Jimmy Cheek was undoubtedly the worst administrator in UT's history

#1
H

HotVol

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#1
Bad University presidents hire bad Chancellors who hire bad AD's who hire bad coaches. Jimmy Cheek was the worst administrator in UT history. His bad hires cost us millions of dollars in coaching severance packages, loss of championships, & lost donor & ticket & concessions revenue in football, basketball, baseball, & other sports.

Cheek chafed as an academician in agriculture, if that's not an oxymoron, when Spurrier came to Florida. Their president, Lombardi, who went on to be LSU's president, after doubling UF's student population under his leadership, promoted Spurrier's success in football in recruiting students, alumni, donors, state appropriations for new buildings & professors, etc. Cheek was insanely jealous of all that & vowed to suppress athletics & make it subservient when was unwisely hired as UTK Chancellor. His administration was an abject disaster.

Not only did he fire Pearl, he also hired Martin & Tyndall & many other bad coaches in basketball, Dooley & Jones in football, & tried to hire many other bad ones. He also tried to extend Hart's contract as AD before DiPietro intervened. Cheek was an abject failure that needs to have his center court seats in basketball taken away. He's cost us way too much. His goals were all wrong & never got accomplished anyway.
 
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#3
#3
TNRazor said:
Yeah, it seemed like "booger" ruined everything he touched. There used to be a YouTube video of him earning his nickname. It was hilarious
Click to expand...
Ah, you're referring to the infamous
"Boogergate" incident.

giphy.gif
 
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#9
#9
Doug Matthews taking today on a subject I've heard before, not so much pinpointing the demise of the Fulmer era but identifying what made Saban succeed, which was pushing the envelope on the 10-coach limit by bringing in analyst coaches. A lot of Vols problems stemmed from resistance to change, not wanting to abandon a system that had produced success and assuming the SEC front office and NCAA would put the hammer down on innovation that skirted the rules. Maybe Cheek didn't help things but a lot of the started before he became chancellor.
 
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#11
#11
We should be a coaching rehab destination as well.

We seem to be resistant to the analyst coaching model. There are plenty of knowledgeable guys out there, and there is no real reason to keep it cheap like Bama does with their buyout bargain bin coaching rehab plan. We should beef up our analyst teams.
 
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#12
#12
VolunteerHillbilly said:
Doug Matthews taking today on a subject I've heard before, not so much pinpointing the demise of the Fulmer era but identifying what made Saban succeed, which was pushing the envelope on the 10-coach limit by bringing in analyst coaches. A lot of Vols problems stemmed from resistance to change, not wanting to abandon a system that had produced success and assuming the SEC front office and NCAA would put the hammer down on innovation that skirted the rules. Maybe Cheek didn't help things but a lot of the started before he became chancellor.
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Oh, so Alabama being corrupt? Imagine that
 
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#13
#13
December is a month of reflecting, rejoicing, and forgiveness,,,,,except when it comes to that scumbag!
 
#14
#14
VolunteerHillbilly said:
Doug Matthews taking today on a subject I've heard before, not so much pinpointing the demise of the Fulmer era but identifying what made Saban succeed, which was pushing the envelope on the 10-coach limit by bringing in analyst coaches. A lot of Vols problems stemmed from resistance to change, not wanting to abandon a system that had produced success and assuming the SEC front office and NCAA would put the hammer down on innovation that skirted the rules. Maybe Cheek didn't help things but a lot of the started before he became chancellor.
Click to expand...
Cheek had a vision of making Tennessee a top 25 research university and that was all he cared about. The University is the land grant university for Tennessee whose original mission is to improve education & quality of life for citizens of the state. Under Cheek, admission requirements were raised so high many outstanding in-state students chose other schools (many other SEC rivals) due to these and/or lack of scholarships. The decline had begun long before him but he was equally inept.
 
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#15
#15
wmcovol said:
Cheek had a vision of making Tennessee a top 25 research university and that was all he cared about. The University is the land grant university for Tennessee whose original mission is to improve education & quality of life for citizens of the state. Under Cheek, admission requirements were raised so high many outstanding in-state students chose other schools (many other SEC rivals) due to these and/or lack of scholarships. The decline had begun long before him but he was equally inept.
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Cheek's vision was to ruin athletics. Stokely was torn down under his watch & replaced with a parking garage. We have no Hall of Fame building to speak of for fans to visit like Bama has with the Paul Bryant Museum. We also still have no indoor track practice facility now that Stokely is gone. I know it had asbestos issues, but those could have been abated & it could have been renovated & made into an historic place visited daily. It had a very convenient Vol Shop, too, & offices for ROTC.

As for Cheek's academic visions, not one extra private dollar was ever donated to research on his watch. All of the increase in research funds came from huge Obama federal appropriations that other schools received too.

Cheek's limiting of enrollment tried to turn our land grant flagship campus into an elitist school. Kids with 4.0 gpa's in Tennessee high schools were routinely being denied admission. Boyd has wisely reversed all that & we have finally achieved record student population numbers, exceeding those in the 1970's for the first time ever this fall. More students mean more alumni & more donors & more state appropriations coming to our Knoxville campus, instead of our competitors, ETSU, MTSU, Memphis, TTU, UTC, etc. A whole generation of kids missed out on the Big Orange Experience & are lost forever as UTK donors as a result of Cheek's myopic ineptness.

