Tuesday we ran a damning numbers-centric entry regarding Lee Fowler’s Athletics Department. Today, we thought we would just throw out a few interesting items and insight that evolve more from recent off-the-field developments.
“The Mind of Lee Fowler”
One of SFN’s all-time greatest entries was written over four years ago by Michael Byrne. The essay – The Mind of Lee Fowler – was written in the heart of the Sendek years and does an amazing job of outlining a lot of the key points at the time, including Fowler’s multiple attacks and disparaging remarks on/about the NC State fanbase.
Sidenote: How did that strategy work out for Fooler when the basketball job opened and he needed to market the job? Mr. Simpleton has never never been able to look forward and understand the future consequences of his actions, comments and behaviors. Did it ever register with him or his bosses that Tom O’Brien pursued NC State’s football coaching job publicly and privately citing the strong support and great fanbase that Fowler has disparaged for years? Has anyone ever noticed that Coach O’Brien has never once highlighted NC State’s strong leadership as one of his factors for coming to the school?
You really HAVE to go back and read that entry. Byrne’s essay moves from table-setting to a valiant attempt to explain how past events in Fowler’s career have married with his egotistical personality to develop his administrative ‘philosophies’.
Lack of respect for NC State
Last month, a poster named packdiver05 shared the following story on Pack Pride’s premium boards that we could not ignore. It will make you sick when you read this, but the exchange re-inforces Fowler’s innate disrespect for the institution that he leads. I unfortunately have more perspective on this than I have time to type.
I know the nonrevenue sports don’t mean a lot to many people but to all the kids at this school that are working there butts off just as hard as these revenue athletes on much smaller or NO scholarships, and the alumni that gave four years to the university devoted to a sport they loved, it means a whole lot. I figured this story might help some of you get into the mind of our great Lee Fowler…
As a nonrevenue athlete at State completely under his tenure, for a sport that DOMINATED the ACC and national rankings for a very long time, I got to see how little he cared about our success first hand.
At a team meeting my senior year, we had the privilege of being berated by Lee Fowler for some of our teammates’ trying to get our coach replaced, at this time in his career it was OBVIOUS that he was not taking this program back to its glory days of the seventies and eighties.
At this meeting Lee Fowler stated that his goal for all nonrevenue sports was to be competing for a top 3 finish in the ACC standings, and to annually place in the top half of the conference standings. Looking back now, this would be a great goal for most of our athletics teams, because we are not even there, let alone challenging to win these championships. This to me is an unacceptable goal at UNC, at Duke, and throughout the ACC.
At this same meeting Mr. Fowler said one last thing that will forever sting me in the back of my head, and convinced me that this man is the largest problem/obstacle for the NC State athletics program. He asked our whole team, “Who here received scholarship offers to compete in the SEC?”
To me, the nerve of that question, to belittle us athletes that had devoted four years to this great university, by suggesting that most of us were not even good enough to compete in the SEC, that we should be happy that we were receiving scholarships anywhere, let alone here was degrading. And this man is supposed to be our universities greatest supporter.
Winning in Waco
Since we were talking women’s basketball, why not take a quick look at the following quote from Kim Mulkey:
“Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t win at the highest level at Baylor University,” Mulkey said. “It’s been proven, and there’s no reason it can’t be done. It takes the right administration, the right resources and the right coaches.“
Is it any wonder that NC State no longer competes at the highest level in college athletics since we only have one of the those three elements.
If any of you reading this have ever set foot in Waco, TX (particularly in the months of May-September) the idea that winning at the “highest level at Baylor University” is one hard damn thing to do.
While we are discussing Baylor, can I just say Scott Drew to get it on the record now? This guy is going places.
