Lee Fowler‘s interest in other Athletics Director jobs have not been a secret since his arrival in Raleigh in September of 2000. In the seven-plus years of Fowler’s tenure, the man that likes to be referred to as “Coach” has expressed interest and interviewed for multiple jobs of all shapes and sizes.
As anyone who loves money and whose ego loves attention to the degree of Fowler, conventional wisdom holds that Fowler covets jobs at “big schools” with high profiles. Unfortunately for Fowler – and for the wonderful fans of NC State’s athletics teams – every single one of Fowler’s overtures with big institutions have been spurned, including public connections with Tennessee in 2003, Georgia in 2003 and his not-so-public interest in Ohio State in 2005. Since those openings almost a half a decade ago, SFN has learned that Fowler has flirted with lesser jobs (including one last year) that have also resulted in “no interest” from the institution(s).
Over the weekend, Duke’s Joe Alleva was selected as the Athletics Director at SEC football power, Louisiana State in another process where Coach Fowler was not considered amongst the finalists.
(sigh)
Since I had the numbers handy, I thought that I would share a comparison between the performance of Alleva’s Athletics Department at Duke and the performance of Fowler’s at NC State in Director’s Cup. There are a lot of interesting items in the tables, not the least of which is how:
* Alleva’s absolute WORST year in ten years (#30) is better than Fowler’s BEST year at NC State in his eight years (#34).
* in this decade, Alleva’s worst finish amongst ACC institutions rankings is better than Fowler’s best ranking.
* Alleva has led Duke to the best finish amongst ACC programs on two different occassions. Fowler has led NC State to a finish in the top half of ACC schools once.
It must be Duke’s fan support and all of those facilities.