For some time, he was given a golden parachute in which we continued to pay him a half million of our taxpayer dollars annually to teach one course annually in educational leadership. His course should have been entitled "How Not To Lead A University!" At least DiPietro had the couth to go away quietly. Cheek was his boss at Fla, by the way, in case, you forgot. Cheek is an Aggie who needs to get lost. We don't need him hanging around Knoxville in his cushy center court basketball seats eating free food at the former Ray Mears Room every game in basketball & still sitting in a box in football, either. He is a disgrace to our campus & a blight on our history. Tenure is bad.
 
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#16
#16
HotVol said:
Bad University presidents hire bad Chancellors who hire bad AD's who hire bad coaches. Jimmy Cheek was the worst administrator in UT history. His bad hires cost us millions of dollars in coaching severance packages, loss of championships, & lost donor & ticket & concessions revenue in football, basketball, baseball, & other sports.

Cheek chafed as an academician in agriculture, if that's not an oxymoron, when Spurrier came to Florida. Their president, Lombardi, who went on to be LSU's president, after doubling UF's student population under his leadership, promoted Spurrier's success in football in recruiting students, alumni, donors, state appropriations for new buildings & professors, etc. Cheek was insanely jealous of all that & vowed to suppress athletics & make it subservient when was unwisely hired as UTK Chancellor. His administration was an abject disaster.

Not only did he fire Pearl, he also hired Martin & Tyndall & many other bad coaches in basketball, Dooley & Jones in football, & tried to hire many other bad ones. He also tried to extend Hart's contract as AD before DiPietro intervened. Cheek was an abject failure that needs to have his center court seats in basketball taken away. He's cost us way too much. His goals were all wrong & never got accomplished anyway.
Click to expand...

e3dc9bb77a430caa76030e7d35ff7798.jpg
 
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#18
#18
wmcovol said:
Cheek had a vision of making Tennessee a top 25 research university and that was all he cared about. The University is the land grant university for Tennessee whose original mission is to improve education & quality of life for citizens of the state. Under Cheek, admission requirements were raised so high many outstanding in-state students chose other schools (many other SEC rivals) due to these and/or lack of scholarships. The decline had begun long before him but he was equally inept.
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Great post!

Gilley was a mess from the get-go but it was Shumaker that began the change for UT to increase standards for incoming freshman in order to make is more competitive with the Ivy League schools. The reason for this was to be eligible for different types and amounts of grants and (sponsorships). Peterson is the one that split up each of the campuses to specialize. He also had the worst ego of all!
 
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#19
#19
Need to celebrate Randy Boyd and the world class team at UT now. Reading this thread is a reminder of the self-inflicted stupidity the university endured. Leading SEC football in attendance and third nationally shows the current and potential juggernaut the Vols can be.
 
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#20
#20
And in other news… rain is wet.

Just kidding, in all seriousness I doubt you’ll find anyone who disagrees with you… Cheek is an idiot.
 
#21
#21
He was terrible, but to think his agenda was at all focused on tanking athletics is laughable.

He wanted to elevate the university’s academic standing and some decisions made in doing that may have hurt athletics, which frankly is his job. We’re 6th in the SEC, which isn’t exactly a conference known for academic prowess.

Athletics can help academic rankings, but that’s a level of strategy that cheek couldn’t handle.
 
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#23
#23
The streak after Dr Johnson retired was just bad. Wade gilley diddled his secretary, shumaker misappropriated funds, Joe had to come back and was fine, then peterson came in and his wife tried to start fistfights with alumni.

Then in the infinite wisdom they added the office of chancellors and moved the president to the whole system, adding an extra layer of administrator so everyone can say its "not my fault".

It's a land grant school, always will be. Joe Johnson was the last one that understood that and could control it.
 
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#24
#24
HotVol said:
Bad University presidents hire bad Chancellors who hire bad AD's who hire bad coaches. Jimmy Cheek was the worst administrator in UT history. His bad hires cost us millions of dollars in coaching severance packages, loss of championships, & lost donor & ticket & concessions revenue in football, basketball, baseball, & other sports.

Cheek chafed as an academician in agriculture, if that's not an oxymoron, when Spurrier came to Florida. Their president, Lombardi, who went on to be LSU's president, after doubling UF's student population under his leadership, promoted Spurrier's success in football in recruiting students, alumni, donors, state appropriations for new buildings & professors, etc. Cheek was insanely jealous of all that & vowed to suppress athletics & make it subservient when was unwisely hired as UTK Chancellor. His administration was an abject disaster.

Not only did he fire Pearl, he also hired Martin & Tyndall & many other bad coaches in basketball, Dooley & Jones in football, & tried to hire many other bad ones. He also tried to extend Hart's contract as AD before DiPietro intervened. Cheek was an abject failure that needs to have his center court seats in basketball taken away. He's cost us way too much. His goals were all wrong & never got accomplished anyway.
Click to expand...

Di Pietro was a Florida alum and Cheek was a graduate of Texas A&M.
 
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