Thanks, Terry!
“both of you (Lee Fowler and Dick Baddour) have been extremely cooperative in helping us in ways that have given ECU Athletics an opportunity to stand on its own”
This whole pissing match between the embarrassment that is Lee Fowler and the AD too-good-for-his-current school (Terry Holland) is too ridiculous for words.
Since our great conversation earlier in the week, the N&O updated the scheduling snafu with a link to an adobe version of the actual letter.
Although the N&O says that “both schools” released the letter we know that is obviously false and are already catching them in lies! There is no way that anyone inside of Lee Fowler’s Athletics Department has enough computer savy to understand how to scan a letter into a PDF file. I can’t fathom that NC State would even spend the money on Adobe software to allow them to convert to PDF. If the letter was hand-written in crayon and stapled to some other sticky notes, THEN we could believe it.
The letter is interesting on many fronts, if for no other reason that we get to see some insight into things that we don’t typically get to see. We think Fowler shows some good and some bad here:
(1) Good for insisting that NC State not play ECU any more than UNC does. It’s about time we find some parity in this situation.
(2) Bad for discussing a 20 year continuation of the series! Good God, I’ll be retired if this thing goes through.
850 The Buzz has some background and perspective in this blog entry but it is Adam Gold’s entry that has more meat in it and picks up on some of all of his:
In a recent interview, Lee Fowler said that East Carolina wanted to “back off†their non-conference schedule and that was the reason for the amended deal. Terry Holland had to be livid at that remark — even though it’s almost certainly the truth — as it really wasn’t Mr. Fowler’s place to give out East Carolina’s motives for the changes. And, as a result it’s hard to blame Mr. Holland for lashing back with his 5-point memo posted on ECU’s web site.
But, sometimes the truth hurts. And Holland doesn’t want to appear to the be the impetus for spacing out these contracts over longer periods of time. But, it would create more schedule flexibility in the short term, and at the same time it would enable him to tell his constituants that those precious deals now extend well past the quarter pole of the 21st century.
2037?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? ARE YOU NUTS? (Sorry for the all caps, I was channeling Mr. Holland for a second)
There is no way on this earth that either Lee Fowler or Dick Baddour would ever agree to that part of the addendum. How about this, let’s just credit Terry for thinking outside the box. 😉
Bottom line. It’s really much ado about nothing, but Mr. Fowler lit the match and Terry Holland fanned the flames and that’s where we are.
Of course we’ve all ignored the impact of what the behavior of the Einstein in the AD’s chair at NC State (sarcasm).
You see…during the week after the Wolfpack was propelled into the national spotlight and are gearing up for a chance to take on another Top 15 team on an ESPN network, what topic BETTER to distract the media from keeping Tom O’Brien and the momentum of NC State’s program than a scheduling battle with ECU?
I mean, if the media were actually talking about Coach Tom O’Brien and NC State then they may not be talking as much about Lee Fowler!! And, can Lee Fowler REALLY accept a situation where he isn’t front and center in the middle of media attention?
