I have no clue about those sports and how they are.
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Last conference title in Football was 2004. Basketball was 1982. Baseball was 1990. Wrestling is the only conference title of the 4 you named. And you cannot credit Barta for that.
 
There is almost nothing easier than looking at a person who has major decisions to make, nearly on a daily basis, who has been doing so for a long time and therefore has a track record, and then bashing that individual. If anyone on this board has a legitimate insight into what its like to walk in those shoes, let me know. I will happily listen to your criticism of Barta.
 
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