Hart Speaks

#1
rexvol

rexvol

The Minister of Defense
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Apr 29, 2006
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#1
"We have the smallest outdoor football footprint that I've seen, with the possible exception of Duke. We need more outdoor fields. We need to partner with the University, in my opinion, to consider to have meaningful conversation about our residence hall. Now we don't know. The University has a lot of needs. Obviously we have needs for new residence halls at our university. Significant needs."
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Was totally shocked by this statement. I know that Gibbs is dated and we need a new dorm for those guys, but the outdoor field issue surprised me.

"We have not built and new residence hall on the campus of the University of Tennessee for 40 years. You need a minute to absorb that. Forty. We're building one now, one is under construction."
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Anyone come across an artist rendering of the new dorm? Also, how did Hammy let this go on?

"But not before we upgrade the men's and women's basketball locker rooms. You know it was amazing to me that when I first went into our ladies' basketball locker room, for Pat to have won eight national titles. If I took you all on a trip around the Southeastern Conference, and into the other locker rooms, you'd be shocked. You'd be shocked. So we're going to upgrade those."
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Hamilton should be ashamed. Where was the money going?

"The perception and the reality, there was a huge divide between our financial position and our real position and the perceived position. The perceived position was that we were plus with money. And the real position was that that was not the case.

"Now I'm not concerned about that long term, because we do have a strategy. It'll take us where we want to go. But to give you that example, which again has been made public in nature, our reserve was under $2 million. Now for a Southeastern Conference athletics department, that's unheard of. Because we compete against people that have financial reserves athletically of $50 to over $100 million."

Everyone needs to donate to the Tennessee Fund, if only $10.
Tennessee Fund | Support University of Tennessee Athletics

"One of the things the Chancellor has done, two things he's done, he took revenues, athletic revenues that we've been transferring as a gift, a portion of a larger donation back to the university. But the gift portion, he returned three years of that gift portion to us so we could stabilize. And then he has committed to allow us to keep in the athletic revenue, all of the new money, once we've renegotiated our television contract through the Southeastern Conference. So that will enable us to have a firm footing financially to move forward. But that was, as I told Doug, probably the biggest surprise. The specific thing you're mentioning, of course we're legally bound and contractually bound to pay those buyouts, but it was a big number, you're correct. Both in the number of people and the financial number was pretty significant in nature."
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I think the academics are starting to "get it".
 
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#2
#2
Yes, the dorms are pretty out dated, but compared to dorms of my friends that i have seen they are all completely fine, and fairly large. They are in fact building a new residence hall next to Presidential Court, near the HPER building and Track, i believe that will be apartments not dorms (sort of like Vol Hall) but i may be wrong, dont quote me on that. As far as the locker rooms, i did not know they were that out of date. I have seen our football locker room though, i guess thats where all that money is going haha, it is so nice. Im happy to see Dave communicating though.
 
#4
#4
Peyton was donating 1million to the football locker room so the money wasnt needed there. Who knows where the money was going, maybe it was paying off the 40 coaches we still have to pay off from previous years!! haha
 
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#5
#5
I wish I was shocked by these statements, but in all honesty I figured there was a strong chance that funds were being misappropriated under Mike Hamilton. Hamilton's background was simply the raising of funds, not the allocation of those funds. I have several family members who know and have a decent relationship with Mike, stemming back to his time with Clemson University before his Tennessee tenure. Even they will admit that he is a fundraiser, first and foremost. He isn't, however, an athletics guy or one to understand how to utilize those funds. With the hiring of Hart, Tennessee finally brought in a true athletic director, and Jimmy Cheek understands what it takes in order to ensure both athletic and academic success. I have faith that they will work well as a team in bringing Tennessee back to the heights of days gone by.
 
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#7
#7
This should have been addressed under hammy. They should have bull dozed the baseball field and moved them to a new location, and then expanded green space for football. Instead they poured millions into a baseball stadium in a terrible location.
 
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#10
#10
Hoss Diesel said:
I'm loaded and won't be donating a dime until I see something worth donating too.
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This........ . N if u read that hart never really talks about winning championships just excellence... Wtf does that mean?

He wants to bargain shop then he needs to learn to live on a small budget until he performs.
 
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#11
#11
Damn. The millions of dollars that were poured into shrinking our football stadium could have been put to much better use it appears. Imagine that.
 
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#12
#12
I was shocked when I heard how little surplus money we had. For many years, we always seemed to have a ton of money. I'm sure the new practice complex depleted a lot of it, but still concerned about our financial situation.
 
#13
#13
Roustabout said:
This should have been addressed under hammy. They should have bull dozed the baseball field and moved them to a new location, and then expanded green space for football. Instead they poured millions into a baseball stadium in a terrible location.
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Agreed.
 
#16
#16
rexvol said:
Anyone come across an artist rendering of the new dorm? Also, how did Hammy let this go on?
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you're asking how Hamilton didn't get any dorms built on campus for 40 years?

Hoss Diesel said:
I'm loaded and won't be donating a dime until I see something worth donating too.
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little early to be drinking but to each their own
 
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#18
#18
Hart makes statements, a bunch of you jump in and believe what he says. You immediately assume it is true and blame Hamilton - when every capital expenditure every made on that campus goes through a development plan, vetting and subsequently has to be signed off on by the BOT, Chancellor and System President.

Funny that Vandy can beat us, yet, they have as crappy of facilities as there is. Hart acts like a bammer con artist -deflecting focus away from reality.

You write the checks for Hart. The rest of us will laugh.
 
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#19
#19
utvolpj said:
you're asking how Hamilton didn't get any dorms built on campus for 40 years?
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I think it's fair to ask why Hamilton overlooked the need for new dorms while spending millions to upgrade TBA (an incredible improvement) and more millions to renovate half the concourses at Neyland and take out somewhere between 5k and 10k seats.
 
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#20
#20
I fear as time goes on, we'll all learn of many more shortcomings concerning Hamilton's leadership abilities or lack thereof. Dooley too, probably. These things always come out.

However, I agree with one comment from an earlier post. Hamilton couldn't just spend this money by himself. How could the university leadership approve this reckless spending of millions of $$$. Did no one ever question Hammy as to the wisdom of these expenditures? I think the concern surrounding the university leadership that was continually mentioned during the hiring process was well founded.
 
#22
#22
Escape Goat said:
That still pisses me off. Everyone else was adding capacity, while we subtracted.
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Baffles me how anyone in the unniversity thought the athletic program would survive by subtracting revenue out. Failed coaching was not the only thing failing the football program. I am right there with you goat!

Glad to see Hart recognizing and correcting.
 
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#23
#23
A couple of weeks before signing day is an excellent time for our AD to issue a statement about our lack of facilities. Smart move.
 
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