Dodds kept score based on the financials rather than program performance. I've seen him give presentations many times and each one of those times he gave us an update on revenues and TV contracts. Every time. It was always easy to see that he took great pride in those numbers. I would go so far as to say he was somewhat smug about them, especially relative to the revenues generated by other programs. By comparison, I have never heard him dwell on our won-loss against Oklahoma. Indeed, I am not sure I have ever heard him discuss that, unless responding to a question. To Dodds, neither the record of the football team nor the basketball team nor the baseball mattered. What mattered was what we got from ESPN for the LHN.
Dodds also let the athletic department become a bloated, nepotistic behemoth that more closely resembled a Soviet Era bureaucracy than a streamlined and efficient business model. We may have had great value in the marketplace due to our size, tradition and popularity but below the surface, we operated more like one of those ridiculously overcrowded trains that cross India with people barely hanging on everywhere.
Lastly, I was never a fan of his "WE ARE THE JONESES!" image branding of my school. While it may be true, I nonetheless do not believe this is the type of thing you state to the media and/or rub in the faces of the other schools we both do regular business with and face regularly on the various fields of competition. It is bulletin board material for our opponents who do not need any more incentive. It's simply not smart. Furthermore, that type of messaging from the top, stereotypes the entire culture of UT as greedy, arrogant and insensitive. I just do not see that it has ever helped us. If you must say it, then say it in private. But don't say it as the representative of all of us. I have no doubt that this attitude played at least some part in the manner in which one-time fellow conference members tripped over each other to get away from us and into another conference. With the exception of OU, all of them that could get away from us without losing standing and revenues did so.
I hope that Steve Patterson is smarter than this. I like his pedigree. He has the reputation of someone not afraid to make quick and decisive changes. However, it certainly did not look like he was going to live up to that reputation based over the last several days. Part of me wanted to cut him some slack for the situation he stepped into. But he knew what he was in for. If he did not, then it is his own fault. I am also troubled by this idea that he put out that it was all up to his employee, Mack Brown, to decide whether Mack Brown would continue as the coach. This is not how employment contracts work. No doubt Steve wanted to show deference to Mack the icon. But there are plenty of other and better ways to show deference. It doesn't ever have to go so far as letting the employee decide whether the employee continues his employment. That is your job.
Perhaps behind the public statements, the reality was something different. I hope so. Because, if what he said publicly was true then Mack Brown could just as easily be coaching the team through 2014, and beyond. If Mack brown told Patterson he was going to coach through the end of his contract in 2020, then there was apparently nothing Patterson could do about it. It sounds ridiculous but Patterson claims it was all up to Mack. Upon taking control Patterson immediately ceded control. It makes no sense. It is concerning to me.
I will hope for the best but admit I am already skeptical.
I did not intend to write that much when I started. Sorry.
