Leatherneck Nation

I noticed this posting today on the Illinois State Redbirds Fan Message Board:

Posted by STLRedbird

Sat Dec 26, 2015 7:18 am

Sounds like a real shame, what's been happening. I've always liked Western and had good conversations with every one of their fans that have crossed my path. It sounds like this situation has been thoroughly mishandled, in particular by VP for Student Services Gary Biller, who has botched an effort to save the day while acting AD Matt Tanney has been out-of-country on vacation. It sounds like it's gone down like this:

Western HC Nielson interviewed for the job at USD when Glenn retired. Sounds like he left Vermillion without committing, returned to Macomb and met with his team, with several players tweeting that he said he turned them down. Apparently he used the offer to try and get Western to bump up his pay and they balked due to financial constraints on the university, generally, including layoffs. So Nielson ended up taking the Coyote job.

At this point, Biller steps in and tweets that he's gonna have a presser the following day to announce a new head coach. With Tanney out-of-country on vacation, this seems to be fairly normal and pointing toward an internal hire (DC Tyler Yelk). Not the best, but necessary due to financial constraints. Time for the presser the next day comes and goes, without announcement. Apparently Yelk was set to be announced - even to the point of family coming to campus - but the VP that made the offer didn't have his ducks in a row.

Next comes word that a national search committee will be formed within a week. Word starts leaking out from family and friends of the team that (1) equal opportunity folks at the schools may have put a kibosh on the quick promotion from within, and, (2) the assistant coaches are feeling burned/mistreated by the university in the mishandled process. Coaches have been telling players that they're looking elsewhere and that Nielson has offered them all jobs at USD.

Not the best of times in the Leatherneck Nation, unfortunately. I hope they sort this out. Word is that they have over 100 applicants for the HC job.

A nice summation of the sad chain of events. We can only hope that a credible HC candidate has emerged or will emerge this week. This needs to get done.

Bob

Best of luck, 'necks. Apologies for spreading your dirty laundry. Seemed like a story that needed to be told. There but by the grace of God, and all that... I hope you're looking back at this in a few weeks as an unfortunate event that ended up turned out well.

STLRedbird wrote:Best of luck, 'necks. Apologies for spreading your dirty laundry. Seemed like a story that needed to be told. There but by the grace of God, and all that... I hope you're looking back at this in a few weeks as an unfortunate event that ended up turned out well.

It's no problem. The situation is fairly well-known, at least around the hard-core fans of conference members. It's also a fairly honest assessment of the situation without the occasionally-added commentary about things like "why would anyone want to go to Macomb", and other negative opinions.

The heart and soul of leatherneck football never left-- the players. Let's go 'Necks!! Good things are coming and everything happens for a reason.

Neckfanfromafar wrote:The heart and soul of leatherneck football never left-- the players. Let's go 'Necks!! Good things are coming and everything happens for a reason.

Agreed. This should shake out shortly and the new regime can get recruiting. However, Tanney has not been able to show any leadership or qualification to support an official AD title, and his ineptitude may drag this out for a longer period than necessary.

And PLEASE, for the new coach that come in, please ditch Nielson's old game ties. He did always look like a bit of a clown in that garb.

ST_Lawson wrote:It's no problem. The situation is fairly well-known, at least around the hard-core fans of conference members. It's also a fairly honest assessment of the situation without the occasionally-added commentary about things like "why would anyone want to go to Macomb", and other negative opinions.

Thanks, Scott. I'm pretty cautious about posting on another team's board. Joe

Necks2003 wrote:Tanney has not been able to show any leadership or qualification to support an official AD title, and his ineptitude may drag this out for a longer period than necessary.

Yeah, but when your boss is the VP and the VP want to be in charge, thinking he has already solved the problem, what's a guy supposed to do.

Any chance the selection committee gets together today to discuss applicants?

Matt Tanney should be given a chance to rectify the mess left behind from the V.P. Gary Biller press conference debacle of December 14.

This would be a good time for President Thomas and/or the Board of Trustees to change the chain-of-command so that Athletics reports directly to the university president.