(and in compliance with the silly belief that I should not blog about opinions unless I state my affiliations - be it known I am a Bradley fan and supporter and have given a lot of money to the program. And I have given more during the Joanne Glasser & Michael Cross era than in all other years put together - But whether I had given none or a million bucks, that would not have swayed my opinions.)
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150316/SPORTS/150319345
He looks back on the five years of his tenure at Bradley and says a few things that were - and still are simply stupefying. The guy must live in an alternate universe.
"Cross:
"I walk out with a significant sense of accomplishment and appreciation for the opportunity to look back over the course of five years. There are numerous things we’ve done to change the culture of the department. We used to basically be a department that was the men’s basketball program and 13 other teams because we wanted to have a men’s basketball team in Division I. At this point, we’re at 15 teams that all buy into the mission of a distinctive education with a championship experience. Everyone does their best every day to try to live by the five core values of accountability, courage, diligence, integrity and respect."
You couple that with all the different things we’ve done, whether it be the opening of the Renaissance Coliseum, our best (Missouri Valley Conference) all-sports performance last year, the branding changes we’ve made, the establishment of a mascot. There are things we’ve put into place here that honestly will be here for generations to come. Our partnership with Learfield has resulted in record corporate sales. There have been a lot of positives here."
JS: Any regrets?
Cross: "From a process and decision-making standpoint, I don’t have any regrets. The regrets have to do with how this business works. Ultimately, winning and losing matters to a lot to people. I wasn’t here two weeks in 2010 when I told my wife, ‘No question in my mind, Bradley can be great. But I hope there’s enough patience for that to happen.’ Unfortunately, there isn’t enough patience."
He then goes on to justify and blow off his ridiculously unsuccessful, unpopular and ignorant plans to move all the men's basketball games to the on-campus arena, and totally ignores all the terrible moves & decisions he made along with Dr. Glasser that nearly sent Bradley to the DIII level and into bankruptcy.
But let's look and the things he said in those paragraphs above, and most of what is true about Cross goes double for Dr. Glasser.
He actually says he "walks away" from his five years at Bradley thinking he's done a great job, the University is so much better off because of him, and that his 5-year tenure was all positive!
OMG - Those five years were a disaster of epic proportions. And I am not alone in believing that as the basketball home attendance tanked to levels never seen since before Bradley moved into the Armory downtown in the early 1930's.
And when the Journal Star writer, Dave Reynolds, hints that there may be some cause for regrets - Cross blows that off, denies any regrets, and then ...
BLAMES THE BRADLEY BASKETBALL FANS FOR BEING TOO IMPATIENT!!!!!!!!!!!
YA THINK FIVE FREAKING YEARS with Mike Cross at the helm and fans watching every single aspect of Bradley Athletics go down the toilet - isn't patient enough?
Just who does he think he's fooling? He & Joanne gave Jim Les just ONE losing year before pulling the trigger - one losing year out of the prior six....
As documented elsewhere - it is virtually unheard of for a coach to get fired under those circumstances - immediately after the FIRST losing season in a six year span.
Anyway - how dare he blame the fans and claim ...
"Unfortunately, there isn’t enough patience."
I think the Bradley fan base was incredibly patient - how long did the Kentucky fan base give Billy Gillispie - answer- just two seasons and he was 22-14 at the time they fired him!!!
Minnesota ran Tubby Smith out after consecutive 20-win seasons (21-13 & 23-15!)
Nope - sorry Dr. Cross - you and your leader got run out of town when a very patient and loyal fan base simply had seen enough malfeasance and negligence in the way you did your job.You fired the best people and then hired the incompetent. then you blamed the fans and all along as Bradley was doing historically badly - you force-fed the public this preposterous notion that Bradley is doing better than ever before.Peorians aren't as dumb as you east-coasters believe. This time the fans got their wishes - we cleaned house and hired the right people and already we're doing better.
Every single Bradley fan I have met, talked to or read their opinions on message boards over the past six months agrees 100%. I haven't heard a single person say they were sad to see the whole bunch - Glasser, Cross, Ford - go...
When Ken Kavanagh was run out of town literally thousands of fans came to his reception before he left - and those same thousands still miss him and are sad he was run out.
What does it say that not one person - not ONE fan has ever expressed the same sentiment over the housecleaning we got last spring?
Nope - you're all alone in thinking you did a great job and that you left Bradley in better condition than when you got here.
You & Joanne were about as good for Bradley and a nuclear bomb is for Halloween party.
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